Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1997-03-17

HASSAN MALL: About what the decision was.  Let him first talk about that.

MR BLOEM: Can you please tell us what the decision was?

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: Firstly I want to make this point clear, as the Chairperson of the ANC the policy and the principles of the ANC said that no one has the right to kill, but a person has to protect himself from the enemy.
	The case of Mrs Nomsa Hanabe, it was a bad case in Klipplaat.  I have a picture of the circumstances as I am sitting here.  What happened is that Mrs Hanabe was Mayoress in Klipplaat and there was a national call that the Councillors have to resign and as the ANC we had to have a programme of the resignation of the Councillors, whereby which we made attempts to try and convince these people that we are not fighting against them personally, but we are fighting against the policy of apartheid in which they were defending.  We called them one by one in a meeting and we asked them to resign.  We were trying to show them that we are not fighting against them personally but we were trying to fight against the policy.  Some of them, five of them, responded positively, and they resigned.
	Mrs Nomsa Hanabe was a stubborn person and she told us she will never resign.  She has her own beliefs.  It is when we went to the community to tell the people about the decisions taken from the meetings we had with the Councillors.   We told the community that others have agreed to resign, but it was only 
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Nomsa Hanabe who refused.
	It happened that the community decided that they did not want Mrs Nomsa Hanabe in Klipplaat.  As we were still busy with that decision we heard rumours from our sources that there is a list which was provided by Mrs Nomsa Hanabe to the AmaAfrica to eliminate the leaders of the community.
	It happened on that day.  It was a Friday night and three taxi's came from Uitenhage.  They were full of AmaAfrica.  There was a Magutsa family where one girl Galane received a phone call, that we know that you are one of the people who want me to resign, to step down.  I am coming together with my people.  
	As we were looking at this matter we heard that AmaAfrica arrived in this Magutsa family.  They were fully armed as we were still looking at that matter, the community of Klipplaat this was new to them and this was strange to them, because in this community such a situation never prevailed.
	The youth decided to go to that house to observe what was going on and we saw that some members of the AmaAfrica were outside and we tried to chase them away.  We just heard people saying, shoot, shoot, and Mpati fell down.   He was kicked as he was lying down and he was taken to the hospital.   Victor Dose tried to protect him.
	As the Chairperson of the ANC I went to the police to ask them if they were aware of the situation.  When I arrived at the police there was only one police there, and we did not know what to do.  We decided to go in hiding as the leadership.  And the decision was taken and the people were still discussing how to try and chase out Mrs Hanabe in the community.
	As we know in the past there were many ways we used in order to protect ourselves.  There was a caucus held and it was concluded that this person is not willing to resign and we have EAST LONDON HEARING	AMNESTY/E CAPE
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to see what we can do about her.   And that is all.
	The following day after this incident with the AmaAfrica the women in the community stood up and they marched to the police station, asking for this group to be removed from the community, and that happened.  There was a man called Jantjie, he was the leader of this group, the AmaAfrica group.   This man said they did not go there to fight but they were trying to organise their organisation.	We told them this was not the first time such incident happened.   There was a function at school and they were looking for the Secretary General of the ANC, Nqele in that function.  They were driving a red car but unfortunately they did not find him.

MR BLOEM: Mr Blaau can I ask you are you aware of any decision that was taken and if so, please tell us under what circumstances that decision was taken to eliminate Mrs Hanabe?

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: The decision to eliminate Mrs Hanabe was taken in Klipplaat.   It was well known that if you were not working together with the people, the people come together and they decide against you.   The decision was that she must be chased away from the community.  That was the decision that was taken at that meeting.

JUDGE WILSON: What does 'chased away' mean?

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: It means that as we know that at that time people such as Mrs Hanabe were causing problems in the community, we wanted peace and cooperation in our community, we wanted to take her out of Klipplaat.

JUDGE WILSON: Not kill her, you wanted her to move out of Klipplaat, is that what you are saying?

HASSAN MALL: Chased away?

JUDGE WILSON: Chased away from Klipplaat.  Is that what you say?

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: That was one of the decisions.   What we cannot get EAST LONDON HEARING	AMNESTY/E CAPE
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away from, Mr Chairperson, is that we know that the ANC had street committees and they were responsible for what was happening in the community and they could see whether - if the person was causing a problem and they would act against that person.

SISI KHAMPEPE: I think the question to come back to it again is whether you understand that decision that was taken at that meeting have meant that Mrs Hanabe should be chased away from Klipplaat to another community as long as it was away from Klipplaat.   And you did not understand that decision to mean that she must be killed.

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: Mr Chairperson, the situation was very difficult in the national organisation.  We had difficulty in taking the decision that she must be killed.   The community took a decision that they did not want her in that community.   Because of the anger in our community it happened automatically that the comrades reacted in the way they reacted on that particular day.

MR BLOEM: Mr Blaau please, you said now that the community had a problem with the decision that she should be killed and then you went on.  I think what the members of the Committee want to establish from you, was that decision that she should be chased away, could anyone of you who formed part of the decision making, anyone have understood that decision also to mean that she should be killed?   I think that is what we want to ascertain from you.

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: I hear, I can understand you Sir.  What happened is, as I have already said, we have street committees in the community and they were part of the youth and it was upon them to implement the decision taken.   We are all activists and at that time as the situation was in the manner it was, we used to forget the ANC policy because we cannot run away from the fact that we were fighting against apartheid at that time.
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MR BLOEM: I am made to understand that the policy of the ANC was that Councillors should not be killed, is that also your understanding?

SISWE MANNETJIE BLAAU: The ANC's policy as far as I understood it said we must not kill, but it also said that we have to protect ourselves against the enemy.   At that time we were trained to protect ourselves against the enemy.

HASSAN MALL: Who was the enemy?