Human Rights Violation Hearings — Queenstown — 1996-07-22

BONGANI FINCA: Excuse me please, may I interrupt you.  I would like to appeal to the audience and I know that it is frustrating that you are not being able to hear what is being said, because you do not have these sets which are doing interpretation.  But I want to ask you to bear with us, we are tackling a very important matter.
QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
12 AP VAN WYK
 We are following through this translation which you are not able to do at the present moment, it is not the fault of the witnesses, it is the fact that these are limited.   So not everybody has it.
 So we ask you to give this witness the benefit of your patience - I know that you have patience and that you are able to exercise it and I want to appeal again to you for that discipline.
 We are talking about a very painful event where people died ruthlessly and we would like to give this event the dignity and the reverence which it deserves.
 And I am sure that the people of Queenstown will not want to spoil our hearing by behaving in a manner that will cast negative reflection on our hearings here.
 Throughout this province we have had crowds and crowds of people who have behaved themselves excellently.  And I hope that you would want to maintain that tradition.
 Thank you very much.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you Chairperson.   Mr Van Wyk,  you can now proceed.  You've mentioned that your wife will explain to us what happened that night and also refer to us about the personal or emotional scars.
 Did you ever managed to build the business up again?

AP VAN WYK: Yes, Mr Potgieter, I would lie to you if I had to say that things weren't going well in the business, it is going fairly well.
 But before we reopened the  Spur, there were people like my bankers who were obviously involved with my business because of the fact that I had to loan money from them, also organisations like the Small Business Development organisations and it was our duty now to convince these 
QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
13 AP VAN WYK
people.  If you refer to the last page of the file, you would have confirmation of this, and that my Close Corporation is insolvent.
 The CC, the Close Corporation is up until today still insolvent.  We are still insolvent, and I am able to provide the Commission with balance sheets if you so wish.
 And before we reopened, I had to go and convince the relevant people to provide us with a second chance.  I had to negotiate very seriously with the Small Business Development Corporation and finally we managed to persuade them that we as a family, very, very dearly would like to have the opportunity to rebuild our business.
 And I can tell you we succeeded, one hundred percent in this.  The bank did not disappoint us, the people who loaned money to us, did not disappoint us and all the money that  was advanced to us in order to pay salaries, we were able to repay that within a year, but it still had a very serious impact on our cash flow.
 Up until today I do still owe the bank a couple of thousand rand, the interest rates that we are paying is very high.  The day we reopened the Spur, we realised that we have to do a lot more.
 There is going to be a lot more we have to do in order to save this business from insolvency.  We went to the ends of the earth and that is when we decided that in future, we will serve breakfast in Queenstown and for two and a half years, we would each morning open at seven in order to serve breakfast and that extra income assisted us at the end of the day.
 And due to the pressure we had in the business and in particular myself who was the leader, I can say to you that 
QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
14 AP VAN WYK
it has been an incredible time for me and it has been exceptionally difficult for me.
 And for me to rise out of this financial setback caused me to neglect my marriage and my wife and children and due to the fact that we had so little time to spend with each other, our marriage nearly ended in a divorce.
 You know on the one hand I was required to look after my family, spend time with them and at times I was not able to do this.
 But the people who worked for me, those people who before the bomb explosion had a certain standard were just not good enough any more.  Sometimes if I think back a bit now in the last three  years, I couldn't have been one of the easiest people to get along with or to work with, not that it was my fault, the person who planted the bomb in my business, is the person who should be held responsible for this.
 I must say that I didn't just expect the best from my staff, I wanted more than the best.  I wanted exceptional service to my clients, so that that would ensure them coming back.

ADV POTGIETER: Mr Van Wyk, did any organisation ever accept responsibility for this bomb explosion?

AP VAN WYK: There are two people who accepted responsibility and I can just refer you to the page - on page 25 and I will quote "a woman Lolita, claiming to be from the Azanion People Liberation Army, claimed responsibility."
 The last paragraph "the man claiming to be Conrad de Bill, who is the Commander of APLA Intelligence in the Eastern Transvaal, also phoned SAPA in Johannesburg last 
QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
15 AP VAN WYK
night, and said that six APLA members were involved in the Queenstown attack. 
 So I think that it is fairly widely accepted and known to us that that was the organisation who claimed responsibility.
 Later during the police investigation, my wife - and Heidi on an occasion, showed or pointed out the people who sat at the people at the Spur that night.
 I find it unacceptable that the people involved up till today have not been arrested.  I find this totally unacceptable.

ADV POTGIETER: You also mentioned that your insurance policy did not cover the damage that your business suffered.  Were you able to claim from any other source for the damages caused?

AP VAN WYK: I went all out and I will refer you to an article here.  I went to Adv Eksteen  and according to evidence or information I had given him,  he wanted to know where I was insured.  I was insured with SANTAM and it is not that there was no insurance.
 I have some evidence here to show you that I did have insurance.  I was only able to get this document recently.  The one is an ordinary type of insurance which cover you for those sort of things and then there is another type of insurance which covers you during political unrest.
 My responsibility was towards them because of the money that I loaned from them.  Every year I would send this document through to them, but on a technicality I was penalised and therefor the insurance refused to pay out.
 I took these documents and I consulted with Adv Eksteen.  At that stage he thought that I might have a 
QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
16 AP VAN WYK
slight chance of gaining anything out of this.  My auditor also was prepared to go to court and according to both of them, I stood a better chance of suing APLA, but we needed funds.
 The Advocate mentioned a fee of between R50 000-00 and R60 000-00, my business of course at that point was bankrupt and I had no reserves.
 So I closed the book and told myself that it is impossible for me to afford this.  I also wanted a form of guarantee that if I was able to lay my hands on these funds and therefor give him, instruct him to sue APLA, that we would then continue.
 I simply advised the Advocate that I did not have the financial means.  So we left it there.  We did not receive any help from any organisation or any person.