Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pollsmoor — 1996-11-27

MR BATEMAN: Sure I was the Cape Times  crime reporter at the time and arrived on March the 3rd  arrived at the Thomas Boydell Police headquarters, for the daily 9 am crime conference.   The briefing room was deserted, there was nobody there.  And I concluded that either they had a quick conference or something major had happened.  The latter was the case, I soon discovered,  so I went out to where I discovered the incident had happened, to Guguletu, outside the Dairy Belle hostel.
And there I found a cordoned off scene with a Casspir in the middle.  I think the police had roped it off, whatever it was, it was a cordoned off scene and the crowd had gathered around.  I am uncertain as to whether there was still bodies on the road - in the course of my reporting duties we have seen lots of bodies - I cannot remember.  I seem to remember the in fact they were cleaning up the blood on the road at the time I arrived.
I saw, I found Lieutenant  Attie Loubser, who was the Police liaison officer at the time on the scene and went up to him and said - Attie what happened?  And he said, sorry, you going to have to talk to Pretoria on this one.  So I said, come on, it is a local event.  And he was adamant that we would have to d to get our information from Pretoria which is partly what subsequently happened.
The police lifted the cordon and we were kept back.  They lifted the cordon and they withdrew.  The crowd was fairly hostile, but peaceful and I looked around and the most obvious place to find eyewitnesses seemed to be in the Dairy Belle hostel, because it was over looking the actual scene, so I went in.  I was reminded when, in spite I was testifying now, that in fact, I did speak to the security guy first who pointed me to where I subsequently - I think I first I found Bowers Mazonke, who isn't here today.  And he gave me a version of events, about a shoot-out between the police and a group of men.
And then I went upstairs, as I remember, and in one of the dormitories - and it was a while back, you have to forgive me for perhaps being imprecise.  I think it was Cecil Mthutu who I saw first and he described the tail end of the shoot out, in which opposite the dormitory we were in, under a gum tree, police had walked up to a guy - to one of the people they had shot and had in fact fired a bullet into him.  While he was per strayed on the ground.
Then there was a separate incident and as I remember, this was General Sibaca who told me this - that there was a guy who either came out from the bushes or was near the bushes at another spot on the other side of the road - as I remember.  And police had walked up to him, confronted him, again I was reminded about the kneeing  and the belly and the kicking beforehand.  I had in fact forgotten that detail.
And the policeman opposite them, sort of turned around and looked for some kind of confirmation which he got from a - I imagine a senior officer.  This is General's relation  of events to me and he turned back around and then shot this guy at virtual point blank range.
I was struck by the similarity of the versions between Bowers  Mazonke who spoke about the gum tree incident and Cecil Mthutu and General Sibaca.   And I remember saying to them, I spoke in Xhosa to them, or Xhosa/Zulu.  I can speak first language Zulu, that this is quite a serious offense.  You realize what you are saying?  What you are saying has great implications and they were adamant that in fact that is what has happened.
So, I went back to the office, subsequently found out that the policeman who were involved in the shooting were available and at, because we were getting nothing from Pretoria of any precision or any detail.   Bishop Lavis police station - as I remember, we went to a police station, it may well have been Bishop Lavis.  Where I in fact interviewed the policeman who were involved in the actual shoot out.  And they gave me their version of events.
The editor that night at conference,  questioned me quite closely.  It was Tony Heard and decided that we would run with the stories.  And we ran - as I remember across the strap - the top of the front page was - man with hands in air shot gun down - words of that affect.  And then the body of the paper - the lead story was in fact the version as was given by the policeman involved in the story.  
A couple of days later a  general, not  a general, he was a Major Mostert - whom I knew from my crime reporting duties came into the newsroom and put an affidavit of sorts in front of me and I think a similar one to Tony Weaver, my colleague.  It  said in a very sort of   [indistinct]  fashion - Chris, just sign this and this will be all over and it will be sorted out and I  politely declined.
And we - and we then got our lawyers involved.  And what followed was a - what I didn't realize - the police had already got to Sibaca at that stage and we then - with the help of the late Tian van der Merwe, who was an MP - tracked down an advocate.  The three witnesses to give an affidavit to back up - I had not in fact got an affidavit and you know - from reporting from then on - we kind of got affidavits from the spot.
But in this case we got them after the event.   And then, the next thing that happened was - the police served a Section 205 subpoena on myself and Tony, if I remember correctly and then charged Tony who - I don't want to duplicate the testimony,  but he was then charged under the Police Act for reporting my story to the BBC,   I think it was Africa service.
That is about as much as I can - ja - I just want to add - oh! then there  was - oh! then I was banned from crime conference.  The police wouldn't talk to me,   I was no longer a crime reporter in their eyes.  And they - I remember it became a press issue,  because they said that journalist had to have special police accreditation at that time to be a crime reporter.  And  we took up the  [indistinct]  on that one.
They - and the Cape - all Cape Times reporters, as best memory served, refused to have that special police accreditation.  It was a bona contention of journalistic circles at the time.   Then, they banned all the Cape Times reporters from talking to the police.   They put a blank ban on the entire Cape Times.  I can't remember how long that stayed in place, because we went to Newspaper Press Union.  Questions were raised in Parliament and eventually Louis Le Grange lifted it.
Ja, that - basically after reporting the story,  I effectively couldn't operate as a crime reporter anymore.   I could have, but that - you know the daily crime conference was one of the main sources of daily news and if you wanted to be a competitive crime reporting  newspaper, that was an important source of stories.  
And just a footnote would be - I was taken aback at the  [indistinct]  that my story caused,  because I saw it as a straight reporting job and which I got both sides of the story.   And I think it was the context in which it took place that turned it into something way out of proportion to the fairly simple task I have performed, and that - ja.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Mr Bateman, we are going to have to just go back a little bit and try and get some clarity to help us - in a sense we get to reconstruct this scenario.  You were actually physically in the hostel, you went up stairs - you know exactly where this hostel is.

MR BATEMAN: Yes, I do.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Okay, would you mind if we showed you some aerial photographs.

MR BATEMAN: Not at all.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Of the area and could you tell us from looking at these photographs whether these are the Dairy Belle hostels.

MR BATEMAN: Sure.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Mr Bateman,  please look at photograph 29 and 30.

MR BATEMAN: Okay  I see them.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Are those the Dairy Belle hostels?

MR BATEMAN: That is yes, at - at H in the top picture.