Amnesty Hearings — Tzaneen — 1999-05-04

SISI KHAMPEPE: Well won't you try and connect that to the incidents in question so that we don't become broad in the evidence that has been presented and confine ourselves to the specifics.

MR MEYER: I will attempt to do so.
	General, you have heard the comment that was made now.  With regard to these specific detainees can you tell us what methods was used during their interrogation?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Okay, it will be difficult for me to say exactly what methods were used against whom, but I think it will be better off if this question could be asked to those people who were doing the interrogation.

CHAIRPERSON: I think, do you know if any methods were used on these particular detainees, the ones referred in paragraph 15 of your supplementary affidavit, of your own knowledge and if so if you could describe them to us. If you don't know, then you don't know.

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: That is what I am saying I don't know what methods were actually used on different victims but I think members themselves are in a position to ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Were you not present yourself personally at interrogations of any of the detained persons.

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No, no.

MR MEYER: General, you specifically, and we are not talking about knowledge that you have of other persons, did you at anytime use assaults or anything of that kind with regard to any one of these people mentioned in paragraph 15?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Okay, I remember there was a time where Mdangeneni Petros Poswana, 15.3, who had gone out with the investigating team and then he had told them that he was going to show them where he hid some of the arms and ammunition and then they went out, he came back he could not show them the place where he had hidden these arms which he alleges he hid them; and then he went out again and showing them different spots and then eventually ending up getting nothing.  I was waiting for them at the office, at my office and when they came back it was late and I had waited there, and when they came back and told me that Mr Poswana he says he cannot show them the place where he had hidden them.  Then I got so angry and I asked him why did you not tell us from the beginning that you don't have any arms that are hidden anywhere else?  So I slapped him in the face with my right arm.

CHAIRPERSON: With your right open hand.

MR RAMUSHANA: Open hand.

MR MEYER: How many times did you hit him?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Once, and I felt sorry thereafter because I didn't want to use any of these methods myself.

MR MEYER: Do you know what the result was of that strike you gave him?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No, I don't know. I don't know what happened to him, because they took him away.  I never saw him again.

MR MEYER: Did he fall down?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No. He did not fall down.

MR MEYER: And with regard to these people that are mentioned paragraph 15, is that the only physical assault that you yourself committed?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Yes Mr Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you see any of those detainees that are referred to in paragraph 15 at any stage to be injured, see any physical sign that they may have been assaulted?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Yes although it will be difficult for me to explain exactly what I saw but I could see these people that they were not feeling well, especially you know after a struggle or something like that.  You could see that this person has received a little bit of a hiding, or if I could call it that.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Are you saying that you were never present when the people that you have mentioned in paragraph 15, were assaulted or interrogated?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No, when they were interrogated, no.  These people were only brought to my office to make, to write a statement or to make a confession of which I would refer them to the Magistrate.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes.  In this case with regard to the Poswana incident, he wasn't brought in to make a confession was he?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No, no, no, like  I indicated Mr Chair that I lost my temper.  This man had gone out.  It was about half past, 4 o'clock when he left, if my recollection doesn't fail me, and then they went out to go, he wanted to go and show them where he had hidden some of the arms that were used.  That's what I was told by my men, and then I said okay I will wait for you until you come back.  So I waited, they came back, then they said no, he says it's no longer at that particular spot, it's at a different spot.  I said okay then don't come back to me, go along and find out where the place is.  So they went, then they came back late.  I was alone in the office waiting for these people.  Now when they came back, they said he's the person.  He doesn't want to show us where he had hidden all these arms.  Then I asked him why didn't you tell us long ago that there are no weapons? Then I lost my temper and hit him.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes.  I understand that.  My question was simply to ascertain whether you were never present when the people that you've mentioned under paragraph 15 were interrogated by your subordinate.

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: You mean each and everyone of them?

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes, yes.

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: There is time that I came in, maybe I could hear someone screaming, and then I would go and try and find out what was happening.

SISI KHAMPEPE: But you were never part of the interrogation of the people that you have mentioned?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No, no, no.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You have already said you only are admitting to assaulting one person?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Yes.

SISI KHAMPEPE: And that's Mr Poswana?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: That's Poswana, yes.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes.  What did you mean in paragraph 34 when you talked of suspects that you assaulted?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: 34.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You only intended to mean Poswana and none of the other people.  It seems at paragraph 34, you say
"During the interrogation of the suspects a number of them were assaulted by myself."

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: No.  I think this was just a proforma, I don't know, I think everyone, everyone of us has got this...

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes.

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: But now, I indicated that Posiwa he was never assaulted by me. Mahamba never assaulted by me, Farisani.  Poswana I told, I said I slapped him in the face.  Ravele I never assaulted and Chikororo I never assault him.  Mahumela I never assaulted him.

CHAIRPERSON: And General, so with the people that were doing the interrogation of these detainees, were they aware of the fact that you would not have reprimanded them, or brought them to book, if they assaulted the people they were interrogating?  You sort of condoned that....

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Yes I would say so.

CHAIRPERSON: You were aware that they were being assaulted.  The interrogators were aware that you were aware....

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Yes, I just condoned ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: And so you basically condoned, approved it by your silence type thing and regarded it as a method to be used in those circumstances?

MUTHEIWANA GABRIEL RAMUSHWANA: Yes that's right.  But then if they did it excessively I would actually reprimand them and tell them, "look you shouldn't do that, don't exceed the bounds."

ADV BOSMAN: Mr Ramushwana I want to ask you, when you heard these people screaming, did you make enquiries as to the methods which they had used?