Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-04-26

MR LAX: ...(indistinct) at that stage, they hadn't seen you until you were right in front of them.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: They couldn't see me, they were following me.  I arrived at the taxi rank first, before them.

MR LAX: Well you see your evidence was in your evidence-in-chief, that when you arrived at the taxi rank they started swearing you, they had followed you and they found you and they started swearing at you.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: Yes, that's correct.

MR LAX: Well how could they have started swearing at you if the first time they saw you was when you suddenly appeared in front of them?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: I think we are missing a point here.  Where they first swore at me, it was in Port Shepstone taxi rank and then that's where I decided to go back.  When they were following me they were swearing at me, at the taxi rank.  At the taxi rank I was close by.  That's when I decided to go back and I realised that they meant what they said.  They said they wanted to kill me.

MR LAX: You see, Mr Mzobe, that's not what your evidence-in-chief was, your evidence-in-chief was yes, they did swear at you at the rank, you got into the taxi, when you got to Baboi and you got off the taxi there, your evidence was that the same group was there already and they swore at you again.  Now, it simply impossible for them to have sworn at you again at that stage, if the first time they saw you was just before you appeared in front of them and shot them.  Do you understand my problem?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: I would like to clarify something here.  This one group which was in the taxi rank, I actually believed, on my own I believed that they were the same group at Kwakanjaza, because the second group continued swearing at me.  That is why I said they were the same group of people.

CHAIRPERSON: But don't you see the problem?  You say they continued swearing at you, but a moment ago you said
"I did not want them to see me when I was far away, I wanted to appear right in front of them."
How does that accord with them continually swearing at you?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: I'm saying they continued swearing at me because they started swearing at me in Port Shepstone taxi rank and then again at Kwakanjaza they continued swearing at me.

MR LAX: Now you see - I'm going to move on because clearly you can't answer this issue and we'll just leave it.  You've told us that you decided to attack them because you didn't want them to come to the IFP area to attack you there.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: That's correct.

MR LAX: However, earlier in your evidence you said that you just lost it, that's when you decided you were going to do something.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: Yes, I don't how I can explain this but I meant that I decided to do something about it there and then.

MR LAX: The point is that you were so angry you just ...(tape blank) ... when he asked you to explain about those words.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: Even though I was angry the whole time, from town to home, but then I decided there that I should attack them because they were serious, they kept on following me and I knew that whatever they wanted to do, like they did tell me they wanted to kill me, so I realised that they meant what they said.

MR LAX: Now if you were so worried about being shot, how do you explain the fact that you were able to evade the police for seven months after this event?  You were only arrested seven months later, they knew exactly who you were.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: I'm not sure whether the police knew where I was.  The reason I ran away from the police was I was scared even though they arrested me eventually.

MR LAX: You told us that you went to the hill near your place so that you could observe your place and see whether the police were there.  You said you didn't go directly home, you went to a place where there's a hill so you could observe your home from there because you expected that the police would be waiting for you at home, isn't that so?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: Let me just repeat what I said before.  After I shot at these people I left, I didn't go straight home, I went Mdengwane.  When you're going to Mdengwane you approach a certain hill.  Once you are up the hill it is so straight that you could see from a distance and you could see something standing at a distance.  That's why when I arrived there, I saw soldiers standing there where I was going.  It wasn't my aim to look at my house to see if police are coming, no.  When I continued with my journey I dropped the gun and I met soldiers and they stopped me, they asked me questions, I answered them back and I left.  They were not sure if I was the one they were looking for.

MR LAX: Well then explain to me why you said you didn't go home straight away, knowing that the police would come home
"I went to Mdengwane."
That was your evidence and I made a very careful note of it because it struck me as quite important.  You knew the police would go to your house looking for you, correct?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: Yes, I knew.

MR LAX: And so you were able to evade them for seven months before you were arrested, correct?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: That's correct.

MR LAX: And you could just as easily, as you evaded the police, have evaded your so-called attackers, the people who wanted to kill you, isn't that correct?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: I don't know whether it was going to be easy for me to run away from the people who were going to attack me or to kill me.  It's difficult to avoid that.

MR LAX: Why didn't you just go to the Chief and say: "Please transfer me to another area, these people know me, it's dangerous for me here, rather send me to a different area where I'm not known"?

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: After this incident I went to the Chief and I told the Chief that I was running away.  That's where I went, I told the chief.

MR LAX: Why didn't  you do it before the incident? - there would have been no need for you to kill anybody.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: I didn't think about that at the time because this happened so quick, it wasn't planned, therefore it just happened the way it happened.

MR LAX: You see the fact of the matter is that you didn't know any of the people under the tree as being the same people, they hadn't even seen you.  You chose to attack them.  They never saw you, you could easily have disappeared on your own way.  There was absolutely no reason therefore to kill them or shoot at them.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: As I've already mentioned before, I would just - after I left the taxi rank, after the group told me that they were following me and they want to kill me, I went back home.  After I got off the taxi another group came and I believed that it was the same group which was harassing me at the taxi rank.  Since the same group in town told me that they were following me and they wanted to kill me, I believed at that time that the people who were swearing at me, they were the same people who swore at me in town.
	I also want to clarify one thing.  Another thing which made me sure that it was the same group and that area it's an IFP and ANC area, the only division in the area is the main road.  Therefore, I want this Committee to know that the division is just a road and therefore if the people who are swearing at you are on the other side of the road, they are ANC.

CHAIRPERSON: But what troubles me is, as I understand your evidence, you knew these people well, you had been to school with them, you played football with them.

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: That's correct.

CHAIRPERSON: A group of people swore at you at a taxi rank in Port Shepstone ...(intervention)

THULEGANI AGRIPPA MZOBE: If you are in trouble, same situation which I was in, it's not easy to recognise people because you're scared.