Amnesty Hearings — Pinetown — 1999-03-08

MR STEWART: (Cont)
	...(tape blank) in addition to which Mr Luthuli and then Mr Mbambo in particular, and some of the other applicants too, discussed really what they saw as the two faces, the private and the public face, to IFP policy.  And the public face being one which said, we're a peaceful organisation, we embark only upon peaceful tactics and objectives.  But the private face, the one being propagated from the meetings of the cabinet of the KwaZulu homeland through to public meetings, mass meetings, was one of anger and of revenge and of attack, and that was the very real experience of the applicants in the way in which they explained it to the Committee, that public and private face.
	And so their understanding is that that was the policy that was being embarked upon and they had it confirmed to them in so many ways.  In addition to which it was confirmed to them inasmuch as they were hidden and protected when the arm of the law was able to reach out to them.  So in instances where Mr Khumalo was arrested, where Mr Dlamini was arrested, he was whisked out of hospital where he had been lying with his leg up in a sling and he was pulled out of hospital and taken away in a car and then hidden for a long period of time in different places including in Venda and in the Mkuzi camp.
	The same with Mr Khumalo when it appeared the police were on his trail, in fact on the one occasion he was arrested and bail was paid, and then he was hidden away and instructed not to go back.  And those activities, in hiding and protecting the applicants from the law, in those instances, that was done by senior members in the IFP itself and in the KwaZulu police, and that gives credence to their claim that this was the policy and this was how they understood the policy to be, that these are the things they should be doing.
Mr Dlamini in particular makes really an impassioned statement towards the end of his evidence in, I think it was his evidence at Mpumalanga and it also happens to be quoted in the Truth Commission final report, where he talks about the betrayal that he felt that all these years he did al this, he did so much for his organisation, and he did what he was trained to do, and he did what he was instructed to do and he really sacrificed so much, and now at the eleventh hour he's deserted, and those people who had told him that he should do these things and those people who had trained him to do these things are now denying it, and denying any involvement, and denying that he was acting on any instructions.
	And indeed my submission is that the evidence both from here, from these proceedings, and indeed in other proceedings and elsewhere, is quite clear that there was indeed that private face of fighting a war, and a particularly ruthless war at that.
Another category of incident would be that of defending individuals and property.  Now this would seem to me to be relative uncontroversial.  That there're incidences, Mr Dlamini's incidences two and three, Mr Khumalo's incident five, where really the applicants were involved in defending people and property.  Dlamini two and three is where he was involved in shooting a policeman where he was guarding a house and they came under fire and they retaliated, and he found he had shot a policeman, and they subsequently discovered that the policemen and themselves considered themselves to be on the same side, but nevertheless he had shot that policeman.  Three was the defence of Mgwabe's house at Natingi, and Mr Khumalo's incident five is that same attack at Natingi.  And there, as I've said, relatively uncontroversial, what's been done there was defending from attack and that that involved itself a certain amount of attack but in essence it would be what one could described as a defensive operation.
	And a final category which I've identified there, of course these are my own categorisations, is that of enforcing allegiances to chiefs and to the party, being the IFP.  And Mr Luthuli in particular deals with this in his affidavit from page 253 onwards, in paragraph 16, and he talks about the strategies that were employed in the rural areas, in particular in the area out towards Elandskop, Gezubuso and beyond, the other side of Edendale, of trying to ensure that the chiefs who may have been wavering in their support for the IFP were encouraged to strengthen that support, and also ensuring that the people in those areas supported the IFP supporting chiefs, and it included seizing cattle and so on.  Mr Luthuli was not involved in those things himself, but he's talking about what was going on.
There is the one, or perhaps more controversial incident than others, of the murder of Natie Gumede in which Mr Dlamini was involved.  
	Now Mr Wills will deal in more detail with this because it involves also Mr Hlongwane and Mr Mbambo, but I'm briefed of course today to speak on Mr Dlamini's behalf, as to his involvement, and there was a suggestion in cross-examination that this hit had something to do with a motor vehicle or a charge about a motor vehicle, and so on.  But it's quite clear from Mr Dlamini's evidence that insofar as he was aware, and insofar as he was concerned, this was another one of the political hits and he was instructed that this what, this was an ANC supporting person who needed to be eliminated, and he really, as a, as more of a foot soldier than any of the others in this hearing, went along and did what he was instructed to do, and if there was anything about a car or something like that he didn't know anything about it, and he in my submission held the bona fide belief that this was a political hit, and indeed as I submit it was, but I don't need to go that far on behalf of Mr Dlamini, I only need to go so far as to show what he thought that he was involved in, and whether or not he thought that was a reasonable belief, and indeed in the circumstances my submission it was.  They were involved in, on the same day, in identifying two people at the Eshowe hospital, a security guard and a nurse, that had to be eliminated for political reasons.  They decided not to carry out those hits on that day because there were too many police and so on around, and then they went off to find Natie Gumede and Mr Dlamini explains clearly in his evidence what he thought that that was about.
So that then deals, in my submission, ...(intervention)

ADV MOTATA: If I may just interrupt.  Wouldn't that give us further problems?  Because it would appear they had instructions, but if they had instructions, why couldn't they get proper instructions who to eliminate, not just a nurse and a person.  Because you see there was a whole range of arrangements, even going to MZ going to James Zulu, even to arrange a motor vehicle to go there.  Why couldn't they get better instructions and say precisely who that person is, or persons?

MR STEWART: Thank you Mr Committee Member.  My recollection of it, which may be wrong amongst, or confused amongst the morass of evidence before you, but my recollection of it and we'll look for it, is that the particular nurse and the particular security guard were identified, but the decision was then taken not to carry out the hit on that occasion, and they then, they drove away and they stopped and they had a discussion and then there was much debate in the evidence as to what discussion was being referred to because the discussion was in one paragraph and, the reference to the discussion was in one paragraph and then the details about Natie Gumede in the next, and they then decided to then go and carry out the next hit, and in Mr Dlamini's understanding, very clearly it was a political hit on an ANC, influential ANC individual.

SISI KHAMPEPE: In fact there was somebody who had been given to the applicants to accompany them in order to identify the person in question, if I recall the evidence.