Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-09-11

WITNESS:  I do not know because when we got to that field the grass was burning, it was burning already.  I did not see the person that set it alight.

ADV SANDI:  You were then struck in your leg.

WITNESS:  Yes I was struck in my leg and it struck the bones in my leg.

ADV SANDI:  Is it your left leg or your right leg?

WITNESS:  It was my right leg.

ADV SANDI:  You said in your statement Mr Mantyi that you then lay flat amongst the corpses, the bodies of the deceased.

WITNESS:  That is when I realised that live ammunition was being used and not rubber bullets because when I was struck trying to get away from the fire, I had, I was struck by the bullet and I fell again.  I didn't realise then that I had been struck and when I tried to get up again I couldn't.  While lying there, I saw someone pass and I, since that was an embankment, a steep slope, it appears as though this person was running there and had been struck because this person running there was struck in such a way that his intestines were out, and he came to fall next to me and I realised then that we were really being shot at with live ammunition.  When I tried to get up and run away my legs wouldn't carry me.

ADV SANDI:  Did you say that you were assisted by a certain young lady at the time you were lying there amongst the corpses?  Do you know this lady?

WITNESS:  I do not know her.  She saw me, she recognised me and at the time there was chaos.  People were crying, ambulances were up and down.

ADV SANDI:  And how did this lady assist you?

WITNESS:  She had already run, she was running for her life but when she saw that I raised my arm, she tried to put me on her back and I realised that she wasn't going to be able to help me that way but by then the gunfire had subsided a bit and it resumed when she was trying to put me on her back and I thought that, realised that this is going to cause us both injury or maybe even cost us our lives because she is not going to be able to carry me to safety.

ADV SANDI:  Is there any expression of gratitude that you would like to make towards this lady, even though you don't know her?

WITNESS:  Yes Mr Chairman, because this girl, even after my discharge from hospital I realised that it was a family member of mine but she passed away last year.

ADV SANDI:  Do you know her name?

WITNESS:  Yes Chairman, it's Sindiswe Kangilane.

ADV SANDI:  Thank you for that.  You said that the bullet was removed from you at Gray hospital.

WITNESS:  When I contacted the hospital, Gray hospital, the people had already been removed by ambulance and there were no ambulances available anywhere so [indistinct]. I was taken by a private car from men that had come off the road and put me on their backs and found that the ambulances had left already.  So a brown private car that had come from the direction of the stadium with injured people in it, opened its doors and I was put in there and it went and took me to the hospital.

ADV SANDI:  Is there any treatment that you are currently receiving in connection with your shooting?

WITNESS:  In Gray hospital I was merely stitched up and we were told that we were being transferred to Frere hospital in East London.  We were then transferred by ambulance and the ambulance that I was in was re-directed to Cecilia Makiwane when we got to Mount Ruth because they said Frere hospital was full.

ADV SANDI:  You said that you are unable to work because you had been shot in the leg.

WITNESS:  I cannot work properly, I cannot stand for a long time because even now that I am sitting here my leg is paining because once the weather seems cold and raining, it starts paining because my leg started paining at some stage and it just opened up and pieces of bone just came out and I didn't even go to the hospital because what I was terrified was, that I was taken to theatre four times and at Cecilia Makiwane even while I was at the theatre they find that the operation wasn't conducted properly and I would have to go back time and again and I, the fifth time I refused to go back.

ADV SANDI:  Did you even have to stop working, were you working at the time?

WITNESS:  Yes I lost my job because they kept on saying - I was working at Mr Damilani's bottle store known as Notolie here in Mdantsane.

ADV SANDI:  Were you working there at the time of the injury?

WITNESS:  Yes I was working there.

ADV SANDI:  Are there any requests Mr Mantyi, that you would like to make to this Commission?

WITNESS:  Yes Mr Chairman, I do have requests.  I appreciate the fact that the Truth Commission has given us the opportunity to come and express ourselves here and I also would like Brigadier Oupa Gqozo to be one of the people sitting here so that I could ask him and he could answer himself, what the reason was for having shot so many innocent people because on the day that we were shot, we were unarmed and we were marching peacefully towards the stadium and I feel that if there is anything that he wants to ascertain from us, he should have come to us and asked us instead of just shooting us because we were not animals.

ADV SANDI:  Is there any request that you would like to put before the Commission?

WITNESS:  Yes, one more request I have is that I would like to ask this Commission since it is listening to the evidence of the victims of the shooting by Gqozo that we should receive some kind of compensation.

ADV SANDI:  Did you consult any attorneys for legal advice in connection with the shooting?

WITNESS:  I went to attorneys after having been hospitalised for 37 days and I was discharged in November.  So in February 1993 I went to the Ben Ndonga attorneys.

ADV SANDI:  And what became of the matter?

WITNESS:  I last went to see them last year when I had been sent a letter at [indistinct] in Mdantsane and I was told to go there the Monday morning.  I then went to the attorneys and I was told that the Monday there would be a trial.  When I got there uncle Ben said to me that his secretaries should take out my roll.  I don't know what roll it was but they should take it out of the book because the date on which I was called was cancelled as the court date, and that was the last that I saw of them because they promised to write me a letter again.

ADV SANDI:  When was that?

WITNESS:  That was last year.

ADV SANDI:  Didn't you go back to them to try and establish what became of the matter?

WITNESS:  No I didn't go back to them because they said that they would write me a letter because I realised that I was tired of going to them all the time which because at the time I was staying in Mdantsane and then I came home to Devon and I would keep going to them, so as they said that they would write to me and I would go home and try and find out if there were any letters for me from them.  I got tired of going to them all the time because I realised that I didn't have any money because my mother is the sole breadwinner at home, my father is unemployed, and I am supposed to ask her for money each time.

ADV SANDI:  Mr Mantyi if I understand you correctly, are you asking this Commission to contact Mr Ndonga and find out what became of your matter?

WITNESS:  Yes I would appreciate that Mr Chairperson, if the Commission could put me in touch with Mr Ndonga and just ask him to give me some answers because a lot of people did a lot of things and some people were just provoking or torturing me sometimes, so I don't know if he is still trying to prolong my suffering.

ADV SANDI: Thank you very much Mr Mantyi.  I would like to hand you back to the Chairperson.  Thank you Chairperson.