Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bloemfontein — UNKNOWN

MR LAX: Besides being on the Council per se, but I am sayingwhat ... (intervention)

WITNESS: She was also a politician just like myself previously.

MR LAX: And in what persuasion, if you understand my question? Whichparty was she involved with?

WITNESS: You mean politically or in the Council, orwhat?

MR LAX: No, politically.

WITNESS: Politically?

MR LAX: Yes.

WITNESS: Well, she was also interested within the rest of thetownship there, the running of the township and so forth and so forth, you know.

MR LAX: So she was just involved in local issues and not in broader... (intervention)

WITNESS: Local issues and politically.

MR LAX: She wasn't a member of any other political party or anythinglike that?

WITNESS: Well, we were both members of the South African Communist Party.

MR LAX: Thank you.

KHOZA MGOJO: Thank you, Sir. I just want to get clear -did I hear you saying that you were encouraged by Winnie Mandela to join - tobe the member of the Council, and also encouraged by the community? Did yousay that?

WITNESS: It's correct, Mr Chairman.

KHOZA MGOJO: By the time they encouraged you were you still a member ofthe Communist Party?

WITNESS: By that time the parties were all banned. I was restrictedand banned. All the political parties were banned during 1950s.

KHOZA MGOJO: How much contact did you have with Mrs Winnie Mandela thenwhen she encouraged you to join this movement, or the Council?

WITNESS: We used tomeet underground with her because we could not meet just openly.

KHOZA MGOJO: Were there any other Comrades apart from the youth, the ANCYouth who were called the Comrades, in Brandfort during this time when thesethings were happening to you?

WITNESS: Yes, we have the grown-ups who are actuallymembers of the ANC. I worked very much with them, the grown-ups, the mothersand fathers and so forth, not youths.

KHOZA MGOJO: When you were receiving this type of treatment from the youngpeople, as the people who had encouraged you to become a councillor what didthey do?

WITNESS: By that time there were not so very much against what I was doingin the township there. It's only - the trouble started only when they startedto fight with the scholars.

KHOZA MGOJO: Would you say to me that you have the sympathies of the communityof Brandfort?

WITNESS: It's correct, Mr Chairman, because I had so many casesagainst the police there. I was taking my cases with Priscilla Jana. She wasthe one dealing with the cases against the police for those children who weretortured and assaulted, just like that.

KHOZA MGOJO: The last question. Commissioner Richard Lyster has asked youabout the Eagles. Among these people who were convicted, these people who areput here in your statement, are they not them, do you know maybe, who were oncethe members of this group called Eagles?

WITNESS: No, they weren't members of theEagles, they were all the anti - previously they were anti-Comrades. It's onlyrecently, '89, that they joined with the ANC.

KHOZA MGOJO: Thank you.

MR DLAMINI: Thank you, Mr Phehlani. Just one questionor two. Are you still a member of the SACP or any other political organisation?--- I am still a member of the South African Communist Party.

MR DLAMINI: Can I make a follow up. In the light of the relationship orthe alliance between the SACP and the ANC has there been any effort to try andreconcile you with the Comrades who were disillusioned with your role in theCouncil at that time, now that things are normal?

WITNESS: Well, with other membersof the ANC we are all in good books. It's only about three to four of theseyouths, you know, who seems to me, you know, mainly as being hooligans. We just... (inaudible) ... hooligans in there. It's very hard. They are uneducated,you know, and it's very difficult to get them right.

MRS GCABASHE: Dr Mgojo has asked some of the questionsthat I was going to ask about the Eagles, but I still want to go back to theEagles. You said in your statement, Mr Phehlani, that the Eagles used tohave functions. Now, I would like to know whether they were a working groupor what kind? How did they have these functions? Who funded their functions?--- To me it seems to me that it was funded by the South African soldiers, because- the Defence Force, because they were sending trucks to Brandfort to go andfetch this group of children to picnics and so forth.

MRS GCABASHE: My other last question has reference to what you said aboutthe youth, that they were rapists and they were taking drugs. Now, I would justlike to know whether you as a councillor, or as the body that was looking afterthe affairs of the township at that time, what steps did you take to deal with... (intervention)

WITNESS: I tried to report these things to the police, becausemost of our residents bring such complaints to me, and then I report the matterto the police, and then we find that the police they themselves are doing nothingabout these youths. That's the trouble we are having in the smaller towns, youknow, that you find these youngsters - they call themselves that they are youngleaders, they are leading on a section, but looking at them you find that theyare so terrible, they are hooligans, they are undisciplined. That's what ishappening with me there.

DR MAGWAZA: You have had a difficult time. I am concernedabout you and your son. I would like you to tell me how is your son, Patrick.You said he has a mental problem. I would like to know more about that problem,what type of mental problems he's having, and for how long has he been seenby the doctor?

WITNESS: Well, he's taking some treatment with the local doctor there,because the doctor said that it will take him about four to five years thathis brains will function correctly. You know, he goes and forgets. He forgets- now and then he forgets. You must always remind him. That's the trouble weare having with him.

DR MAGWAZA: You also said you see the doctor because you have to take injectionsand tablets to stop you thinking. Are you also feeling -having some mental problems?--- Myself?

DR MAGWAZA: Yes.

WITNESS: I don't have mental trouble but, you know, I havejust got what I can call heart attack when I am thinking of these things.

DR MAGWAZA: You also said you were financially embarrassed. Who is workinghome now?

WITNESS: At present I am not working, I am just trying some means withthat - what I get from my son as a taxi driver and so forth.

DR MAGWAZA: Okay, thank you.

MR LAX: Thank you, Chairperson. Mr Phehlani, I justwant to pick up on something that you were asked about earlier, and that wasyou - I couldn't hear you clearly unfortunately, so if I am repeating myselfplease excuse that - or repeating things that you've already said. You saidthat these accused people that were charged with the burning of your house andthe murder of your wife, and then some of whom were convicted, were membersof - and I think you said an anti-Comrade organisation. Is that correct? ---Previously. They were previously, and then '89 they started to join with theANC Youths, then they called themselves the ANC Youths.

MR LAX: Okay. Now, clearly you would previously have been seen as possiblyan ally of theirs in the sense that the Comrades prior to this incident, andprior to these people joining the Comrades, were against you, and these peoplewere against them, so in a sense ... (intervention)

WITNESS: They were against me... (incomplete)

MR LAX: ... they were your allies.

WITNESS: That's correct. It seems tome they were - the so-called anti-Comrades, it seems to me they were used bythe police, you know, to harass the students that they should forget about theirAfrikaans and so forth.

MR LAX: Now, what I find difficult to understand, and maybe you canhelp me here, is how people who were previously your allies then turned againstyou, and maybe you can help us understand how that happened.