Human Rights Violation Hearings — Duduza — 1997-02-04

EVELINA PULENG MOLOKO: I discovered that all her teeth were missing and before she died she had 32 teeth, she did not have a tooth missing.  She had a huge gap on her head, she was also injured and she was actually scorched by fire, but she was not really burnt.  I realised that her foot had been burnt and she had been gruesomely hurt to death and I looked at her face and her face looked just the same as her son's face.  Now, I ask myself as to why did they have to put this huge rock on her face and at that time Silwana was crying.  I had so much courage at that time, I was not crying.  God had given me so much strength.  Her legs were taken apart ... and I went into the nearby house to go and enlist some help.  I asked for them to give me papers so that I could cover my sister's body at the grave site.  At that time it was quite late.
 I remembered later that at my sister's place it was quite a short distance from there, but I went past there because I was so confused and when I got there, they were on their feet, they did not know what to do with the situation.  I told them that I was already from the grave site and I directed them to call the police so that they could come and collect the body.  Maureen, my sister, as well as Bambate and my uncle, we went to the police station to report the matter to the police and they took the car to go and fetch the body.  I also went home to go and fetch my little shawl so that I could cover my sister.  
 At that time there were not any people in the streets, I was all by myself.  It was if the whole world had shut itself out and it had shut me out.  They brought the body back and I told my uncle that he should cover her, because I did not want to see her body anymore and I did not want to see the face.  They were waiting for the Government Mortuary vehicle to come and pick the body up and the police wanted to take a statement from me.  I related the matter that I was not present at the time that this took place and when I got there she was dead already.  
 We made preparations for the funeral and there were rumours thereafter that nobody was supposed to come to the Skhosana place, that is my place, and whoever was seen getting in there would also be a victim of the same fate that befell my sister.  Our relatives came to bury her and we were told that only as the members of the family we should attend.  It was a very painful occasion.  We went to Natalspruit to discuss with my uncles to make further arrangements from the funeral.  We went to the mortuary and we chose a coffin.  As we were still making further preparations and we were waiting for the Government Mortuary to tell us as to when they had finished conducting the post mortem, then the owner of the mortuary phoned my brother at 
work to tell him that he had received a phone call earlier on that if he should bury Maki, they would burn down his mortuary and now he was scared to conduct the funeral or ferry Maki to the grave site.  He wanted to draw back.  He said we should see what we wanted to do with the corpse.  He was no longer involved.  
 At that time we realised that the whole world had shut us out and we waited for the day of the funeral.  We were also told that on that day some others were going to be burned on that day.  They also threatened us that they were going to take the corpse or the body and burn it once more and we were having a problem of burying my sister in Duduza.  Luckily, where my parents come from, they come from Shawela and they stay in Shawela presently.  My father decided that he was going to bury my sister and as we were making these arrangements we were confused as to how and where we were going to bury my sister.  Some suggested that my sister should be cremated instead of being buried and some said it is not our culture to cremate a body and what were we going to do with the ashes.  
 Mr Moshapilo decided that the service was going to take place at a certain church and we were going to see whether they were going to burn the church thereafter.  We spoke to the people at the Government Mortuary that they should not furnish any information with regard to Maki.  If they wanted or, us as a family, we wanted to know, we would go there personally.  They realised that we were in a predicament and they offered to organise a mortuary at the city, that is a mortuary that was owned by white people where the people in the location would not know that the corpse was there and she was taken to Ashtra Mortuary and on the day of the 
funeral, it was quite clandestine because we did not want people to know that we were going to bury Maki on that day. Even the relatives who wanted to attend the funeral were not able because we did not want a large crowd of people to attend the funeral so that it could show that it was a funeral.
 We went there, we were only few, quite a few family members in a combi.  We proceeded to the mortuary to fetch the body and we later on went to Soweto.  We fetched the Reverend from Sakani and when we got to Shawela I saw people in Shawela who had come, even the Reverends from the Lutheran Church, there were quite a number of people, even people from overseas as well as school children where my son was at school.  They had come to attend the funeral.  It was very surprising because they were being very supportive.  Then I came back to Duduza.  
 We knew that Maki was an innocent victim and today it has come to the surface.  Mamasela has also spoken that he was involved in giving the youths hand grenades.  Now it has surfaced that Maki also took part and she was also politically active.  I also spoke to some of the survivors of the hand grenade and they told me that they never, ever had Maki in their meetings and Maki did not know of their plans on that particular day.  There was absolutely nothing that she knew and they were also surprised as to why Maki was killed.  Now, this is a very painful situation because there were a lot of rumours flowing around, they branded us a family of informers.  Now, there is usually no smoke without a fire.  Now, we suspect or know that there is possibly a person who disseminated information that Maki was an informer.  I want to request that particular person to 
come forward and tell this whole world that he or she is the one who caused the death of my sister and that he or she is the one who said Maki should be killed.  We just want to know, we want that particular person to come forward and tell us as a family.  We do not bear a grudge and we will not do anything to that person.  We just want to see him or her.