Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1997-04-09

PHINEAS NDLOVU: Godfrey, yes I know him.

ADV DE JAGER: Was he in the kitchen?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: No, he wasn't in the kitchen.

ADV DE JAGER: Any other people sitting there, were they in the kitchen?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: It was elderly people what I could recall.

ADV DE JAGER: They are all elderly sitting over there, were they in the kitchen or not, one of them or two of them?  You said that there were two people in the kitchen?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: If my memory still serve me well, it could well be my mother with the white, but I am not certain if it is her.

JUDGE WILSON: The white headrest you mean?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: Yes, but I am not certain of that.  It could well be her, because it was elderly people who was in the kitchen at the time.

ADV DE JAGER: Could you ask Hendrik.

MR BLACK: Yes, that - I've ascertained who was in the kitchen.

JUDGE WILSON: Who is the person sitting there with the white headrest?

MR BLACK: Yes, I am about to.  She was one of the people in the kitchen and her name is Elinale Masupa, and she was in fact - that is her house.

JUDGE WILSON: Do you know that it is her house?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: I know.

MR BLACK: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Well, let me put it to you Mr Ndlovu, Mrs Masupa that is Elinale, was in the kitchen the owner of the house.  You called Mantha's name out, because you knew her and she came to the kitchen.  Is that not so?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: No, not according to my recollection of what happened on that night.

MR BLACK: Well, the evidence she came to the kitchen, as she came to the kitchen, she saw fuel and she ran back to tell the other people in the house.

PHINEAS NDLOVU: As I've said, I had a very difficult situation to deal with.  As I have indicated at one hand I would have to extinguish sticks of match fire.  Even if she had approached or accosted the kitchen, I would have noticed her at that time.

MR BLACK: Okay, I will clear it up for your sake, I will speak to her.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Ndlovu, just - I am sorry to interpose Mr Black, why did you not ask for Mantha in order to advise her to persuade her people to leave the house?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: As she had been called earlier and I was of the opinion that she was going to help in that process, but probably what took me off, it is seeing those kind of situations that we were in already.  I had fuel over me and we were all side that place and we were all inside that place and as a result the stove had made, I think it created a state of panic in them and whilst I was dealing with the situation of trying to extinguish those match sticks that had been lit in this very dangerous situation.  It probably must have slipped my mind of all the kind of pressures in that situation that I found myself at the time.

JUDGE WILSON: Were you fellows all drunk?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: No Sir.

JUDGE WILSON: You had gone to the house to persuade the people, as I understand it, to leave the house and you were then going to burn it down.

PHINEAS NDLOVU: That is correct.

JUDGE WILSON: Yet, as soon as you get into the house, while you were trying to talk to people, they start throwing matches around?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: And petrol.   And petrol.

JUDGE WILSON: And petrol, they throw petrol all over the floor and then start throwing matches all around.

PHINEAS NDLOVU: My Lord, the way we were so angry, it is to a degree that we would have in the process even killed ourselves as I could recollect as to how the events of the day happened, as indicated in the trial record.  At one stage I had to deal with the situation and on the other one would be doing that realising of course there is fuel on the floor and notwithstanding the fact that the door behind, its door lock had broken and we are locked inside, all of us.

JUDGE WILSON: That is what I can't understand you see Mr
Ndlovu, any normal, sober person going to a house, pouring petrol over the floor before they have made arrangements to evacuate the house and then throwing matches into the petrol.

PHINEAS NDLOVU: As I was busy doing that, my Lord, as I was talking to the occupants, it so happened that, it is then that I realised I that fuel had already been poured and I was in that.

JUDGE WILSON: ;	Yes, and your colleagues had poured fuel onto your leg too.  Were they drunk?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: No, my Lord.

JUDGE WILSON: Well, why did they behave in this way?  Can you give any rational explanation?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: I think my Lord, a rational explanation of that would be that they felt that it had come to the time
that people who behaved like Hendrik, should see that they might demean us and do whatever they feel like doing, but at the end, we will definitely punish them.

JUDGE WILSON: Hendrik was not there, there were two elderly women in the kitchen with you and your friends.  They were the people you were going to punish by burning it while they were standing there, weren't they?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: My Lord, it is true that Hendrik wasn't there and the objective that we sought to achieve was to burn down the house.  However...

JUDGE WILSON: Yes.  So why did your friends start throwing matches around before you had arranged for these older people to leave the house?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: The only logical explanation I could give my Lord is that I think the kind of offence that Mr Masupa had committed and the kind of anger that they, the state of
anger in which they were in, made them to behave rather irrationally because even our lives as well, were in danger at the moment in time.

JUDGE WILSON: Yes.

ADV DE JAGER: Did they go there in fact to kill these people?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: No, my Lord, we had no such intentions.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Ndlovu, had you discussed with your comrades that you would try and get the people out of the house before you set fire on it?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: Honestly speaking, what we agreed upon is that we are going to burn down the house.  That was our intention, we did not foresee that there would be an end result that would lead to people's death.

JUDGE WILSON: You were, these people were your neighbours
Mr Ndlovu, you told us.  They lived across the road from you.  You knew there were several people in the house, did you never think of them, their safety?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: My Lord, as I have indicated, the first primary responsibility that I sought to achieve at the moment in time, was to get them evacuated, but unfortunately my Lord, I don't know what happened to the reasoning capacity of my minor comrades, or fellow comrades at the point in time, that it lead to an extent that at that point in time, I had to act swiftly and try and extinguish those sticks that were being thrown into the fuel to ignite and set fire on the house.

SISI KHAMPEPE: In that case Mr Ndlovu, would it be fair to therefore assume that your comrades intended to have the occupants of the house burn down to death?  You as the leader had not given specific instructions that no live was
to be lost, that only the house was to be burnt down.

PHINEAS NDLOVU: I gathered, when we said that the house was to be burnt down, it was meant, it meant the house as in the property and human life was something that we valued as well and we wouldn't want people to lose their lives.  That is why we even resorted in operation clean ups to try and rid our community of weapons that they used to maim and kill one another, week after week as a result ...

JUDGE WILSON: I am getting a little tired of your political speeches Mr Ndlovu.  We are interested in your actions that evening and what you did and why you did this that evening.  Do you understand?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: Yes, my Lord.

JUDGE WILSON: Who bought the petrol?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: We bought the petrol.

JUDGE WILSON: Who paid for it?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: The money was in possession of comrade Gobela.

JUDGE WILSON: He paid for it?

PHINEAS NDLOVU: Yes, he paid for it.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Ndlovu, who lit the match stick which resulted in this tragic event?