Human Rights Violation Hearings — Queenstown — 1996-07-22

NM KAMATI: No, it is going to be, I am still on the floor, I want to continue with my story.  Then I feel some great pain whenever I mention the mortuary.  When we got
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there at the mortuary, we first met a policeman and made a 
plea together with my sister, that we should be allowed to identify someone.
 But because it was still closed in that mortuary, the court mortuary, he asked us to wait for a while until they opened.  And then when we turned, we saw some other women sitting and waiting.
 The most pain, the greatest pain ever is that, whilst we were sitting there, just before they opened, because the had asked us to sit closer there at the door step, we were sitting there, and we could see some blood dripping out of the mortuary to the place we were sitting into the drain and this really hurt me.
 Then we sat there until they opened.  Inside there it was also appalling and hurting, because there was a pool of blood.  That mortuary had been designed in a very bad way, there was also a smell, a nasty smell such that I felt dizzy because of the smell.
 Such that I told my sister that I was going to leave her there, even the blood was even greenish from rot, even when they asked us to identify, the corpses were laying flat on the floor with one corps on top of the other.
 The bodies were just naked, not even covered.  Their clothes had been dumped into a deep drum which I think this was done out of negligence or with intention to hide them.
 Then they asked us in and allowed us to identify the bodies and then we did and we could see the dead person with a bullet wound on his head.
 Then they gave us the transfer papers to the various mortuaries.  Then we did exactly that and went back home.
 On our way home, preparing, we had to prepare for the 
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vigils and the funerals, whilst people who were still with 
us, to or three days.  On the forth day we would see the police, the policemen coming.

MS MAYA: What did they want?  What did they say?

NM KAMATI: They would say they were looking for Thamsanqa Kamati, the one who was dead.

MS MAYA: And what did you say to them?

NM KAMATI: They had a paper and a ball pen with them, then I would say to them, Thamsanqa, but you have shot Thamsanqa dead.  Then they would say we are aware of that and then all the people we have shot, we have written their names down.
 Therefore they had come to make sure that he was dead, I think so, because they were saying they were shooting them and then writing their names down.
 In fact let me say, they would shoot him and then take him, then Siphiwo, this is the reason why I could not take Siphiwo to hospital, because they were going to arrest him.
 I just made means that he should get some treatment at home.  Then they came just before the funeral and there were crowds of people who had come to sympathise with us and they asked for him.
 They then went round to his shack and got Siphiwo there, Mbulelo Sheta who is my sister's son who were just resting and relaxing.
 Then they took both of them and this one was still swollen because they had shot him next to the eye and also on the leg and arm.

MS MAYA: ; Did they tell him where they were taking him to?

NM KAMATI: They went into the house and just cornered them and said "fuck off", get into the van only to find that QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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they were taking them to the showgrounds where they were 
beaten.  They had beaten Mbulelo and Siphiwo vigorously.

MS MAYA: ; What did they say they were beating them for?

NM KAMATI: They said he was going to die just like his brother, they also had some questions to ask them.
 He will say it on his own.  He was dressed in a white, in white pants, but when he came back, it was black from the beating.
 They were saying he should put on a black plastic bag so that he should suffocate and then he refused, which was the reason why he was beaten up.
 At two o'clock when he came back, having been taken in the morning, he was all by himself.  When we asked him where is the other one you went away with, then he said, I just saw when they were beating me, then taking him away in a car.
 Then we were in pain, until it was time for the night vigil and he was in great pain in his shack.
 Then at the end of the vigil there was a service then also a vigil for the comrades and he came in, swollen as he was and he was asked, what is the problem Siphiwo and then he explained that he had been taken away and then blindfolded and his hands were manacled together with his feet and they took him to a road to Tylden and they threw him there in an unknown place to him.
 He could feel that it was extremely hot as he was rolling, he even thought that there might have been a hole there, that's where they left him.
 Perhaps with intentions to come back and do something else.  Left there for the whole day, he could feel it was becoming cold and therefore it must have been sunset.
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 On the way he heard some footsteps of someone walking, 
only to find that it was one man perhaps a sheppard who came to his rescue and then he managed to go back home.
 Perhaps they could have come back to the place but couldn't find him.
 So he was in more pain once more until it was time for the funeral for us to bury the dead.  The funeral proceeded at the stadium.
 It was a really big funeral in a very big way.  There were many ministers, they had come in great numbers.  There was just literally everyone in our locality and from outside as well.
 But those people could not come out and leave their locality, because the policeman had blocked the gate of the cemetery so that people could not come out.  Even today I must thank the ministers of religion who were there, because they are the ones who made it possible for us to come out of the cemetery because they went there to plead that we should be allowed to go out and go home.
 Even we had permission to conduct this funeral.

MS MAYA: When this happened, where, how old was Thamsanqa and Siphiwo?

NM KAMATI: Thamsanqa was on his 20th year, because he was born on the 9th of November 1965 and Siphiwo was born on the 16th of November 1969.

MS MAYA: Were they still schooling at that time?

NM KAMATI: Yes, they were.

MS MAYA: After that, were there any of the policemen who were arrested or was there any investigation that was done?

NM KAMATI: No, nothing was done.  They were not arrested.
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MS MAYA: Are there any lawyers that were representing and
helping you at the time?

NM KAMATI: No, I don't know, but I don't remember us getting any lawyers.

MS MAYA: Up to now, you mean it has been quiet up to now?

NM KAMATI: Yes, it has been.  Now, here is the pain.  The ministers pleaded that we should be allowed to go out of the cemetery yard, so they agreed ultimately.
 As we were going out, it is only the family, the Kamati family that was chased.  When the Kombi that was transporting the family, a hippo chased us.  A helicopter also harassed us and second street from our home, a helicopter flew just about above us and their was a Kombi facing us on the other hand, and I was scared.
 I said to the driver then, whose name is Wonga Mgobata, who is my nephew, I said, just stop, that's the best you could do, so he did.

MS MAYA: When you stopped, what happened?