Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1996-04-17

DR BORAINE: We invite Charity Kondile to the stand please.
You are Mrs Charity Kondile?  We'd like to welcome you here will you stand please?

CHARITY KONDILE: (sworn states)

DR BORAINE: It may be necessary to swear others who are with you, at least one, but let's hold that for the moment, we'll start with you Mrs Kondile.  The story that you have given to the Commission and the Commission staff, is a very stark and terrifying one and we are very sympathetic to the need for courage and strength in trying to tell this story which has caused you so much pain.  Domisa Nsebeza is going to help you tell that story and he will lead the evidence now.  Thank you very much.

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Mr Chairmen.  Mr Chairman, it has been said that when one of the stories was told in the trial of Eugene de Kock, mention was made of the horrifying murder which was described in vivid terms as shark feeding frenzy in respect of another victim.  But in that same trial we were to hear also of the harrowing details of how Gcinisizwe Chonyane Kondile, the son of the witness now on the stand died, and I would like to call her to the stand for her to tell us in her own words how it is to be the mother of a child whom you have never buried.
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 Mrs Kondile, you are currently residing at 537 Msobungu Township in Butterworth.  Is that correct?

CHARITY KONDILE: That's correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: You are the natural mother of the deceased, Sizwe Kondile?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: You have since established that your son died at the hands of the South African Security Police in the 1980's, is that correct?

CHARITY KONDILE: That is correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: This detail came out more fully when you read accounts by one Captain Dirk Coetzee in his testimony to the Harms Commission, when he was called to do so, is that correct?

CHARITY KONDILE: I beg your pardon.

MR NTSEBEZA: This incident of how your son died in the hands of the police came out to your attention when it was fully set out by one Captain Dirk Coetzee in his testimony to a commission?

CHARITY KONDILE: No I had, in fact I read before Coetzee even confessed from the New Nation of the 9th February, where there was an article that he had been brutally murdered. That was the first time I heard that he had been killed.

MR NTSEBEZA: Perhaps, let's start from the beginning. Now your son left this country in 1980, is that correct?

CHARITY KONDILE: That is correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: And it was after he had been harassed by the South African Police, even as a student at the University of Fort Hare, is that right?

CHARITY KONDILE: That is correct.  He had even been detained and they were ...(indistinct) at Fort Hare to the extent
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that the University was closed and he and his brother ...(indistinct)Kondile resigned and came back home.

MR NTSEBEZA: Do you know who his friends were inside the campus?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes I do.

MR NTSEBEZA: Can you mention one?

CHARITY KONDILE: One of his closest friends whom he went to circumcision school with, is the gentleman on my left, Mr Gusumze Bikole, I also know Mr Pagamile Qnea and Tosi Majola.  I mention these three because they were the gentlemen who left with him when he skipped the country.

MR NTSEBEZA: Is it true that you have also called Mr Bikole to be with you here to testify to this Commission?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: You are asking that he should testify about your son's political activities as he knows them so that they can be put in proper perspective.

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes if the Commission so allows, thank you.
When Sizwe left in 1980, where did he leave to go?

CHARITY KONDILE: When he left the country?

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes.

CHARITY KONDILE: We later learned that he had gone to Maseru.

MR NTSEBEZA: I see, did you ever visit him in Maseru in 1980?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes I visited Sizwe in 1980 and we spent Christmas together because I was very eager to find out why he had left and I was also missing him.

MR NTSEBEZA: What did he tell you about the ANC, if anything when you found him there?

CHARITY KONDILE: Well Sizwe reassured me that he had joined the struggle and there was no way of turning back. When I
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spoke to him about coming home he told me that there was no ways he could come back home before he had achieved his mission in the struggle.

MR NTSEBEZA: I see.  When was it that you were advised about him missing in Lesotho?

CHARITY KONDILE: Later in 1981 when I tried to contact him for about two weeks in Lesotho, and I couldn't contact him. I phoned his father and asked him why I couldn't get hold of Sizwe in Maseru, and he told me that he was still handling the matter, Sizwe's matter, and I asked him, what matter? Then he advised me that Sizwe was missing in Maseru.

MR NTSEBEZA: What profession is his father?

CHARITY KONDILE: His father is a practising attorney and he has been recently appointed as chief magistrate in Port Elizabeth.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now where did he make enquiries?

CHARITY KONDILE: Well Mr Kondile wasn't handling the case, himself, he was represented by Herbert Fisher Associates  therefore he asked Herbert Fisher Associates on our behalf to find out from the Commissioner of Police in Pretoria, first from the local police in Port Elizabeth, that his son had been in exile, therefore now he understands that his son was out of the country.  Therefore the lawyers found out from him and the reply from the Commissioner of Police was that they had arrested Sizwe on the 26th of June 1981. Herbet Fisher and his Associates further enquired from the commissioner what happened next. They wrote back to say that they had since released him in August 1981 according to their records in front of you there, the lawyers asked further if Sizwe had been visited by any magistrate or doctor whilst he was in detention.
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 Well they confirmed that he had never been visited by any magistrate or any doctor.  The matter when he was missing was further raised in Parliament by people like Helen Suzman, Dr Morris Barnard and the then minister was Mr Louis le Grange, who when questioned, confirmed that Sizwe had been detained by the South African Police and that he had been released, that was on the 10th of August.He had been detained for about one and a half months and when further asked, Mr Louis le Grange also confirmed that during that time that he had been detained, he had never been visited by any magistrate or any doctor.  Such people like Mrs Molly Blackburn expressed their disgust at the way people in South Africa were detained and their relatives were never informed, the inhuman way in which people were detained.  I can imagine as a mother at this stage what my child was wearing flor those one and a half months.  
 When it comes to that part I spit venom, because you will find some letters from those people I'm talking about, from Molly Blackburn, from all the correspondents from the Commissioner Police, there in front of you with the attorneys.

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes it is quite a substantial find.  So the reply from the Commissioner of Police was that they had arrested Sizwe and had kept him at a place of detention in Port Elizabeth but that he had since been released in August 1981?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: What did you do when you received this information from the police?

CHARITY KONDILE: Well when all was quiet, Mr Kondile, since I was not working at that time, asked me to go back to Lesotho EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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to establish whether, after he had been released, he had gone back to Lesotho.

MR NTSEBEZA: Did you go to Lesotho.

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes I did.