Special Hearings — Children's Hearings — 1997-05-22

CHAIRPERSON: Our next witness is Anthony Thozamile Ntoni and I will ask him to come up onto the stage with his briefer.  Mr Ntoni, can you hear the translation coming through the headphone?  Can you hear me now?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ntoni, thank you for being here this afternoon.  It is not easy being low down in the list of witnesses, it is a long day and thank you for waiting to come and share your story with us.  Mrs Burton is going to administer the oath and then Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela will lead your evidence.

MARY BURTON: Mr Ntoni, are you willing to swear the oath?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: Yes.

MARY BURTON: Please stand and raise your right hand.

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: (Duly sworn in, states).

MARY BURTON: Thank you.  Please sit down.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you Madam Chair.  Good afternoon.  I also greet you.  You may take off your headphones.  Your story that you are going to relate to us today shows the violation of people's rights did not only take place because of apartheid, but also as a result of resistance to apartheid.  You are going to tell us where your problem started in 1981 when you left here.  If you could just tell us in 1981 how old you were.

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: In 1981 I was 17 years old.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: And in order for you to have left, what caused you to leave?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: I was recruited in 1980 at the time of the boycotts.  I was busy with Form three which is standard eight and we were from a meeting and we would attend meetings and eventually we stopped attended meetings and we just sit around.  Then there was someone there who was an activist.  He came to me when I was with someone else who was active in the SRC at the school and told us that he was going to recruit people and if anyone wanted to go into exile he would assist that person.  We agreed in 1980.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: At which school were you at the time?  At which school were you?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: I was at Langa High School.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Before you left South Africa what would you say motivated you to leave and go to Lesotho?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: At that time we were involved in school activities.  We were not politically aware yet.  We knew that we were oppressed.  We know that, we knew that we were oppressed, but we continued to attend school until a sign came and we were told to come out of our closets and go and listen to somebody address us at a meeting and I think was the fortnight before we wrote our June exam.  So we went and listened and we realised that there were people that knew what was going on and perhaps they were people involved about, in the ANC.  At the time we just heard about the ANC, we did not know what it was all about.  So what happened is that we became interested and decided that, in any way, these boycotts are going to continue, because in, they started school in 1980 something, after a couple of years, because we could see that parents were taking their children away and sending them off to boarding schools because of the boycotts and so forth.  So we realised that we should rather go into exile instead of sitting at home and doing nothing with all these boycotts and especially at that time at high school they had a student exchange course that they were conducting.  So they would offer students who achieved good results in the exams to participate in this exchange course, but with the boycotts and stuff we realised that we were not going to make it and that we should go and participate in the struggle and then rather carry on thereafter.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Where were your parents at the time?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: They were there, but we did not involve them in what we were doing, because the people recruiting us told us that for our own safety it was best that we did not go round telling people what had happened, because they felt that even if our parents were to find out that we intended leaving the country they would panic and lots of people would get hurt.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Your story begins where you arrived in Angola.  If you could just tell us in your own words, when you left South Africa, where you went.  Just tell us in a very coherent way, we went from there, how long you stayed there and where your rights were violated.  Could you just start and tell us.

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: I left South Africa in March 1981.  We went straight to Lesotho.  We stayed there for about a year and I left Lesotho in December, late in December, round about the 21st of 25th.  We went to Mozambique.  In Mozambique it was evident that we would not be able to pass through at the same time, because they needed so many people to celebrate January the eighth which I think was the ANC's birthday.  We then performed there.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: What did you perform?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: We performed in cultural groups to celebrate the birthday of the ANC.  After the January eighth celebrations we moved on to Angola.  In Angola things, lots of things started to happen and we had arrived at night, late at night to, possibly, early in the morning at approximately three am while many people were still sleeping.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: I beg your pardon.  Madam Chair, there is a bit of noise.

CHAIRPERSON: Please, if people are going to move around could you do so as quietly as possible.  It is very disruptive to the witnesses and please do not talk while the witness is giving evidence.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you Chairperson.  You may proceed.  You got to Angola, in which camp did you arrive?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: We got to Viana Camp in Angola and that was at night and we were briefed there.  We briefed them that we come from the other place and we were now at Viana Camp and we were going to look for people who were going to take part in the training.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: So it was basically a halfway station and selection point as such?

ANTHONY THOZAMILE NTONI: Yes and there we were told that in Viana there were many South Africans and if you saw anyone in the camp, because some people came from South Africa and were possibly sent as spies from South Africa.  If you saw anyone that you recognised there you should go and try and extract information from that person about the circumstances.  What happened to me the first morning when I got up is that I saw a friend of mine from Langa and he and I had left the country in the same year.
 When I saw him there in the morning I saw him sitting there and I went to him and said, hey, Mac what is happening and I saw that he was not too well.  I knew him as someone that was very fit and healthy and who had been gymming and I wanted to know from him why he was so thin and sickly.  He said, no, I have been arrested here and I was told that I was involved in, there was an ANC chief representative in Zimbabwe who implicate him, he was implicated in the assassination of this ANC chief rep.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Please do not be disturbed.  Sometimes you do tend to hurry a bit and it is not always easy to hear what you are saying.  Could you just start where you were talking about this ANC chief representative in Zimbabwe.  What did he say to Mac?