Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-05-10

DR BORAINE: Please be seated.  Please make sure that you are relaxed as much as possible and are comfortable and I'm going to ask my colleague, Ms Gcabashe if she will take over from me.  Thank you.
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MRS GCABASHE: I greet you, Mrs Dube.  How many children do you have and all those kind of things.

WITNESS:   I have got three children.  The first-born was born in 1972.

MRS GCABASHE: I can hear about the first one.

WITNESS:   The first one was born in 1972 and he ran away from school.  He is no longer studying.  And I've got another boy, who was born in 1979.  He is here.  He is going to start at Sandton in May, and then there's a girl who was born in 1985.  Now she's doing standard 2 at a primary school.

MRS GCABASHE: And do you work?

WITNESS:   No, I do not work.

MRS GCABASHE: Could you relate as to what happened on that day?

WITNESS:   It was on the 22nd in March, that was in 1987.  It was on a Sunday.  My husband's full name is Sipho Senkose Dube, but we used to call him Sipho.

MRS GCABASHE: Take your time.  We understand that is painful to remember all these things.

WITNESS:   He was known by the name of Sipho.  He had rented a shop which was in Clermont in a place called Fannin.  It was known as Ndalwani Shop.  He left home in the morning at about six, as usual.  He left to go and open the shop.  I wasn't going to go that day, because we used to alternate.  I was just at home.  I was going to go to the church.  At about twenty to nine or twenty-five to nine a telephone call came.  I was preparing to go to church.  It was him phoning me.  He

MRS GCABASHE: /said, "There

MRS GCABASHE: 16A/2 said, "There was a boy who has just been here who told me that I'm going to be attacked".  He was on the car registered as NC with somebody else who was working at Hammarsdale.  At that time Hammarsdale was a place known as an IFP stronghold and he was told that he was going to be attacked because even the previous day they said they had seen some IFP men coming out of the shop.

MRS GCABASHE: If I could ask you a question.  This boy who want to the shop, did he say who he was?

WITNESS:   He didn't say, because when I asked him, he said, "He didn't say his name, but if I explain to you, because you know our customers, you will realise who it was".  So I said, "No, don't talk over the phone.  We will discuss it in the evening".  I said he must close the shop and run away and come back home.  He said no, he wasn't going to do that, because he hasn't quarrelled with anybody and what they are accusing him of he doesn't know.  He asked me, "If you were working previously, who are these men who had arrived?"  I said, "I didn't see any men arriving in the shop who are IFP".  That's when we stopped talking and we were going to discuss these things further in the evening, so that he could relate everything to me.  I went to church.  I came back from church and I just stayed at home.  I was preparing for him to come back, so I cooking nicely, because it was on a Sunday.  At about five or maybe six in the evening another telephone arrived and there was - this woman who was helping me look after my baby picked up the telephone call.  She said, "Do you this phone I was talking on, it's saying that the shop was attacked.  The car was burnt and they cannot find your husband".  We didn't know who was making this call to us.

MRS GCABASHE: /That's why

MRS GCABASHE: 16A/4 That's why I took the telephone.  I phoned my other friend who was staying at KwaDabeka.  I was asking for a transport to go to the shop and find out what's happening.  At that time my friend arrived.  We went to the clinic at KwaDabeka first and we heard that he wasn't there.  We left and we went to the shop.  When we arrived at the shop, we found a lot of police cars.  There were lots and lots of them, but the person I saw, it was just a man who used to be a mechanic who used to help us.  I went to him and asked him, "Where is ... (inaudible) ... father".  He said, "There he is in the police van".  He said he was no more.  I said, "What has happened to him?"  He said, "No, he has died".  I got confused after that, because the next thing I was at the police station at KwaDabeka.  The police told me to come the following day in the morning.  Indeed I went at KwaDabeka with my neighbour and my sister here, next to me, and her husband.  The police took us to the Government Mortuary.  I identified my husband there.  What I could see on him, because I wasn't so brave to see - to take a look at him - but his throat was wounded.  I wrote a statement and we went back home to make arrangements for the funeral.

MRS GCABASHE: Mrs Dube, your domestic worker told you that there were people who wanted to see your husband.  Is that person still alive?

WITNESS:   I don't know where is that person, because she left immediately after the death of my husband.

MRS GCABASHE: Your friend who told you that he passed away, do you know where is he?

WITNESS:   No, he left Clermont.  He's not residing at Clermont any more.

MRS GCABASHE: Let us go back to the time when you discovered that

MRS GCABASHE: /your husband

MRS GCABASHE: 16A/6 your husband had died.  Were there people arrested?

WITNESS:  I went to the investigators, who were investigating this case, but they told me that there were people who have been arrested, but after that I never knew what happened to them and what happened to the case.

MRS GCABASHE: Were you not called to appear in the court?

WITNESS:   No, I was never called.

MRS GCABASHE: Do you know the name of the investigator?

WITNESS:   I don't know whether he is still working, but I don't know his name.

MRS GCABASHE: Can I ask you a question?  Seeing that you've been harassed, is there anything that you would like the Commission to do as to assist you, if there is anything that the Commission can do?

WITNESS:   I want to thank the Commission a lot, but I want to thank God first of all, because the Commission is here because of God.  Because in my whole life my husband was not involved in the politics.  I want to say this, because I know he was not involved in any political organization, but he was affected in that way.  If things are possible, I would request the Commission to help me.  I want to know the perpetrators.  I want to know the killers of my husband.  I want to know what happened - why did they kill him.  I want to know what was within their hearts.  I wasn't working, Sipho was supporting me.  Now the children are my burden and my sister here next to me is also helping me.  I don't even have a place to stay.  I stay with other people.  I wish to see the killers of my husband.  I need them to explain to me.  Maybe I will be at peace with my heart.  Maybe my heart will forgive, because the pain that I felt and the pain that I'm still feeling now is really so big.

MRS GCABASHE: /Do you have

MRS GCABASHE: 16A/10 Do you have any documents that would help us investigating this matter?  Maybe a death certificate and other documents?

WITNESS:   Yes, we have a death certificate.

MRS GCABASHE: What was written on the death certificate?

WITNESS:   I can't remember well, but I have it with me.

MRS GCABASHE: You said you are not working?

WITNESS:   Yes, I am not working.

MRS GCABASHE: We sympathise with you Mrs Dube.  If there is anything that we can do, we will try by all means to help.  Thank you that you could come to appear before the Commission.   I want to take everything back to the Chairman now.  Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Any questions?  Ilan Lax.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mrs Dube, just one little question, the investigators that were investigating the case, which police station did they come from?   Do you know?

WITNESS:   It was the KwaDabeka Police Station at Clermont.

MR LAX: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Boraine.