Human Rights Violation Hearings — Vryheid — 1997-04-17

CHAIRPERSON: You are here to tell us your story.

MR BUTHELEZI: Yes, that is true.

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe we should get started first with the oath.

BONGANI BUTHELEZI: (Sworn, States)

CHAIRPERSON: We will ask Mr Mdu Dlamini to lead your evidence.

MR DLAMINI: Good morning, Mr Buthelezi.  Mr Buthelezi, maybe we should start first about your family.  Give us a picture of your family.  We do have the names of the children that you have furnished us with, however we don't know anything about the mother, or perhaps the mothers, of the children.  Maybe I should help you.  Are you married?

WITNESS:   No, I am not married.

MR DLAMINI: What about the kids, do you live with the kids or they live with their mothers?

WITNESS:   No, they are with their mothers.

MR DLAMINI: Do you still have parents?

WITNESS:   Yes.

MR DLAMINI: What about your mother and your father?

WITNESS:   I will say unfortunately they are separated, they do not stay together.

MR DLAMINI: Please lift up your volume so you may be audible enough, especially that the people in this hall are listening to you, not to the translation.

WITNESS:   I would like to explain that unfortunately my parents have separated.  My mum is in Coronation and my father is in Johannesburg.

MR DLAMINI: /do you

MR DLAMINI: Do you have brothers or sisters?

WITNESS:   Yes, I do.  I will say I have eight sisters and brothers, but one died last year in September.  Now we are seven left.

MR DLAMINI: The one who died what happened?  Was he sick, or perhaps killed in some attack?

WITNESS:   No, he was sick.

MR DLAMINI: We are sorry to hear that, Mr Buthelezi, but we do say it's better to die from some kind of illness or sickness instead of being killed in attacks or in any violence of some kind.  Your matter is with regard to yourself and the torture you received under the hands of the police, and arrested.  Also you were given petrol to drink.

WITNESS:   Yes, that's correct.

MR DLAMINI: And also the telephone calls that were threats to you.  We will ask you to lay your story, starting from 1994 when you were residing here in Mondlo.  I will keep interrupting, and by doing so that will be an effort of trying to explain a point or so.  Go on ahead.  I will keep interposing.

WITNESS:   I will apologise first.  I had asked the Commission that I have three statements that I would like to represent.  I would say I would like to explain about two statements before I go back to 1994.  I have a 1995 statement and a 1993 statement, though I did not write those statements.  I wrote one statement, not three different statements, but I explained that on the 15th, on Monday.

MR DLAMINI: Before I answer you, you say you have three statements.  Do you mean you have three different incidents that happened over and above your arrest, and the petrol bombs issues, and the threats, telephone calls that were threats?  Over and above that do you still have any other incidents?

WITNESS:   Yes, I do. Before us we only have the ones that appear - the incidents that appear in the statement.  I will advise you to get in touch with the statement takers, who will connect and combine the two.  As for today please talk about what we have here, because that will be difficult for us if you will talk about things that we don't have here in the statement, so stick to what we have here in the statement.   ---   I will like to apologise, I also have another question.  Is it advisable that I should disclose of any names even when something is embarrassing?  Am I allowed to disclose?

MR DLAMINI: If that name appears in your statement you are free to mention any names, but the names that you shouldn't even touch are the names that don't appear in your statement.  However, whatever is in the statement you are free to make mention of it at any time whilst rendering your testimony.

WITNESS:   Thank you.  I will first start in 1994, on the 13th March 1994.  I was here in this very hall at night, and there was a wedding.  One of my uncles has a wedding band, and he plays that band, and that band plays for different weddings, and we were in this very hall in that night on Friday.  That was Friday evening on the 13th March 1994.  It was about 2.00 to 3.00 am and we left, we went to Mondlo.  I slept in the car.  I didn't get inside the house and I didn't even go home.  We were at my uncle's place or area.  Around eight in the morning I had to leave after I have packed the instruments of the band.  I was an observer of the ANC.

INTERPRETER: The interpreter was left behind.

MR DLAMINI: Please repeat right there.  You say you were an observer.

WITNESS:   Yes, I was a member of the ANC Youth, and I was an observer.

MR DLAMINI: Go on ahead.

WITNESS:   It so happened that on that day, on the 13th in the morning around eight, I left my uncle's place and went home after offloading the instruments.  When I got to this section at B I saw a crowd of people coming from Mlaba, approaching to the new supermarket at B Section.  There was a flag, an IFP flag, hanging, and I did not pay any attention to that because I knew that different organisations would have general meetings and rallies and marches.  So that didn't bother me at all.  I went on ahead, I went to my house, and when I got home the first thing I heard was that I should leave and - leave completely Mondlo, the area.  It wasn't as easy as that for me to leave the area because I had no place to run to and to go to to seek refuge.  Now, that group went to section A, and there was an ANC office that had just been opened in March.  That was the office that we are going to support in campaigning.  We could not campaign with Vryheid branch, we had to campaign on our own as uMondlo group.  As I was home hardly 30 minutes I heard that the ANC office had been destroyed by IFP members.  We left with my brother, Moli, who was the treasurer of the youth organisation, and tried to go and see as to what happened and find out the details.  We didn't have any weapons with us at that time, we were just going there.  The first thing we got from the group that was running from A to B, section A to B, was that the IFP group intended to kill every boy, and they alleged that they were born of bitches.  The first boy who was killed was found at a corner by a super.  They shoved the spears through.  I am sorry, I don't know the name of the boy.  He was 14 years old.  They carried on killing people at that time until we met, the five of us.  It was myself, Moli Mkwanazi, Vusi Khumalo, Victor Mdlalose and Phumzile Dlamini.  We gathered at some place next to the office that we had just opened in uMondlo, started operating in.  We saw a police vehicle approaching with police inside.  At that time the IFP group was marching along the street heading to the church.  When they got to us they said they will only give us five minutes, and after five minutes had lapsed we should disperse, and after that they will shoot.  And they did shoot, and we ran to Mseleku's building at the store.  That's where we hid.  The police vehicle drove on ahead.

MR DLAMINI: In that shooting did anyone sustain injuries?

WITNESS:  No.  Then the IFP group went back, making a U-turn by Lutheran Church.  There was a funeral from Bekkersdal, and the IFP member was to be buried in uMondlo.  We had heard  that that was coming, and two buses arrived and had supporters of IFP from Bekkersdal.  What I will say is that those who were taking the forefront in the whole thing were the members in uMondlo.  IFP went back to where the funeral was and took the casket and they went to bury their member.

MR DLAMINI: The one who was killed, how was he killed?