Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-06-21

CHAIRPERSON: May I with your indulgence Mr Molohlanye, I am getting a little confused with your evidence, Mr Cele, and this is really meant to assist you, I hope you understand that.  Let me encapsulate your evidence as I comprehend it thus far.  You have this meeting which happens at the hills where you usually held your "People's Courts", you decide to administer some lashes on the group that you had with you at that time, which did not include Dudu.  You proceed to impose a sentence and you proceed to meet out punishment on that group of people who you estimated to be approximately seven.   You then decide that Dudu must be located, you go back to the house, you search the house, you find Dudu hiding under the bed, you take her up to the hills where you again impose a sentence of 200 lashes on her and proceed to administer that sentence.   At about that time, the comrades from Amadiqwe arrive in a kombi, they then give you some kind of wisdom about the decision that you had earlier on taken, and you then agree that these persons should not only be assaulted as you had already done, but that they should be killed and not only the people who were from outside your area, but those who assisted them which would mean Amos Cele and the people who were staying at his house.  You agree with that decision, as a result of which you go to Amos Cele's house, precisely to carry out the decision that you have now taken jointly with the comrades from Amadiqwe and that is no longer to allow these people to leave, but to kill them and kill those people who had harboured them, that would be Amos Cele and his people.  This is how I have been understanding your evidence.   As it turned out, Amos Cele is not in the house and these people see you coming and they start dispersing in different directions.  You then split into various groups, the others remain behind and they burn down Amos Cele's house.  It is quite obvious to me the way I understand your evidence, that you had decided to kill these persons as advised by the comrades from Amadiqwe and that would include Mr Cele, Mr Amos Cele?  Is that not so?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: No, that is not so.   The people from Amadiqwe, they only told us that we should kill the people who came to the area.  We didn't even look for Amos, in fact when we arrived from Amos' house, the females were there and they were playing, even the kids were there.  We didn't go after them, even though we had given or administered some strokes to them.  We only chased the people who were not from the area.

CHAIRPERSON: In that case, I have not understood your evidence and I will request you to come back to this aspect which I consider quite essential to your case, to your application.  What decision was actually taken with the comrades from Amadiqwe with regard to those people to whom you had administered lashes because you had administered lashes not only to people who were outsiders, you had administered lashes even to those people who were not from Umlazi.

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: What decision was then taken by the comrades from ... (tape ends) ... repeat that evidence, it is very important, we have to understand you properly on that aspect of your evidence.

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: The comrade from Amadiqwe said to us we were wrong in just administering strokes to these people because we are allowing them to go back and arm themselves and come back and attack us.  The easy way was for us to go after them and kill them.  When  we left there, we went to Amos' place in order to kill only the people who came from Umlazi.  Things like burning down Amos' house, we didn't take any decision about that, but people who were there, who went there to attack the people from Umlazi at Amos' house, decided there and there to burn down his house, but the decision was not taken by us and the people from Amadiqwe.

CHAIRPERSON: So those who then burnt Amos Cele's house, did so outside the decision that was taken in conjunction with the comrades from Amadiqwe, is that what you are saying?  The burning of Amos Cele's house was not part of the decision taken?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: Yes, that is true.  The decision wasn't taken there, but it was a usual thing at that time that when someone was going to be fetched somewhere, in a certain house, the house was going to be burnt, this was a usual thing, this used to occur all the time.  So people just decided there and there to burn down the house, not that the comrades from Amadiqwe came with the idea.

CHAIRPERSON: Confine your response to questions pointedly put to you, I am not asking you about what used to happen.  I want to know about the decision that was taken.  It wasn't decided to burn Amos Cele's house, that wasn't the decision that you took jointly with the comrades from Amadiqwe?  Yes or no?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: No, we didn't take that decision, the only decision which was taken was that to kill the people who came from outside the area.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, so how them do you state in your affidavit that you decided that the house should be attacked, because that appears in your affidavit, paragraph 14, line 5?  Let me read it out to you, you state then it was decided, maybe I should start one line up
"... then as they were leaving ..."
	you are now talking about these persons to whom you have just administered some lashes -
"... a kombi with comrades from Amadiqwe arrived who were not satisfied with the sentence.  Then it was decided that Amos Cele ..."
	I suppose it should have been Amos Cele's house ...
"... should be attacked."
	Are you saying that portion of your evidence is incorrect because that is how it stands and that is how I comprehend it, that this was your decision?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: Yes, we didn't talk about burning Amos' house, we only decided that we were going to attack his house and take the people who came there, or the people he had harboured in his house.

CHAIRPERSON: What did you literally mean by attacking his house?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: We were going to look for the people who were in his house, because they were together with Bunu, that is Amos' son, because he was the one who was involved with these people.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you suggesting that it was your intention also to kill Bunu because, is it Bunu or Bonny?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: Bonny.

CHAIRPERSON: Bonny, yes, I think it has been incorrectly translated as Bunu, Bonny, are you saying therefore that it was your decision to kill Bonny as well?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: Yes, he was going to be killed because the Amadiqwe comrades did ask who was with the people who came to attack us and we told them that they were with Bonny.

CHAIRPERSON: Was it your intention to kill Bonny or not?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: If we did find Bonny, we were going to kill him because he was the one who came with these people from outside.

CHAIRPERSON: Were you not aggrieved by the fact that, you obviously were aggrieved by the fact that Bonny was there with these people whom you thought had come to attack you?  You were aggrieved by that?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: Yes, I didn't like the idea.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  Were you therefore also not aggrieved by the fact that Amos Cele had dared to accommodate these people in his house?

THULANI PERCIVAL CELE: No, at Mr Amos' house, there were many houses.  There was also Bonny's house and these people were actually harboured at Bonny's house, not the main house which was Bonny's father's house, or Mr Amos' house.  They were not from the main house, Mr Amos', they were from Bonny's, the outside house.

CHAIRPERSON: So far as you were concerned, you were happy that they should be inside the main kraal of Amos Cele as long as they didn't come from the main house, even though this was his kraal, you were happy with that?