Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-08-05

MR WAGNER: So when you parked this car, say between six and seven in the morning, was this bomb in the car, was it already primed - is that the word you people use - was it already primed, ready to explode?

JOSEPH KGOELE: No not yet.

MR WAGNER: What was still required to cause the explosion, apart from the triggering of the remote control the, what else was still required and I'm referring now to the moment when you parked your car between six and seven in the morning outside the Court?

JOSEPH KGOELE: What was required of me was just to install a battery in when I came back.

MR WAGNER: So are you saying that you parked your car there in the morning, you went back to Soweto, at a later stage you came back and you had to go to this car again and to do something to activate the bomb by putting in a battery or something.  Is that what you're saying?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes, that battery controls the time mechanism which was installed within the explosives and that time mechanism was further activated by the remote control device.

MR WAGNER: Was this done so that the bomb could not be detonated in the meantime, during the course of the morning by some accident, radio frequency or something, is that what you're saying?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes it is, without the battery it's just as dead as anything.

MR WAGNER: I'm quite relieved to hear this because I was under the impression that there was this very very dangerous sort of activated bomb standing there for six and a half hours in the street.  Is that not the position?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes.

MR WAGNER: Your accomplice Mr Mabele, was he not informed at all beforehand what this whole coming to town and driving back to Soweto early in the morning was all about?

JOSEPH KGOELE: No he was never informed, but as a human being he might have had his own suspicions, why then he was a supporter of Umkhonto weSizwe.

MR WAGNER: Maybe you can tell the Committee this, where exactly, were did you construct this bomb because 100 kilograms, this is, this must have been huge.  Was that in your own house or in your garage or where did you do all this?

JOSEPH KGOELE: In my own hideout.

MR WAGNER: And I assume then you alone and you had no one to help you there?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes.

MR WAGNER: Did Mr Mabele at any stage see the explosives?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Let me correct you, it's not Mabene it's Mabele.  He saw what was in the boot of the car but I don't think by that time he could explain what it was.

MR WAGNER: This specific car with the big bomb, whose care was this?

JOSEPH KGOELE: As was MK practice, we used to purchase this so-called "hot" cars from the (indistinct) people who stole them for use in such operations so I had previously purchased that car and concealed it in my hiding place and then the day I had to do what was required of me.

MR WAGNER: So this was a stolen car?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes.

MR WAGNER: The specific time of the explosion, I think it was, both explosions were round about twelve thirty, round about midday according to the documentation.  I think you agree to that?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes I do.

MR WAGNER: What was the reason or what was the motivation that that was the correct time for the explosion?

JOSEPH KGOELE: It was not the reason, the purpose was that, the timing was that during that time a lot of people are already at work and the Court will be in session by that time and there will only be fewer people moving around and the exact location, after our own surveillance was that there was a lot of traffic except the police who came into the Court from Johannesburg, John Vorster Square by then, so the time was to lure the police who came from John Vorster Square.

MR WAGNER: Mr Kgoele was the idea to kill as many policemen as possible?

JOSEPH KGOELE: By then yes.

MR WAGNER: And that is regardless of race or gender or type of work they've been doing, merely being a policeman they should be killed?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes.

MR WAGNER: In fact I can remember seeing a video where you gave an interview, I don't know who the people are where you actually made statements to this effect that you would have been more happy man had there been killed a hundred or so policemen, I can't remember the exact word but words to that effect?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes I did say.

MR WAGNER: Does that mean that you regard this operation as a failure?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Not that I regard it as a failure.  When I uttered those words I spoke from the perspective of a Black man who had no vote then in South Africa.  I spoke on a perspective or from a point of view of a man who had endured all the sufferings in Soweto.  That I had to skip this country and go for training, it was not due to a reason of my own making, it was because of the apartheid policy and all the experience that one had experienced from 1976 and lastly a thing that became a turning point in my life, when we were shot at burying the late Tshasivane (?) at a cemetery in Doornkop.  So those are incidents that may have compelled me to utter those words.

MR WAGNER: Sorry did I get it right, were you shot at and I assume then by the police, and were you hit in the process?

JOSEPH KGOELE: No I was not hit but a lot of people died that day.  We were in a funeral, conducting a peaceful funeral and the police came in and shot at us.

DR TSOTSI: Which year was this - sorry Mr Wagner - which years was this?

JOSEPH KGOELE: If I remember vividly it was when we were burying Mr Tshasivane, 1978 I think (indistinct) somewhere.

MR WAGNER: Mr Kgoele - do I pronounce it correct?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Yes.

MR WAGNER: Do you regard yourself as a military man?

JOSEPH KGOELE: No I'm not a military man.  To become militant was through circumstances.  I'm an ordinary South African, a human being just like everybody, anyone else.

MR WAGNER: Because I put it to you that to attack your enemy in the way that you did on this specific day, is an act of cowardice and nothing more?

JOSEPH KGOELE: I appreciate that very much and that what I term guerrilla warfare, because we were not a conventional army, we did not (indistinct) within which to fight so we had to conduct our attacks in that fashion.

MR WAGNER: Does your answer mean that in a guerrilla war a person who regards himself as a guerrilla, he must only attack defenceless people who can't defend themselves.  Is that your answer?

JOSEPH KGOELE: I think in this case the South African Police were armed 24 hours a day so I don't think they were defenceless.

MR WAGNER: Please Mr Kgoele do you suggest that these policemen who were brutally killed on this day, they were able to defend themselves against the explosion.  Is that what you're saying?

JOSEPH KGOELE: Well in guerrilla warfare it's not a question of ready or not ready, it's an ambush so an ambush never announces itself or an ambusher so I take you by surprise.  So if I win so be it.

MR WAGNER: That's what I actually meant by my question so maybe I should repeat myself.  In a guerrilla war all the guerrillas do is they attack people who can't fight back, put it that way?

CHAIRPERSON: It's not what he says, you attack them when they cannot fight back, not people who can't fight back.  You ambush them, you take them by surprise when they're looking the other way.  But they're not people who can't fight back, they're armed men.  If you study any guerrilla war Mr Wagner you will see numerous attacks on armed men from ambushes, from surprises.

MR WAGNER: I'm sorry Chairman maybe my use of the English language was inadequate, what I was trying to convey is that you attack someone who can't fight back at that moment in time.

JOSEPH KGOELE: If I had the means to announce myself that time I would have, but I don't think I would be standing in front of you today if I did that so I had to surprise them like they did when they surprised us (indistinct).

MR WAGNER: Sorry I didn't get the last part, what was the last part of your response?