Human Rights Violation Hearings — King William's Town — 1997-05-13

MR NGONYAMA: Mr Chairperson and the members of the Commission, I would like to greet you.  I thank this opportunity to come here and give a picture of the things that were happening at the time as leaders of the Border Region, I will try to mix so that people can understand and hear me.
 Also I must apologise that I've got only one copy of my statement and I am sure before I am through with my input, somebody will bring the other copies for the Commissioners.
 Chairman and members of the Commission, I am currently the MEC for Economic Affairs, Environment and Tourism in the Province of the Eastern Cape.  Prior to being appointed to this position, after those historical elections of April 1994, I was a political activist in the Border/Ciskei area holding several leadership positions, including being Chairperson of the Border Regional African National Congress and also as the Chair indicated I was also the organising secretary of the Council of Churches.
 I am currently also a member of the African National Congress' National Executive Council.  I am present here today to sketch a brief overview of the broad political context in which the Border/Ciskei area found itself before general elections of 1994.
 There can be no doubt that no other region in South Africa, was affected more during the Apartheid era than the Eastern Cape which has been the scene of much conflict, forced removals, the artificial independence of two Bantu states, the Ciskei and the Transkei, source of cheap migrant labour for the mines further north and with it the havoc it played on family life over many years.
 The Border/Ciskei area being predominantly rural, was as a result of political inspired institutionalised neglect and underdevelopment by the former governments characterised by the large numbers of disempowered people, severe pressure on the land, the high rate of unemployment and under employment, striking poverty and environmental degradation, poor infrastructure, shortage of water and the lack of basic services.
 In general most of the people in this area lacked even the most basic means of subsistence.  As a result of socio-economic conditions and the continuous political oppression over generations, the entire area now known as the Eastern Cape became the crucible of resistance.
 As a result of this awareness, the Eastern Cape has given birth as we all know, to many activists and many leaders.  And some of them are now in the positions, and they are in government.  Now let's move to the birth of the homelands in the Province.
 The Eastern Cape being the centre of resistance, became a thorn in the flesh of the various unjust regimes which sought to control and to oppress this area and our country in general.
 In at attempt to neutralise the area's capacity to resist the South African regime, under the National Party, devised to establish the Ciskei and Transkei homelands.  Between these two homelands, a narrow strip of land, known as the Border area could be found.
 And these homelands, although purported to be independent, were more like what you would call puppet administrations, answerable to Pretoria, becoming mini-dictatorships whose leaders took advantage to enrich themselves.
 Together with their followers, they were enriching themselves at the expense of the majority of the people in this region.  For a decade after independence, the Ciskei and the Border became characterised by the vicious  cycle of oppression and repression.  
 First by the Sebe and then by the Gqozo regimes leaving little hope addressing the specific and complex needs of the region.  Both the Sebe and the Gqozo regimes were not afraid of using violence against their opponents.
 And those opponents being fighting to reincorporate the Ciskei back into South Africa and also to fight for the freedom of our people in general.  They were using what you would call brutal, covet military operations.
 And also they would use security legislations to suppress any opposition.
 Let us now go to Nquese's regime.  As Sebe would be known at the time.  After independence the Ciskei was ruled by Lennox Sebe who was assisted by his brother Charles, the late.
 The Sebe regime assumed enormous powers and mounted a brutal assault against opponents of the homeland system and the anti-apartheid activists.  People were detained, there was no political freedom.
 And publications to try and communicate with people, were banished.  Sebe's regime became increasingly violent and brutal as opposition against it grew.  If we can take some few examples that happened during the late Lennox Sebe regime.  Matjole was killed.  A very, very committed and disciplined young fellow, he was staying in Zone 8.
 He was killed by people known as Green Bags, they were under Matchegetha who was staying in Zone 9 if I am not mistaken.
 Matjole was killed in front of his parents, they took a large stone and they threw a stone in his head while his mother was watching.  Secondly Noxole Landula was also killed.  He was a student at Griffiths Mxenge in 1985.
 She was doing her last year.  Thirdly the students of Nimpendolo High School, people of this region will remember when they were chased to the Buffalo River where many of them drowned.
 People were attacked in all places.  Including places like Dimbaza, where there was one girl by the name of Loriri.  At the time she was in a primary school.  That young kid is still alive and totally incapacitated.
 The second one again in that very same area, Hangovedo Jacobs.  He was also attacked.  That young fellow is still alive, even today.  A violent political crisis resulted in 1989 when villages as like Thornhill, villages like (indistinct).  Places like Qonqweni where forced removals were made.
 It is where Border Council of Churches took over trying to help the families who were forcefully removed so that they can find places to stay.
 As a result of these and other incidents, opposition against Sebe grew day by day and very strongly.  And those denouncing this regime and supporting a united and democratic South Africa, were assaulted and detained in violent confrontations with the Ciskei Security Forces.
 A state of emergency was even declared on the 2nd of February 1990.  The day that the ANC and other political parties were unbanned in South Africa, in Ciskei there was a state of emergency.
 On the 4th of March 1990, the Sebe regime was toppled by a bloodless coup, led by Brigadier Gqozo.  Gqozo then took over government and vested executive and legislative authority in a military council appointed by him, claiming to support the reincorporation of Ciskei into South Africa.
 This coup was enthusiastically received and supported because most of the people in the area thought it would be a great relieve.  He even went to the level of convening a meeting with those who were in the leadership amongst the activists in the area.
 I remember the day when he came to us and informed us that he has now taken over and he pledged that he was going to work very closely with the people of the area and he was going to turn the area to become the paradise of peace.
 But Chair and the Commissioners and ladies and gentlemen, it was never to be because soon thereafter, it was clear that he was unable and totally unwilling to deliver on the promises to reincorporate Ciskei back to South Africa, and he continued in the steps of his predecessor.
 The military council of State over which Brigadier Gqozo presided, ruled by decree and this regime carried no popular mandate to govern and eventually refused any political activity to take place in the Ciskei.
 And you will remember that more or less during that time, it was when the ANC nationally was involved in the process of negotiations in CODESA and therefore as a leadership in the area, we would go out to try to consult with the people to try and get the mandate of the people and to take to negotiations, but all those meetings wouldn't be allowed.
 A reign of terror plagued the length and breadth of the Ciskei, which was being perpetrated and supported by instruments of the Ciskei government, led by the callous and unscrupulous Brigadier Oupa Gqozo.
 People were being assaulted on a daily basis in their homes, in their places of work and on the streets.  Attempts by the alliance to hold marches and organise meetings in the Ciskei in order to voice opposition to the Ciskei regime and the outrageous policies being pursued by it, were systematically frustrated by this regime.
 Permission to hold marches and meetings were consistently refused.  And those peaceful demonstrations that were hold without permission, were broken up by the Ciskei Security Forces often using extreme and unnecessarily harsh measures.
 Even funerals were not dignified at the time.  People were being attacked while attending funerals.  Numerous attempts were also made to resolve through negotiations.  The impulse in which we found ourselves in the area, this involved attempts to negotiate with the Ciskei regime.
 And I remember vividly the meeting that we organised which was the first meeting to try and negotiate with the Ciskei Military Dictator and at the Amatola Sun, where he sent a statement through one of his messengers that he was not attending that meeting any longer.
 Again attempts were made by churches and I remember also the attempt by the churches when they came up with the proposal that was drafted by the leadership of the church, Right Reverend Finca, Reverend Chikane, Archbishop Tutu and Reverent Doctor Magoba and they came up with a proposal that was proposing that there should be a referendum in the area within 21 days.
 And all that was never respected and was never even taken seriously.  In general Chair, ladies and gentlemen, there was general unhappiness and discontentment within the entire region as a result of actions of the Ciskei regime.
 People were beaten with sjamboks, meetings were disrupted, people were tortured, tear gassed, people were assaulted, shot, people were being murdered.  Some of these incidents that I have mentioned briefly, 3 000 people were dismissed from their jobs in the government.
 These were people that were demanding free political activity, they were dismissed on the 5th of March 1991.  A state of emergency was declared on the 29th of October 1991 which granted powers of arrest, search and seize to police, resulting in the detention of hundreds and arrests and detentions without trial.
 Students at the University of Fort Hare were attacked by the Ciskeian Defence Force in 1992.  Qumbela Home was bombed on the 17th of August 1992, by the Ciskei Security Forces.
 In August 1992 at about two o'clock in the morning, when also the Ciskei Security Forces attacked out house with a hail of bullets in an effort to kill my family and my three sons and one of them who was the youngest at the time, was six months old.
 As it was mentioned by the two previous speakers the killing of Guzana and Charles Sebe during that time as well.  The raid of Ciskei was even used by the Military Counsel as its private mouthpiece which was continuously used to insult leaders of the tri-partheid alliance and the democratic movement in general, even the church leaders were insulted through this raid of Ciskei.
 All these atrocities could be performed under the law that was set at the time, Section 43, it is called the National Security Act, Act 13 of 1982 which prohibited political activities other than those of the African Democratic Movement.
 And this African Democratic Movement was some kind of a political party taking ie organising meetings for Brigadier Gqozo and his surrogates.  And that was the only so-called party that was allowed to hold meetings in the area.
 ... tri-partheid alliance and other democratic formations, all of them were kind of disrupted.  There was an agreement that was reached nationally, the national peace agreement, but it was not respected in the area called Ciskei.
 The Ciskei Defence Force would go from village to village. ... which was a security company, which was a company that was said when we were busy agitating and asking about this company and they said that this company has been appointed to offer security to headmen, but the members of this security company and this people that were recruited in the villages, were used as agents to intensify terror and sorrows and miseries in the area by shooting people, stabbing them.  Others were attacked.
 People were even assaulted.  People were even raped by this so-called peace force and that is why immediately we had to chase this peace force in the area because it was seen as a symbol of frustration, immediately and during the time of the interim government or interim administration in the former Ciskei at the time.
 Chair, this actually culminated into that fateful day of the Bisho massacre of the 7th of September 1992.  But I am not going to forget when the Bati family was killed in Alice.
 A man who was killed, he was 70 years old, together with his wife and their grandchild, they were sleeping, they were killed by the Ciskei Security Forces  - he brutal assault of four elderly villagers, including a 70 year old.  People were killed between villages in the Ciskei like Dimbaza and Zingcuka, King William's Town,  Jeff Nqolomba was shot sitting in his car.
 On the 10th of September 1992, Pakamisa a student at the University of Fort Hare, a BSc student, was killed at Digidigana.  On the 11th of September Maloso Ngobo was killed by the CDF soldier, Blackie Maramba.
 On the 11th of September in Middledrift at (indistinct) ANC members were arrested in great numbers and they were detained under the very same security laws.
 Also on the 11th of September 1992, two villagers were shot and injured by CDF members.  These people were dropped through a helicopter.
 This reign of terror continued until the installation of the interim administration in the Ciskei just before the national general elections.  There were killer death squads at the very same time, before the interim administration.  They killed Ndodolo, a school teacher in Dimbaza.
 One of the members of parliament, Sam Quelita on the 16th of December - he was attacked.  The priests were marching in Stutterheim.  They were also attacked by the South African Security Forces.  I remember vividly Colonel Nqaqa he was a priest, he was taken by the police van and that march was led by the Border Council of Churches.
 Also in the area which was called the Border which was the so-called White corridor, atrocities were the order of the day in areas like Ginsburg and King William's Town, Schornville, Breidbach, where many people were killed and detained.
 I remember a person Albert Wilkens, who is the Deputy Mayor in King William's Town who was detained for a long time.  Peter Swarts, Japie Pitts - and Japie Pitts was intensely traumatised to an extent that after his release, he was never the same again, he soon died.
 Tembalaki George was also killed, a young chap, and a promising student at Fort Grant.  They took him at home, he was the only son of the family, he was killed and never to return back to his family.
 Gimbambeka was also killed in Ginsburg in 1985.  Bodya in the same year, in Ginsburg.  He was killed by the South African Security Forces in King William's Town.
 I remember people like Captain Swarts, Captain Fouche - all those people that were leading the reign of terror.  The abduction and brutal assault of the veteran, Mr Twebe from Dimbaza, an old man.  He was assaulted, they were asking weapons from him, he couldn't speak when he came back.
 Tear gassing of the churches in the area.  Well Chair, ladies and gentlemen, these are just a few of the examples that I can quote at the present moment otherwise intimidation at workplaces against Union members, the eviction from farms such as those, especially those near Kei Road.
 If we remember very well, people had been dumped in the streets and many other countless crimes against humanity were sort of common place within this area, and I am sorry to say within the time available to me, they are too numerous to give special mention to all of them.
 But I need also to mention that the South African Security Forces and the Ciskei Security Forces were working very closely, the were in collusion in all these operations.  In all these various activities, they were very, very consistent, working as a very strong alliance.
 I must also remember the parachuters that were being trained by the South African Defence Force and in the area that is next to Fish River.  I think there were plus minus 11 trainees, Ciskei Defence Force that were thrown into the river, then they died, perhaps we need to get the truth around what took place about those people.
 Now moving to retaliation Chair and the members of the House, for the sake of holistic records, it must also be acknowledged that the oppressed people of the region were not merely passive and accepting their oppression, laying down.
 We waged a just struggle against apartheid and its various structures.  JF Kennedy words perhaps are applicable in this context when he says that "those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable."
 Frustrated by efforts to achieve democracy peacefully, the ANC and various other formations, UDF in the area retaliated against the forces of oppression and repression.
 And this retaliation, unlike apartheid and homeland rule which were (indistinct) to humanity, was deeply rooted in the principles of human dignity and human rights.
 In close Chair and the members of the Commission and the community at large, will remember all the heroes of our struggle for liberation and peace in South Africa.  They have sacrificed their lives, we will never forget that.
 We salute them together with their families.  This is a lesson for the future, the right to forgive should not be taken lightly.  Many people paid the ultimate price and it is therefore important that the truth be known.
 This is not to seek vengeance, but rather that we may move into the future in trust of each other with our dignity restored.  I hope that this Commission will manage to extract the truth on all issues raised in the statement.  I am once again extremely grateful for having been given the opportunity by the Commission to present this statement.  I pledge my support as an individual both by my thoughts and by my actions.
 I thank you.