Human Rights Violation Hearings — Mabopane — 1997-04-09

CHAIRPERSON: I would like to ask Mahase Rampone to come to the fore please. I would like to give the word to Dr Randera please.

DR RANDERA: Chairperson, if you will, we also have other  people from different areas and I want to particularly welcome some of the people who actually appeared at other hearings, Mrs Bangeni from Soweto, the mother of Bheki Bangeni, and Duma from Sharpeville, one of the Sharpeville six people from the eighties, welcome to you two as well.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Rampone, so welcome, very very happy to have you with us, and just before I ask you to take the oath, who is sitting next to you on your right hand?

MR RAMPONE: She is my younger sister.

CHAIRPERSON: What is her name?

MR RAMPONE: She is Martha Rampone.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Rampone, we are very happy to have you, welcome. Thanks for coming. May I ask you just to raise your right hand, while you are sitting, in order to take the oath. Dr Ally will ask you to take the oath.

MR RAMPONE: So help me God.

RUSSELL ALLY: I think the witness has sworn himself in Chairperson, we can now proceed.

CHAIRPERSON: We have said that you've sworn yourself in and now Dr Ally will also assist you in telling your story.

RUSSELL ALLY: Welcome to you Mahase, you're coming to speak about an incident that happened in 1986. It was during a protest and you were shot and lost your leg. Can I ask you to relate those events to us?

MR RAMPONE: In 1986, I was a pupil at Motswane High School in Maboloka. I was doing Std 7 at the time. It happened that, we as students we had problems with our principal, because he was using school funds.
 The Boputhatswana police were sent to answer our problems, because our demand was that the principal should resign from work. The Boputhatswana police came to us and arrest us and they dispersed us and some of the students were arrested. The students who remained behind, I was among them, and we decided that from that day, it was on Monday 3 March, and we decided that from that day we were not going to attend classes until the other students were released.
 On the following Tuesday and Wednesday, in our secret meetings, we decided that on the Thursday they're going to have a mass meeting at the Ambassador's sports ground, where our main discussion was around whether we're going back to school or not, before the other students are released, because there was also a threat that the Boputhatswana police were going to go from house to house and take students who have not attended school.
 On that Thursday we met, it was at 10 o'clock when we met, the police were already surrounding the township by then. When we arrived at the Ambassador's sports ground, we waited for the other students to arrive so that we could be all there. While still there, the police started driving past us in vans, hippos and private cars, on both sides. That is they were trying to surround the ground by then, but they did it in a way that they were driving (indistinct).... on either sides of the ground.
 They started shooting us with rubber bullets, teargas and so forth and then we ran away. While still running, some of us were arrested, and that included a number of those who had already been arrested. Whilst we were still running and trying to hide in some of the houses that were nearby, others were removed from houses because they were already meeting police in the houses that were nearby the ground. 
 Whilst I was running with the other group, some of the police saw us and when we entered another house they saw us. I tried to run out of that house and pretend that I am not from the house that the other students had fled into.
 I just moved like a pedestrian and I came across a hippo, and those police realised that I was really frightened by them and then they came to me - "Comrade, get into the hippo".  They wanted us to jump up onto the hippo and that was impossible and I said to them - I can't do that and I haven't done anything for you to arrest me.
 Then two of the policemen alighted from the hippo and they started beating me, and they also injured my head. When I started bleeding, I thought of hitting back. One of them said to the other policeman they should give him their way so that he can shoot me. I thought he was joking, and then I moved away from them. I was worried about my bleeding head and then I heard a sound, a big bang of a gun and that is where they had shot me. When I started moving, my other leg was - my leg joint wasn't even functioning at that time, and then they left me there.
 They went away for about 4 hours and I was laying there, there was nobody to help me. At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, in fact about 2 o'clock  when they came and fetched me there, they dropped me at the clinic. After dropping me at the clinic, they left me and I waited for an ambulance which arrived at 4:30pm. The ambulance took me away to the hospital. I went to the hospital, I stayed there for about four weeks and then I was better at that time. From the hospital, I stayed home for about two days from there I went to school again until I completed Std 10 at the very same school that I was at when they shot me in 1989.
 One policeman said that we were at the - in fact when I returned from the hospital, I went to Jericho Police Station where I opened a case, because I was back to school by then, they said they would come and fetch me one day from school, that is how we arranged with them, so that we could go to Maphase at the military camp, there was a sort of a parade there where we had to identify a soldier who shot me, because my witness knew that person.
 By the time they shot me they had already arrested other students and one of my home buddies was able to see the face of the soldier who shot me, therefore, this home buddy of mine was going to identify the soldier who shot me at the parade. We went to Maphase on that day and when we arrived there, the police who was handling my case drove around the Maphase Township with us and he didn't want to keep time, that is the 10 o'clock time, when we had to go to the identification parade. He drove with us around the township until the police who were supposed to be at the parade were already dispersed by then. 
 We then returned to Maboloka without going to identify those people. We slept at the police station in the charge office, that is where we slept until the next day and they took us home. When we arrived home, they told my dad that we arrived at the parade but the soldiers that we had to meet were not at the parade. This policeman decided that he would investigate on his own and contact me again. Fortunately, a lawyer was handling my case at the time, that is Chris Naidoo, who stays in Johannesburg.
 He sent a letter which warned the official to speed up the docket or the case, because the day of the case was already nearby. When the policeman received the letter, he came to me and said they had identified the person they were looking for at the parade, so they left me with a docket number, case number and thereafter I'll come to tell you when we are going to court.
 We waited for him to come back to us so that we could get to the court. Until I went to look for him in Jericho, because there had already passed a few weeks without him arriving, and then at Jericho I heard that he took a transfer to Mabopane. When I came to Mabopane, they didn't know him. They told me to go to Rankuwa, and even at Rankuwa they didn't know him. That's where I lost hope and some of the people even told me that I'm not going to go through with my case. I'm through.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much for that. Is that the status of your case presently, that it's still an open case because I see the letter that we have in your statement, that you've attached to your statement, the last date of communication between yourself and your lawyers, Lawyers for Human Rights, is 1993.