Human Rights Violation Hearings — Duncan Village — 1996-09-23

MR JORDAN: Looking at the understanding of the people in as far as the political situation was concerned, the first organisation that was established, was the Anti-removal Committee which held negotiations with the Councillors of the time.
 And later on another organisation that gave direction was the Trade Union, SAWU.  And later on the UDF in 1983 followed by the Youth Organisation, the Residents' Association were also established and they were trying to give direction to the community and this - all this turned on to a new leaf and the securities also decided to follow the leaders of these organisations.
 There were many people who were at the head of the security whose names we can mention, especially people in Cambridge who used to follow the activists. 
 Their names are Captain Van Wyk who was well known, Minard was one of them who was known as Mbombo here in Duncan Village, and many others who were there who used to make like difficult.
 And when the situation changed in the Vaal Triangle - as we all known, that that is where the unrest started, when people were resisting and Duncan Village could not disassociate itself from these activities and so it followed suit.
 What made things very serious here in Duncan Village was the Cradock massacre where there was also the killing of the Mtenge family which also made the people to be more disturbed.
 Coming now to the Sunday when there was the funeral of 
Victoria Mxenge people in Duncan Village also attended this funeral.
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 On their way back from the funeral, there was a struggle and a problem.  People in Duncan Village who had come from being mishandled and they were students from Xsaxamba and Benisa schools where there had been students that had been shot by the principal who used even the gas cylinder whilst he was trying to drive away students.
 And these are the situations that made things very serious in Duncan Village.
 That was when students were asking for the establishment of the RSC, parents' committees and principals were resisting to this change and the policemen got involved, chasing all the students all over the township and it was the first time that we saw hippos, caspers and students being chased by police dogs.
 And it is only after the principals could not control the situation that they went back to the parents.  Now coming back from the Mxenge funeral, there had been many incidents prior to this and this funeral was an installation to the people.
 And on Sunday afternoon when people alighted from the busses next to the rent office and the beer hall which were under the Council, because private people were not selling the beer to the people and people were chanting freedom songs but no one can tell what actually happened because I wouldn't know.
 The first victim, the first place that was attacked was the rent office, followed by the beer hall, next to the rent office and the house of the principal to Xsaxamba was also attacked 
 The police then were called to the scene and they came.  They tried to scatter the crowd and then there was this 
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direct confrontation between the people and the police.
 In the morning, the following morning, it was a very difficult day in Duncan Village, because people decided to revenge themselves, fighting against the Municipality Councillors and they burnt their houses but during this process not a single person was killed.
 None of the family members were killed, but they were driven out of the house before the house would be burnt down.
 During the day there were road blocks all over the place.  As the houses were burning, the South African Defence Force and the Riot Unit joined and they did not ask anything they then started shooting at everyone wildly, be it a child, an adult, whoever, they shot everyone that they came across in the street.
 I cannot tell how many people died on that Monday.  And on the other hand the community members were protecting themselves and they had now stopped focusing on the Councillors but they were now focusing against anyone who was a Government employee, they attacked the houses that belonged to the police and even those who were known as State collaborators were also attacked.
 And people were very furious because of the death of the community members and that is when hell went loose.
 That is when people realised that they had to attack everyone who was a Government officer, it was in retaliation to the death of the community members and then they started using petrol bombings, stoning, fighting and defending themselves, and no one could get into Duncan Village at that time.
 Whoever would be shot in Duncan Village, would die at 
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the spot where there was the road block because they could not drive out to the hospital.
 That is where most people died, and these are the people who could have survived, but because of the long wait they died.
 And so people were really outrageous because Duncan Village now had turned to a war zone and the soldiers were just shooting wildly and randomly.
 And when it became very difficult to take the injured people to hospital because whenever those who reached the hospital, they would be arrested and those who were found with bullet wounds, were also arrested and the people in the hospital themselves, had negative attitudes.
 And I can mention the acting Superintendent who was Dr Hall, who had a very negative attitude towards the people and he had good terms with (indistinct) who was at the security.
 And he is the one who used to give information to the security and the security people would visit that person in hospital and then the organisations decided to come together and see what they had to do and then they opened the Crisis Centre which was centred in the Roman Catholic Church.
 And they asked Revd Father Cornelius, who was at the head of the Church, they  asked for assistance from Doctors who were in sympathy, they asked for nurses who were in sympathy, to come and help so they were sent to this Crisis Centre.
 A lot of money was spent to buy the equipment to be used when taking out these bullets and also to give the 
people some medical treatment, which was not available.
 It was very difficult at the time to the Duncan Village DUNCAN VILLAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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people.  There were fighting, they were being shot - it was for the whole week that this continued and there were hippos being driven up and down the streets.
 The telephones were disconnected by the police because they were trying to ostracise the community of Duncan Village.  The electricity was also disconnected by the police.
 There was looting as a result of all this.  Yes, the people looted but the people who benefitted from the looting were the police, because they were looting too.
 In everything that happened, what hurt most was the shooting of an 18 month baby in C-section.
 And his body could not be traced at the mortuary, because his body had been hidden.
 Then there was the Military Base that was established where they used to sell jabolani and this made the shooting and killing of people to become worse and worse, because the soldiers used to smear their faces with suit and in the morning we would discover some dead bodies all over the place as a result of this.
 We must say there were 31 people who died, but we cannot say this is the real death toll, it - there may be more people, we are not sure that only 31 people were killed.
 We were forced as organisations to defend ourselves.  We agree that there were some victims amongst the people who were not affected as such, but who were victims of circumstances, but because people were really outrageous we could not protect this people.
 There are those who were injured on our side.  The submission of the ANC on this part says that we sympathise 
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with the members of the Committee who found themselves victims of circumstances because of the misunderstanding that occurred amongst the people.
 There was confusion that was made by the Government employees and who tried to make the people quarrel against each other and therefore some people were injured.
 People who were innocent and we therefore ask for an apology to such people.  But when we tried to disrupt everything that was connected with the Government, we are not sorry about that, we were compelled to do so, because the Government at the time was uncomprising and it was our enemy.
 So we had to fight against it.  There are several situations that we have not mentioned here in our submission which may be revealed by the people as they make their own submissions or they give their evidence.
 We could not make mention of those but all the things that affect this organisation, have been mentioned already and we must say where weren't went wrong, we are asking for an apology.
 Lastly, let me say there was a District Surgeon here in East London at the time named Dr Wingreen.  I wouldn't like not to mention the significant role he played at the time.
 His name is Dr Wingreen.  The way he handled the people at the time people went to see their dead people, he made some appalling statements about the people.
 He was very negative looking at the people who came from Duncan Village.  We cannot forget him.  Even the Magistrates of the courts also mishandled the people who were arrested, who came from Duncan Village.
 Even the courts, some people were charred and - because DUNCAN VILLAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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the courts were working together with the police and their soldiers.  We cannot forget Fort Glamogen where people used to be jailed and people would be woken up early in the morning at four o'clock, being ill treated, assaulted with batons, we cannot forget to mention the warders of the prisons.
 Where people were ill treated, assaulted right in jail.  I cannot forget to mention the man Langman, who was actually Mr Landman, who was the head of the Murder and Robbery in East London - who used to be present at the scene of the killing.
 And who used to follow all the activists in the company of other White men, they would knock at the doors and he would not identify himself as Vido and people would open the door think that it was one of the people in the neighbourhood.
 Mr Chairperson, I cannot read this whole submission to you, but I feel I have mentioned most of the incidents.  That is how brief I am going to be, when I'm trying to give this image, but before I step down I would like to say the Duncan Village community feels bad that after the Thursday incident of the killing and shooting of comrade Fenney, the people there feel very uncomfortable and they feel they've got to reveal that.
 I thank you Mr Chairperson.