Human Rights Violation Hearings — Tembisa — 1996-11-28

MICHAEL MDLALA: Both myself and Brian were arrested in June.  We went out on bail and we were re-arrested again in August.  It was either Brian's birthday or my birthday but we were arrested on that day. We were this time charged with sabotage.  The judge who sentenced us summarising the sentence indicated that Brian was a demagogue.  Because Brian was one of the most intelligent people that I have ever met.  He was not only intelligent but ultra-intelligent.  He was a genius by birth.  He went through four standards in two years.  The way he was intelligent he was promoted to four classes in two years.
 Brian was known in the whole of Tembisa High as being the youngest student ever and the most intelligent ever.  When he was sentenced he had just completed 17 years.   Throughout his stay on the island he was known as the most intelligent person.  He wrote his matric without a book and he passed first class. I am simply indicating that Brian was not just an ordinary person.  He was one amongst people we would term today, the national leaders and possibly he would be in the national parliament.
 Brian's death to me was not a mystery because after our release from Robben Island Brian and I were chased by police left, right and centre.  We were being monitored, all TEMBISA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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our activities.  Brian could not find work anywhere where they promised him the following day he would be told they regret because he was an ex-Robben Islander.  The way Brian was intelligent on Robben Island they called him Nkanyamba because he was very vicious, he was very intelligent.
 Brian was a person who, when we left Robben Island we were given a task to re-establish the organisations.  All the organisation in Tembisa, in the main were re-established and strengthened by Brian.  They tried by all means to stop his activities but he was the kind of person who without a penny he would leave Joburg today and be in Cape Town the following day.  He's one of the founder members of the UDF.  Some who have seen the launching cassette of the UDF they would see that he was very prominent in there from the Youth League.
 On the day in question of the funeral having given that background, is that with the launch of all the political organisations in Tembisa, the Youth League, Civic Organisation, including Women's League and so forth we were always chased by the security police.  Always questioned and asked whether we were still involved with our political activities.  Brian was one of those people. 
 We fought in 1983 in the year Brian died against the then councillors as undemocratic councillors and we were able to rally the youth around and he was an enemy to the security police.  He was an enemy to the then councillors.  We were moving in each and every meeting trying to educate people about the Black local authorities at the time.  
 It may be said that those who killed Brian may have been ordinary criminals but in the circumstances that surrounded his activities it is very hard to believe.  Brian TEMBISA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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came to me on a Sunday morning, as Dipuo has indicated.  At the time I had just got employment with Royal Beechnut and it was my second week of having been employed and I had joined the Union immediately after having been employed and we were launching a branch of the Union in Vusumuzi, before it became an IFP stronghold.  I left Brian at home because Brian sometimes was sleeping at my place and sometimes I was sleeping at his place.  He would come at any time.  He knew where his room was, and I would come at any time and I knew where I would sleep at his house.  
 One thing that I have not indicated that made me to be a person that is today talking about this story possibly one of his families will be talking about part of the family story, unfortunately Brian does not have any family left.  When we were in prison due to the harassment and because of the way his mother loved him his mother got blind.  His mother was a principal in one of the schools.  His mother could not continue functioning as a teacher.  When we got released Brian's mother had already left Tembisa staying with Brian's grandfather.  
 Let me indicate here to say that in the morning as I left him at home I had understood that I was going to see him the following day because he was also to attend another meeting.  In the morning on Monday, because the incident took place on the Sunday, Monday morning I got information to say that Brian had been killed.  I got that information immediately when I was just about to leave for work.  I went to the spot where I was told he had been killed.  There were stones around there and there was blood.  
 We went to the police station, we did not find him.  We went back to the houses around there, the people said his 
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body was taken by the police.  We went back to the police, there was no sign that Brian was ever taken by them.  At a later stage they indicated that Brian possibly could be in the Boksburg mortuary.  
 The following day myself and his grandfather and the family went to Boksburg mortuary and this is where I found Nkanyamba lying.

MR LEWIN: Take your time.

MICHAEL MDLALA: Brian's face was swollen but I could see that he was a kind of a person who died fighting.  Brian was buried. I will leave the story.  Brian was buried with the support of the comrades.  It was a very big mass funeral. The funeral could not take place in Tembisa but had to take place in Soweto because Ndatema Gulu wanted Brian to be buried there because he had bought a place where all his family had to be buried.  The whole nation gathered there to bury Brian.  That is why you have poems such as this Spears poem. This poem started with Brian.  A poem by Mzwaki Moele.
 After the death of Brian we investigated.  After the investigation one of the comrades who was with Brian at the time Ruben, I don't know the surname, indicated who killed Brian.  The matter was reported to the police.  Up to today the culprits were never arrested.  The culprits were never questioned.  I know the people who have killed him and they were political just ordinary people but it is hard to believe that it is them, only them, and for no reason. It is hard to believe that only those useless tsotsis have killed Brian.
 I have to indicate as well to say at the time I had appeared in quite a number of lists, I think Brian as well was in the same lists.  For me this is not just an ordinary 
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thing that Brian died, it's not just an ordinary death, some other people may say it's an ordinary death, these were ordinary criminals but I have to be frank, Tembisa would not have been what it was politically should it not have been Brian.  Brian was part of the regional executive of the UDF.  He was also part of the executive of the Youth League at the time.  Tembisa has lost not only one of the most intelligent people as ever produced, but also lost a leader.
 We have all these organisations that made it a point that ANC had a claim in the area here that this was an ANC liberated zone because of Brian.  I would not say much further than this but I regret why police did not investigate.  Why they did not arrest if it was an ordinary criminal.  Maybe the Truth Commission will be able to find the truth behind.  I have not spoken about how we were tortured and so forth because those are the ordinary things that almost everybody who was arrested at the time could have been tortured by the evil system of the time.  But I was talking purely of the circumstances surrounding the death of Brian.  Thank you.

MR LEWIN: Thank you very much Mr Mdlala.  Yes we will try and investigate further.  To help us could you just confirm the statement that we have was that in late September 1983 Brian Mazibuku was stoned to death in a street near a policeman's house in Tembisa?