Human Rights Violation Hearings — Newcastle — 1996-09-11

MR LAX: Thank you very much, Mr Ngcobo, for that.  Now obviously many, many people were injured, and some were quite seriously injured to the extent that they couldn't work again.  Do you know what's happened to those people, how they were looked after?  Did the mine look after them, did the union look after them?  Can either of you maybe help us there?

WITNESS:   Nothing was done for them.  They are still suffering, and those who were lucky enough to recover from their injuries they looked for other jobs and they are working, but nothing had been done for them.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... was an inquest or a case arising out these deaths, whether anyone was charged?

INTERPRETER: Speak up.

MR LAX: I beg your pardon.  Do you know whether there was an inquest or a case involving these killings?

WITNESS:  No, not that I know of.  We tried to follow, to go to lawyers, but nothing was done.  There was no inquest, no case, nothing.

MR LAX: Thank you.  Mr Siyolo, is there anything you want to add to what I have already asked of Mr Ngcobo?

MR SIYOLO: I would like to thank you.  I would like just to add on just a little thing that I have forgotten.  It's this question of asking whether do we have a case.  There were lawyers from Johannesburg, Thompson lawyers, who tried to take this investigation or this case over, and they transferred this case to Mr Peter Rush.  The case was concerning dismissal of employees.  Unfortunately nothing was done.  In 1987 the workers who went to Johannesburg to general secretary, Peter Rush was called as well because he said he had a problem, he can't contact the NUM union.  After that meeting he said things were going to be all right from then, and unfortunately up until today there was no case.  There is still no case, and when we realised that Peter Rush is not doing anything we went to see Mr Mahlombo.  He was working together with van Hildam(?), an advocate from Pietermaritzburg.  Even then nothing happened.  We went and asked Mr Mbele, who is a lawyer in Durban, and Mr Mbele did a little, because he said if we talk about dismissal it was going to be a problem.  He called people who were injured and been crippled there, because they got injured when the mine people were no longer fighting.  They were beaten, and I am sure people left them there thinking that they were dead.  Mr Mbele took this case and he filed a case.  Some of us went back to the mine.  Even though I am not quite sure, I don't know how true it is, I heard that those people who Mr Mbele took their names, and those who put it very clearly that they needed money, and at that time management and employees were quarrelling because they were saying that the management had paid a lot of money to lawyers, and how come they can't pay money to them.  One of the employees who is from Newcastle, he is the one who heard this issue very well.  I mentioned his name because he is one of the people that I know he knows this issue.  I am not quite sure how true it is.  It made me so sad that people can just die and not receive anything, and others being crippled and not doing anything.  Maybe Peter Rush can explain what's going on really.  And another thing is that I had enough time having this pain with me inside, and even when I am at home where I am from they are asking me how do I survive, or how do I stay with the Zulus.  I have known one thing, that if you are a Zulu-speaking person, and people who aren't staying with the Zulus they have this picture of a Zulu person that it's so terrible that they think you can't live a life like others, you don't think for others.  But because I have stayed with the Zulus I know the Zulus.  I know now that the Zulus are part of us, and I am still insisting that whatever happened in that mine it wasn't because the fight between the Zulus and the Xhosas, and it wasn't because the Xhosas said the king will be the teaboy and the chief will be the garden boy.  I still want to know who came out with this thing, because I am also a Xhosa and I know I never said this thing.  I got this job because Zulus and Xhosas were always together.  One other thing which makes me sad again is that in 1988, if not '89, there were soldiers who were being trained at Hlobane.  They were being trained by the South African Defence Force, and in 1989 people died there.  And statements were given.  I think those Xhosas who were there were minor for them to cause a confusion in that mine.  There were many Zulus than Xhosas.  So this wasn't true.  Whatever was written in newspapers it wasn't true.  I still wish people should come before the Commission and say all these things, because Mr van Zyl, the management of Hlobane - Mr van Zyl is the master of this.  He is the one who can explain more, because he is the one who knew from where to where. (Inaudible) ... we will try and contact Mr van Zyl, and we will try and ask him some questions when the time comes so that we can get to the bottom of this story, because it worries many of us.  We will also try and speak to all the lawyers that dealt with the case and find out why nothing further happened.  We will also speak to the NUM people to see whether that is possible, because they will give us some ideas, people like Mdletshe and others who were your organisers at that time, and find out why they never followed those issues up.  So I think at this stage I have no further questions for you.  I am going to hand back to the Chairperson.

COMMISSIONER: Just before I summarise, can you just tell us who was the Hlobane Mine owned by at that time?

WITNESS:  Mr Watson.  The mine is under Iscor, but the mine manager was Mr Watson at that time.

COMMISSIONER: Mr Siyolo and Mr Ngcobo, today we are struggling to come together as one nation, and to forget about the fact that we come from different cultural and language groups.  But many of the people at that time that you have told us about, many people and many organisations, including the Nationalist Government, UWUSA, through Prince Gideon Zulu, who spoke to you at that meeting, they preached a different message in those days, and their message was that there were certain organisations for Zulus and there were certain organisations for Xhosas, and that Zulus should not join Xhosa organisations.  And many people resisted that and didn't believe that, and workers like yourself, who were Zulus and Xhosas, they joined organisations not because they were Zulus or Xhosas, but because - they joined those organisations because they were trade unions and they wanted to improve their conditions of employment.  And they resisted this message that we are different.  You also mentioned some women who walked out of the hall when Prince Gideon was speaking because he was saying that Zulus should not join Xhosa organisations, and these women were married to Xhosas and to Sothos, as well as being married to Zulus.  And they showed great independence and commonsense, and they indicated quite clearly that people from different language groups can live together quite happily.  But, as you have told us, there were forces which were more powerful than that, and as we heard this obsession with ethnic differences between Zulus and Xhosas, which was encouraged by UWUSA and also encouraged by mine officials, it led to the massacre of 11 members of the National Union of Mineworkers.  And those 11 members, those 11 people who died, and the many people who were injured, were victims of apartheid, because apartheid was based on the idea that people were different, whether they were Zulus, or Xhosas, or black, or white.  Apartheid told us that people were different, and this policy of apartheid has left us with a terrible legacy, and we must now struggle to come together as one nation and to find reconciliation.