Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-03

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Though I cannot estimate in metres, I heard the car starting because it was not far from the ring where the car was parked.  That is why I could hear them starting the car and even when the car left I could hear that, though sometimes you cannot say for sure that this happened, but I could say that that was an E 20 engine and it was a car that we had seen for quite some time and it was in the evening and no one would go to road 16 during the night except for the police.

ADV DE JAGER: How far is road 16 from the bridge?  The bridge going to Chesterville.

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: I can say the bridge is at the entrance that goes to Chesterville and road 16 is the first road from the bridge.  I cannot estimate the metres, but it is not that far.  I think it's from here, it's a distance from here in this house to the second robot, it is not that far because the bridge and road 16, there is a graveyard in between the bridge and the road 16.

ADV DE JAGER: Thank you.

MR SIBANYONI: Stanley Dlamini was also in the shack and he also survived, am I correct?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Yes, that is correct.

MR SIBANYONI: Where is he today?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: He is working in the army but I don't know where, but it's not here around.  I'm not sure whether it is the Orange Free State.  I once tried to tell him about this Truth Commission Hearing but his mother did not welcome us.  I tried, I think he was also willing to come forward.

MR SIBANYONI: Mr Radebe said they were trying to arrest you and you people shot at them.  Is he correct in saying that?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: It was so easy for them to arrest us because I think as the people who were trained for the job, they had seen that we were not armed.  Secondly, they were armed.  Thirdly we were inside the house and they were at the door, it was so easy for them to arrest us if they wanted to, but their intention was to shoot us.

MR SIBANYONI: You said the bridge was about a robot away from this Session.  We are not very familiar with this place but could a person walk on foot from the bridge to the shack where the incident took place?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Yes, it was easy, it was very easy.  It was even safer to walk because you would go through the graveyard and you would get to road 16, that was very easy.  It was going to be easy to block the car, it was so easy to walk.

MR SIBANYONI: Lastly, Mr Radebe said there was a stage when Nomashosha and the other two constables walked up the hill to another house looking for Charles and then thereafter you returned to the shack, but I didn't hear you talking about that, did that happen?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: According to my understanding, some of the things happened before they could come to our place.  Firstly, the car had been there for quite some time and we decided, though we were suspecting the car, we decided to go and sleep.  They first went to the shebeen where they found Ray.  Perhaps Ray took them to some place to look for this Charles, because they came to us after some time and we were sleeping and we had seen the car some time ago.  I think it was after an hour after seeing this car outside.  It could have happened that at the shebeen there, as they were sitting there with Ray, something else happened until such time they went to wake up Sandile.  Perhaps Ray accompanied them to our place, I cannot say that did not happen, I do not know.

MR SIBANYONI: You said the car was parked next to a joint.  A joint - by joint you are referring to a shebeen, am I correct?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: That is correct.

MR SIBANYONI: Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

ADV DE JAGER: And this is not at the bridge?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: You cannot see the bridge from Road 16.  There's a graveyard separating the bridge and the street.  You cannot see the bridge unless you cut down the gum trees.

ADV DE JAGER: Did you at any stage maybe see another vehicle with this bus or had it just been the bus?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: I would be telling a lie.  I am saying, as we were still smoking cigarettes, myself, Russell and Stanley, just before we went to sleep, we also commented about this vehicle.  I am saying it was not easy to go through to the 16th road because it was unusual for us to see a vehicle in that road, except for police vehicles and we went to sleep as the car was still parked there.

CHAIRPERSON: You're saying that Ray was just somebody who stayed in a shebeen, slept in a shebeen?  He was not a comrade?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: I am not necessarily saying he stayed at a shebeen, I am saying he - Ray was from Chesterville but he spent most of his time at Ntuzuma.  At the time of the incident he had been around for a month or several days, so as a comrade we had a policy such as we should not spend time at shebeens, should not follow people that you don't know, everybody was a comrade at Chesterville, but there were those who were known to be active comrades.

CHAIRPERSON: So where did Ray fall in, what category?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: He was a comrade.  I am saying there were two groups, two or three, the police, the comrades and us.  He was on the side of the comrades.

CHAIRPERSON: But he wasn't an active comrade.  Then you drew another distinction, a further category.  You said everybody at Chesterville were comrades, but not everybody was an active comrade, is that right?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Yes, exactly.

CHAIRPERSON: Where did he fall in?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: He was an ordinary comrade among comrades in the township.

CHAIRPERSON: He didn't seem to follow the normal rules because he seemed to have been frequenting a shebeen?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Let me explain this.  He had a girlfriend at the shebeen, not that he spent most of his time there because whatever, I am saying he was not that active, the reason being possibly that he did not spend most of his time at Chesterville.  At Chesterville there was a time when one had to identify one's camaraderie at Chesterville.  He was an active soccer player, we liked him for that as well, but he was not so much active.  He sometimes, if not most of the time, spent his time at Ntuzuma.

CHAIRPERSON: So, and he wasn't really in the inner circle of the active comrades, in other words he wasn't really well aware of all of the main activities of the active comrades?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Yes, I think so, that is possible because as I am saying, he sometimes was out of Chesterville.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  And then it seems as if these people linked up with him first, it seems like they had gone to a shebeen, these attackers.

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: Yes, that's the first person that they came across.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: The second one was woken up by him when these people came.  Apparently these people went to the shebeen first and they found some few people at the shebeen, including Ray because when they came to us, they had been in the company of the other person who had been woken up.

CHAIRPERSON: And Sandile, the other person, was himself also not an active comrade but he stayed in road number 16, if I heard you correctly, where a lot of things were going on?

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: I would say Ray and Sandile's participation in comrade affairs was almost similar, except to say Sandile was a little older.  You see the comrade thing was very active, or very strong, among the youth, so that they were almost on the same par in terms of their activities of the comrades.

CHAIRPERSON: And did you gather that these attackers were trying to locate active comrades?