Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

INTERPRETER: I would like to say we were lucky to continue living until this time to see the democratic time.  Now we have rights we mustn't forget people who died, men who died and children who died for this time.  We need to respect them, we need to have sympathy for those people who lost people along the way.  We need to respect those who fight for democracy and those who fought for peace and the truth.  We need to thank that we are over apartheid here in South Africa.  Thank you.

MR LYSTER: (Incomplete) ... the main or the icon events which took place in this region over the past 30 years, and I have no doubt that your document will become a valuable resource for the Commission.  We will have a short break now, 15 minutes maximum.  I am going to ask the Truth Commission staff just to briefly show the witnesses through that door there, and if everyone can stand up while they leave the room.  We'll just give them a quick cup of tea.  Immediately after tea we will start with the first witness of the day, being Mrs Christina Gabela and Sipho Gabela.

INTERPRETER: Please wait a moment.  May you please wait for the witnesses to go out.  Please be patient.  There's an announcement.

MR LYSTER: (Incomplete) ... into the foyer with them, and into the toilet, but not out the front door.

COMMISSIONER: Let me again ask you to make use of the earphones which have now been supplied.  We will not have a translation of the sort that we had where committee member, Mr Mdu Dlamini ... (incomplete)
CHRISTINA GABELA

INTERPRETER: (Incomplete) ... as well tell us about your son, Sipho Gabela, as well as his father who was killed in a shoot-out.  Can you just please give us a background as to your whole family.

WITNESS:   We were eight in my family, myself and the father, so there were 10 of us all in all.  Amongst the eight children Sipho is the fourth one.

INTERPRETER: What about the others before him?  What are they doing?  How old are they if you still can remember?

WITNESS:  The first one died, but he was ill.  The second one is working.  He is working in Germiston in the Health Department.  The third one is working at the Health Department also.  And then it's Sipho, the one who is sitting right next to me.  There's a daughter who is working for the Census Department.  The sixth one is a student at UNISA.  The seventh one is at Pietermaritzburg Technikon.  The eighth one is a girl and she is doing standard seven.  My husband died, I am the only one who's left.

INTERPRETER: We thank you for having been able to educate your children.  We know that Sipho got disturbed due to the harassment that he went through.  What is he doing now?

WITNESS:   He is a councillor.

INTERPRETER: Thank you very much, Mrs Gabela.  You are quite lucky that your children are serious with their studies.  Just relate to us as to what happened on the 7th of April 1986 where people came to knock at your house at night.

WITNESS:   We were sleeping then because it was very late at night.  Then we heard a loud knock.  It was quite a violent knock.  My husband was still alive at that time.  He asked as to who was knocking.  Somebody said, "Are you still asking as to who is knocking?"  Then they started kicking the doors, pushing them, and breaking the windows.  At that time we all woke up.  When you wake up in such confusion, when there's so much noise, there's so much violence, and the way they were knocking, the way they were kicking doors, breaking windows, the noise that was there was just unbearable.  My second son, whom I regard now as the first-born, wanted to go and open the door.  I refrained him from doing so.  We found that they had already tampered with the electricity.  When my children got to the door they held the door so that it doesn't get open.  I took the dressing table mirror, I put it on the window, the broken window.  Then my son went to the door to help my husband keep the door closed.  Then my son kept on going there and coming back again to me on the broken window.  Then he would realise that I am alive.  When I tried to lift my head up something hit me on the head.  This thing looks like a brick.  I don't know how to explain this.  It seems as if it was a brick mixed with something taken from the river, some sort of dung.  Then this little brick hit me and hit the machine, the sewing machine.  I then fell.  The power of the Lord kept me awake.  I felt as if something was just holding me so that I don't fall.  I believe it was the Lord who did this.  I woke up.  I was a little bit dizzy.  In the kitchen - the only window that wasn't broken was in the children's bedroom.  In the dining-room there was a studio couch, and one of my children was sleeping there.  He was sleeping on the couch together with a girl.  When we got to him he was just white, full of glass particles.  When this door now had shrunk.  Later on I got a brainwave, because the Lord does talk to you.  They said I must tell Gabela to open the door.  I went and told my husband to open the door.  My husband asked what on earth was I saying.  I told him to open the door.  I told him, "It's better one murder or  one corpse rather than us all die," because now they were saying that they were going to burn the house, and I could smell something burning because the windows were broken.  I could see somebody was having matches because the curtain now was torn.  I went to my husband and told him to open up.  "It's better that one person dies rather than all of us die inside the house."  I felt that I was sacrificing him, because they said they wanted Sipho.  Now, when my husband opened the door these people were armed to the teeth.  They also opened the dining-room door.  I saw Jerome Mncwabe coming in.  I saw him personally with my own eyes.

INTERPRETER: Who is Jerome Mncwabe?

WITNESS:   He was a member of Inkatha.

INTERPRETER: Was he the member of Inkatha who died now - who has now died?