Human Rights Violation Hearings — Uitenhage — 1996-08-28

CHAIRPERSON: We welcome you, Mr Rawula.  We are now going to hand you over to Dr Mapule Ramashala.

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: (sworn states)

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Mr Rawula, you are here to tell us about your son, Zukile Rawula, am I correct?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: Yes, that is correct.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: That on the 28 May 1986, your son did not come back home?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: Yes, it is like that.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Could you go back to that day, and briefly outline for us what actually happened?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: On that day, they left as usual to join other youth in the area.  We waited until late at night.  There were three of them who took other cousins.  They came back and I asked them where he was, they said that they had left him there, and I could here that there was toy toying at Namashe, so I went to sleep, though I didn't sleep peacefully.
 In the morning, I woke up and went to work to Bisa, that is were I was getting training and the following day, I was approached by Mr Gomomo from Mabanhle in the company of other parents who informed that the children were in Livingstone hospital and we went there.  We found that some of them later died but mine was still alive.
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 Then I asked what had happened and he said that he had been shot on the head and here on the penis,  and he was there for three weeks and discharged.
 After that, he started having fits, and he took treatment from Dr Mazimba, who said that he could not be operated on because there was not expert to do it.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Who was Mr Gomomo?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: This was another comrade, living in Mabandla, because they were the ones who ran away.
 After he was discharged from hospital, he was working for Mita, but he was having fits.  Then when I asked him what had actually happened, he said they saw a group of people as they were patrolling, and these people were toyi- toying and they just heard gunshots and one fell and the others jumped and ran away.
 They thought these people were joking because they were dressed in the uniform of the South African Defence Force.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Have you ever witnesses one of these fits. If so, what actually happened?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: Yes, they would call me.  I would see him lying there with some froth in his mouth and then I would take him by car, sometimes he would even have this fit in my presence.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: What actually happened?  Was his body going rigid and shaking when he was having these fits?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: He would fall and jerk, whenever he would have an attack.
 After that, he worked for Mita, and I was working for Burnt Craft.  Then one day, when I was at work, I went back home, and there was a police van that came and they informed me that my son was in a mortuary in Port Elizabeth, and then UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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I asked them why.  They said that he had been shot and they had taken one right eye out and they had slit him here on the neck and this is what I observed as well.  When I went there, he had died, but I didn't actually see the wound, but I could the that there was a bullet wound.
 He was shot when he was on his way to Gawlayo to my brother.  He says that they came and then left and thereafter there was news that he was in one forest.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: ...(inaudible) 5 December 1987?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: Yes, it would seem.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: During the funeral, were there policemen there and were family harassed by the police?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: Yes, policemen used to come, mainly this Ama-Chaka.  They would harass us and they gave an order that we should not conduct the funeral there, we should conduct the funeral somewhere else.  Then I resisted, I said that my son was a comrade.  So as a result after all this, we had to conduct the funeral after three weeks.  Just at the beginning of the forth week.  These policemen did not actually beat him.  They wanted to escort us to the cemetery but I refused, and Mr Gomomo came to me and I told him, and then he said that no, he was not going to get any escorters as a comrade.
 One who had killed was a member of the Ama-Afrika because there was one that was picked up with him, and he was buried on the same day.  They took out knives and they went up and down the cemetery and I was in the car so that I should not get injured, so it was very difficult during that time of the funeral because these Ama-Afrika were patrolling, even in the cemetery.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Mr Rawula, we are asking you to relive a very UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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painful part of your life, with the hope that talking about it would also help make you feel better.  How have you been able to cope with this for all of this time?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: I suffer because of the tragic way that he died, because his throat was cut, his eye was taken out, like an animal and he had been working for me for 20 years.  This was really painful and one of the policemen in Port Elizabeth said that this person had been killed in a certain car, pointing at a certain car, and this really hurt me.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Mr Rawula, are you married?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: I was married and then my wife died, but I have a second wife now.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: What would you like to request for the Commission?

THEMBA FREDDIE RAWULA: I don't know, the Truth Commission will see because I had my son, who was my only son, so the truth Commission will see, and I will accept whatever they have to offer.

CHAIRPERSON: We thank you Mr Rawula, you can go back to your seat.