Human Rights Violation Hearings — Umtata — 1996-06-19

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: What race were these policemen? You just said that they were from the Transkei?  Were they White UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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policemen or were they Black policemen?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: These were Black policemen.  Some were from East London, though I don't know their names.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Some were White while you were still in custody?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: Yes.  Some White policemen also arrived.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Where were you at this time?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: At this time I was at Umtata central prison.  Sometimes I would be taken into the ward where the interrogation happened.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: So the White ones from East London were the ones who used to come and assault you. Coming back to Atwell's story, how did Attwell die?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: Attwell is my elder brother.  I was the one directly after him.  Now in 1988, March, I received a telephone call whilst I was at work.  The caller said he was Gozo Madli. He said he was calling from Lesotho.  He said to me your elder brother has been shot, as we speak, he is in  hospital.  I said what happened, why was he shot.  So he said they were walking, it was himself, William Ngomo, Tandefeki Radebi, son of Dr Malega who was a student at the time.
 They were from Roma to Mafekeng.  Before they went to Mafekeng, soldiers' vehicles approached them and they stopped them on the road. They said to them they must lean against the car. So they did.  Then they searched them. Confiscated whatever they had with them.  After that they asked identify yourselves.  So they did.  They said we are only students here at Roma. So they said show us your student identity cards. So the other two apparently they didn't have their student cards.  So now my brother started 
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to negotiate that no, we are students.  He tried to say no, we are students, but we don't have our student cards here with us, because we didn't think that we will meet you and you will be asking for our student cards.  So they said we have orders to shoot you. The others said why, why are you going to kill us.  They said because you are member of the ANC, you must not deny this, we know this.  After that they started to shoot.
 Now the story goes on like this.  My brother and Willie Ngoma, they escaped from this truck and they left. When my brother was trying to escape, they shot him on his knees, both of them. Then Radebe was left on the spot.  William Ngoma escaped to the university, where he met some of the ANC members.  Then he told them the story about what had happened.  He told them he met these men who said they have orders to shoot us.  And Philo - that is how my brother used to be called - has been shot, but we don't know where he is.  Later, after some investigations, it was found that when after he was shot, he slept there, he spent the whole night there on the spot. Now in the morning some of the people from the village picked him up.  They could see that he was injured, but the was unconcious.  They took him to the hospital.  When they got there, he got some treatment and then he came to.  Then he told them the story of how it happened.  At that time he was under the Lesotho policemen guard.  
 While he was still under guard, in the second week while he was still in hospital, he was not being treated. He was only given pain-killers.  They were not preparations, like doctors usually do to treat a bullet wound. On the second week he was removed from the ward that he was in and 
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he was put under a certain window.  So he asked why are you shifting me.  So they said no, this is the best place for you.  They just gave him a flimsy excuse.  So he used to complain to the sisters and doctors but they all ignored it.   On a certain day, it was very early in the morning, around seven, apparently a certain man arrived at that window and shot him and finished him.  That was the end of him.
 Then again I received another call. Somebody told me that your brother now is dead.  But now we didn't know what to do.  We tried to call the head office of the ANC because at this stage we didn't know what to do.  The whole family had a meeting and we decided now to go and fetch the body and we did.  We came and we buried the body in November.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Now your brother, when he was shifted next to this window, was this the hospital that did this?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: I think yes, it was the hospital people that did this, because it is the doctors who ignored this whole isolation.  That is my own conclusion, because it looked as if it was the hospital officials who did this.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Can you still remember if your brother, on which days your brother was in hospital?  Do you have any records of this or even the name of the hospital, for that matter?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: No, I can't remember the days when he spent in the hospital. The name of the hospital was the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Maseru.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: You think that the hospital didn't help that your brother should get back to good health? Instead it looked like the hospital itself encouraged his illness. Is that how you feel?
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DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: I strongly feel that the officials of the hospital didn't care for my brother.  Even after they have been asked to take care of him, instead what they did was just to give him lots of pain-killers. But they didn't treat his bullet wounds.  Apparently there are people who came in, who interrogated him, while he was still in hospital. But it is said that he didn't say anything to them. He just looked at them.  They kept on several times, asking questions; asked him what is he doing here, but he never answered.
 At the time the Lesotho police were there guarding him.  This continued for two weeks.  Then on the second week he was shot and yet he was under police guard.  Now this makes me suspicious because it looks like the officials of the hospital didn't take good care of him.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Gonig back a little.  The reason why he went to Lesotho, how did he get to Lesotho and what was the aim of going to Lesotho?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: His aims of going to Lesotho were known by the one next to me, because they were the two who went to Lesotho together.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Can Dumisani please take the microphone so that he can now start from there.  We would like to have a picture, a full picture so that we can have clarity on how the late brother died.

MR MAFO: In 1980 we were from Fort Hare University.  At the time we were under the influence of the ANC and in October of the same year we went into exile.  We were four young men. It was myself and Kulba Khaya.  We went to Lesotho and just other countries. In short we got military training and then we came back again. That is now when we came to 1988, that is how he got that unfortunate incident.  I just wanted UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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to give you that short summary.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you very much. I would also ask - I am now going to hand over to the Chairperson.   So that the other Commissioners can ask questions if they have any.  Thank you very much.

MEMBER OF PANEL: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Could you please tell us more about Mbilo.  Before he went to Lesotho, the time he was there in 1988, isn't that the time when Lesotho was under military government?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: Yes, it is correct, Commissioner.

MEMBER OF PANEL: The soldiers who took over the government?

DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: Yes, it is correct, Commissioner. I think Dumisani here will bear witness to this.