Human Rights Violation Hearings — Mooiriver — 1997-05-29

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Sithole, thank you very much for coming in.  Your story has been similar to so many other stories that we've heard over the last two days.  We know that it's a very special story to you, it's a unique and individual story, but it is very similar in the sorts of events that you describe to many other stories that we've heard.
You told us about your husband, who, coming back from work in a taxi, an ordinary person doing what was expected of him, working to support his family, and tragically he was killed for no apparent reason whatsoever.  And this has been the story of many victims that we've heard of in the last two days.  
And so, while we know it's been difficult for you to come and relive those experiences, it's important for us to learn your story first-hand, and we thank you very much for having had the courage to come here and tell us that
story.  Thank you very much indeed.
/CHAIRMAN

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Sithole was the last witness that we will hear.  We were going to hear evidence from a group of people from Bergville.  As I said this morning they were too afraid to come in.  And we had hoped to hear a short submission from some community representatives from Bergville, but they returned to Bergville with one of their community members, who unfortunately had become so emotional at the prospect of giving evidence about the death of her son that she had to return home.  So, unfortunately we will not hear evidence from any witnesses from Bergville today.
We have been to many areas around this province and also in the Free State.  We have been to places where there has been terrible violence, like Port Shepstone and Empangeni, but the stories that we've heard here in Brandville we believe have been worse than any others that we've heard.  We've heard about people who were fleeing from violence, who were pursued into the sanctity of a church, and in that church a disabled person, a woman and a child were shot, completely defenceless people.  We heard about an elderly woman of 65 who was brutally stabbed with her 18-year-old granddaughter, and of a six-year-old child who had a large rock thrown on her chest and was left for dead.  And we heard this morning about Alexia Masondo, who was again fleeing from violence with a baby on her back, and who was stabbed and killed.  We have yet to understand why these sorts of atrocities took place, why it was necessary for people to kill disabled people and elderly and young women.  It's a very difficult thing for us to understand.  
We had hoped very, very much to hear the perspective  /on the
on the violence in this area from the Inkatha Freedom Party, and we tried very, very hard to persuade members of the IFP to come here to give us their perspective.  We contacted their representatives, we sent our statement-takers to Brandville, and to the hostel.  They were not able to get access to the hostel.  We wrote to Midlands IFP office, we requested them to come here to make a submission.  We said that even if they didn't want to make a submission they could make a written submission, and they refused to participate with us because they said that they believed that we would not be able to bring about reconciliation.  
They did give us their submissions which they made some years ago to the Goldstone Commission, and reference was made to that document by Dr Minnaar, who was a social scientist who we invited here to give evidence on the first day of these hearings.  And we invited him because we believed that he would be able to give an overall, professional and independent perspective on the conflict in Brandville.  He is not affiliated to any group, and we felt that it would be important for him to give his view, which would include the perspective of the IFP from that period.  And in my view he did give a very thorough overview, and he talked about the manner in which the hostel residents were excluded from civic and community life, and how on many occasions they were harassed and attacked by certain people within the township.  But he was not able to explain to us how it came about that the attacks which the hostel dwellers perpetrated on the residents of this township - how it was that they were so brutal in their nature, and so indiscriminate in their targets, and that is something that we still have to understand.
For real reconciliation to take place in Brandville there must be acknowledgement by both sides as to their roles in what took place, and there must also be a very genuine desire to reconcile with each other, because without proper reconciliation the chances of that sort of violence happening again are good, and I am sure the people of Brandville do not want to see - or do not want to experience anything like what they went through in 1990 and 1991 again.  And the TRC, the Truth Commission, can play a part in bringing those two sides together.  We have played that role in other areas, such as Trust Feeds, and if there is a willingness and a desire from the IFP, or from the hostel residents and the people of Brandville, then the TRC can play a facilitating role to try to bring those two groups closer together.
Brandville is really like - it's like a microcosm or a small version of the country.  On a national level if we don't have reconciliation it's very difficult for this country to move forward positively.  In the same way in Brandville, if there's no true reconciliation between the hostel residents and the Brandville residents, the township residents, it's very difficult for there to be positive progress and unity in this area.  So we ask the people of Brandville to consider that.
We want to thank the witnesses very much for coming forward.  It was very brave of them to come forward and tell those terrible stories, and we want to thank them and congratulate them.  And we want to thank everybody else, the volunteer staff who assisted them in the debriefing,  the TRC staff, the police who protected us here, the press
and the television.  And finally for the people of Brandville, who came and gave us their support every day, we hope that it was meaningful for you to hear the experiences of your fellow residents being told.  Sorry, I forgot to thank the sound people and the interpreters. Thank you very much.
Dr Mgojo will now say a few words in Zulu, and end off with a prayer.