Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-17

MR MKHIZE: If I were to explain here I have friends within the ANC, several of them, I met some of them at such places.  Firstly I had confidence in myself and I knew that I could defend myself should anything happen and that helped me to gather certain information which we would use as an organisation and I also indicated that the owner of the shebeen was my cousin and he came from Ingandla originally.  These are the reasons that prompted me to go there.  There are several people whom I actually built up and recruited knowing fully well that they were ANC members.  I knew that they were only ANC members in so far as support is concerned.  There were no activities which could make it difficult for me to make friends with them.  I was also a human being just like anybody else, I also needed time to cool off and take a few drinks with friends, especially the kind of work that we were doing was quite traumatising.  One could not cope if there was no escape for which one could forget.  Those are the reasons which drove me to patronise the shebeen or to go to the shebeen and we enjoyed at that place.
	Inkatha used to work as a small group at J2.  Only they could not be found at any other place.  There was no longer any good living experience at the time, no one could sit down and relax and enjoy himself because the ANC was active in the area and therefore it was not easy for a person to do like I did, patronise an ANC shebeen.  I did what I did because I trusted myself, I knew I could defend myself.
ADV. MOTATA: Wouldn't you regard then that it is an unfair judgement on the other Caprivians that they were drunkards when you were also at times getting under the weather?

MR MKHIZE: The people had been taught discipline, a military person has discipline.  If they could not stick to the disciplinary principal, I therefore am not one who isolated them but their deeds, their actions isolated them and that is discipline.
ADV. MOTATA: Lastly Mr Mkhize, these Caprivians who were undisciplined, who lived here at eSikhawini.  To your knowledge did they perpetrate or were they were executing people without your knowledge?  Did you know of something of that nature?

MR MKHIZE: No.  No there is nothing to my knowledge regarding that.  At the time that I had brought together this unit there were others who also came to join us and I took up the opportunity to rehabilitate them and I ended up engaging them in several operations.  I had already started my operations facing the ANC and when they came back people like Romeo were already senior within in the syndicate even though Romeo was not a Caprivian.  I started afresh rehabilitating some of them because of their heavy drinking.
ADV. MOTATA: Thank you Mr Mkhize.  Thank you Mr Chairman.  I've got no further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Motata.  Ms Khampepe do you have any questions?

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Mkhize, I will not subject you to any extensive questioning since my colleagues have questioned you quite extensively.  A few questions that I'm going to pose to you will only be restricted to the formation of your hit squad, it's structure and it's chain of command because I have problems with some of your evidence.  But before I do that, my colleague Advocate Motata ...[inaudible] to choose to mobilise people in order to win ANC areas over to the IFP instead of going through an extensive atrocity of killing them as you did and if I understand your evidence, it is to the effect that it was not within your mandate to have exercised that election because you were ordered specifically at the Ulundi meeting only to execute instructions as they were communicated to you either by the local leadership or that IFP hierarchy as you have referred to it in your evidence and in your affidavit.  Do I understand your evidence correctly in that regard?

MR MKHIZE: Yes.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Now the IFP hierarchy that you've referred to that gave you instructions or orders in 1991 and consisted of Mr M.Z. Khumalo, Prince Gideon Zulu, Captain Hlungwane, Mr Luthuli, Mr Msemela - only gave you instructions then to eliminate targets that would have been identified by it or by the local leadership but they did not give you instructions to form or establish hit squad, am I correct in so assuming?

MR MKHIZE: First of all at that meeting it was agreed that a person who would be my handler was Captain Hlungwane.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes, I'm going to interrupt you Mr Mkhize, I would want you to really restrict yourself to my questions, just listen to my questions properly and don't give an elaboration, I will tell you if I want you to elaborate.  Have I posed I think the evidence as I listen to you and read your affidavits properly that at that stage that initial meeting at that hour when you were appointed to eliminate targets identified by that structure or the local leadership, at that time, at that stage - you were not given any instructions to form any hit squad?

MR MKHIZE: No, that was indeed the formation of the hit squads because I could not have functioned alone and it was therefore indicated to Hlungwane that he and I should be the one who would discuss this as we would be working hand in hand.

SISI KHAMPEPE: We are still on the same wavelength.  You were then told that Captain Hlungwane would be the person under whom you would be reporting?

MR MKHIZE: Yes.  That is correct.

SISI KHAMPEPE: And subsequent to that meeting Captain Hlungwane then gave you a directive to appoint other suitable persons to assist you in the operation because it was anticipated that there would be a litany of operations to be carried out by you and you needed sufficient resources to be able to do so?

MR MKHIZE: That is correct.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Did you understand Captain Hlungwane's directive to mean that you had to have a permanent squad of these suitable persons or did you understand those directives to mean that you could appoint suitable persons capable of executing those operations as and when the need arose?  That is my question.

MR MKHIZE: I understood it to mean that what we were forming at the time was something that was to be permanent in the fight against the ANC.  This was actually a process that could take even years in other words, this was going to be a squad that would exist for a long time until such time that our goal was achieved.

SISI KHAMPEPE: But was that to be a permanent squad in existence during the duration of it's existence or could it be a squad which probably consisted of certain people who would be there permanently and the others would be appointed as the need arose to so appoint them?

MR MKHIZE: Let me state that at the time we did not go as far as that which you have just explained.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Let me tell you why I am grappling with that  difficulty.  A number of people were used in your operations like Joyful Mtetwa and a number of constables who were part of the KwaZulu Police and these were covert operations.  How did they come to be used if you did not understand your directive to mean that you could appoint people as or when the need arose?

MR MKHIZE: This was such that the situation was unpredictable.  The war that we were facing started exacerbating ...[intervention] because we knew that this was

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Mkhize, I think you and I will have to speak a little louder to enable the people at the back to hear.