Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

MR MONTHATA: Mr Montsisi could we just hold on there and ask you a few questions.  You talked about the anger of the students, more especially when they saw administrative offices, that is municipality offices, and then anything
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that verged on being a White person, how do you account for that kind of symbolism that the administrative offices symbolised the Whites and the Whites who were there symbolised apartheid and so on?

DAN MONTSISI: Yes Tom first and foremost when you think of these offices for instance, those are the offices where you had to queue in order to register, in order to have a reference book or what you call a pass, and when pensioners had for instance to get their own money they also had to queue and if there was anything wrong, or if you had visitors at that time or relatives who come to visit your place from elsewhere there were municipal police who could be sent from the very same offices to actually arrest your own visitors because they don't have a permit to enter the township and a permit ...(tape ends)
....those offices were actually seen and perceived by the community as part and parcel of the extension of apartheid structures.  So there was no doubt that those types of offices could not have survived the anger of the students at that point in time.  And the fact that the government was also run by White people and that the majority of the people who were White were quite privileged.  They could be able to vote.  We Africans could not vote.  They were able to enjoy life in South Africa. They had all the privileges as against the problems experienced in the African communities.  So they were perceived more-or-less as part and parcel of the system of people who were actually supportive of the apartheid government.

THOMAS MANTHATA: It appears all along here we are talking about the killing of the students by the police, what about the community, what was happening to members of the
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community?

DAN MONTSISI: You see Tom there were quite a number of instances where you had ordinary people dying.  I remember for instance in this funeral, in this Jacky Malebane funeral there were quite a number of neighbouring people who died there.  There was an elderly lady who was doing washing on that day when we were marching and I saw this from the Press, so this lady when the police shot probably a stray bullet they say, through a stray bullet she was actually shot and she died, so she fell into the same bath in which she was doing washing.  So the whole bath of washing was actually red.  And these are the type of activities which we used to experience at that time.

THOMAS MANTHATA: We know that besides those that were killed by the police and so on, we learn that there were problems in and around Dusimhlope, you know we don't know whether these were caused by the police who were after the students, can you give us a brief account of that?

DAN MONTSISI: Tom what had happened was that we had gone to a meeting in Anka, the school referred to as Anka, and there's a hostel not very far away from that school, the Meadowlands Hostel, so after that meeting we were able to see that among the trees there were police together with the hostel inmates.  It was shortly after a demonstration in August where we had organised a stayaway, some people went to work, some people did not go to work. Those who had gone to work when they came back they had problems in coming into the township because it was not only the youth who were angry, but even those who did not go to work were very angry and it was very unpleasant, the welcome they received when they came back from work.  Now unfortunately some of them
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were the hostel inmates.  One understands probably that some of them might not have known that there was a stayaway which was organised, so they got bitten as well, Tom, and unfortunately the police came in.  Instead of intervening so that there must be peace within the residents, the students and the hostel inmates it was an opportunity for the police to use their hostel residents against the community.  So when we sneaked towards the area where the meeting was held there was a van which was unloading bread and while it could be interpreted in a number of ways, and there were police, one standing on top of the hippo with a loudspeaker addressing the hostel inmates, they were very angry and very agitated, and every time the police spoke they shouted something like (...indistinct), you know that type of thing.  It was not quite clear what the police were saying, we couldn't hear because we didn't want to go nearer.  But what the police were saying essence was what the hostel inmates were in agreement with.  A day later in the evening, after that meeting of the police and the hostel inmates, the community within the area of Meadowlands and next to this school called Anka in Killarney were actually attacked, and it was quite clear that this had something to do with the police.  Now again unfortunately it was almost like a Black on Black violent issue because the student activists again had to come together in order to organise themselves against the hostel inmates.  That is where I mean part of the suicide squad came in to actually try and deal with the problem of the hostel inmates.  To that extent quite a number of petrol bombs were manufactured and there were two or three schools which we had begun to use now as factories to manufacture petrol bombs.
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THOMAS MANTHATA: Sorry to interrupt.  During this time there was the Black Parents Association formed, what role did it play in the whole confusion?

DAN MONTSISI: The Black Parents Association I think played quite a significant role because as soon as the first students were shot at in Orlando West a series of meetings was held amongst parents, teachers and students, and as a result you had community leaders and teachers you know coming to work together with the communities.  People like Dr Motlana, Dr Motlare and most in particular Winnie Mandela and Tom Manthata, I mean yourself when I say Tom Manthata, and Fanyana Mazibuko and Matabata for instance, all those people were able to come together to actually form a semblance of a structure that could be able to assist the students because there were quite a number of funerals which were taking place.  The families could not be able to afford  so the BPA was able to organise transport and even pay for the costs of the funeral.  They were able to raise funding.  They were also able to provide the student activists who were no longer in their homes with food and so on.

THOMAS MANTHATA: What effect did they have on the anger of the students? And of course were they able to communicate with the White structures to try to strike the balance for peace with the students?

DAN MONTSISI: Well what I still remember was that as a result of the initiatives of the BPA there was a structure which was formed with part of the people from the White community called Women for Peace.  These were women who came in as mothers from the White community also, who wanted to make a contribution of some sort and to attempt to alleviate the pain of some of the mothers within the African SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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communities who had lost their children, and closer association with the BPA I think helped a great deal in order to more-or-less calm down the situation.  But as time goes on we are no longer keen now on demonstrations.  We wanted to resort to the types of methods which most of the type of tactics which could only be implemented in the evenings when people are asleep, so that there won't be anybody to shoot, I mean by the police.  But those people were actually able to execute activities against the police.