Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-05-08

WITNESS:   The ANC sent a delegation to say - what they told us at that time was that - they said, "Jackie's not one of ours, but she has been sympathetic and we have loved her, and we would like to bury her with Joe."  And we didn't want to take her away so we allowed that.  She was - they were buried 10 days later because they wanted to make a State thing of it, so we were advised not to stay in Maseru.  We went back to our farm with our family, and friends took us to Maseru for the funeral.  But at the border post people were incredibly obstructive and they wouldn't allow us through.

MR LYSTER: Was that going back into South Africa?

WITNESS:   No, I am sorry, this was when we went back for the funeral.

MR LYSTER: Oh, when you went back for the funeral.

WITNESS:   Ja, the South African side.  They appeared to be wilfully obstructing us.  We had to wait for well over an hour before we could get through, and we got to the funeral very late.  We didn't really know what was happening, we just went wherever we were told.

MR LYSTER: And have you ever had any follow up in any way from any member of the Government, the then Government, or the army, or were you ever given an explanation as to what had happened, or why it had happened?

WITNESS:   No.  No.  There was a coup in Lesotho just after that, which meant everything went into chaos, I presume.  But we felt we knew who'd done it, and we never wanted to see the people themselves, so there didn't seem any point in investigating it.  We wouldn't have known how.

MR LYSTER: Do you want the Commission to take this further, to investigate why this happened, why those people were killed?

WITNESS:   We'd certainly like to hear who the higher-ups are who gave those orders, and I think they should be exposed.  I mean we can - you know, they must be exposed and find out - not the people that did it, but there must have been somebody in the Government that knew the implications of the whole thing. Is there anything else that you'd like to say to the Commission?  Your granddaughter, Phoenix, now lives with your other daughter, Deborah, is that right?   ---   Yes, and she's been brought up to know the whole story and to accept it.  And we really would like to thank the Commission for this from - I think from all the victims.  Richard, I'd quite like a chance to read the statement.

MR LYSTER: Yes.   Yes, certainly.  What we normally do is we ask any of the other Commissioners or committee members if they would like to ask any questions, but perhaps we should reserve that until you've read your statement.

WITNESS:   Okay.

MR LYSTER: And then if there are any necessary questions just to elicit information we might ask a couple more.

WITNESS:   All right.

MR LYSTER: Thanks.

WITNESS:   I'd prefer to read it, I think.

MR LYSTER: Ja, that's fine.

WITNESS:   I feel clearer.

MR LYSTER: "In December 1985 I was 26 years old.  My older sister, Jackie Quinn, was 30 years old, married to Leon Meyer, known as Joe.  She was teaching high school in Maseru and the mother of a one-year-old baby, Phoenix.  Two days after Phoenix's first baby the family were at home together, obviously preparing for Christmas in a week's time, because the present Jackie was making for Phoenix was at the sewing machine.  In the middle of the night, under cover of darkness, disguised, camouflaged men with silencers on their guns burst into Jackie's home and murdered her, an unarmed, defenceless woman in the supposed

MR LYSTER: /"sanctuary

MR LYSTER: "sanctuary of her home.  They murdered Joe too, who survived long enough to drag himself to the neighbours and tell them what had happened.  They left 12-month-old Phoenix traumatised and alone with her dead mother in their home, splattered with blood all over the place.  It was disgusting, brutal, deceitful, treacherous, cold-blooded murder.  Jackie was where she was at that time of her life because of who she was.  At school she was head girl in her matric year and a Rotary scholar the year after.  She got a BA with African languages at UCT, teaching in the mountains in Lesotho between and after her studies.   At the time of her death she was already a very clear thinker, with an innate sense of right.  She was also supremely happy because she had her baby daughter, Phoenix.  Jackie was a person who lived according to her conscience.  She fully and determinedly, in a way that added good into the world, very clearly against all that was bad and negative and prejudiced.  So now I am 36, Phoenix is an 11-year-old orphan.  My parents are living the rest of their lives without their bright star of a daughter, and Jackie never got past 30.  But the people who decided to extinguish her vital life, and that of Joe, and the seven others in Maseru, through ordering her death, or through firing their bullets into her, are still carrying on their lives.  These people

MR LYSTER: /"are

MR LYSTER: "are presumably accepted by family, friends and work associates.  Their diabolical and cowardly actions even earned them silver medals for bravery at a Vlakplaas ceremony, of all the hideously ironical things, and they might even be proud of them.  Just how sick is our society that we accept among us murderers, takers of other human beings' lives?  We need to know who these people are, from the top of the chain of command to the people at the bottom who carried out the murderous act.  They must be branded for what they are, murderers.  This is difficult to say, but in my heart of hearts I'd like to see them forever in a cage, where people could spew their disgust of such creatures on them.  I want our society to redevelop the moral attitude that to kill another human being is a totally and absolutely unacceptable sin.  I don't care what they've been through in their lives, what they'd been taught as children to believe, etcetera.  They were adults who murdered my sister.  They made their own choices, and like every other human being they had a duty to be awake, conscious people, striving to be something better than bestial animals.  Why else do they have life?  And I want our country to be a place that never again allows people to damage the lives of others, especially not because of their colour or because of their living belief in justice

MR LYSTER: /"and

MR LYSTER: "and goodness, which is ultimately the reason why Jackie herself was killed."

MR LYSTER: Thanks.

MR LYSTER: Thank you very much, Jane.  Are there any questions which any of the other Commissioners would like to ask?

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Miss Quinn, we are concerned about Phoenix.  How is she doing?

WITNESS:   Phoenix has been brought up by my sister, Deborah, and her husband, Martin.  She's here in the audience now.  She's always known what amazing people her parents are, the circumstances under which they died, and she is luckily a very well-adjusted child, obviously though carrying the sadness of what her history is.  But she is a happy girl.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Thank you.

KHOZA MGOJO: Thank you, Miss Quinn.  As a member of the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee we always want to know what we can do.  For instance you have just mentioned a young girl who was left as an orphan.  What do you think we can do as the Reparation Committee?  Any suggestion maybe from the family?

WITNESS:   I would just like some sort of memorial so that their story is not forgotten.  I want people to remember why they died.   ---   I would very much like to have the people exposed.  I think that's the main thing.  There's nothing we can do about it now, but it would be nice to know who perpetrated these deeds.