Human Rights Violation Hearings — Ermelo — 1997-05-22

MR LEWIN: At this stage I'd like as I mentioned earlier, we do have with us, I'm not quite sure what one calls him now.  Director, Director Steve Ngwenya who has very kindly said that he will come and give us an account.  He was a lawyer himself in Ermelo, practising.  He represented the Wesselton Action Committee at one stage.  He had bombs thrown into his office, two petrol bombs and he is now the Director of Land Government and Housing for Mpumulanga.  We're very grateful that he has come.  We're very grateful that he will give us some of the background to the questions that we have asked.  This will not be a sworn statement but  it's more by way of explaining for us, for the media what the background is to these stories that we are hearing.  Mr Ngwenya, could you come forward.  As I say, we won't swear you in because this will not be a statement in the normal sense but it will be explanatory.  If you would like, we can give you a briefer to sit by you but I don't think that we  - but we'd like to thank you very much for coming.  If you could press the red button .

MR NGWENYA: I understand that at one of the meetings of the Wesselton Action Committee this concern was raised and these particular individuals who are now committing crime under the name of structure which associated with the Action Committee had to be approached to be repremanded.  That's when the struggle started.  These so-called ...(indistinct) wouldn't accept that.  I believe that night or the following morning they then attacked all the leaders of the Wesselton Civic Association.  They were ................. Agenda's.  Whilst we thought we were carrying the crime, the violence, people had other agenda's.  So the violence continued.  People were attacked, killed.  People's houses were destroyed.
 And at that time, as you have indicated, Mr Chairman, I was acting on behalf of the Wesselton Action Committee and most of the people who supported that Committee.  Well I can tell, if an IFP member, a Black Cat member had committed a crime and there were eye witnesses and so on, that case will get nowhere.  It will either be, the docket has disappeared or the witnesses are not available or the charges will be withdrawn, if it ever reached court.   To an extent that at some stage I couldn't even believe what Prosecutors were doing themselves.  That's why unfortunately the discussions I had with some of the Prosecutors years later, they were so sorry for what they were doing because they trusted the police and didn't know that the police were fooling them.  
 Well as I've indicated cases against IFP members were mostly withdrawn or never reached court.  I also had to run around to try and defend most of the so-called Comrades who were arrested.  At that time I had a Secretary who was supposed to know my diary but I can tell you the police knew my diary better than me and better than my Secretary because if they arrested a person in Davel, they will tell that person that you won't see Ngwenya come to apply for bail for you because Ngwenya shall be busy in Carolina or Piet Retief that day.  They fabricated so many cases against the Comrades.  I'll say I was in court every day during that period, in three different courts every day finalizing cases.  I would say in all the cases that I did there I think only one percent of those people were convicted because all those cases were fabricated.  Now the torture which people suffered, the sad stories that you hear here, I've heard more than this because at that stage my office was just an extension of the Wesselton Action Committee office or the ANC office.  People were phoning me from their homes.  You'll hear old women crying, saying, Ngwenya here are the police beating my children, what are you doing there ?  People would run away from their houses to come and sit in my office there.   We kept on talking to the police but they didn't know what was happening so nobody knew what was happening.  
 ou know, at some stage my own office was bombed as you indicated and a guy who had been in detention at the police station came out of the police cells then straight to my office to tell me who burnt my office.  How it was organized by the police.  I took that guy one evening to go and make an afidavit with an Advocate in Johannesburg.  The house where I took him from that evening, that very same night the house was bombed and the lady that stayed with him died.  You know some of the things that I've heard from the people, it's hearsay and I must say that unfortunately some of the information I got was that relationship of Attorney and Client, so I will not be in a position to disclose names of people and some of the incidents but I can mention that one of the stories that I heard was that when these people were taken to Nlundi, they were found to be weak.  They were asked to go back to Wesselton to kill women, to come back with their private parts to be used as muti.  Those people who were in Nlundi were trained there in Nkuza and I believe some of them had to be trained with those that went to Caprivi Strip and so on.   
  had the opportunity of listening to the first few guys who defected from the IFP who eventually went to the Commission to make their revelations.  Some of the horrible stories they told there have never been recollected up to now.  I don't know, I think I should stop there for now.

MR LEWIN: Mr Ngwenya, thank you very much.  Perhaps we could just ask a couple of questions by way of clarification.  Tom ?

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Ngwenya, where a situation of this nature is obtained more especially between the community and the police force, would you say that those who were in the police force in this are at the time, are they still here ?  If so, is there a way where together with those people, there can be a dialog over  the past  conflicts?

MR NGWENYA: No.

MR LEWIN: Thank you.

MR NGWENYA: I would say that most of the police who were here and who were alleged to have perpetrated those times, are still around but one thing you know, I don't want to generalize.  It's not all police who were involved and without any brief from the current Captain Beukman, I think, when he came here after the then Station Commander was transferred, things became much better.  We started to develop a relationship with him.  We could go to his office.  I could see he was also a bit confused about what was happening because, you'll understand these things better.  The uniformed police and the security branch worked in different fashions, in different ways.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thanks.

MR LEWIN: Yes, my question was also going to be in relation to the present.  What the situation now is.  What the community is and what can be done to heal the wounds as it were.

MR NGWENYA: I will say the situation at this stage is quite normal.  You will believe that people have forgotten the past, reconciled but one thing I can tell you,  I know of victims who still feel bitter and strong about what happened to them.  Their house being destroyed, their family members being killed.  I don't know what one could do with those you know.   It's so difficult, if you were there and you saw what happened to people but you were lucky you survived.  Sometimes you try and say to an old man, that happened, can we forget and forgive these people.   He says, maybe it's because it was not your child.

MR LEWIN: Mr Ngwenya, thank you very much for coming.

MR NGWENYA: Thank you.

MR LEWIN: Ladies and gentlemen at this stage I have one or two announcements to make.  The first one concerns statement taking.  Lebo, our chief liaison person is here with statement takers.  If there are people who feel they need to make a statement ......

MR LEWIN: Mr Zondo, can you hear me through the microphone ?  It's okay ?

NSONGELWA ZONDO: Yes, I can hear you.

MR LEWIN: Could you tell us who's with you.

NSONGELWA ZONDO: It's my mother.