Amnesty Hearings — Nelspruit — 1997-06-12

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: You must listen to my questions very carefully.  If you do not understand them you must tell me, because I have not asked you how many firearms you had, I asked you Joe was not supposed to attack the house.

DERICK SKOSANA: He was supposed to attack the house.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: But how could he attack the house if you leave him there where you left him?

DERICK SKOSANA: His job was to be on the lookout, not necessarily that he was supposed to throw the hand grenade.  His role was to be on the lookout.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Now, from where you are sitting how far would the house be where you had left him?  You have indicated that you have problems with metres, but I want you to refer to physical objects inside this room or, if necessary, outside the room.  If that distance means the distance from here to town you must say so.  If it means from here to the gate you must say so.  If it means from where you are to the cars outside you must say so.  How far was that house from the house which you attacked and please refer to physical objects inside or outside this room?

DERICK SKOSANA: A distance like from here where I am sitting and halfway to the gate.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Halfway to the gate.

DERICK SKOSANA: ... and there is a gate there and when you pass that gate a little bit.  In other words you go past the gate.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Which, which gate?  The gate at the main entrance or is there another gate before that one?

DERICK SKOSANA: Not at the main entrance, this gate here.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Tee, how far would that be if you know where that.

ADV TEE: I would think he is estimating approximately 40 metres, Mr Chair.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr Black.

MR BLACK: Yes, I understand he is referring to almost the gate at the car park and that I agree to be approximately about that.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Mr, by the way Mr who?

MR SHWAKANE: Shwakane.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Shwakane, do you go along with that estimation?

MR SHWAKANE: I am not too sure which gate they are referring to.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well, let us ...

MR SHWAKANE: I am aware of the gate, the main gate there.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well, let us ...

ADV DE JAGER: Could he point it out?  Yes.

ADV TEE: Perhaps if one refers to the car, where the cars are parked.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Alright, I will, let us, to save time, let us provisionally accept that is 40 metres.  During the adjournment you can take Mr Shwakane to that gate and he can ascertain the distance and if there are problems about that you will tell us.  Let us provisionally accept that is 40 metres.  Now, that, is that the place where you ran to after attacking the house?

DERICK SKOSANA: That is correct.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: When you say you left him at that house, which was about 40 metres away, what do you mean at, you left him at that house?  Did you leave him inside that house?  Did you leave him in the yard of that house?

DERICK SKOSANA: As I have explained before people were asleep in that house.  We were just taking a shortcut to the house where we were going to attack.  We did not leave him inside any house, it was in the yard outside.  People were asleep in that house where we left him.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: But was he inside the yard of that house?

DERICK SKOSANA: There is no gate in that house, but there is a passage, a shortcut which people usually use so we left him on that passage.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Now, if you left Mr Joe Nkuna at that house, as you say, what do you mean in paragraph 38, paragraph 38 when you say we stood at strategic positions around the house?  Are you excluding Joe Nkuna?

DERICK SKOSANA: Joe also occupied another position, because his position was to be on the lookout and oversee everything.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I understand that he might have taken a strategic position, but I want to know whether you include him around the house?  That is the gist of my question?

DERICK SKOSANA: No, he was not there.  He was there on that other side on that other house where we left him.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: So when you say we stood at strategic positions around the house and when we were all ready, Solly threw the two grenades through the bedroom of Mr Shabangu, Joe was not there?

DERICK SKOSANA: Yes, that is correct.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: You see the impression you give here, and you will remember I asked you questions around that point yesterday, the impression you give here is that Joe Nkuna was there too around that house and then that is why I got baffled when you indicated that he was somewhere nearby.

DERICK SKOSANA: Joe was not there on that house, the one that we attacked, but he was with us and he was part of the operation and I think my intention was to put it on that context that he was part of us.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Yes, I think, the reason why I am asking you these questions is that it is not being denied that Joe Nkuna was part of the operation and part of the planning, the dispute is around the question whether or not he was there at that house when the house was being attacked and he is saying that he was not there.  That is why I am asking you these questions.  Now, let me ask you something else.  You, yesterday you talked about Joe having to arrange transport to take you to the place where you were to lodge an attack.  Am I right?

DERICK SKOSANA: Yes, as I have explained yesterday, that Joe was the one who was supposed to organise the transport and we did not get that transport.  We walked there.  He was supposed to organise the transport, but he did not.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: That is why you launched the attack in the early hours of the morning, around one, two o' clock?

DERICK SKOSANA: We did not have a specific time as to when to lodge the attack.  Of course, Joe was supposed to organise the transport, but we decided that since he failed we should walk and at that time it was at about two am.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: What made you think that he failed to arrange transport?

DERICK SKOSANA: According to the initial arrangement we were supposed to go to all three targets and it was only going to be possible for us to launch these attacks if we have a transport.  Since we did not have a transport that is why we launched only one attack.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Well, maybe we do not understand one another.  Did you wait for transport to come?

DERICK SKOSANA: Joe was the one who was organising transport.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Did you wait for transport?

DERICK SKOSANA: He left us there where we were staying.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And then he left you for the purpose of going to arrange for transport.

DERICK SKOSANA: We had a specific day as to when we are going to attack so he was going to organise transport.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: I am going to interrupt you there.  You have just said to me Joe left you there to go and look for transport.  I am taking it from that point.  No, did he then, did he leave you there to go and organise transport?

DERICK SKOSANA: Yes.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: Did he leave the three of you there?

DERICK SKOSANA: Yes.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: And then ...

DERICK SKOSANA: he left us there, the three of us he went to organise the transport.

BERNARD MAKGABO NGOEPE: You waited for him and waited and waited for a long time?

DERICK SKOSANA: When he came back he told us that he failed, he could not get transportation so we decided to walk.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Skosana, you are obviously aware that both Conrad and Joe Nkuna insist that only one person had to be attacked and not three persons and that is only Mr Shabangu had to be attacked.  That was the arrangement that night or, yes, the night of the 11th of November.

DERICK SKOSANA: That is not true, three targets were supposed to be attacked.