Human Rights Violation Hearings — Empangeni — 1996-11-05

MR LYSTER: the link between the mandrax cartel and the KwaZulu Police is investigated.  There were also reports that a notorious killer known as the Beast in Policeman's Clothing, Kethane Shange, who'd been released from prison after serving a few months of a long sentence, was operating in the area.  One wonders what happened to his parole.  He was supposed to have been paroled.  We need to find out why these things were allowed to happen.  Then, in another incident in February 1992, there was an attack on the hostels at Esikhawini in which at least 12 people died and the police did not intervene until it was apparent that the hostel dwellers were defending themselves against the attackers, most of whom had been bused into the area from outside.  The police then intervened and arrested the hostel dwellers.  At the same time a vehicle was intercepted near Durban that day full of weapons for Esikhawini.  It was a car driven by a man called Mlangeni who had spent the night at the house of Thomas Tshabalala.  Mlangeni is believed to have links with training activities as Sasolburg.  The vehicle was stopped at a road block and I then followed up the case.  These weapons were destined for Esikhawini.  The case was allowed to lapse implying a cover-up between Durban murder and robbery unit and Thomas Tshabalala.  The people were never brought to book.  Tape recordings that were made in the area at the time, which will be given to the Truth Commission which have already featured in a newspaper report and which have been authenticated by Mbambo Mkhize and Co, point to a massive degree of collusion between senior KwaZulu Police particularly Brigadier Mzimela and IFP officials  in the area including cover-ups of illegal weapons.  Also implicated in these tapes are members of the security police at Empangeni.  So you can see that Esikhawini particularly was the very centre of these activities.  Policemen who tried to do their jobs properly were victimised.  I can mention a sergeant, a long-serving sergeant, Sergeant Moses Mthembu, who, because he was not going along with these activities, there was an attempt to transfer him to an area where he would have been killed.  He knew that and he took medical early retirement.  He has not to this day been paid his money.  This is three years later.  He was medically boarded.  He has not received his pension monies yet and he attributes this to deliberate blockage by the KwaZulu Police and names in particular Brigadier Mzimela and Colonel Reid, former head of the legal services who's now the head of police legal services in Durban.  And this is a point that we will come back to in a minute when I finish off.  Just moving on from Esikhawini to KwaMbonambi, I won't go into details there but again I think we've heard one story this morning.  A great deal of evidence about collusion between the police and the people perpetrating the violence and direct involvement of the police themselves in the violence.  We're all aware of the death of Simon Msweli, Michael Mthetwa and I think we know that they had been hiding in the forest away from the police for months before they were killed.  However, on three occasions an incendiary device was thrown at the Msweli house before Msweli was killed.  On one of those occasions an eyewitness reported seeing the very same Duffles in the  vicinity.  Finally Mtubatuba, most of the violence orchestrated by the police in Mtubatuba has happened after the end of 1993 and in that violence the commander of the internal stability is deeply implicated - Major, now Colonel, Pelser.  However, even before the end of 1993, the stability unit were engaged in killing people.  In September 1993 in the KwaMsani area they killed Alexander Velani and said to Mrs Velani afterwards, "We're terribly sorry, Constance.  We didn't know it was your husband."  Now, that's a brief overview of why I'm saying that the police were deeply implicated.  I've given examples to try to show you that I'm not generalising without a vast body of information.  Now, arising out of this presentation are various issues.  The first is - and these, I think, are issues to be addressed by the Truth Commission - the first is the whole question of jurisdiction.  I want Minister Kriel to answer for the fact that he did not allow patrols into Esikhawini to save people's lives in spite of having been given evidence and having direct appeals as to why it was necessary to send in the army and the SAP.  The SAP also are problematic but at least they weren't the people in Esikhawini who were directly killing people and covering up because the KwaZulu Police were covering up afterwards as well.  Kriel must answer for this.  So must the Commissioner of Police, the management of the police.  Why were they putting KwaZulu Police in an SAP area at Eshowe to sew destabilisation, to polarise a formerly peaceful community and yet they were not prepared to allow SAP patrols at Esikhawini?   Secondly, is political interference in the work of the  police.  There are two examples here.  One of them relates to an incident in Esikhawini at the height of the trouble in early '93.  A new Police Commissioner has been appointed, General During.  During tried, at the request of the community, to transfer two of the key trouble makers, Brigadier Mzimela and Captain Manzini, out of the area.  He was overruled by the then Minister of Police, Minister Buthelezi.  Why?  Why?  The second instance relates to the presence - to the whole question of the army.  Last year, during some trouble at Sundumbili, I had quite an interesting conversation with the senior army officer at Eshowe.  I was asking the army to go into Sundumbili and he said, "Well, the former Minister of Police in KwaZulu expressly forbad us from going into Sundumbili or Esikhawini."  Now, why?   I think we need answers to those questions.  Why, when those were the two centres where most people were dying, was the presence of the army forbidden to protect people?  The failure of President de Klerk to do anything.  President de Klerk cannot say he didn't know.  We have copies of correspondence.  We have a letter from him.  We have the Goldstone Commission which itself knew about what was happening yet had to act within the confines of the limits set by President de Klerk.  I think President de Klerk must be called to explain why.  Why did he not allow the Goldstone Commission to investigate the Luthuli matter?  The failure to secure further prosecutions against hit squads.  We want answers from people why, in spite of well over a hundred in a short space of time in Esikhawini, has there only been one conviction?  Why have we not prosecuted other  people?  Why have we not prosecuted the people behind it?  Why at the trial of Qi Mkhize and Co were the politicians and the senior police people, including General Mathe and Brigadier Mzimela not called to give evidence?  Why?  We also need to move - when I say to move, we need to do something about these individual policeman that we've been hearing about.  And I have a whole list of them here which is by no means exhaustive. And when I say do something about it, we need to find out why they haven't applied for amnesty.  We need to find out where they are now, what they're doing.  We need to find ways of neutralising them so that they cannot carry on doing it.  And I can tell you, because the violence continues, that this man Duffle, that we have heard about this morning, is still deeply involved in the violence and has been interfering in the work of a unit up the North Coast at the moment, a competent investigative unit headed by Captain Vilekazi, and has tried to interfere with the evidence - the very same Duffle.  We want these factors removed.  We want the management structures of the police held accountable.  We want the management structures of Eshowe under Colonel Yunius and Colonel Nel, we want individual policemen at Eshowe, B I Zulu, Captain Rielly - all these people have been implicated.  We want the management structures in other areas, Empangeni, Umfolozi stability unit and the individual members I've mentioned - Duffle, Masa - Masa who was transferred out of Empangeni because of his activities.  We want the activities of the Empangeni security police exposed including Messrs de Jager, Greef, Bevan - Bevan is one  of the prime movers at the moment in interfering with police investigative work right now.  Well, he was until he was neutralised through huge effort, but he's been temporarily removed.  But we want these activities exposed.  We want to know why many of these police I've mentioned, why there names appear on a list of people wanting blanket amnesty from President de Klerk.  Have they applied to the Truth Commission?  If not, why not?  We need answers.  And, of course, most of all we want the political strategy behind it.  What all this points to is a degree of organisation which linked up with State resources.  You cannot engage in this scale of destabilisation without massive back-up and everything points to the sinister joint management structures, from the presence in areas such as Eshowe of Thomas Tshabalala and Themba Khoza to the co-ordinated activities which led to the violence.  It all points to joint management structures.  We want government accountability.  Finally, why is it necessary?  Why is it necessary to expose these people?  Why is it necessary?  Well, I think for the reasons that are intrinsic to the work of the Truth Commission plus the situation that we're in at the moment.  First of all, this region is not yet at peace.  There is a tremendous amount of violence out there still.  Much of it goes unreported.  Much of it is passed off as faction or criminal or taxi, but it's much more than that.  There's reason to think the people are still training, people are still arming themselves and these very same police that I've been mentioning are still sitting in the police structures.  We want them exposed.  We want them  removed.  We want them neutralised so that we can create a climate of peace.  So that we can heal the divisions between the IFP and the ANC and the other political parties.  As I said to you, these divisions were not present in the 1980s.  They were fuelled deliberately to polarise, to destabilise, to prevent development.  We want reconciliation.  We want people to make friends with each other.  We want them to put aside this violence and they can only do that if there is a climate of peace, if they feel safe to do that.  That's why we must have these people exposed.  So we want the Commission to look into all these aspects.  We want them to ensure that the people who were involved in this destabilisation work in the past are removed from positions in which they can continue their activities in the future.  We want to encourage these people and perhaps we need to encourage them by the big stick and saying, "We are going to prosecute."  We want to encourage these people to come forward while they still have time.  People like Duffle.  People like Bevan.  People like De Jager.  People like Mzimela and Mathe.  We would prefer them to come forward and seek amnesty and tell us what was happening but, if not, we want to make sure that justice takes its course.