Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-09-17

CHAIRPERSON: Let me just see if we don't misunderstand one another here.  There is a section in the application form that ask you about what happened at the trial, what happened to you where you've got to say where you appeared and what happened to you, you were convicted and you were sentenced and so on.  Are you aware of that, that there is a section in the form that deals with that?  Towards the end of the form there is something that talks about what happened at the court case.

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I can see it.

CHAIRPERSON: Ja.  Now, this form, just tell us, did you get the form personally from the prison officials or where did the form come from that the person filled in for you?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I fetched the form from the offices of the Correctional Services authorities.

CHAIRPERSON: And then what did you do with it?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I asked for an isiZulu version and I could not get it, so I took the English version.  I went back to my cell and I asked one inmate and told him that I was making this application and I requested him to write it for me.

CHAIRPERSON: So, you had to get assistance to be able to have the English version of this form completed for you because you couldn't a Zulu version of it?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, I had to ask for assistance from this other person.

CHAIRPERSON: So, did you give the form to this person?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: We sat down and I gave him the form.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.  And did you know that he would be able to assist you?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I asked him if he understood English and if he could assist me in writing and he said yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.  Then he was sitting with the form.  Was he asking you specific questions which would appear from the form or how did you go about doing this thing, or did you tell him one long story or what?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Sometimes I would give him details about addresses and names and with regards to statements regarding the trial I told him the entire story and asked him to write it down.

CHAIRPERSON: And were you speaking Zulu, the two of you?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, I would tell him in isiZulu and he would actually translate it into English.

CHAIRPERSON: And whatever he ask you he also ask you in Zulu?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, he would ask me in isiZulu.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, thank you.  Mr Lax?

MR LAX: When you then began to fill out the nature and the particulars of the offence as a follow on from the earlier questions, you with me on that?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Please repeat.

MR LAX: Okay.  Just to help you.  I was asking you before the Chairperson asked you some questions about this form and how you were filling it out and I was taking you through the questions, can you see that?  And we went through all the different questions and you wrote down dates, places, what the offences were etcetera.  And so where it says, "Nature and particulars", that refers to the offences, you understood that.  Do you understand that now and did you understand it then?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, I do understand.

MR LAX: And did you understand it at the time you were filling out the form?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I understood that particulars of what happened on the 20th and I told the person who was writing about what I said to the police who were taking the statement, who made me confess.

MR LAX: So you put things here that are not the truth?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: ...[no English translation]

MR LAX: Yes.

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: It was the truth as far as the police who were taking the statement are concerned.

MR LAX: But you knew that not to be - sorry, carry on.

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: The way I understood this section was as regards to the details of the case or of the trial, and that the truth would eventually actually come out when I came here.

MR LAX: But you knew that what was being written here was not the truth, correct?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, I did know that it is not the truth because I did not commit the crime.

MR LAX: Now, when you signed this form on the 2nd of December 1996, you signed it as if it was the truth.

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I did not take an oath about the contents of the form and I wrote this form with regards to what actually happened and as to how I was informed, and after completing it I actually signed it and it was sent to the TRC.

MR LAX: Well, from the form itself it appears as if you signed and swore to it.  Signed by a Commissioner of Oaths.  It has a stamp on it from the prison commander and the date.  Did you not sign it before the prison commander?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: I signed it before a prison official, but I don't know if it was a commander.

MR LAX: Well, did you not take the oath as it is mentioned here in the document as you were required to have done?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: They asked me if I knew the contents of the form and I said yes, and then they told me to sign it and I did so.

MR LAX: So you yourself took no part in this shooting or the removal of the firearm?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, I did not take part in any of that.

MR LAX: And all you did was go and check to see what was happening at the scene?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes, that is correct.

MR LAX: And then warn your comrades?

GEORGE LULAMILE KHWANKWA: Yes.

MR LAX: You see, you go on to talk about your political objective and your justification in paragraph 10(b).  Now how could you be justifying politically a lie?

MR MBANDAZAYO: Mr Chairman, without interfering with the question of the honourable member, I don't think they managed to get each regarding the reason for him filling the nature and particulars.  I think he made it clear that the way he understood the nature and particulars was that he must say exactly what he told the police in his confession.  So, what he filled there he understood in that way and it is in that sense that it was a lie, because what he told the police was a lie, and he understood the question what is wanted in the form as what he'd also told the police, because it's what also transpired in court.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  No, no, no, Mr Mbandazayo, that much is very clear.  I mean if we're presented with an English form, English application form under the circumstances which the applicant was trying to explain to us here, we were speaking Zulu to some other person who was completing the form, speaking for myself, I'm afraid one has to judge the value of that form in the light of those particular circumstances.  Now, I know he was trying to explain this whole thing about the information that apparently appears in English on the English form and there was a lot of to and fro about this, and about whether there were lies and where the lies were and so on.
	And I tend to agree with you that there is certainly no clear indication that what the applicant was saying was that in here he was lying intentionally to the Commission.  It was certainly linked to what was said to the police.  In fact at one stage I made a note here, he says that, "I wrote the form as to what actually happened and what the police informed me".  And I saw there is obviously no clarity, certainly in my mind, on the issue or the point that the applicant had intended when he completed this form to lie to the Commission.

MR MBANDAZAYO: Thank you, Mr Chairman.