Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-26

MR MBANDAZAYO: Thank you Chairperson.  Chairperson, it's my submission that the applicants have made full disclosure inasmuch as far as their memory can serve them.  Chairperson, I would like this Committee to take into account that this incident happened in 1992 and it's 1999 now and at the time when they were committing they were involved in the struggle, they never anticipated that on day they will be asked these questions and in most of the cases they don't have records except the reports they have submitted of course which are not available now, they are in the police hands that they have to recall what actually took place.  But Chairperson, one cannot dispel the evidence, say the evidence is not correct or it was not a full disclosure with regard to this incident because they told the Committee what their planning and everything they did and how the reconnaissance was done.  Of course Chairperson, they did not say that the fire they were shot at came from the house of Mrs - they say it come from that vicinity and that their reconnaissance and information they gathered was that those houses belonged to the security personnel and according to their assumption in that, also according to that thinking, as trained people, they also thought that that information they have is correct because in their thinking that they should be occupied by security personnel because they are in the borders.  I don't think, Chairperson, the evidence said that all the houses belonged to security personnel and the information, what has been said by Mrs Pienaar is clear, I don't see any contradiction inasfar as the question of the attack, I think they agree fully with Mr Kgotlhe that the first thing he did was to break the window and thereafter they threw grenades and also that, Chairperson, in a way their are reconnaissance was correct in that her former late husband was a policeman, was indeed a policeman which indicates that in that reconnaissance, in whatever information they collected there was some sort of a substance inasmuch as not all the houses as they also conceded that not all the houses but they found out that the majority of them, according to the information.  It may not have been correct, the information Chairperson, it may not have been correct, the information they gathered but at the time when they acted they bona fide believed that they were going there to attack the houses which belonged to the security forces, which Chairperson, I think that is important, what was going on in their minds at the time, they had that belief that what they were going to do was to attack the security forces at that particular point in time.  Chairperson, taking that into account, I don't think, Chairperson, there is much except that of course of the memory of the human beings cannot all of them, you know, I always advance the same argument that all of us can witness an incident in this hall but all of us will tell it differently when we are called upon to tell what actually happened and you doubt at the end of the day whether certain people were present or not because they will come up and tell you something which you don't - but it's not necessarily that they are telling lies.  It's in the human nature, it's not necessarily that you are telling lies when we go and testify on an incident which were witnessed and we testified differently, it does not necessarily mean you are telling a lie but it may, because our memories, we cannot capture all of us in the same way the happening and it's that I would like that the Committee to take into account that the people who have done this, who were giving evidence, most of them with the exception of Mr Dolo who was released in September last year, the others have been in jail since then and that effects also their condition and their ability to remember and put it properly, the other aspects of the incident.  But Chairperson, it's my submission that there is no difference to what has been told by Mrs Pienaar and what the applicants have told this Committee.  Thank you Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Mbandazayo.  Ms Patel, submissions?

MS PATEL: Thank you Honourable Chairperson, I've decided to leave the decision in your capable hands and the reason that I've decided to do that is because on one level the PAC's policy cannot be disputed and secondly, in the words of Mr Kgotlhe, he said that the language of soft and hard targets "never existed in our vocabulary" and on that basis, Honourable Chairperson, I will not argue for or against.  Thank you.

ADV SANDI: Sorry, Mr Mbandazyo, the conspiracy or attempt to attack the old age home, do you have any specific submissions to make in regard to that?  Don't you think that such conduct could fall fowl of the proportionality requirement?