Human Rights Violation Hearings — Heiderveld — 1996-04-22

MR NGUDLE: [indistinct] kids what can happen, I am very poor with my children, I just want Looksmart's bones to come back so that we can bury them, we never got a chance to bury him and we not satisfied with that.  As we are sitting here we don't have a home.  My children are at school and it's very difficult for me because I am not even working.

MARY BURTON: How many children do you have at school.

MR NGUDLE: I have six kids right now.

MARY BURTON: I know that you said you felt that when you were called to appear in the Court, nobody had listened to what you had to say.  I hope that you feel that you've had a chance now to tell us who are here and that many other people who will be paying attention, who - that we are now listening to what you have to say. I am very happy.
 Thank you very much and thank you for coming to Cape Town for these hearings.  Would you like to stay there while your son now talks to us?

MR NGUDLE: Yes I would like him to say something.

MARY BURTON: Welcome Mr Ngudle, Dr Boraine will ask you to make the oath.

DR BORAINE: Mr Ngudle welcome, would you like to stand please.
SIYANDA HOWARD NGUDLE Duly sworn states

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much indeed you may be seated.

MARY BURTON: Please make yourself comfortable and take your time.  You were six years old at the time of your fathers arrest and I understand he was arrested in Cape Town, but you didn't hear until September - your family was then notified that he had died during his detention is that correct.   You were a young child and your mother had a small baby, would you like to tell us what you remember of that time.

MR NGUDLE: There are some things that I still remember, even thought I was still small.  I still remember the police coming in and when they arrived the grownup's all just screamed.  This was something - this was a very familiar scene that when a person has passed away people - people cry and this small ones would know that okay something has happened.  
Then we heard okay my father has passed away.  When we heard that he has passed away, we expected that okay there will be a funeral as usual when a person has passed away.  But in this case what surprised us was the - the coming in of white men, especially at night - they had absolutely no respect.  And we all had to run away and run away - and run from them.  As my mother has said, that during the escapes my grandmother got injured.
I remember that my mother when she left for Pretoria, to the Court proceedings, that time we were at home living with my grandmother.  We were waiting - waiting that my mother would come back then we would hear what was going on in Pretoria.  We kept on hearing from the people that my father was killed by the boers even though we were small, we did not really know what exactly what was going on.  As we grew up, we kept on hearing how people are being treated even at home as we had grew up my mother kept on telling us that inn - during the inquest, they were told that my father had - had hanged himself, even in the inquest nobody was - nobody was found responsible for it.
The lawyers were looking for witnesses but now the witness were prevented from coming up.  One of the witnesses would be mentioned, and it was Tlale  who was with my father in the cell that time.  It looks as if when my mother was coming - my father was coming back, he was given food by Mr Tlale  but he refused the food and his last words was this electrical shock has really injured me.
That is now why - that is now why that the people didn't believe that he hanged himself.  We - since then we've been trying to find out the truth hoping that one day we will know the exact story because we didn't believe anything about the hanging.  There is one thing that we know at home that he loved us a lot.  So is that when he came back from work, we had just a little time to go out an play, he would be with us throughout me an my bigger brother.  I use to - he use to teach us the reversional?? songs.
Now we are very sure that he use to love us.  At the same time we knew that he loved the struggle, he was living for the struggle of the people.  That is why we believe that he gave up everything that he loved, such like - such as his family, he gave up his family and his own life.  We do not believe that he killed himself because of his love that we all know and to the whole nation.

MARY BURTON: Thank you Mr Ngudle - do you know whether - you mentioned Mr Tlale whether he is still available, would he be able to give evidence about what he saw?

MR NGUDLE: I have no knowledge about that, Ms [indistinct] Bunting as I usually hear about her, she tried to look for him, he tried to meet with some comrades in Gauteng.  But as far as I know she never - she never found him.  But in December as a person who was - always looking for the truth, when I was in Parliament, I met the Secretary General of the Senate, Mr Govan Mbeki  he told me how my father died.
During the time they were in Prison in Pretoria.  He told me that my father was tortured before he died, he told him in person that the boers were torturing him.  So Mr Mbeki says that day when my father told him this, and the following day he was told that my father had passed away.  Now that gives us evidence that my father was killed.

MARY BURTON: [Inaudible] will certainly pursue  every evidence that we can find to get to the truth of this story.  Is there something else you would like to say?

MR NGUDLE: I went to school after a long period, not going to work, because I have been a student all along under very-very difficult situations.  Such that in 1981, I had to start working in East London, even there I didn't get a permanent job I've been in and out of jobs.  In 1985 I never worked again after 1985 for seven years.
And in 1991 I discovered an advertisement from New Nation where they will - where  Khanya  College was inviting applications from students who want to enrol there and I was also lucky to be one of the students to be accepted at Khanya College.  That is now how I started to study because there it was - education there was free.  When - after I passed there I went to the University of Cape Town, I finished my degree last year.
This year I am busy with my Diploma, but now because of the pressure that I am getting from my mother who is not working, I am now forced to drop out from school, there is one of our - of my siblings who's in the college at the moment.
No-one else is working at the moment.  We are all depending on my mother's pension.  And now he - she can not afford all of us now.  Now this is why now I have to drop out and help her.  As she had said that - seeing that we didn't bury our father we would  really like to have a proper funeral just like everybody else.  But we don't really have the power to do that and the means to do that.  We would really like that if there is a way to be helped in that regard.  We would also like to be helped that - to ask that if - if the Commission can help us with the - with my siblings who are still at school.
Because now we believe that if my father was still alive, we would of been brought up just like all the other kids and got all the other privileges just like every other child who was loved by his father.

MARY BURTON: We have certainly have been taking note of all of those things.  I understand that one of the witnesses who told you of your father during the time that he was in prison was a comrade of his Mr Christmas Tinto, now Senator Tinto.  And I believe that Senator Tinto is also willing to corroborate the evidence is that correct?