Human Rights Violation Hearings — Tembisa — 1996-11-27

MS SEROKE: And that's when you decided not to go to the police?

MR MADEBE: How can I report this to the police because they are the killers? How would I report this matter?

MS SEROKE: People who died in this shooting, what was done with their bodies?
I don't know who took these dead bodies, maybe it is the policemen but we just saw that the bodies were taken away, had disappeared.

MS SEROKE: Do you know Lenon Nondlala at the hostel, wasn't he a resident there?

MR MADEBE: No I don't know him. We wouldn't know each other because we came from different places.

MS SEROKE: But most of you came from the rural areas?

MR MADEBE: Yes it is so.

MS SEROKE: Where were you injured, where in your body?

MR MADEBE: There was only one wound in my right arm.  The bullet just went through.

MS SEROKE: Who shot you, a policeman or a black person who is not a policeman?

MR MADEBE: I can never say whether it was a black or a white man but we were just running away from these bullets, but unfortunately we were shot.

MS SEROKE: To which hospital did you go?

MR MADEBE: I stayed there of two months at the hospital.
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MS SEROKE: Were you working at the time?

MR MADEBE: No I was not working at the time.  I stopped working on the 7th of May.

MS SEROKE: After having sustained these injuries, when you met your friends, didn't they know what the reason was for this fight as you discussed it as friends?

MR MADEBE: I wouldn't know because it became very clear that it is Inkatha and the policemen and the soldiers that were killing the Xhosas.

MS SEROKE: Did the soldiers and the policemen come into the hostel with their vans?

MR MADEBE: They were rounding all over the place when these Zulus come and they would shoot anybody.

MS SEROKE: Those who sustained injuries, including yourselves, did you decide to go and get an attorney?

MR MADEBE: No we never did.  Because we didn't know what to do, because we didn't even know where we'd be able to find a lawyer because the whole country was in that state.

MS SEROKE: Are you working at the moment.

MR MADEBE: No I'm not.

MS SEROKE: Since then?

MR MADEBE: Yes.

MS SEROKE: How do you survive?

MR MADEBE: I'm getting part time jobs.

CHAIRPERSON: We thank you very much Sir, I will ask my colleagues here to ask any questions, Yasmin Sooka?

YASMINE SOOKA: Mr Makolotla, where did you come from before you lived in the hostel?

MR MADEBE: Are you talking about back home where I come from?

YASMINE SOOKA: Yes please.
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MR MADEBE: I come from Umtata.

YASMINE SOOKA: How many years have you been living in Vusumuzi Hostel?

MR MADEBE: I think two to three years.

YASMINE SOOKA: How many people were there from Umtata in this hostel?

MR MADEBE: There were many people but I wouldn't know because we were not staying in the same rooms but I didn't know how many people from Umtata exactly were there in the hostel.

YASMINE SOOKA: Was there an equal amount of Xhosa speaking people and Zulu speaking people or was the one group bigger than the other?

MR MADEBE: I would not know, because you can never count people to say exactly how many but we were many people at that hostel.

YASMINE SOOKA: More or less what was the number?

MR MADEBE: You can never know how many people stay in a hostel.

YASMINE SOOKA: Where were you working at the time you were living in the hostel?

MR MADEBE: I was working in a Spartan.

YASMINE SOOKA: Before this incident, had there been trouble between the Xhosas and Zulu speaking people in the hostel?

MR MADEBE: There was no problem between the two groups. We were united but we didn't know that they had such thoughts about us. These just erupted from nowhere.

YASMINE SOOKA: Why do you think it just erupted like that?

MR MADEBE: That is what I don't know, I want to know till today.

YASMINE SOOKA: After this incident when you had been shot and TEMBISA  HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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the other people killed that particular day, were there still Xhosa people living in that hostel, or were all of them now out of the hostel?

MR MADEBE: They started moving away the same day, the Xhosas because they were running away because they were being shot by these policemen assisting these Zulus.

YASMINE SOOKA: The previous witness mentioned that her son has told her that the police were taking the arms away from the Xhosa speaking people but that they left the Zulu people with their weapons.  Do you know anything about that?

MR MADEBE: I wouldn't know regarding that because I was never disarmed at any stage because I never had any arms, but I did see that the Xhosas were disarmed but not from the Zulus.

YASMINE SOOKA: And was it your impression that the police were assisting the Zulu speaking people to shoot at the Xhosas or were they just standing by and not interfering in the matter at all?

MR MADEBE: They were not standing by and watching. They were killing, as we see, they were just killing.

YASMINE SOOKA: Did they have their uniforms on?

MR MADEBE: Yes they had their uniforms on, the police.
Those police, they were moving with their Caspers and vans.

YASMINE SOOKA: What was the colour of the Casper?

MR MADEBE: Some are yellow, some are grey. And helicopters with police in them.

YASMINE SOOKA: How long did this last, was it one day two days?

MR MADEBE: It went on for a long time.  It started in
1990 up until 1991, the same thing carrying on, these people would come daily and kill people, they would kill different numbers, seven or two or one at a time, doing the same thing TEMBISA  HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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every day. They even came to the informal settlements and burned down shacks there as well.  They shot even a small child of which I think is the previous witnesses child.  Fur people died in the open field and one was an albino, killed by the same police on the same night.

YASMINE SOOKA: On that day when you were injured, how many people had been killed?

MR MADEBE: On that day six people died and twelve were injured.

YASMINE SOOKA: Did you report the matter to the police?

MR MADEBE: Report to the police?

YASMINE SOOKA: Was there any enquiry after this?

MR MADEBE: There was no inquest about this.

YASMINE SOOKA: And where did the people who lived in Vusumuzi Hostel go to then after this had happened?

MR MADEBE: Some were staying in the field and some were staying in the settlement called Nqlewini, which is shacks and some ran to Western Side.

YASMINE SOOKA: At this point in time, is there still trouble between the people in the hostel and the other residents at Tembisa?

MR MADEBE: I didn't hear that clearly.

YASMINE SOOKA: I was saying, today, now after the Elections, is there still trouble between the people of the hostel and the people in Tembisa?

MR MADEBE: At the moment there are no signs of violence. That was the last time.

YASMINE SOOKA: And did any of the Xhosa speaking people move back into the hostel?

MR MADEBE: I would not know but I would never go back to that place.  It is not a place where a man would go, but I TEMBISA  HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
 
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would not go personally.

YASMINE SOOKA: When you mentioned to the other Commissioner that at the time you were staying in the hostel, you were not a member of any political party but that now you are a member of the ANC.  When did that happen?

MR MADEBE: I've just joined the ANC.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: We thank you very much Sir. If I can just ask you one question, when you gave your statement, was there anything that you wish the Commission could do for you, can you tell us briefly if there is any?

MR MADEBE: I didn't have any expectations but it's just that my arm at the moment is not functioning properly.  Sometimes it's numb.  I cannot use my arm like before. Even now my arms are not equal in length.