Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-02

KING MAYISHA: Yes, torture that led to assault.  I cannot say I was assaulted, but I feel I was tortured because that door of the prison, when it says "goo" every evening, every afternoon when it say "goo".  Once they close it you can feel that pain and the type of food that I was eating, I was not enjoying it, but I think that is part of assault.  Even
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having to be separated from your family and the businesses and the children that are at various schools in different cities.  I feel that was assault.  When I was always taken because I had a treatment that I had a treatment every three months that I was taking, that I was consulting in Johannesburg. 
 One time when we went and consulted the white police man, it was Viljoen, when he came back with me from Johannesburg, he drove, we went to Pretoria at a police college.  When we came there he was drunk, he was driving with me on that road, switching off lights and I could see that we can get in danger at any given time.  I was told a lot of things which I did not want to be told for.  So I feel that was the torture and by then I was summoned because I had businesses, I was summoned.  That is one of the things that I am going to ask the Commission to investigate.  What we call today MDC.  Mpumulanga Development Corporation, but by that time it was KwaNdebele Development Corporation because KwaNdebele Government Development Corporation was in agreement with the KwaNdebele Government and the MD of that time was used as a Chairperson of, what they call, Comcom.  I do not know what is that, but they were out to make us bankrupt.  They were out to ask other people whom we are owing to summon us and even today I am bankrupt and I am still owing that Development Corporation because I am saying I am not going to pay.  They can take me to court, they can take me back to jail, I am not going to pay until the Commission can come back to me and say you are liable, you must pay.  Until then, I will never pay, because I feel they were together and they were doing all these things because they wanted independence and they wanted to move us away 
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from their road of independence and they did know that I was the most person who was financing the struggle of KwaNdebele.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you Your Majesty.  I do not have any further questions.  I am going to pass you back to the Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Any questions?  Wynand Malan.

MR MALAN: Sorry, you have been around for quite some time.  I just want you to very briefly reflect on the origins of the KwaNdebele state.  Can you remember when you were a young boy, how this came about?

KING MAYISHA: Yes, I remember very well because I was at the secondary school called Waparangwe in the district of Marble Hall.  Our people in the farms, after 1962 after Mandela was given judgement, white people started chasing our people from the farms.  So they did not know where to go and they wanted to come to their King at Weltevrede, but at Weltevrede they never had any place to put them.  So they went to Bophututswana.  They went into other areas that they were far from their King.  So what happened there were a group of people who came to my father.  The Royal family said we want to start the homeland so that we can create a place for the Ndebele people, but my father and the Royal family they did not want to accept those people because they did not support the apartheid system right from the beginning.  Actually, my grandfather, they did not want to accept such a thing, but they went and took me out of the school and said to me, because I was still young.  I think by then I was 16 years old.  They said to me what is the use of you staying here at school.  When you come out here you have passed, you have done everything, you have got all your MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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degrees, you will find no Ndeble nation, it will be gone.  So because I was young I accepted, I came back and I came and neutralised the Royal family to accept the idea.  So that is how it started.  So because of the people who could not be accepted in Pretoria for work opportunities, people were coming and they were looking for a stamp and a signature from the King.  Where do they stay, where do they live.  They could not get that because they were not living with the King.  So that some people felt that if they can start this homeland then they will be helping the people of KwaNdebele.  
 I want to put it again to the Commission that from the point of the Kingdom I do not regret because at least they could make us to come together.  Not to say apartheid was right, I am not saying that, but I would say I do not regret because at least I could bring the Ndebele people together.  We could build schools, we could educate our kids and today we have got a lot of children that are educated because at the farms they could not go to school.

MR MALAN: Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: Any other?  Thomas Manthata.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Your Majesty, you talk about the good relations that existed between Tinzunza family and the Bantwana family, I think.  Do I understand you to say that at some stage both of you or both the Kingdoms lost control of their communities when the Government was pressing for incorporation of Moutse?

KING MAYISHA: Yes, I agree that at some stage the two Royal Kraals they lost control over their people.

THOMAS MANTHATA: In which case I understood you to mean that Imbokhoto was almost a power above those of the two Royal
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families.

KING MAYISHA: Yes.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Yasmin Sooka.

YASMINE SOOKA: Your Majesty, having started the homeland, why did you then resist independence.  Could you tell us the reasons for that?

KING MAYISHA: You mean me or the people?

YASMINE SOOKA: The people.

KING MAYISHA: No well, there are many things which I can say the people, why they resisted independence.  I think one of the things, they resisted independence because they felt independence is not the right way of obtaining their liberation.  Most of the people, by then, they did know that they are looking for one liberation in South Africa.  So that was one of the reasons and the second reason was that they had experience of over other independence which they were molesting, assaulting people.  They were thinking that be getting independence they will be giving the Cabinet of that time a licence to kill.  Those are the things that made the people resist.
 At the same time when they wanted them to come and answer the questions about the independence, the Cabinet refused and by then when they refused, already there were people that they have molested and assaulted.  So they felt, the people, that if we can accept independence it means that we are accepting our graves.

CHAIRPERSON: Joyce Seroke.

MS SEROKE: Your Majesty, you say that you were accused or arson, terrorism, public violence.  Were you involved in such or was it just fabrication?
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