Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-06-24

CHAIRPERSON: I don't understand.  I don't know whether you understood the ambit of my question.  My question is, your affidavit, the evidence contained in your affidavit is that it was a white bakkie that was identified by the gathering for attack, yet you proceeded to attack a cream-white bakkie.

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: We did so because we knew that the cream-white bakkie was being driven by Makeke.

CHAIRPERSON: But it had not been a cream-white bakkie that had been identified as an object of attack by the meeting, it was a white bakkie.

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Both white and a cream-white.

CHAIRPERSON: Where is a cream-white bakkie being alluded to in your affidavit?  Can you have recourse to paragraph 6.12 and see what you yourself have stated in your affidavit?  Now you have had an opportunity of going through your own affidavit.  Can you now give an explanation why you proceeded to attack a cream-white bakkie when you had identified a white bakkie as an object of attack?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: When someone is writing something there are some mistakes that can transpire there, but the reason we attacked the cream-white bakkie is because Makeke was the driver.

CHAIRPERSON: It is still your evidence that Makeke did own a white bakkie?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, he owned a white bakkie.

CHAIRPERSON: Proceed, Ms Thabethe.

MS THABETHE: Thank you, Madam Chair.  You say Makeke was driving this cream-white bakkie.  For what purpose did he used to drive it for?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: I wouldn't say for what purpose.  He is the one who knew that.

MS THABETHE: Maybe I should rephrase my question.  Did he used to transport people in it or would he drive the bakkie alone?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Sometimes he would take the attackers to go and attack.  Sometimes he would use the car for his own personal reasons.

MS THABETHE: And in your opinion it's the same car that you attacked on the 2nd March 1993?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes.

MS THABETHE: Well, my instructions, Mr Zulu, are that this cream-white bakkie you attacked on the 2nd March 1993 was driven by Pigalitetwa Ngobane and was owned by his father and further, that he used to drive school kids every day and you knew about this.  What is your response to that.

CHAIRPERSON: I didn't get the name of the person, Ms Thabethe.

MS THABETHE: Pigalitetwa.  Was your answer, did you say you don't know anything about that?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: I would like you to repeat that question for me.

CHAIRPERSON: What Ms Thabethe is saying is that the cream-white bakkie you attacked on that day, was driven by Pigalitetwa Ngobane and was owned by Pigalitetwa's father.  Do you have any comments to that?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: I didn't know the owner at that time.  I knew the car as being driven by Makeke most of the time.

CHAIRPERSON: But has it not been your evidence that you knew that the car did not belong to Makeke, that Makeke wouldn't drive it all the time.  The owner would also drive it.  So how would you know that on this occasion that the car would be driven by Makeke?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: We heard before that he was driving the car.

MS THABETHE: I would like you to respond to my next question that I put to you, that my instructions, and I put it to you, that you knew that this car drove everyday taking school children to school at that time when you attacked.

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: I didn't know this and I don't think I would have been well if I had attacked children knowing that they were innocent and leave the people whom I knew as not being innocent.

MS THABETHE: When you shot at the cream-white bakkie, did you realise that there were people inside?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, we saw that there were people inside.

MS THABETHE: But you continued firing the shots, isn't it?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, we continued.

MS THABETHE: Now if your intention was to shoot at Makeke, why didn't you make sure that the people you were shooting at or the person you wanted to shoot at was Makeke?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: It wasn't easy for us to do that because if the car is approaching towards your direction, you wouldn't tell the identity of the people who are inside the car.  As soon as the car approached, we started shooting.

MS THABETHE: How did you know that the van carried other people inside besides the driver?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: We saw them.

MS THABETHE: What did you see?  Who did you see?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: We didn't know who they were, but we saw them.

MS THABETHE: What did you see?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: As we were firing at this car and the car stopped and they were screaming when we were shooting and then we ran away.

CHAIRPERSON: May I interpose, Ms Thabethe?  You say that as the car approached you saw that there were people inside the vehicle, meaning there was more than one person inside the vehicle?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, we saw that.

CHAIRPERSON: And in your earlier testimony you say that your stated objective of this attack was directed at Makeke?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, I did say so.

CHAIRPERSON: Why was there a need then to do an attack on the vehicle knowing that it carried more than one person?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Because we knew that even the other people who were in the car were IFP members.

CHAIRPERSON: But your stated objective was to attack Makeke and not IFP members and that's why you laid an ambush for Makeke, whom you knew to be driving a particular vehicle.

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes.

MR MALAN: May I just on this same line as you, you were under the impression that Makeke would be driving that vehicle?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes.

MR MALAN: And you were told that vehicle travels on that road every morning, that's why you went there?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: No, we were not told that the vehicle drives past there, we went there to wait for the car, even if he appeared at about 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock, we were going to be there waiting for him.

MR MALAN: Then the follow-up question on this is, according to the record of the trial, the driver, Mr Ngobane, managed to escape.  Are you aware of that, that he was not killed?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: No, I didn't know.

MR MALAN: You don't know that Mr Ngobane was not killed?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: No, I didn't know that.

MR MALAN: So when you left the scene, were you under the impression that Makeke was the driver?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, that's what we told ourselves, or that's what we believed.

MR MALAN: Now why did you not kill the driver?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: We told ourselves that we've shot at the driver and we've killed the driver.

MR MALAN: According also to the record of the trial, the documents on post mortem reports, a lot of children were killed and a lot of them seriously injured.  You're aware of that?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, I am aware, I heard about that.

MR MALAN: And that 4 of the children were shot outside of the bakkie, in the road, not in the bakkie.

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: No, I don't know anything about that.

MR MALAN: Did you follow your brothers' trial when they were prosecuted?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: No, I never went to court.

MR MALAN: Did you get a report from your brothers?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: No, they didn't give me any report.  We were not in the same place and it was difficult for them to get hold of me where I was.

MR MALAN: Did they ever tell you that they had been tried for a crime committed by yourself in which they did not take part?

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: I knew that, that they were being sentenced for a crime they didn't commit, a crime that I committed.

MR MALAN: Yes, and you said that they knew that you had committed the crime.  I think you said your brother heard it over the radio and he deduced that you were responsible.

AARON ZIBUSE ZULU: Yes, I did mention that Tulane deduced on his own.  Tulane is not my brother.

MR MALAN: Oh, then my apologies there.  So your brothers never spoke to you about this incident and their predicament?