Amnesty Hearings — Mabopane — 1998-08-06

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Where you state - I will read for convenience
"I and my comrades took a decision in accordance with the purpose of our deployment to assassinate Mr Molope"
My question is based on the first part of the sentence, who is this: "my comrades"?  Does it include the leadership of the ANC or the foot-soldiers only?

MR MASANGO: The foot-soldiers, the comrades behind me here.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: The leadership was not involved in the decision-making?

MR MASANGO: No, if I recollect well it wasn't.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: It was only informed after this has been carried out?

MR MASANGO: Yes.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: I see.  You see, why I'm asking you this question, and as a follow-up to your answer, then I'm sure you're fully aware of the requirements of the application form in as far as the order is concerned.  Will I be correct to say that this was an operation which was not sanctioned by the leadership?

MR MASANGO: Ja, as I've said we were given a very wide scope of discretion, we were politically trained, we were military trained and we had that discretion to choose our own targets.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Thank you.  Now flowing from your evidence that Brigadier Molope as well as Mokobojane were on the scene on the date of the Winterveld massacre, what did you do to establish or to ascertain that indeed it was Molope who gave the order and not Mokobojane?

MR MASANGO: There was a Commission of Inquiry shortly after, before he was eliminated, a Commission of Inquiry instituted by the Mangope Government and he was called, Molope, to testify and he did agree that he did give the order there.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: That will be all Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR ADV MPSHE

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Molope, do you have any questions that you want to put to this witness?

MR MOLOPE: Mr Masango, were you the driver on the day when Brigadier Molope was killed?  What day was it?

MR MASANGO: It was in Ma - it was on Saturday.  I might confuse the months but it was on Saturday, I'm certain about that.

MR MOLOPE: But today you knew that you will be here.

MR MASANGO: Yes, I've always known.

MR MOLOPE: Why did you not make attempts to find out exactly what date it was?

MR MASANGO: I'm not clear about that question, can you come again please?

CHAIRPERSON: The thrust of the question put by Mr Molope is that you've known for some time that you are going to come and testify at this hearing, that being so why didn't you make an effort before you came to testify to establish the date on which the operation was carried out?  That is what he is asking you.

MR MASANGO: I think we do have the records.  You can contact my lawyers, they will give you the exact date on which they were assassinated.  They have got the court records.  We did tell the police, everything was known, there is nothing we are hiding.  We don't even need to hide anything.

CHAIRPERSON: I might say that in the application form, just for the record, it's stated, and I'll read here
"The second action relates to the assassination of Brigadier Molope in August 1996"

MR MASANGO: August 1996.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't know if that is right or not but that is what's said in the paper here.

MR MOLOPE: That simply means that you have no intention to talk to us and to ask forgiveness.  You don't even remember when you took those people who killed him, what date it was.

MR MASANGO: As I've said there are records.  For anything that you would like to clarified on you can be clarified but on that I mean it wasn't really my duty as such to really get all the facts and the dates.  I only tell the Commission, the Committee here as far as what I remember.  Other things can be clarified of course.

MR MOLOPE: You could have made some effort because those people ...[tape blank] from - you could have made some effort to find exactly ...[intervention]

MR MASANGO: We have the records.

MR MOLOPE: ...[inaudible] been able to forgive you.  I request that the person who gave you information about where Molope was staying, because you say you wanted to tell the truth, can you expose that person who fed you with information?

MR MASANGO: I can do that but it won't serve the purpose of the sitting here because she didn't even know my real identity, she only knew by Tabu Fish(?), I'm not Tabu.  She didn't even know that I was a member of MK, so it wouldn't serve a purpose really.

MR MOLOPE: In other words, you don't know that person?

MR MASANGO: Can I have that clear again?

MR MOLOPE: You don't know the person who gave you that information?

CHAIRPERSON: No, he didn't say that Mr Molope, what the witness said was that she, the person from whom he received the information didn't know that Mr Masango was a member of MK, didn't even know him to be Mr Masango, is that correct?

MR MASANGO: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And the witness has said there will be no point in exposing her name now or making her name known now because she wasn't part of the conspiracy as it were, to kill your father.  That is what he said.  He hasn't said he doesn't know her.  I'm just explaining the answer to you.

MR MOLOPE: Mr Masango, we want to know the person who fed you with the information because she's just like you, she's an accomplice because you took those people who killed my father and then again she's the person who fed you with information.

CHAIRPERSON: What the witness had said Mr Molope is, what he was implying is that the person who told him was not an accomplice because she didn't know that they had any intention of killing your father.  She didn't know that the witness was an MK cadre who had come out on that operation.  She divulged the information to him innocently as it were, she wasn't an accomplice or part of the unit.

MR MOLOPE: We want to know how long you took to trace Mr Molope?

MR MASANGO: It - the actual reconnaissance took about two weeks but for the entire stay there we always wanted him.  At any time if we had got him before then, then the same thing could have happened to him but the actual reconnaissance took approximately two weeks.

MR MOLOPE: Brigadier Molope was working in Mafeking and Mokobojane was working in Audi district but you say you killed him on Saturday.  What surprises me is that because you were looking for both Mokobojane and Molope, why was it possible that you were able to find Molope and not Mokobojane?

MR MASANGO: Well obviously from the overwhelming jubilation of the people I've talked about, the next on the list was Mokobojane but somebody informed us that: "I think Mokobojane is at a house somewhere in Mabopane" and somebody scribed a graffiti there next to Izolo(?) just next to the entrance there, that: "Molope is dead, who is next".  Then he disappeared, we never saw him again.  I think he went to Mmbatho, to Mafeking.  He was on the list, that I can assure you.

MR MOLOPE: But Mr Masango, after the killing of Mr Molope, he died on the 21st of June '86, and Mokobojane was still around at that time, he then took over from Mr Molope.  You're telling a lie that you were looking for Mr Mokobojane.  You and Mokobojane knew what happened.

MR MASANGO: He was not our - I mean we had other operations to do, he was just on the list that one day or the other he will come.  That he escaped us does not mean that we didn't want him.  If we got him by chance or by whatever means he would have too.

MR MOLOPE: What I'm telling you is that Mokobojane knew what happened.

MR MASANGO: I cannot vouch for that really, you've got to take responsibility for that.

MR MOLOPE: The other question is, do you know where Mr Molope was staying?

MR MASANGO: At the house in Beirut.

MR MOLOPE: His own house.

MR MASANGO: He was - as far as we are concerned, he was never there.  Nobody actually told us because he was very evasive but we heard rumours that he used to come, used to visit Beirut, that is the house we knew.

MR MOLOPE: But if you want a person you look for his official residence.