Human Rights Violation Hearings — Welkom — 1996-10-09

WITNESS:   Thereafter it so happened that on a particular night at about past ten we heard some noise outside the building and it sounded like there was an attack and we were told that the anti-Comrade gang was present and it was already attacking the Comrades and we had to go and protect our community.  We decided to form ourselves into groups and we surrounded the neighbourhood.  We went to the outskirts of the place and we were stopping cars and searching the cars before they got into the residential area.  We were telling ourselves that we were protecting our own community from the imminent attack of the anti-Comrades.  We felt that we had to protect the older residents as the youth.  Then we reached a resolution that we should got to the outskirts of town and keep a vigil there because we had heard that we were going to be attacked.  After about a few minutes, whilst we were there, we saw a police Casspir.  It parked there.  We were about 200.  They just stopped there and looked at us.  Thereafter it happened that this Casspir went away and it came back with a convoy of about seven cars, very big cars.  There were about three four-by-fours, two private cars and the police cars.  They came quite slowly.  They were driving slowly towards us.  We didn't pay much attention to them because we were not fighting with them.  We were not able to run because they came and they shone their headlights on us whilst we were sitting down.  They got  out of their cars.  We saw farmers as well and the farmers were also armed.  They surrounded us.  They formed a circle around us and they told us to stand up.  Then we decided that we should stand up and some of us were scared because we did not know what they were going to do to us.  Then we formed a circle.  Some of them were now getting scared and they were trying to run and everybody else now started to run and there was no way that I could run.  I was not able to run away from the commotion.  Then I decided that I should surrender.  Some had already been shot and there were headlights shining upon those people.  It was as if it was broad daylight and I lifted my hands up as a sign of surrender and I stood for about 15 minutes with my hands up and a white man in army uniform shot me.  And he was actually cocking his gun, then I decided to run.  I ran only a few paces with bullets whizzing past my head.  Then I felt a shot on my left hand.  That is on my arm and I could feel that my arm was painful.  I tried to stretch my arm.  Then I realised that my arm had been broken.  And as I was trying to stand up I was unable and my arm was giving me a problem.  I just couldn't stretch it and I remained in that position for quite some time and bullets were whizzing past at that time and some people were running away from the scene.  Others were lying flat on the ground.  And ultimately another white person came to me.  He said to me I must stand up.  I told him that I wasn't able to stand up because of my arm that was painful and broken and he realised that there was something that had happened to my arm.  My arm was injured.  Then he lifted me up and he took me back to  the other white people and he left me and I was pushed with the back of the gun into the Casspir.  I got in without any protest because I realised that I needed help.  I got into the police Casspir.  When we got inside some were shot in the mouth, some were shot on the legs, they were shot at different parts of the body and people were screaming inside.  I tried to get a place to relax to try and be in a sleeping position because I could not stand on my feet and there was a black policeman who said I should balance on the table.  That's when I balanced on the table.  I just had something hitting me from the back and when I looked it was the butt of a gun.  And thereafter I lost consciousness because I fell down and I was left to lie on the floor.  At about 1 o'clock in the morning we were taken to the provincial hospital.  I was put into plaster of Paris and we were under police guard at the time when we were in the hospital.  We were under police guard.  Six policemen were actually guarding us and people from our places and homes could not come to see us because we were under police guard.  I was not able to go home and when I went back home I went to the Comrades to ask for some help and I asked them to give me some money to go to Lesotho because they were going to arrest me in this place so I had to go to Dr Zwane, who's a private doctor.  He took out the plaster of Paris and attend to my arm.  I explained to him that I was from the provincial hospital.   Then I was taken to Pilinomi and they asked me as to what I wanted to do.  I had to undergo an operation on my arm.  After the operation some iron rods were put inside my arm.   Policemen came at that particular hospital and they were looking for me and the nurses did not want to show them where I was but they told me that the police were actually looking for me.  Then they wanted to see my arm but I refused because my arm was in bandages and I had undergone an operation and they said I wasn't the one that they were looking for.  The following morning I decided to run away from the hospital and I went to Lesotho and I disappeared at that time.

PROF MAGWAZA: Thank you very much, Eric.  You have given us a very detailed picture of what happened to you and the Comrades.  You have a very clear mind.  I would like to ask a few clarifying questions.  Just short clarifying questions.  Firstly, you mentioned that you were in prison.  When did you go to prison and why?

WITNESS:   I went to prison after I had been injured.  There are three kids at my place.  I have three children.  I had a wife then and I was trying to make a living.  I was selling dagga at that time so that I could make some money to maintain my family.  So I was not able to work because the police kept on arresting me and I would go to prison and come back once more.  Then I decided that I had to make a living out of selling dagga.  So I decided that that's the only way I could make a living.  I've just come back from prison.  I came back in June from prison and my mother who was helping me - my grandmother was helping me whilst I was in prison has now since been deceased.  So I'm not able to make ends meet at the present moment.  Even the letters and the documents that I've sent haven't served any purpose.

PROF MAGWAZA: You also say that you went to Lesotho.  For how  long were you in Lesotho?

WITNESS:   I stayed for about two months in Lesotho.

PROF MAGWAZA: What were you doing there?

WITNESS:   I was staying at my wife's place.  I wasn't working.

PROF MAGWAZA: Regarding your statement, you talk about the Russians.  The people who came to assault you according to the statements were the Russians and as I understand it the Russians were the hostel dwellers and the miners - people from the mines.  Did they also form part of the group that attacked you - the Russians?

WITNESS:   They never came at that time when we expected that they would come to attack us.  Only the police came at that time.

PROF MAGWAZA: You also talk about farmers but these farmers were in army uniform.  Did they wear army uniform when they came to attack you?

WITNESS:   There were those who were wearing army uniforms as well as those who were wearing police uniforms.  I realised that they were from the farms because they were wearing khaki shorts.

PROF MAGWAZA: Who is Quinana?  Where is Quinana now?  Quinana.  You mentioned this name who was responsible for the detention of many Comrades at the beginning.

WITNESS:   Quinana is the same person as Banase.

PROF MAGWAZA: Oh, Banase.  I don't have Banase here.  So where is Banase now?

WITNESS:   I don't know his whereabouts but he was in Bloemfontein when I last year about him.

PROF MAGWAZA: What was he doing?