Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1996-07-04

WITNESS: My nameis Mrs Mohali. I come from Rockland. When I start relating this story of Bokkie.Bokkie's my son. He was at high school. At all times when he was still at schoolthe police used to come and trouble him at home. They used to arrest him andsay he's an ANC member. And at some stage it happened that he was arrested whenhe was with Christopher. They arrested him and they kept him in a flat, andat times he would come back and at times I would run after him. Thereafter in1978 Bokkie skipped the country. I didn't even know that he had skipped thecountry. I looked for him. I even went to the charge office to go and tell themthat my son has disappeared and I don't know where he's gone to. It was on aFriday. The following Monday a policeman came to my house. The policeman wasfrom the Special Branch. Then he came to tell us that my son had skipped thecountry. As we were still sitting, not knowing where our children are, theytold us that our children had gone to West Germany, only to find that they werenot in West Germany, they were in Lesotho. From there they came and told usthat we must go to Lesotho to look for our children in Lesotho, and we mustcome back with them. They made special passports for us and we went to Lesotho.When we got to Lesotho we found them in a camp. There was nobody at that camp.When we told them that the police had told us to bring them with they told usthat they cannot come back to South Africa because the policemen were assaultingthem and were troubling them, so they were not prepared to come back home. Aswe were still there he attended the school at Lesotho. When he finished hismatric they said he had got a scholarship. I didn't even know where this scholarship was.He was still in Lesotho. We stayed without them, and on a certain day we wentto Lesotho once more. He phoned, he said the Maseru Cafe. He said I will getthem at the Maseru Cafe. Then he told me that he was still in Tanzania. Thenhe came back home. Thereafter the police since 1978 never stopped troublingus. They would wake up in the morning, kick the doors. When they get into thehouse they would cause confusion, break everything. We didn't know what theywanted. They didn't even want to see Mr Mohali. That is when I opened up a case,because I realised that they were going to kill my husband so I took it uponmyself to continue with the case. From there in 1986 there came another ladyby the name of Ma Stilo, Ginelwe Stilo. When she got me at home she said tome, "Bokkie has died." I was surprised as to where was Bokkie when he died.She told me that he died in Thaba Nchu. I asked her what had killed him. Shetold me it's the Thaba Nchu police who killed my son. I went to Thaba Nchu.When I got to Thaba Nchu I asked at the charge office in Thaba Nchu as to whowas killed. They told me it was a terrorist from Lesotho. They further toldme that I should come on the following Monday. I asked them where my son haddied. They told me about the Thaba Nchu location by the name of Ramahale. Iwent to Ramahale. I asked this lady as to where does the person come from whodied. She told me that it was Steve's friend. Steve Bonganchu is my friend.Then they said he dumped - he left them and he said he was going to pick themup later on. Thereafter I told her that according to my knowledge that was mychild, and as I am speaking you must look at this person because he looks exactly like me, he is my son.On a Monday I went back to the Thaba Nchu charge office to ask them about myson. I met with Captain Buckall. Captain Buckall is an Afrikaner and he shoutedat me. He kept on telling me that I shouldn't come and ask him about murderers,I must go out of the office. I was very surprised as to what he meant. I didn'tknow what to do. I went out of the charge office. As I was going out of thecharge office I went to Mr Motsabe. When I got to Mr Motsabe I told him thatMr Buckall had chased me out and told me that that wasn't my son, it was a terroristfrom wherever he came from. I went back to where he had died. When I got towhere he had died they told me that he was in the house and somebody came andtold him that he must stay right there. The people who must come and fetch him,that is the ANC people, will be there. Then he remained there. As he was stillsleeping, according to the way the son of that house was telling us, he saida man arrived in a car and told him to just stay there because they were comingto fetch him. Only a few moments thereafter two cars came. Then he said, "Hereare the two cars that have come to fetch you." When he got there it wasn't twocars, it was many cars that had come. When he tried to escape through the backdoor there were more cars with white people inside, and most of them were Ladybrandcars having Ladybrand registrations, as well as Bophutatswana cars. At thattime when he tried to escape they shot him, and he rolled and rolled on thefloor until such time that he got into the toilet of the back opposite house.When he got in there they came and finished him off right inside the toilet.They shot him, but he managed to get out still. As he was going out they threw himwith a bomb, and the bomb exploded. When this bomb exploded he was in tatters.That is from the chest, the arms. He looked very terrible. At that time I wentback to the police when I heard this message. I told the police that may theyplease give me the corpse so that I can go bury my own son. They never everwanted to talk to me, they didn't even want to give me the corpse. They didn'teven know that I knew about the corpse, I had already heard as to what had happened.They refused to give me my son's corpse. I went there several times seeing myson's corpse. I couldn't get my corpse. Mr Motsabe said to me he is goingto get me an attorney. He went to Mr Kittens. Mr Kittens gave me his partner,who was Mr Holtshausen. Mr Holtshausen took me or went with me. We went to ThabaNchu. When we got there I actually showed him that, "There's the man who killedmy son. It is Mr Buckall." When we got to Mr Buckall Mr Holtshausen toldhim who he is and where he comes from. He actually chased him out of the officeand said he didn't want to speak to him. He chased him out of the office. Thereafterwe went with Mr Holtshausen to where my son had died to go and fetch some statements.We wrote the statements then came back. As we were coming back towards home- I stayed, I believe two days or three days - my cousin came to me and saidto me we should go right away. She has had news that the corpse - my cousinis Doreen Sibuko. When Doreen got to me she told me that they say the corpseis in Moroka Hospital. We went to Moroka Hospital to get the corpse. When wegot to the hospital we met with the sister in charge. We asked her as to whether they did have an unknown corpse. She said yes,they do. We asked her as to where he is the one who was killed by the police.She said yes. She said we should wait, she is going to speak to the superintendent,because the superintendent had given orders that if anyone comes to look forthe corpse they should wait until they talk to him. For about an hour waitingfor this sister. It was quite a long time, it could have been more than an hour.When the sister came back she was very hurt. Apparently she was not supposedto have told us that the corpse was there, and probably she was going to loseher job. She told us to go to the superintendent's office because the superintendentwanted to see us. We went out to the superintendent. When we got to him thesuperintendent told us that he is very sorry about us and the corpse, becausethat corpse wasn't my son's it was a YB's corpse. They were controlling it andthey had actually taken it. I told him that the sister had told us that therewas a corpse. He actually denied and said no, they had taken the corpse. Wewere very surprised as to the contrasts. We went out crying, very confused,not knowing what to do. I told Mr Motsabe. Mr Motsabe sent us to Red Cross sothat we may find the corpse. When Mr Motsabe came the Red Cross peoplethey took the case. They took it to the Thaba Nchu Police Station. They wentthere personally. They were told to go to the Bophutatswana headquarters. Whenthey were supposed to go there it was when they were told to go out to SouthAfrica because they didn't know what had happened to the corpse. I stayed. Lastyear we were told to wipe or take people who had died out of the house permits.Now I had a house where he had grown up. When I went to look for the death certificatefrom the ANC offices I was supposed to take it to the court. The Court saidthey don't want that death certificate, they want a real death certificate asto where the child had died. When I came from the ANC offices I went to ThabaNchu. From Thaba Nchu I told them that I am seeking my son's death certificate,and at Thaba Nchu they gave me a death certificate of unknown corpse. They didn'twrite anything. They even gave me a grave number as to where the child had beenburied. I brought it with. When I got to court the Court couldn't accept. Theyfurther sent me back and said they must make a proper death certificate, nota death certificate that have got a lot of unknown, unknown information. Thereafteran MK member, Blackie, had helped me to obtain the first death certificate thathad unknowns. Now, when I couldn't get it I kept on going back to Mr Motsabe.When I went to Mr Motsabe I told him that they had given me the death certificateat Thaba Nchu by Captain Mokubi. They had given me that death certificate aswell as the grave number. He said to me he will look for Colonel Erasmus, whowould go there, and I told him that I had told Captain Mokubi as to why he gaveme such a certificate because my son had a file there, and I had seen the file.When we got to Colonel Erasmus he took us to Thaba Nchu, where I wanted to showhim my son's file. And they refused to show me the photos as well as the post-mortemreport. The colonel went up and down with me. We even went to the grave. Whenwe got to the grave that grave had its own owner. It was written Maria Selamoni.It wasn't my son's grave. The colonel went back to look for the file but he couldn't get hold of the file. He left me and he told me thatBuckall is in Bethuli, so we must go and look for him in Bethuli. When we gotto Bethuli Buckall was shown where the file is and he came out with the file.Mr Motsabe said we should just leave the file as is, they'll see aboutit at the Truth Commission. I never knew where my son's grave was. I don't knowwhere his death certificate is. I don't have it in my possession.