Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-03

MR NTONGA: If I refer you to your own confession made to the Police, 14(g) Mr Chairman, you have this to say.  Correct me if I am putting it in a wrong place.  I further told them that I must better go with them, I further told them that I better go with them.  Correct me if I am putting it in a wrong place, it is 14(g).

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Sir, that is what I said to the Police, that is true.  That is one of the places I lied sir, to the Police.

MR NTONGA: Okay, in your own evidence in the case in East London, in the Supreme Court, My Lord, Mr Chairman, 1245, Exhibit E, at about line 18.  Your own Advocate if I am not mistaken, leading you, asked and you say that they told him about you.  Can you explain what you mean by that?
	Do you have a copy?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: No, I do not have it.  The Attorney, my Attorney followed me saying they told me to do what sir or they told him about me, what, sir?

MR NTONGA: They told Jimmy Jones about you and I asked what do you mean by that?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Sir, as I have said already, that the statements I made at the Police, I made lies in order to diminish my guilt so that they, I can be seen as a person who did not participate voluntarily in what happened.
	I was participating because I was forced by them.  Even that sir, that I told the Advocate that I cannot remember now, I lied sir.

MR NTONGA: I am talking about when you were giving evidence in Court, before the Judge, being led by your own Advocate, were you also lying there, put it that way?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I am going to explain again sir.  I am saying sir, the Advocate was listening to what I was saying, at the time trying to diminish my guilt, as I had done in my confession statement to the Police.
	I do not know whether you heard me correctly sir.

MR NTONGA: Will I be right to say that you are telling this Commission one, you lied to the Police in your confession, two, you lied to the Court in the East London Court, that is before Justice Liebenberg, three, you also gave false instructions, lies to your own Advocate who was going to lead you, four, in your application you also told Mr Bandazayo the lies which you told the Police when he attended to you?  If I am not correct, say so, on those four things.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: In relation to the Police, I lied to them in my confession statement.  To the Advocate who was representing me in East London, even to him, I lied.
	The third one, even the Judge, I told false lies to him and in relation to what you say that I told Mr Bandazayo lies, in my request for application for amnesty, you know very well Mr Ntonga, where you are sitting, that those were things being dictated to by you sir.  You know what the truth and the falsity is in what you are asking sir.

MR NTONGA: What I am talking about, what you have told the Chairperson about the statement which was annexed by Mr Bandazayo to your application, and you said, I am sorry correction, Mr Chairman, that I told him the lies which I told the Police.  He knew about the lies, and I told him the lies.  That is all I am talking about, and those lies are annexed to your application.  Is that correct?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Listen sir, let me tell you, let me tell you.  I told the Commission here that there - I told the Commission that things were told to Mr Bandazayo at court, I mean at prison were connected to the case, we were in East London, we told him what we had said to the Police, were lies.
	And he too, knew that they were lies.  That is what I was telling the Commission.

MR NTONGA: Okay, just leave that.  Now, there was a question asked by one of the members of the Commission.  If you agree that you have told so many lies to the Police, your own Attorney, your own Advocate, to Court, how can we measure that today you are telling the truth?  How can we be safe that today you are telling the truth?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: The matter is like this sir, at court there is a case, nobody wants to go to prison.  There, when I was on trial, I was trying to save myself.
	That is why I lied.  As there were a number of people who were lying, including Mr Els, he lied in court over a number of things.   Here sir, this process is not like the court there, that takes or sends people to prison, this is a Truth Commission, they want the truth in order to bring reconciliation.
	I am telling you that here I am telling the truth.

MR NTONGA: I don't dispute what you are saying for a moment, but I am saying what safeguards after you have told this Commission you have lied so many times, how can you be sure that today you are telling the truth, with this background?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Here sir, I think even the Amnesty Commission and its Chairman are human beings who are conscious and clear in their minds, they can establish truth from the falseness.  At court I lied, as I said sir, because I was trying to save myself in order not to go to prison.
	As I told the Commission the reasons why I lied, even to implicate Dumisani Ncamazana, my co-applicant in the lies I gave the Police, and the lies I gave to the Court.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mbambo, you gave very noble reasons for telling the truth to the Truth Commission and to affect reconciliation.  But you do know, don't you, that you are at present applying for amnesty so that you can be released from prison?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Yes, that is so sir.

MR NTONGA: Thank you.  Will I be correct Mr Mbambo, if I say that when you, in your evidence, when you went to Butterworth after the Bahai incident, and before you returned to Mdantsane for further missions, you were told by Jimmy Jones that the struggle had been suspended, it is over?  Will I be correct to say that?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I never said such a thing sir.  I never said Jimmy Jones told me before my coming to Mdantsane to commit other acts, that the armed struggle had been suspended.  I did not say such a thing sir.

MR NTONGA: Are you sure about this, you didn't tell any forum that Jimmy Jones, when you were there, told you that the struggle is over and you must get money and go back home?  Think before you answer please.  Any forum, even in court or in papers?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Sir, newspapers, I never talked with newspapers.  What I said to the Police was that we must be given money to go home, because the armed struggle was suspended, is what I told the Police when I was making that confession statement sir.
	It is in that confession statement sir, I am sure you are reading from it sir, about the suspension of the armed struggle, being told by Jimmy Jones, it was at the time we were at Wellington prison, when we were told that, when he told us that Africans you see that people have voted, the armed struggle is now over.
	Indeed, he never gave us any new orders, even today, up until I was arrested.

MR NTONGA: I refer you to your own evidence in court, being led by your counsel, at page 1246, at line 13, sorry at line 28.  And he said to them, he had told them that the armed struggle has been amended.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you can correct that as it was, the armed struggle has come to an end.

MR NTONGA: Actually the interpreter gave the Xhosa word from your mouth, that "bopele", which means that it is finished, at page 1247, first line.  Do you remember that in the Supreme Court, East London, saying that to the Judge?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Sir, I do not have these papers in front of me, and what happened at court, I do not remember well now.

MR NTONGA: I am sorry Mr Chairman, I thought the Advocate was given a copy.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Because it was a matter that happened in 1985.

MR PRIOR: Sorry, for your information Mr Mbambo, we dealt with this yesterday.  I questioned you about this yesterday.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I can't remember now sir.

CHAIRPERSON: I have made some markings on the side, but you can borrow mine.  You are looking at the top of the page, what you are referred to is page 1246, at line 28 and then over the page.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: You can ask sir.