Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — UNKNOWN

JOE MAMASELA: Toyota Hi Lux.

MS HARTLE: Brown Toyota?

JOE MAMASELA: A kombi, yes.

MS HARTLE: Do you know who that vehicle belonged to?

JOE MAMASELA: No, I think it belonged to local security police because it was driven by them, white security police.

MS HARTLE: You didn't take the registration number of that vehicle?

JOE MAMASELA: No, because it was dark and it was standing, it had stopped on the side, I couldn't look from the front or back, I couldn't see.  I just saw it on the side.

MS HARTLE: Mr Mamasela, can you indicate how the bodies were placed in that vehicle?  Who carried them for example, and how were they enclosed, were they enclosed?

JOE MAMASELA: No, it was the same way as we threw them into that shed house.  They were taken out by two white security officers that I cannot identify and they were thrown one by one into the sliding doors of the kombi inside.

MS HARTLE: And you're satisfied that they were dead at that stage?

JOE MAMASELA: In all certainty I was satisfied.

MS HARTLE: They weren't wrapped in any bags, they weren't dismembered or anything odd like that in your presence?

JOE MAMASELA: No, no, no, no, they were not.

MS HARTLE: Was that vehicle - were the doors of that vehicle then closed?  And did it depart before you left Post Chalmers?

JOE MAMASELA: We left them while they were busy loading the second body, then we were told just to quickly leave and then we left.

MS HARTLE: You didn't find it all strange to return to your base immediately?

JOE MAMASELA: No, we didn't find it strange, in fact it was a norm.  Our white masters trusted us as far as the killings were concerned but as far as the disposing of the bodies, they never trusted us in most cases.  You can go to de Kock and other's files and you'll see that, that they disposed of the bodies themselves and then Askaris must go.

MS HARTLE: What would you put the cause of death down to in respect of the three victims?

JOE MAMASELA: It was severe torture and assault, nothing more nothing less.

MS HARTLE: Did you ever question why the need to kill the three?

JOE MAMASELA: You question, you die.  As an Askari you are not supposed to question instruction, yours was just to carry out the instructions or die.

MS HARTLE: You were involved in the assaults on the three victims.

JOE MAMASELA: Yes.

MS HARTLE: Now, did you get the impression that, or rather let me just ask you this, was it your instruction to just go in there and kill them one by one or did it perhaps happen that one person was killed and then your plans were changed?

JOE MAMASELA: No, the idea was for these people to be killed but before they could be killed they must be interrogated, they might bring out some useful information that the local security can follow up later.

MS HARTLE: Mr Mamasela, were they assaulted in pursuance of the need to get information from them or were they assaulted just to further the cause of killing them?

JOE MAMASELA: No, they were assaulted, in my opinion, to further the course of just killing them.  If you kill  a person by mistake and you were interrogating him, why kill the second and the third?

MS HARTLE: If the Committee will just bear with me.
	Mr Mamasela, you don't know who the head of NIS was at the time, the gentleman who had come ...[intervention]?

JOE MAMASELA: I tried to the best of my recollection to give his description and I believe that, in the bottom of my heart, that the description could easily fit that man.

MS HARTLE: You expressed an opinion to my learned friend Mr Nyoka, that you didn't believe, or rather you don't believe that the bodies were burnt and thrown into the river and you said that you could tell us why.  Can you clarify?

JOE MAMASELA: Yes.  I find it extremely improbable and illogical for well trained security policemen to kill three people and burn their corpses in the same area, you know, that was occupied, had surrounding that are occupied by other people and it's almost a farming area.  	And if you have to do that you have to make devil's fire, a big, big fire and that would have attracted the neighbouring farming community who will say: "Here's a veld fire coming to us".  And that place, it was not specifically situated whereby you could do that.
	There was a big main road of cars passing by there.  If any car passes and sees that bonfire at night, they will probably report, especially farmers because I know them.

MS HARTLE: Have you been involved in any prior operations where human bodies were incinerated?

JOE MAMASELA: Yes, I was involved and that is why I'm talking from my experience.

MS HARTLE: How were those bodies disposed of?  Can you give us some ...[intervention]

JOE MAMASELA: In the Kwandabele 9, the people were ambushed in a house and they shot, all nine of them.  They were shot and massacred with AK47's and then one Lieutenant Hechter - you will be meeting with him shortly, he came with a big 25 litre of petrol, he poured in all these corpses and then he lit the fire. 	Some of the people there were still alive, you could hear their shrill screams and they were all incinerated.

MS HARTLE: In that instance, was there a pile of wood on which the bodies were placed?

JOE MAMASELA: In that instance, no, there was no pile of wood.

MS HARTLE: And how long did those bodies take to burn?

JOE MAMASELA: I couldn't say because it was in a house, in a back room house and then he had to do that and we jumped into the car and we drove away.

MS HARTLE: Do you know if those bodies were only partially burnt or completely reduced to ashes?

JOE MAMASELA: The photos I saw, most if not all of them could not be identified, they were unidentifiable.

CHAIRPERSON: That is as far as you can go Miss Hartle, with regard to that particular matter.	And by the way, the question in relation to which, the question asked by Mr Nyoka in relation to which the witness said he disagreed and he had his own reasons, was not the question that you put on.
	It was not on the question whether these people were burnt on the farm but it was on the question whether or not it was true that these people were still alive beyond the 10th and the witness said: "I disagree with that and I've got my own reasons". 
	Maybe you tell us why you disagreed with that.

JOE MAMASELA: Yes.  That was in conjunction with this Exhibit T that is ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: That is correct, yes.

JOE MAMASELA: And then because I referred my learned friend here, Lamey, to page 7 where Mrs Hashe says: when she went to the police station to look for her husband, a certain Colonel Strydom, not of the security, Colonel Strydom I think was of the murder and robbery, to her that all three bodies of the deceased were found with upper parts of their bodies burnt and the police identified them in this affidavit, it says so.
	Colonel Strydom said the police identified them with their feet.  I find that highly unlikely and improbable and that is why I even concur with Mrs Hashe in the same affidavit when she said:
"I did not follow that up, the evidence of Strydom up because I did not believe him"
I concur with that.

CHAIRPERSON: I'm not so sure I follow what you are saying.  You are saying these people could not have been alive beyond the 10th of May.

JOE MAMASELA: Yes, because I was certain that they were killed there and I saw their corpses.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh, okay.  Is that the reason why you say they could not have been alive beyond the 10th of May?