Amnesty Hearings — Thohoyandou — 1999-11-15

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: There's a link with witches because the missing people - it's like if I point at Mr Ndou to say today you won't see it (the sun) set and then it happened that he died before sunset.  And then people who heard that we make it a case if Mr Ndou died as I have predicted.  It was like that.

ADV SIGODI: How do you link Mr Maphaha with the people in government?  What link did Mr Maphaha have with the people in government?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Maphaha and the people in the government.  There was no relationship.  But what resulted in the death of Mr Maphaha was if it was linking with the government or members of the government, I've indicated that it's because members of the ruling government were having cases of ritual murder.  And those cases, when we look into them, we find that their (body) parts were being taken to the witchdoctors who mixed these parts with their medicine and then took the mixture to other people, thereby spreading witchcraft.  In this way the Maphaha and the politics of the government can be linked.  Mr Maphaha was alleged to have caused a certain child to be missing.

ADV SIGODI: But I mean, how do you link the death of this child with the overthrow of the government?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: I've already indicated above that because witchcraft was seen as an obstacle preventing the people from reaching their objective, people found it important that ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: How, did witchcraft prevent people obtaining their political targets?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: For example if somebody pointed a finger at me and said I will see it, but it just happens that I hit an obstacle on the ground and fall and die.  It means that people who heard that man saying that that person will do something with me, then those will say, no, that person had said something that resulted in me falling and dying.  I don't know if you heard me clearly there.

ADV SIGODI: Can I just explain something to you?  In our African culture, witches we believe can kill you for any reason whatsoever.  They can kill you because they are jealous because your child is doing well at school; they can kill you because you happen to have more money than so-and-so.  Now what I want to obtain from you is that Mr Maphaha was killed because it was believed that a certain child had been missing.

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Yes.

ADV SIGODI: How did the missing of that child be connected to a political objective.  It could well be that the child was killed to get muti in order to make somebody rich and in that event it would not have any political objective.  How do you link the killing of Mr Maphaha and the allegation that there was a child missing, how do you link it with a political objective?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Politics in Venda during those days in the early '90's, many people were taken by the - people were just forced to participate because they heard that there will be the unbanning of the ANC which by then was seen as a political party.  Because of the violence or the wind which was spreading over this political issue and because the youth who were activists were being killed, we realised that the killing of these youths was leading us in this issue, we just decided that if we kill these people who were killing these youths, we would reach our objective by killing these witches.

ADV SIGODI: The witches were killed because political activists were killed by the witches?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Yes where I'm staying we believed that.

ADV SIGODI: Mr Maphaha was killed because he was suspected because he was responsible for the killing of a small child.  Can you tell me if this child was an activist?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Yes that kid was not that young, but we took him as an activist because when we have meetings, chanting, he was interested in singing and to air his views.  That is why we are saying that the child was an activist.

ADV SIGODI: How old was the child?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: I'm not certain but I think he was 12 to 13 years old.

ADV SIGODI: What was the name of the child?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Unfortunately I've forgotten the name.

MR NDOU: Thank you Mr Chairman. You were just explaining at the time when Adv Sigodi interrupted you, that you were indicating that the group were proceeding to Madadzhe's kraal, can you proceed and explain to the Committee what transpired there?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Then we arrived at Mr Madadzhe's place.  On our arrival there there was that innocent lady staying there and was in the same room with Mr Madadzhe and the people who were there were not prepared to listen to anything.  On their arrival they started to break the windows and getting in through the window, dragging Mr Madadzhe outside and then Madadzhe was assaulted, dragged to another rondavel or hut, and the hut was burnt and he died inside that burning hut.

MR NDOU: What role did you play?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: I participated in beating with a stick which was in my possession.

MR NDOU: How many times did you hit him?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: Four times.

MR NDOU: Yes, did you do anything else?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: I did nothing else and the people were dispersing.

ADV DE JAGER: Something about, he was sitting with a woman. Is that correct?  When you arrived there.

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: It was during the night, they were not sitting but they were asleep.  We found him in his room with his wife.

ADV DE JAGER: Did you do anything to his wife?

LANGANANI FOSTER MUNYAI: To tell the honest truth I did nothing wrong to the wife of Madadzhe on that day.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Van Rensburg?

MR VAN RENSBURG: Mr Chairman may I just ask what time are we going to continue and what the time situation is?

CHAIRPERSON: I want to adjourn at about a quarter past four, around there.  Are you going to be quite long with him?

MR VAN RENSBURG: Yes seeing that this is the first witness, I think I will have to spend some time.  I don't want to delay the matter unduly but I did not have the opportunity to consult with all the witnesses for the victims so I would like to have a recess or something, for about a half an hour, if that can be fitted in.  Alternatively we can continue tomorrow morning if it's possible at all.

CHAIRPERSON: You need about a half an hour, I think you better take it.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
NO FURTHER MECHANICAL RECORDING