Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-10-24

MR DLAMINI: It was a bit of an embarrassment when people came around, you know, to see this nasty weapon standing about and they used to think, well this guy is a little bit obsessive or something like that.   But I made sure that it was always available, you know, and - so the kids would play with this.   I remember taking them out into the sugarcane and showing them how violent it actually was, and letting my son actually shoot it, and that's how dire life was at the time.   This was stark reality and survival, you know.   You know, by the time of Ric's murder, there had been so many murdered and such a lot of death, I mean reports of somebody who had slipped on a cake of soap whilst under interrogation and died of concussion, that sort of stuff.   Somebody tripped over a chair and fell out of the 10th floor window of Marshall Plein in Jo'burg, that sort of rubbish, and also I had spent so many months in solitary confinement in Pretoria Central, listening to people getting hanged and that, I wasn't shocked by Ric's death, or anybody's death.   I wasn't even shocked by my number coming up on the hit list, you know.   And I am still, to this day, ice cold about death.   I was unable to mourn the death of my mother or father, and people find it a bit strange with me, but that's the way it way.  If I say I wasn't shocked by Ric's death, I was exceedingly angry that some upstart, you know, sub-standard racist thought he had the right to murder somebody of Ric's substance and stature.   So, plenty of anger, but no shock, you see.

MR DLAMINI: If I were to interrupt a little bit, you mentioned that you were on the hit list.

WITNESS:   Yes.

MR DLAMINI: And why would you be a target?

WITNESS:   I don't know.  You know, I thought about it, I mean another person - Ric was on the hit list, and there were a couple of names I didn't know.  Fatima Meer was on it, and a guy called Morgan Naidoo, and myself.   But I knew Morgan Naidoo was, he was a swimmer, and he was active in the movement for non-racial swimming competition, you see, and this is the sort of thing which would seriously irritate, you know, the sort of anti-Indian racist in this country, you know, and the fact that he wanted to get into the swimming pool almost naked with all our white ladies, you know, all that sort of Indian stuff would float off, it's the colour of turmeric and stick on all these women, you see, their breasts, and things.   And so that was the level of the racial hatred.   I mean - you know, and I was the only MK person who wasn't still in prison, or overseas, and was walking around at large.   My banning order had lapsed, the - my house arrest had lapsed after 10 years.  The police had their vengeance about that.   And if they had needed more vengeance, the security police, you know, they wouldn't have unbanned me.  So, I think it was some alone

MR DLAMINI: operator, perhaps the guy that Jan Turner mentioned, you know, who was  sort of freelancer  working with the security  police at that low level, who rather exceeded his own  mandate and struck a  blow on his own behalf, sort of it.  But I don't think I was a sufficient target for assassination, you see, there was nothing to assassinate me for.   I was burnt out case.    You know, after coming out prison, I mean, surveillance was such, you know, that one's life is totally supervised by the security police.

MR DLAMINI: Would you perhaps agree with me that it was merely because of the fact that you were a member of MK as well as a member of the SACP?

WITNESS:   Oh, it was MK, I think, in particular that would irritate them, you know, a terrorist, you know.

MR DLAMINI: Can you take us to the event in March 1979, where you were in the company of your wife and your son, Joe, what happened on that evening?

WITNESS:   Yes, we were at supper early in the evening.   There was a knock at the door.   I was sitting with my back to the wall in this diningroom and my wife was sitting at the other end of the table with her back to the door.   And in between was my son.   There was a knock at the door.   She, Maggie, my wife, got up and opened the door and there was this young man stark naked except for his underpants and smeared all over with what oil with a pistol in his hands, which he fired at me, and missed from five paces.   Well, I ducked a little and the bullet went straight through the wall, because it was a wood and iron house, and as I say, the walls inside were made of asbestos sheeting.  And he turned around - it was an amazing sight, because I have seen many things exploding in my time, but I have never been in front of something going off like that, and there was quite a beautiful circle of lace like smoke, you know, and he was gone, and I thought, well I said I would be such and such, made a dive for the shotgun, which Maggie had tidied up and put it in the bedroom.   By the time I got it he was away, but in rushed the young policeman from next door, called Mike, with he also nude, but for a bath towel around his waist, you see.   Now, I will backtrack a little bit and tell you what had happened.  This young fellow, Mike, the policeman, a very fastidious man and he had bought himself a very nice little used car, a Ford Escort, or something like that.   And that very day he had got himself a set of wheel trims for this car, and he and Wendy, the daughter, had spent the afternoon polishing this car, and he was taking a shower when the mother, Eunice, who was washing dishes in the kitchen and she looked out of the window and called to Mike, "Mike, somebody is stealing your wheel trims".   So, he rushed out from his shower with this towel around his waist into the back yard and there saw a car with all the lights off sort of slowly creeping down towards the back gate.  As I say, there was no gate on that entrance, creeping away, and there is one thing you should never do when there is any sort of policeman around and tiptoe about in a car with all the lights off.   So, he ran down after this thing on his bare feet and as he got to the gate the driver put on the brakes and there was the number illuminated, and he saw that this was a woman driving the car.   And at that point he heard the shot next door.   He

MR DLAMINI: came straight back, ran through this little gate between the two properties, and into our house, and there he was looking - and I was standing there with a shotgun in my hand and the guy had gone.

MR DLAMINI: There and then he phoned the Durban Traffic Police and within literally two or three minutes he had the name of the owner of the car, the address, everything, tuti.   And he then phoned somebody else, which I knew was a security police because he stood to attention as he said, "Ja, majoor", he was talking to some major, he was standing there all nude, and clearly this "majoor" had asked him where he was phoning from, because he blushed from the top of his head right down to his navel.   And said, "Well, I am phoning from just down the road", you know, he didn't want them to know he was phoning from my house, you see.   And so he reported first to the security police, which is interesting.

MR DLAMINI: Then he phoned the local charge office police office, Mayville, and then the blue lights came and the sirens and the police were in the house and there were reporters and measuring things and taking statements and all that, and cups of coffee.

MR DLAMINI: (END OF SIDE A)

MR DLAMINI: 4B/0 (START OF SIDE B)