Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-10-20

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: No, the service was held at Mzukulayo School.
"As I sat in front of Mr Mfayela, he was holding onto the bench and he was asking Mr Cele where the guns were.  As I entered the room I heard him asking about the guns and then started assaulting Mr Cele and I also hit Mr Cele and kicked him.  I wanted to set them apart and Mr Mfayela left the room and went into his car.  I followed him.  He took off his watch and returned.  As he entered the school yard he assaulted Mr Cele again.  I removed my gun and I asked him: "What will you do"? And he said: 'Yes, no, he deserves to be shot but we cannot do it now because there were people all around.'
	There was an IFP Chairlady from Montabela who was with the person and she was standing beside the car.  We all got into the car.  He just went into the car, we did not have to open the door for him.  As I tried to get into the car he reversed and I could not get into the car.  He sped off heading towards the Ndwedwe Police Station.
	He returned whilst I was still standing there.  Mr Cele was bleeding and I was looking at him.  The car returned shortly and picked me up and he said I should come with this boy.  I went into the car with Zwelaki Mbambo.  It was myself, Zwelaki, Mr Mfayela and this Chairlady of the IFP, who resided near the Montabela Hospital.  
	The car went around the Ndwedwe area, past the Nkomo's shop ..."
...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Gwamanda, do you recall the name of the Chairlady from Montabela?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: I did explain that I did not know her name, I only know that she is an IFP Chairlady.  I know where her house is and I can identify her because she's a nurse at the hospital but I do not know her name.
"We were all in the car and Mr Mfayela was playing a tape in the car and we drove to Montabela.  On our way this Chairlady was talking about comrades and also referring to the Montabela area"

MR MCHUNU: Sorry Mr Gwamanda, if I may take you back just a little bit.

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: Okay.

MR MCHUNU: What eventually happened to Mr Cele?  Was he left standing there after having been assaulted or was he killed, what happened?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: We assaulted him and left him there.  Mr Cele's house is not very far from my own.  I will mention him in some incidents later.  He had sold me a car.  There was once a plot to kill him and I was actually hired by some people from the Mhlongo family to kill him.  I went to his house and I told him and I also called this person who had hired me to kill him and brought them together.  Mr Cele herself knows that I had no grudge against Mr Cele but I was working on the instructions of Mr Mfayela.  When there was a plot to kill him I did tell him about it and I brought the person to him.

MR MCHUNU: Mr Gwamanda, you can go ahead with your trip whilst conveying the Chairlady of Montabela ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: You said that when you were in the car the Chairlady was talking about comrades.
MR GWAMANDA
"As we were in the car she was talking about comrades, saying that there were some comrades in the Montabela area.  She did not know that I had a girlfriend at Montabela and I knew that these comrades hid at the hospital.  She said she had information about them and Mr Mfayela should send people to kill them.  Mr Mfayela agreed and said: "Yes, Gwamanda and them will indeed come and help to attack those people".  Because we were not even going to go to the election.  The purpose was to stop people from voting in the elections ..."
...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, am I correct, Mr Gwamanda, when you refer to comrades in this context, you are referring to people who at the time were supporters of the UDF, the ANC and the UDF?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: When I speak of comrades I refer to the ANC.  I do not know about the UDF.  Everybody was called comrade.  When I refer to a comrade I refer to a person who is an ANC supporter.  That is the IFP language when they refer to the ANC youth, they call them comrades.

MR MCHUNU: Proceed.
MR GWAMANDA
"We dropped the IFP Chairlady and we discussed that we should indeed have this operation. We returned home, the three of us.  As we were at Nklasagazi before we crossed the bridge, people from Montabela should know this area, we met some women who were standing along the road.
	The one woman approached Mr Mfayela and said there was this one boy who was involved in something and Mr Mfayela said the boy should come to his house.  I did not quite understand what this boy had done because this boy apparently had been to training at Mlaba Camp.  
	We then left that area and we drove towards Mr Nkomo's shop.  On arrival or on passing the shop we met a group of small boys.  As I saw these boys, Mr Mfayela stopped the car and he said: "Shoot these comrades".  I got off the car, opened the door and they fled.  And he said: "Shoot", and then I shot at the boys and they ran down a slope and I was shooting at them.  
	We got into the car and we drove on ..."
...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, before you proceed Mr Gwamanda, you described them as boys and small boys, could you give some indication as to the age of these boys?  Were they young men or were they young children, 7/8 year olds, 15 year olds, 20 year olds?  Do you have any  idea?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: I will request that boy to stand up.  They were about that size or slightly older than    that.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the boy who is standing up is a young boy.  I don't know how old he is but I think he could be about 10 years old. ...[intervention]

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: Yes, they were young boys, small boys. They were young boys although I cannot quite tell because at that time it was just about dusk but I could see that they were small boys.
"He said: 'These are the ANC comrades, you should shoot them'.  After ..."
...[intervention]

MR MCHUNU: Sorry, do you know whether any of them were injured during this attack on them?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: I do not know.  I have asked for amnesty here for this.  I don't know what happened to them.  I didn't have any personal grudge against these boys and I was very sorry for shooting at them.
"From there, Mr Mfayela removed the back number plates of the car and then we drove on.  We drove past Mona Lisa and as we approached there we met a group of people and he stopped the car and said I should shoot again.  I did shoot and from there ..."

CHAIRPERSON: Did you - when you say he said you should shoot at the group of people and you shot, can you just be a little bit more descriptive?  How big was the group of people, how many people approximately, how far away were you when you shot, how many shots did you fire, do you know whether you injured anybody as a result of that?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: The car was stopped just near the people and as I got off the car the people would flee and I would shoot at them, just shooting at them at random as they are running away.  They would not be far away from me.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it on automatic mode when you shot?  Did you shoot a number of shots or was it just one or two shots that you fired?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: You only set it once, the 9mm and you just keep on shooting.  It's not an automatic that you lock and you can differentiate between automatic and manual.  The 9mm pistol is not automatic.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you hit any of them?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: In these incidents I did shoot but I am not sure whether somebody was actually hit because I could not return and check if I had indeed hit someone.  This happened at night ...[intervention]