Human Rights Violation Hearings — Messina — 1997-04-08

DR RANDERA: Can I please call Mr Thelele.  Mr Thelele, good afternoon.

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: Good afternoon, Sir.

DR RANDERA: Welcome.  Mr Thelele, can you please stand to take the oath.

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: (sworn states)

DR RANDERA: Thank you, Mr Thelele.  Mr Thelele you are taking us back to 1974.  At the time, sorry, let me just.  At the time of the Messina Advisory Board.  Mr Manthata, whom I'm sure you know. Sorry, let me finish, hold on, who you know, earlier on talked about the Advisory Board as well.  Can you just take your time and tell us the important things please, of what happened to you in 1974.

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: It was in 1973 and children from the location, they came to tell us that they're being arrested in the township and when we go and ask for work in the White areas, the White man Klopper refused to give us permission to go out and work in the urban areas.  It was during 1972 and 73 and exactly in 1973, Lazarus Knobe said Thelele we have to elect you to the Board because the children in the township are being harassed and also including the women.  About police coming around the township and harassing people, together with Klopper and I said, because I'm a good man, How am I gonna lead you and they said no, just be a strong man and I had to join the Board and work on behalf of Mr Manthata.  In the Board we normally discussed community matters.  I told him, people from the community are not cows.
 Those people followed me and I didn't take much cognisance of them and I continued with my life.   One day when I got there, they told people that I was the one who was informing other people which we have been discussed when we were together.  I continued being a member of the Board and in, it was during August 1972 when they came to me and told me that they were coming to fetch me and said, I couldn't care.  I was fighting for the youth on, on our location.  I told them I was worried, because our kids were not allowed to go to Johannesburg and Pretoria and old women were forced to go out of their houses and I told them that White people were staying in Urban areas but then why are they controlling us in, in the rural areas.  I was the youngest guy in the cabinet at the time and they could not listen to me.  They said I only knew jazz, I couldn't tell them anything.  
 One day I was with van der Merwe and van Niekerk and I explained our problems at our township that people were being evicted from their houses and they are given permits if they are supposed to come to the townships.  They are supposed to ask for days and I asked Mr Manthata and I told him that, because I was young in the cabinet, please help me.  What should I do?  I think others were Shangaan and they were speaking Shangaan and I could understand it and they told me that things did not work that way and they told me, and I told them that this is Landsfield and people from the camps are together with us and they should be, we should all be united.  I did not, I was confused and the late Mr Shaw, I also, alerted him that the police wanted him and Patrick Mpepo and Celtic Mathudi.  I went to them and I told them that I was evicted from the location and the people were not listening to me.  They're saying, I'm young and I knew nothing.  They were at our location to open a new school for Sotho speaking people and they promised that they would meet those guys and I told them that people who knew something were late at the time.  I've stood aside and I told myself, I'm going to watch them, what were they going to do about those problems.  Police were sent to my house and they told me I was not going to spend that night at my house and I told them that I bought that house and I don't owe anybody a cent and I told them I was going to...  All those people are late now but those police were cowards because they used to come during the night and they said to me I'm, I'm given only seventy two hours to evict, evict my house and I said no, I was going, not going to do that.  I was surprised when the police came during the night and they shot all my dogs and they killed them while I was still seated there. 
 This other guy who was a sergeant, he gave me a letter and reminded me that I only have seventy two hours and my youngest child was only three days old and I asked them, where should I go, because I didn't have money at the time.  And I just hired John from Standard Bank who was promising to take me and take me to another place for eighty rands and I didn't have money.  Eventually, they borrowed me money and I went to Mara and they told my boss,  Lawrence, that I was not supposed to stay at the township and he even told their mayor that I was not a good man and he told them that the other guys which I used to work with them and Leon Claff that other people which I used to be friends with were not good people.  And they used to say I was after people and I was troublesome.  
 I eventually packed with my three day old child and I went to Mara and the baby didn't have nappies.  After that I put an appeal in Pietersberg and I contacted eight superintendents in the Northern Province and Klopper denied that he's the one who caused all that trouble.  He said it was members from his Board who evicted me from my place and I tried to ask, what have I done?  And it was only because I was trying to help other people who were not working.  One of those guys who was known as Dabula and the other one was blind and they,  most of the youth were unemployed and they were sent back to their rural areas and they said that I have to go back to Pietersberg and from there I have to go to the magistrate court.  When I was at the magistrate court they said, I told them that I have to go back to my home.  My furniture was broken.  I look at, I look for my home, I couldn't find anyone and it was hired out.  This is what I'm coming to tell.   After that I went out and I went to a chemist.  And children in the township said, since you have come back, try to improve our life in the township.  And I told them what am I gonna, how am I gonna help?  Look even at the older ones, our grandmothers have been evicted.  And even those who've bought four rooms houses, they've lost their money because they have to be evicted.  I asked whether this person who have done all this, it's a good man, because of the things you have done to us.

DR RANDERA: Thank you.  Thank you, Mr Thelele.  In your statement you said that after Mr Klopper, who was a superintendent in Messina at the time and was also a member of the Board.  Is that right?

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: Yes, that's true.

DR RANDERA: After he gave you seventy two hours notice, you in fact contacted a Mr Minnie, the Chief Magistrate of Messina to tell him of what had happened and the Chief Magistrate said he could do nothing about it.  Is that right?

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: Yes, that's what, that's what he told me.  He said he was not involved in the issues from our township.  He said he was not, he was not going to be involved.

DR RANDERA: So it was that common the way the legal Magistrate almost took no notice as to what happened to citizens in, in the area?

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: This White man was a snake.  He used to run and he used to be a liar.  He was just a snake.

DR RANDERA: Thank you.  Can I ask you to please settle, settle down.  Thank you very much.  Mr Thelele, you left with your family and you went to live with your in-laws.  Where did you go to?  Where were they living?

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: That's true.  That's what I did.  It was in Mara.

DR RANDERA: ..........................................?

MATHIYA JAMES THELELE: It's next to Louis Trichardt.  It's about plus minus fifteen k's.  I only know about my house.  It's only forty eight miles.

DR RANDERA: And you left your house and belongings here in Nancefield?