Special Hearings — Trojan Horse Hearings — 1997-06-02

MRS WILLIAMS: What we've heard, Michael was at my sister's place due to the fact that they were rioting, and then I asked my sister if he could come there after school so that I can know, you know, have peace of mind that my children will be safe, and ...

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Shaun was with the children when they left the house?

MRS WILLIAMS: No, Shaun was with a different group.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: He was outside? Okay.

MRS WILLIAMS: Sorry, Michael and Shaun didn't die together. Michael was on this side of the road and Shaun was on the other side.

MAPULE RAMASHALA: Thank you.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Anyone else? Glenda.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Mr Magmoed, if you can just let us know, but if you can't answer the question maybe you can just say so, but I would like  to understand how this event affected your family, how was it for your family after that. What did it do for your, what did it mean for your family?

MR MAGMOED: First of all, the mother of Shaun is , she is, I can't tell you exactly how it is but she is a nervous wreck. Every time she hears about this then she just cries and even the daughter, my sis, her daughter too, my daughter, is also not good on this.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Did Shaun have plans for his life? What did he talk about? Did he say he wanted to be something when he left school? Did you have plans for him? Can you just give us an idea of how the family felt about Shaun and what plans there were?

MR MAGMOED: Ja, there were many talks of him becoming something in life but as I told him, "You know we live in a society where you can't say you're coloured, you can't say that you are becoming, because that's not going to happen. All you have to do is your utmost best and try to become something out of life.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: So in a sense, you were encouraging your children to go to school and to prosper and to, well, work hard at school so that they could become something in life.

MR MAGMOED: Ja.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: I know that you also tried very hard to go through the judicial system and to try and bring justice to this particular event. Can you just give us some idea of why you trued to persue that.

MR MAGMOED: Because of the way that we were treated, the way the killings went on and just to see at the court, we were at the court, how they were standing and laughing and making jokes almost as if nothing had happened. They were just unconcerned about the whole matter. I mean they were found guilty in one court but when we went to the other court they were found not guilty. They were acquitted. I mean I can't take that for an answer. I mean they did kill our children, they, there was all the evidence, all the evidence was there but at the end of the day there was no evidence. So for seven years I've been trying to go to court as well, we even made it to the appeal court but the justice system said no, you can't go any further with the case. That's why when the T.R.C. came to me, I didn't know what to say to them. I was cross because it's beginning again and again, so I felt there's nothing going to be done about it.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Thank you very much Mr Magmoed.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you. I just want to ask the question that Ms Wildschut asked before, just to understand. You mentioned that you were going to court for seven years and trying to come to resolution of this matter. How do you feel about the justice system?

MR MAGMOED: Corrupt.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: This last time that you went to see if you could get an appeal, what actually happened? And if you can tell us when you went and when it was what actually happened?

MR MAGMOED: Actually, the lawyers sent a lot of letters, I had to sign about five hundred letters to go to the court in Bloemfontein, and he said to me it's going to take time maybe a year or year and a half year or anything, but when he came to me he said, they say they can do nothing, there's no evidence.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you very much. There's no doubt that you were significantly affected by the experience of the loss of your children and I just want to say that, for us, every time you come here, every time people like yourselves come to share your pain, we share their pain and the child of violence within ourselves is re-awakened and many times it is a painful re-awakening. I think the notion of neutrality is overrated in many cases. I do believe that we should realise this, the process of justice in this country is proof, is evidence of this point, but we are challenging the commission to create a balance between that pool of emotionality and to our objective of finding, of making findings at a different level.
 Many of us experience violence of a very gruesome nature in this country at a very early age of our lives, when we're just trying to make sense of the world, and now in our forties and sometimes more when we have children. The heart of the child in ourselves comes out and the heart of the adult as well is re-awakened, so we understand your pain, when you are faced with having to deal with idea of looking for your children, when normal people don't look for their children. Normally, when a child is missing, when you can't find your child, you go to their friends, you go to where there may be parties or school or whatever, but in those days you went to the mortuary, you went to the police station.
 It's funny how things happened in those years, isn't it. I mean you were parents, you were meant to protect your children, but there was a sense of being disempowered to render this protection on your own children and a sense of feeling humiliated because you cannot be parents in the way that you should be, because you cannot control the things that are happening around your lives. So I wish to thank you for coming to share your pain and we wish to commit ourselves to doing all we can to find out what really happened during the time when your children died. The commission has committed itself to finding in the most balanced and the most reasonable manner to come to the roots of all cases brought to it and this.........
Thank you very much.