Human Rights Violation Hearings — Alexandra — 1996-10-29

MR LEWIN: What we are trying to do is to unravel everything that did happen throughout that long time and what you have done is helped the Commission along the road that it is trying to follow so that by the end of the Commission's life, at the end of next year we will have a full description of everything that has happened to you.  I would thank you very much and hand back to the Chairperson.  Thank you.

COMMISSIONER: We have heard the painful story that you related before the Commission.  Some of the things you have mentioned are things that we as a Commission see that they
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come out and be done away with so that things that have happened mustn't happen again.  People like police, it is our duty to make sure that they don't repeat their history.  However, I would like to ask you to come down in order for the commissioners to pose questions to clarify or get a better picture of your story.

YASMINE SOOKA: Mama, at the time when - you mentioned in your statement that you did get a death certificate, was this given to you at the mortuary or at the police station?

MRS MATLANA: The letter that I got was from the mortuary.  I took it and the death certificate I found it from Wynberg police station.  We used to go there to fetch birth certificates.  May you please excuse me, I would like to say that the clothes which my son was wearing at the time he left my place, we couldn't find them, they didn't give us that clothes, I don't know what has happened to these clothes, whether they have burned them or teared them.  Even today I haven't got them.

YASMINE SOOKA: Did you ever go to any lawyer to find out more about this matter?  Were you ever able to be assisted by anybody else?

MRS MATLANA: No.  I didn't go to a lawyer because I couldn't go to a lawyer because I didn't think a lawyer was going to be able to help me because my son was already dead. I didn't have any belief that a lawyer will help me because lawyers also wants money so I didn't even have the money and I couldn't pay him money for someone who was already dead.  There was nothing because my child couldn't speak for himself.

YASMINE SOOKA: After you went to the Randburg police station were you ever called to court to attend any hearing in
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court, either in Wynberg or in Randburg?

MRS MATLANA: As I have explained, there was ... (nothing further on tape) the investigating officer in my son's case said to me he is coming back to me.  From there that is where I saw these pictures showing him holding a petrol bomb.  However, at the time when they were hitting him against the rock he wasn't holding a petrol bomb.  When we arrived at Wynberg they showed me the photos where he was holding a petrol bomb in a whisky bottle.

YASMINE SOOKA: Were you able to find out was his death the cause of the shooting or did he die afterwards when they hit his head on the rock?  Do you know anything about that?

MRS MATLANA: Because they hit him with irons.  I think if they didn't hit him against the rock he might have survived if they took him to hospital or maybe they have left him just there, maybe he was going to survive because the committee was going to take him to hospital.  However, because they hit him against the rock I think that is how he died because they beat his head against a rock and his head was swollen when we found him.  Therefore they smashed his head.  I think that is how they killed him.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you very much.  I have got this paper.  You have given me the number of the police case and the investigating officer so that is quite useful for our investigation unit.

MRS MATLANA: Excuse me, there is something which I haven't stated in my statement.  After the funeral on the very same night there were my daughters Zakele and some other friends.  The white policemen came and took them away. After Good Friday we had to go and bail them out. Now I am coming to talk about the Ama Cabasa gang.  When we arrived in court
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the police there they were talking to each other saying let's work quick today because we have to go, saying that they were going to do their things.  On that day the court was empty, there were only a lot of children around.  One of the police whom I know said today we are going to enter the township and I asked him what is in the township and he said today we are visiting the township.  As they were saying like that they were trying to say that they were coming to attack in the township, killing people.  I said clearly that the burning of people, especially this young man who was burned working from (indistinct) it wasn't because of the gangsters, they were burnt by police because when they were passing with their vans they were carrying petrol bombs in the vans.  They were holding axes, singing.  I would like to state categorically that the burning of people and houses it wasn't done by the Ama Cabasa gang it was the police.  The Wynberg (indistinct) police, Bramley, all of them they came as a group along Selbourne Street.  When they were about to take a corner coming towards my house direction, however they turned and took 7th Avenue, crossing through 6 and one of them direct them not to come to my place. I walked behind them trying to see where they were going with these arms and petrol bombs.  That was the time they went to burn a house, number 31 and number 32.  Thereafter when they finished they came down and then they went to 2nd Avenue and burned, this man was working at Benny Goldberg.  The next day when I went to 2nd Avenue, because this man who was burnt was my relative, these white people were taking pictures, they asked us did you see the people who burnt this one and I told him straight why do you ask us because you were the people who were running around burning these people with
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your police.  You are the one who sent the police, the black police, you coming behind them, that they must come and kill their own nation - race.  How are they going to stay in the township if they kill their own people?

COMMISSIONER: We would like to thank you about the testimony that you have given before the Commission.  Yours is a painful story because it reminds us of our past, how bad it was and how it failed to look after its people, especially the children.  When you say that your child was 12 years old.  South Africa being known as a Christian country, it is so difficult to find out that a 12 year old was killed in the manner which you have just described.  We also pity the situation that have gone through that having stayed for ten years and also that we find that as you have stated that it is difficult for you to forgive as you are expressing your wishes about the perpetrators, we wish that they can come forward before the Commission.  It doesn't have to be this human rights hearing, they can come to the amnesty so that they as perpetrators should come before the people and tell the truth so that people like you can be able to forgive and reconcile.  We would like to thank you very much. As Commissioner Yasmin Sooka has already mentioned we will keep in contact.  Thank you.

YASMINE SOOKA: ... part of your statement on the Ama Cabasa I think if you could just make sure that our statement takers take a proper statement on that.