Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-07-07

MR SWART: I put it to you that you went on this raid with people in your group who you did not know what their affiliations were.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: Yes, that is correct.

MR SWART: And I put it to you that it is then difficult to say that you were going with a specific political purpose if you did not know who your accomplices were.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: As we were Comrades at the time you would not ask a person whether he was belonging to your organisation or not.  We would go as Comrades and we would not ask whether a person is a UDF, PAC, Inkatha or National Party, but we would be together, because these people would attend meetings and our gatherings.

MR SWART: So you took a tremendous risk, these people could have identified you afterwards?

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: Life is a risk itself.

MR SWART: And yet you did not shoot any of them.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: The ones I was with?

MR SWART: Yes.  They could also have identified you.  You did not know where they stood.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: This is a different case, because we were together with these people from the township and we went together to the farm.  It is difficult just to shoot at them, because we went together.  As we were running it would be difficult to think that this person would tell the police or would identify me.  We were just running.  What I would like to explain is that at the time when you went to the police and identify a person, in the township you would be labelled as an informer.  The community would label this person as an informer.

MR SWART: Now, by the same token, the domestic worker and the gardener were surely part of the oppressed rather than of the regime.  They were not your political opponents and yet you killed them.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: Yes, that was my statement.  It was very difficult for us to do this, because these people were also oppressed.  We wanted them to be liberated also, but this incident happened to them.  That is why I made amnesty to the Commission and I asked for forgiveness to the members of the family and Mr Siebrits's son and Mrs N Foster's son responded and he said that he accepted this.  He forgave me and the community in Mbekweni also forgave me.  Those were people we wanted them also to be liberated in this country, but it happened that they were shot and killed.  I was also sentenced.  I am not here to the Commission to ask for forgiveness, because I feel guilty.

MR SWART: On your evidence I fail to see why you make a distinction between the two people who you killed and the people who were with you who you did not know, because they could all identify you equally and that is the reason you gave for killing two, the two who happened to be at the house.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: Yes, they would also identify me, but the situation we were in at the time and the day of the incident, it did not allow me to shoot at my co-workers, because I thought that they would sell me out.  There is a difference.  We got there, we found people.  There was no resistance from my, the people that I was with.  Everything happened very quickly.  This is why I get confused as to what happened at the end, because we all ended up running away.  If these people were going to implicate me to the police, the people that I had gone with, and the community would find out that one of them had sold me out to the police, at the time informers were burnt to death or necklaced.  It was not up to me to shoot these people that I was with.

MR SWART: And likewise, I am sure, likewise the two deceased would have suffered the same fate if they had informed on you?

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: They did not stay at Mbekweni.  I do not know the political situation in their own community.

MR SWART: Did either of the deceased know you?

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: No, we did not know each other.

MR SWART: After the alarm was raised did you seen anybody approaching?

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: I cannot remember whether there was an alarm in that house.  I cannot remember, but when we ran away I saw a combi, a white one, as we were running away just on the road.  I do not know what happened to that combi, but I was just running away to get to Mbekweni.  I just wanted to disappear from the scene.

CHAIRPERSON: I think the alarm you are talking about was somebody who had shouted, beware, or words to that effect, is that not what?

MR SWART: That is correct Judge.  I simply meant once you had been told that there was trouble.

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: It is the lady that screamed.  However, I think that everybody else came later.  This was, the way the events took place was not planned.  Things just happened very quickly.

MR SWART: The evidence you give today differs in material respects from the evidence at your trial and, with leave of the Chairman, I would like to read you from the court passage the description of what, at the trial, was found to be what happened at the scene.

CHAIRPERSON: Which page you are.

MR SWART: I am on page 673 at G and H, Judge.
"One or more of the group went to the kitchen window and asked their domestic servant for water".

JUDGE WILSON: I think you should make it clear that this is not was said at the trial as I understand it.  The court here is quoting from a statement he made to a Magistrate which was admissible in evidence.

MR SWART: Yes, thank you Judge.  Yes, this is a statement you made which the court found to be what your, what had actually happened.  It says that,
"One or more of the group went to the kitchen window and asked their domestic servant for water.  She was in the act of handing a container through the window when, with some of the gang holding her, appellant shot her.  She slumped to the floor and he shot her again.  Other members of the group had in the meantime broken into the house".

CHAIRPERSON: Just afford him an opportunity to comment if you want him.

MR SWART: Now, Mr Maxam, this differs from what you said this morning.  You said she was shot when she started screaming.  Is that not correct?

PHILEMON KABILA MAXAM: I am glad that you have asked me this question, because this Truth and Reconciliation Commission that I am standing before, at court I was deceptive, because I was protecting myself from the system, from the police themselves.  To the Magistrate I was advised, by the same police that had arrested me, that I must not talk about politics at all in my defence, I must just say that I wanted money.  At the time I had no legal representation.  At the time I thought that I would even be taken from my cell and be killed by the police.  When I got the opportunity to come before this Commission last year and today and reveal the whole truth, because I believe that this Commission was not formed under segregation and oppression.  This is why you will find a discrepancy between my evidence to the Magistrate at the time and today.  You will even find that my statement changed from the trial with the Magistrate to the Supreme Court, because at the Supreme Court I had legal representation.

MR SWART: Now, Mr Maxam, I fail to see, these are basic facts I am putting to you.  It has got nothing to do with politics and I would like to establish which are the facts which this Commission should believe.  For example, here you say further then,
"She slumped to the floor".
That is after she was shot and you shot her again.  This morning your evidence was that you shot her, you entered the house, you did the search, then you came out and you shot her again.  What must the Commission believe?

CHAIRPERSON: I think his last answer seems to ...

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike is not on.

CHAIRPERSON: I think he would like us to believe that what he is saying now is what, is the truth.