Human Rights Violation Hearings — Tembisa — 1996-11-26

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: There was a post mortem conducted.  A doctor came from Cape Town.  He came to my house and we sent him to Somtaka Mortuary where he was, before the first night vigil and thereafter I heard nothing of the results.  Because from here he was buried at a different place because the lawyer
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said that the post mortem must be conducted somewhere else.

MR LEWIN: It seems that there was a mass funeral afterwards of all the young children who had been killed, do you think they were killed as part of the same police action?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: These corpses were killed by the police, all of them.

MR LEWIN: And from what you could see were they all children?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: Yes it was children, all of them.

MR LEWIN: Were you able to say how many were there, did you see?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: I cannot remember clearly, there might be six.  It was coffins, but I think it was round about six coffins.

MR LEWIN: Mamma thank you very much.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you.  Mrs Malosi your son was 23 when he was killed, was he married at that stage?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: He was not married yet.

PROF MEIRING: Were there any children already?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: He didn't have any children.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you so much.  Do you have other children apart from your son?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: Yes I do.  I've got two children and four grandchildren.

PROF MEIRING: Who is taking care of you at the moment?  You are a pensioner, you are not working anymore, who takes care of you?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: At the moment I am a pensioner, but it doesn't suffice, I cannot even afford my rent.  My son was working when he passed away, he used to assist me.

PROF MEIRING: So it has been a great loss even financially TEMBISA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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to you?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: Yes it's a great loss.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you, those were the questions I wanted to ask.

YASMINE SOOKA: You mentioned that the lawyers wanted the inquest to be held somewhere else, were you represented by any lawyer?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: The lawyer who was there it's a lawyer that was brought by the comrades.  It was not a lawyer that I got on my own, he was brought by the comrades, because they took me to Khotso House to give a statement and then it was transferred to Shell House, being represented by Mr Steve.  But thereafter I heard that Mr Steve has left, he went back home, and thereafter Bam represented me, but there were no procedures till today.

YASMINE SOOKA: Have you ever heard from Shell House or from any of these lawyers, anything more on this particular matter?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: Nothing, I never heard a thing.

YASMINE SOOKA: Do you know if they filed a civil claim against the police?

FANISWA ILENE MALOSI: I am not aware of any civil case.

YASMINE SOOKA: I see.  Thank you for coming to share this story with us.  You have given us a number of details.  We have got down the fact that you did make a statement at Khotso House and we will hand this matter on to our Investigation Unit to find out what your lawyers at that time actually learnt about this matter.  It is a painful story and we are conscious of the fact that you are struggling also because of the fact that financially this has been a loss to you as well.  The people in the Reparation Committee have taken note of that.  It's a very painful story and it seems that
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there was a huge amount of violence which was quite unnecessary.  We are investigating the matter, the name of Scarface or Vusi, which seems to be the other name he had is cropping up constantly today in the statements.  We will be investigating all of them to find out who Scarface and whether he still remains within the ranks of the police force and whether or not we can get some sort of answer from him on whose orders he was actually following.  Thank you for sharing your pain with us.  We have heard you and we will see what we can do about it.  Thank you for coming today.