Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-18

CHAIRPERSON: If there is any light, let's do so, bearing in mind that we are under constraints to time.

MS THABETHE: Thank you Madam Chair.  Mr Radebe where was Ndondo residing?

JOHN RADEBE: I do not know.

MS THABETHE: All you know is that he was a what, a someone who killed in the community?

JOHN RADEBE: I thought you referred to where he stayed in the township.  He lived in Steel Park or Kwamadala.

MS THABETHE: Now, my question to you Mr Radebe, is that, is it not possible that Maletsatsi, who was your comrade, who also, according to Nicoleen Gambu was a girlfriend to Ndondo, is it possible that she decided to stay at Kwamadala Hostel as you have suggested earlier on because she feared your questioning and your punishments and your assaults?  Is that possible?

JOHN RADEBE: I don't think it's possible.

MS THABETHE: Considering the fact that she didn't have parents, and the shack that she had been using was being used by you comrades, and considering the fact that you had assaulted other people who had been kidnapped at Kwamadala Hostel, do you think it's not possible that she might have sought refuge at Kwamadala Hostel where she had a boyfriend?

CHAIRPERSON: You are aware that there is no basis that, there is no basis on which you can rely that she might have feared for her life or having fallen in love with Ndondo, no basis whatsoever.

MS THABETHE: That's why Madam Chair I said is it possible.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but now you know you expect him to respond to what you yourself are speculating about.  This is sheer speculation, and there is no basis even for that speculation.  At least if there was some ground that had been laid for you to at least base your information and your opinion on, then it would be a fair question to put to Mr Radebe.  I think it's very unfair.

MS THABETHE: I will leave it at that then Madam Chair.  In your statement in page 148 you say when you found Maletsatsi at Thandi's place, you decided, it's on paragraph 8, you decided to take him to the ANC office.  Is that correct?

JOHN RADEBE: That is correct.

MS THABETHE: But on the way you decided to shoot her.  Is that correct?

JOHN RADEBE: That is correct.

MS THABETHE: Can you explain why you changed your mind, why you didn't take her to the office but decided to shoot her?

JOHN RADEBE: An order had been issued out and the police were troubling, were a trouble in Small Farm at that time.  We had received information from comrade Makasas and them.  We had received ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: When had you received information from comrade Makasas?

JOHN RADEBE: Excuse?

CHAIRPERSON: You say you had received information from comrade Makasas and others.  Was it the information that you extracted after you had assaulted her, or was it before you assaulted her?

JOHN RADEBE: This is the information we got before we assaulted her.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, notwithstanding the fact that you had believed her then, you decided not to believe when she was again abducted possibly.

JOHN RADEBE: Can I please explain to the Committee.  I said she came back from the kidnap, and nobody assaulted her.  We believed her.  All of us.  And she disappeared afterwards, and we went to her place to enquire about her whereabouts.  They said they did not know where she was.  Her other sister was an active member who participated in the activities of the women's league.  She said she did not know where Makasas was.

CHAIRPERSON: On that point I don't think it really turns on anything in respect of your application.  You have now seen her explanation about her disappearance, which appears on page 187 and at paragraph 16, that she was ordered by her parents to go to Tembisa.  And then if you check again paragraph 19, the reason why she later came back to her home was after she had again tried to avoid the comrades who were harassing her simply because she was once abducted and subjected to long hours of rape by a gang who stayed at Kwamadala Hostel.  Were you sensitive at all to her plight?  When you heard about her kidnapping, and the fact that she had been gang raped repeatedly for weeks?  If you say you were sensitive, what did you show as comrades, about your sensitivity?  How did you show your sensitivity towards her plight?  Did you read her statement?  She says neither her parents even believed her.

JOHN RADEBE: After the kidnap we believed her, and we were deeply disturbed about Maletsatsi leading our comrades into the hostel.  Yes, I see here that her parents took her to Tembisa, but Lebohang was her sister.  She could have told us that she was in Tembisa and we would understand it, but they did not know her whereabouts when she disappeared the second time.

CHAIRPERSON: But why were you consistently asking about her whereabouts, if you were so sensitive to her plight?  You as comrades.

JOHN RADEBE: Makasas was one of our comrades.  We were taking part together in the Matsani cultural group, singing together, and she disappeared.  Not that we were surveilling, we were guarding her, no, we just wanted her as a comrade, and her family could not tell us where she was.  Afterwards we got information that she had gone back.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that you went back to her house to ask about her whereabouts out of concern not because you suspected that she had gone back to the hostel and to be a police, an IFP informer, or?

JOHN RADEBE: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: You were asking out of concern all the time?

JOHN RADEBE: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Now explain sir why you then proceeded to assault her.

JOHN RADEBE: She was back.  Makasas where were you?  She tells us that she was in Tembisa.  We asked her why do members of your family not know that you were in Tembisa.  We don't know it, your sister doesn't know it, the people that live with you in the house do not know it that you were in Tembisa.  Now this puzzled us, we did not know what was happening.  Yes, the first time we understood how she was abducted, but now the second time was really puzzling.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did you not believe her when she told you that she had been to Tembisa?  Did you really expect that she could go back to where she had been subjected to such trauma?  Did rape to you as comrades mean nothing at all?  Did it not indicate that if you wanted to strip a woman of her dignity all you needed to do was to rape her?

JOHN RADEBE: We knew that.

CHAIRPERSON: Now did you suspect that a woman who had been subjected to being gang raped would go back to Kwamadala Hostel and allow herself to suffer the same fate?

JOHN RADEBE: Chairperson, some of them went back.  We never thought that she would go back, but because we did not know where she was from we would not accept her among us, she would be a timebomb, and the way she was talking to comrades showed that she was looking for information, and after that, after the assault, we believed that she was not coming from, she was not coming from Kwamadala.

MR LAX: Mr Radebe this Majiga, was he one of your comrades?

JOHN RADEBE: Yes.

MR LAX: Was he part of your unit?

JOHN RADEBE: He was in the Small Farm unit.

MR LAX: Do you see what she says here, how he kept hassling her?

JOHN RADEBE: Yes.

MR LAX: Do you not think that that was a good enough reason for her to be terrified and to be sent by her family somewhere else?

JOHN RADEBE: That she was hassled by Majiga is new to me.

MR LAX: Well you see not all your comrades accepted what she said.  Clearly from what she's saying here others didn't accept it.  Do you see that?

JOHN RADEBE: It's not all the comrades who I do not understand.

MR LAX: I don't know what you're asking me.

JOHN RADEBE: Can you please repeat the question.  I wanted to respond, but I did not understand it.