Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-29

MR CLARKE: Okay.  My instructions are that there were no other people in the shop but for the three of you?  Do you agree with that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Myself and the person who was there I am saying there were people there but I cannot tell how many people were there.  If there were not two there were three, we found them inside the shop.

MR CLARKE: Now on your evidence I understand your role was that the first thing you did was that you chased the dogs with a broomstick and in the second part you kept guard, you kept watch to see that no one was coming to interfere with this assault on Mrs Clackers, is that the position?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I was not watching, I was not on guard for anything but I was trying to drive these dogs away because they were disturbing.  As Jimmy was busy wrestling with the lady as we don't what the lady was doing under the counter.  There was someone else who was watching.

MR CLARKE: My notes on your evidence in chief suggests that in the first place you had a broom to see to the dogs and your second role was that of looking out which I understand to mean to be keeping a watch out.  Did you not say that in your evidence in chief?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I saw a person though I was not watching anything but I saw a person, a White person who looked more or less my age and then I came to tell them it's not that I was watching because I saw them from the inside, there was a person who was on the outside, who was doing the job of watching, the other person who was with us.

MR CLARKE: Can you tell me if your mission was simply to arrive there and tell Mrs Clackers that she should close her shop, if that was purely your mission, why was it necessary or why should she have appeared to try and draw a gun from under the counter?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I will not know, I think she knows, I won't know the reason for that.

MR CLARKE: It doesn't make good sense does it?

MSIANDA NTONGA: She is the one who was trying to get something underneath the counter and I did not know what she was doing there but I just thought to myself that she was trying to get a firearm because when we came in she was not doing anything under the counter but when we told her to close the shop she started touching, trying to reach out to get something underneath, that is why I suspected that she might be looking for a gun.

MR CLARKE: I put it to you that it sounds unlikely because your entire story is unlikely, but what you were doing there was carrying out a robbery.  What do you say to that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I am saying that we did not go there for robbery, we went there as I have explained.  We went there to close the shop, we wanted her to put a padlock at the shop, to lock the shop completely because we couldn't prevent the people from buying in her shop because her shop was in a place that was more like a remote place so we wanted her to close the shop by putting a padlock.

MR CLARKE: Consistently the course of action which you and your fellow comrades adopted was not one of going in peace to ask people to do things.  Consistently the pattern of action that you and your comrades adopted was one of aggression and attack and I put it to you that all of the evidence that has been collected indicates that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Yes that is true, we were using force, we couldn't ask them in the normal way, we were threatening her because we knew that it was not easy for her to close a shop and that was her source of income.

MR CLARKE: Now it seems to be accepted that money was stolen from this shop and batteries and a carving knife.  Who would have taken those goods?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I do not dispute that but myself and the comrades, it was during the day and it was so bright that I did not see anything because we got a fright when we saw this boy because our aim was to get hold of that firearm of which even that firearm we did not get it at the end.

MR CLARKE: What makes you - do you believe that there was a firearm there?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I am not certain but we were just suspecting because of the manner which she reacted because when we came in she was not doing anything underneath the counter but when we told her to close the shop and then she started looking up for something under the counter we suspected that she was actually reaching for her gun.

MR CLARKE: Do you admit that she was very grievously assaulted?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I cannot say yes or no because I never touched her.  She was busy wrestling with Jimmy Nokawusana.

MR CLARKE: I put it to you that you saw exactly what was going on there.  You were there and you were present and you would have seen what was going on, not so?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I was not watching I was busy doing my own job on the side, I did not have time to look at what the other person was doing because I was also playing my role.

MR CLARKE: So you didn't see what happened to Mrs Clackers at all?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Yes that is correct.  I just saw them wrestling, with Jimmy and nothing else.

MR CLARKE: I'm going to ask the court - I'm going to ask this Committee to reject your evidence because you are being, in my view, evasive, Mr Ntonga, by saying that you saw nothing?
	Mr Chairman, if you could bear with me please?
	Did you hear the account of what happened that I put to your fellow comrade, Jimmy?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Yes I was listening.

MR CLARKE: I'm not - do you remember what she said - what I said?

MSIANDA NTONGA: No I cannot remember everything.

MR CLARKE: Do you remember the thrust of it was that one of your number first entered the shop then the second one climbed on the counter and assaulted Mrs Clackers, that there was a scuffle, that at some stage the till was pulled off the counter and that a third party then joined and was about to stab her before that third one which we suspect is you desisted.  Do you deny that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Yes I deny that, I know exactly what I was doing there.  I deny the fact that I came with a knife.

MR CLARKE: And our further suggestion is that you were party to a robbery in that certain things were taken from the shop by force.  Do you deny that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: That is not so, yes I was in the shop, we went there to close the shop.

MR CLARKE: My further submission to you is that the community as such gave you no mandate whatsoever to visit this shop and that that is apparent from your very own evidence.  What do you say to that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: That is not true.

MR CLARKE: That the decision to go and rob the shop emanated from you and a number of your comrades, not so?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Yes that is correct.

MR CLARKE: I further put it to you that if there was a decision by the community that white shops should be boycotted, to go and beat up a woman who is running the shop on her own there does not reflect a decision to boycott but rather as an act of thuggery.  Do you concede that?

MSIANDA NTONGA: I do not see it that way.

MR CLARKE: By promoting a boycott, you persuade the consumers not to buy there, you don't go and beat up the shopkeeper, do you?

MSIANDA NTONGA: Yes that is true, we don't go to the shops, we just write a message but that shop was on the farm and we couldn't go there and establish some roadblocks because the people from that area and the near farms that were closer to her would go and buy there but we just wanted her to put a padlock outside her shop so that there would be no people who would go there secretly and buy.  That was the reason that made us to go and tell her so because that never used to be a procedure with the other business people, White business people, because we had closed the roads.  We knew where the people used to buy, that is why we had to go to her shop to go and tell her to close the shop because her shop was inside the farm.