Amnesty Hearings — Messina — 2000-07-05

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: Okay, fine.  What he would do, there were different programmes.  There were those he could, let's say train them on a short-term, there were those he could identify and then take them to Transkei where we had established military bases, so it would depend also on his discretion because he was the Commander of the area and he was given quite, if I may say, a bigger mandate to operate on, so he could identify those, either if he had people for short-term or for long-term, then those he identified - I'm not in his shoes now- - or the criteria he has, I will be unable to say, but he could train people here in any part of the Northern Province, or some, he may take them to Transkei for further training and further utilisation in some other part of the country.

MR SIBANYONI: According to the evidence before this Committee, he was using applicant number 2, a person who had never undergone military training, is it not something which was out of line?

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: Not necessarily.  No, not necessarily.

MR SIBANYONI: May you explain why you say so?

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: As I have seen his role, he was just a driver.  As I have listened here, he was just a driver, he never got into any combat type of a situation, so sometimes - which means we had a very vast programme, maybe it might not, at his level Morapapa might have know, because he was more or less a Senior Commander to them, we had the actual combatants themselves, we had the sympathisers and we also had quite a number of people, not necessarily - those who were in the underground structure, but okay, as I hear him now, he was a driver, so he was - if I would utilise him in that manner, then he was one of those sympathisers who could risk their lives for the cause of the party and they were utilised as such and if I've seen, he never participated in the actually shooting of anything, as I hear now here, so he was one of the people, if I may use the correct terms, a sympathiser but under the banner of APLA per se.

MR SIBANYONI: Now coming to repossession.  Were they entitled to repossess and consume or were they supposed to repossess and report to some upper structures?

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: It depends also on the volume of what you had repossessed really because also you have to be able to sustain yourself, you should be able to sustain your structure, so there's no way, if you took let's say R700 then you would phone Letlapa or  ...(indistinct), and tell him:  "I've got R700", that would have been - I would regard that specific Commander as having no initiative, but I would agree, if it would have been quite a volume of whatever he has repossessed, definitely mechanisms were in place that he should declare.  unfortunately I was not in that part of that specialised unit, I don't know what mechanisms they had in place, but I would just out of the general knowledge, I would definitely - they would have declared that if it was quite a big amount of money in a channel that they knew how they would.

MR SIBANYONI: You have listened to the evidence here, it would appear, you may differ with me, it would appear that the focus was on reconnoitring places for possible attack and one will say it would appear Moses was not concentrating on establishing structures and doing other activities of APLA, but he was just focusing on identifying places or possible targets, what is your comment on that?

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: What I can say, this is a narrow, it might be just a narrow version of whatever, because I don't think in the throughout of Moses' period here he has been with them throughout, but in the narrow perspective and also I don't know in what role Moses utilised them.  He might have identified them or earmarked them since he had the other mandate of trying to make the system to work, maybe these were his nucleus in the repossession wing, it might be possible, but I don't know.  I'm definitely sure that this is a narrow version of the wider mandate that he had so I cannot really dwell on that specific ...

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Colonel, we've heard evidence from Mr Mhlongo that Motapo, Moses, communicated with the Director of Operations, Mr Mphahlele and one would have expected him, as you say that he was now the Commander of the whole of the Northern Province, that he would be in regular contact with the leadership.

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: He would have?

CHAIRPERSON: Been in regular contact with his superiors.  You said yourself that there wasn't much of a structure here, he was coming in, he was trying to build it up, so one would expect regular communication.

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: Okay, I would agree with you there.

CHAIRPERSON: So, one would have expected that he would have communicated with leadership people, people his superiors, after January the 16th and before February the 11th.  Well that's what Mhlongo said, that he in fact - now if let's say somebody like Mr Mphahlele, I don't know whether he did, but let's communicate with him personally, but let's say somebody like that, he probably would have said to him:  "Look, there's been a cessation, a moratorium in the armed conflict."  One would expect if he's got discipline, to obey that.  Would you agree with that?

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: Ja.

CHAIRPERSON: I mean he's a Commander, he's a senior person.  Now, if he didn't obey it, what did he hope to achieve?  What could he achieve?  You've heard Mr Mhlongo saying that they were out to conquer the Northern Province, four people, seems - I'm not a military man, never have been, but it seems absurd to me, that intention that at that time, in those circumstances.

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: Sir, I share your sentiment, but if you were in the, particularly in the APLA and in the PAC in general when the announcement, in fact even before the announcement if I may just draw you back because this is quite a political issue, Mr Johnson Mlambo flew from Dar Es Salaam to a Cape Town congress to convince only the membership so as to accept the change that was there.  He was nearly beaten in that only the membership, not APLA itself that time, I was in Dar Es Salaam at that time, just to tell the membership internally that no, the situation - Africa thinks we must participate in the negotiations and we must participate in the negotiations in Cape Town, I think it was well read in the newspapers then, those who were in South Africa at the time.  He was booed in that meeting, he could not finish what he was saying and at that time he was the most respected person because he was the Chairperson of the PAC and also the Commander in Chief of APLA at the time but his credibility was lost because of the militancy within the PAC at that time and this was a very short space of time for anybody really.  I agree with the sentiments of also of the gentleman here when they continued because also ourselves at that time, we could not take a very serious decision.  We had senior internal members of the High Command who could not see things, also the other people do see things.  We had to iron out those differences and they continued, despite the fact that that was done, but they continued and they are still continuing.  When we are meeting we are still labelling each other, sell-outs and the rest, amongst our own selves, so this is the depth of the problem.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, because when was that conference in Cape Town?  Was that before the negotiations?

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: Before, I think a year or so, or two years before.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that was before the negotiations yes, but at this stage there had bee negotiations which were concluded.  The Interim Constitution was in place, it had been agreed upon.  PAC played an active role in the negotiations.

XOLISWA CLIFFORD PONI: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes they did because a friend of mine was there.  I know.