Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pretoria — 1996-08-14

RUSSELL ALLY: And after these events, after your son's death did the ANC come to you and speak to you about your son, about what he was doing between ...

ELIZABETH MASEKO: They never came to my house.

RUSSELL ALLY: Since the ANC is back in the country you have not heard from them about your son, about his activities or
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where he had been all that time?

ELIZABETH MASEKO: I heard nothing from them.

RUSSELL ALLY: Now I want to ask you a question, Mama, which may seem a bit silly, but you said that these policemen used you phone from about one o' clock until about six o' clock in the morning, they were on your phone, using your phone and that that was it.

ELIZABETH MASEKO: Yes, it is so.

RUSSELL ALLY: They left you with all those phone bills as well.  They used your phone and that was ...

ELIZABETH MASEKO: Yes, it is so.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you Mama.

CHAIRPERSON: You know what amazes us is that people who have experienced this could actually laugh and come to terms with this.  We are very proud of people like you in that you never allowed all these difficulties to destroy your hearts and destroy your spirits and make you bitter, make you bear grudges in your hearts.  That is what we are very grateful for that a lot of people in our land who suffered great difficulty were people who saw that they want reconciliation, they want to reconcile with the perpetrators and they would like them to come forward and if they were to come forward and ask for their forgiveness they would forgive them and what it is so bad is that your child left without you even knowing and when the people came to your house without, that were rummaging through your house, they never showed you any respect as a woman and did not allow you to go and dress yourself and cover yourself.
 They, these are things that we would like to acknowledge that they happened so that we do not repeat them.  We do not want a repeat of such things in our land, 
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that anybody educated or uneducated, rich or poor should be a person known to be respected.  What is important that everyone should be respected and be equally important.  We thank you for being the type of person who was wise enough not to allow this to break you and not to break your spirit, to break your bones, but somebody that carried on with dignity and somebody that we can be proud of.  So we would like to say to you that God is the only one that can give you true solace and that could heal you and strengthen you so that even when you are in pain there is a part that makes us very proud of you because we know that our child contributed towards the price that we had to pay for our freedom which we are enjoying today because here we are today, we are enjoying democracy.  We thank you.

ELIZABETH MASEKO: We thank you too.  We thank you for the leader that we have today.  We thank you people very much because today we are here, we have come to establish what our children have, who killed our children and why because they have died all these years and we do not know why and we say that God must bless you.  Thank you.

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  This concludes the present hearings for this Pretoria sub-region of our region ...

DR BORAINE: For today.  We are continuing tomorrow.

CHAIRPERSON: For today.  You are continuing tomorrow.  We are continuing tomorrow.  These people are working very hard.  So we will resume at nine o' clock tomorrow, but I do not know.  I mean there are no witnesses.  I was going to say please stand, but we could stand.

MR MALAN: Just before you leave may I take the opportunity of thanking both the Archbishop and Dr Boraine for having
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come from Cape Town.  They have the need to be here, but we know what it takes for them to be all over the country and we really appreciate it.  Thank you very much and to you all that have attended today.
 Sorry, may I please ask you also to remember to leave the headsets, the phones that you have behind.  Thank you very much.
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