Human Rights Violation Hearings — Uitenhage — 1996-08-27

MR SANDI: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Firstly this funeral was for the 8 victims that had been shot, those were even people from Despatch, and the funeral was going to be in Nogoblhe in one house in Mabahle in a family the Sisile.  So the government of the time sent a banning order that stated that this funeral was not to take place over the weekend when the people where all at home, but it had to be conducted on a week day.  So these families came together and they talked to their leaders and then they decided to abide by this banning order and the funeral was not going to be conducted on a weekend because they were in fear that the police were going to arrest and kill the people so they chose a week day for the funeral, according to the banning order.  Mr Chairperson, it happened that if we were to investigate we will find that this was a rare occurrence
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that though there was this decision that the funeral on week day and people were not going to work.  A day before the funeral some people were trying to counter the banning order that had been given out by the government and this is what led to this commotion.  At the time I was at the Mekosa office Comrade Denier who is the head of the security here in Bisho gave me a car and there was a telephone call that informed him that some people in Langa had been killed so I drove away.  Now the police gave this report that these people were shot because they were attending a funeral that was not there and yet there had been a banning order that had been read in Tsotsobe, Qwanubuhle and the people decided to abide by this banning order because they were in fear that they were going to be arrested.  
 Then the other day at night this banning order was changed that the funeral should be conducted on the week end so when people woke up ready to attend the funeral there was a committee, a burial committee that was making arrangements and they talked to the taxi man to transport the people then they talked to the bus company to transport the people and there was a lot of transport to carry the people so on this particular day the SADF stood down the road towards town and then they asked the people to alight  from the taxis they blocked the taxis, they blocked the buses and then there was a conflict because people wanted to find out why they were being made stranded.  All this time as they were walking they were accused as people who were intending to kill the White people.  So that is what happened.  
 So I am now going to address the questions that are going to be posts, and here with me I have some people who are going to give more detail.  There are questions here 
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like, who gave out the first banning order, and according to what reasons.  Secondly is, who compiled the second banning order and according to what law was it set?  And what was the reason for the issue of the second banning order?  And why was this second banning order issued despite the first one that had already been issued and why was it given just a day before the funeral?
 How did it happen that the people in Uitenhage were made aware that there had been some changes that had been done over night?  Why therefore could the people in Langa not know exactly what was happening, who's fault was it?  Why was the committee that had been appointed by the community which was the burial committee not made aware of this second arrangement, and asked that they should go and explain to the people?  Why were the people who had boarded buses and taxis asked to walk and then implicated as people who were walking to town to go and kill the White people?   This came to us as a great surprise and we feel that is was sort of a big trap that had been set, because in a military style since there are many eye witnesses of this massacre why therefore was there a strategy that there should be ambulances, there should be some helicopters, there should be some policemen standing on guard, there should be some soldiers.

MR SANDI: Did these people of Langa carry any firearms?

FIKILE KOBESE: ...(inaudible) cannot say these people were armed, even the policemen cannot say they saw anyone carrying a pistol but these people were shot and killed.

MR SANDI: Where are the other bodies of the people who died, because their number does not tally with the number that the police said they killed?  They said they killed 29
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and the community said 43 people died.

FIKILE KOBESE: When all this happened some people disappeared, they ran away with there lives, some were injured and they had to escape from hospital because the hospital in Uitenhage at that time was the base of the defence force.  I went into the Officials Department and before I could be allowed to see anyone there I would be blocked by a lot of soldiers that were dressed in uniform. They were all over the place, you couldn't even see the nurses and doctors.  It was just full of soldiers.  Then I was going to the ICU and I met a White policemen and he said he is the one and I then escaped and ran away without visiting the person I had intended to see so the hospital at the time was sort of a base for the soldiers that was after the massacre.  So the number of the dead people stated by the soldiers is just their choice. I now pause.  We have those questions that we need should be addressed....(tape ends)  ...yes, I have left the rest for the enemies, for the witnesses.

MR SANDI: We thank Mr Nkobese for giving us the full political background that led to this massacre in a very explicit way.
 I have a question here, I have a report here in front of me, which I suppose is an excerpt from the Herald Newspaper which deals with the judgement of Judge Kannemeyer where he -  what happened at that time?

FIKILE KOBESE: The police mentioned 19 people dead and then the community kept on keeping records and they brought up a death toll of 29 because it was sort of some volunteers who were investigating about the people who had died, and so when they came to 29 the police decided to keep to the number 29 and yet this death toll rose up the 43.  The
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presiding commissioner said it was nobody's fault that these people were killed.  
 If there could be someone coughing here and yet many people could have coughed, you can not tell exactly who coughed so I don't know where they got this formula from.  If therefore they say no one was held responsible then it would mean all of them therefore were responsible for this death.  Our people do not understand this and therefore if we as committee members cannot understand all this what more to an ordinary person, and those people therefore were all discharged.  This was allowed by the previous regime.

MR SANDI: Thank you Mr Nkobese, it is very pathetic that people have gone through various commissions who didn't come with anything.  We give hope that we are going to go beyond this.
 I would like to ask you to expantiate about the banning orders, the two different banning orders you received.  We understood the first one that was stopping the people from conducting the funeral on the Saturday and then we want to know more about the second banning order.  What were the actual words and how did it affect the incidents of the following day.