Human Rights Violation Hearings — Heiderveld — 1996-04-25

DR BORAINE: I call now Paul Manuel Williams and Marilyn Javens.  Good morning nice to see you.  I would like to welcome you on behalf of the Commission, we are very-very  glad that you have decided to come before this Commission.
Because once again you'll be revisiting the time of deep pain, sorrow and anguish, injury and  death and we appreciate it enormously because it is very important we think that  the country should know the complete picture as possible as to what happened and the extent of the effects of violence on a community as well as on individual.
Mr Williams, I would  ask  you please to stand, if you would like to remain seated please do so, just for the oath.
PAUL MANUEL WILLIAMS Duly sworn states

DR BORAINE: Thank you very, you can be seated and finally the Reverend  Cameron, I understand you'll be participating. Can I ask you therefore then.  Thank you very much indeed again.  A very-very special warm word of welcome to all of you.  Violence is abhorrent in any circumstances, any circumstances.  But somehow there is  a special abhorrence when it takes place at - when people are worshipping.
It just seem such a total utter contradiction and I can imagine not only the deep sadness and hurt and loss.  But also the just sheer bizarre character of these two coming together.  The one is a commitment to peace and love and reconciliation and apparently another totally contradicting that.
So we are - feel for you very deeply and in order to try and help in some small way to tell your story, Mary Burton is going to lead you, and we'll  start with Mr Williams, thank you.

MARY BURTON: Thank you. I'd like to add my welcome and thanks to you all for coming this morning, I know it's one more step in the ordeal you've been facing over the period since the attack in July 1993 but I hope it would also help to be a step in the process of  healing and recovery for both of you.   
Mr Williams would you like to tell us about the event as you remember it on the 25th  of July 1993.

MR WILLIAMS: Certainly, firstly thank you to the panel for this great opportunity of being part of this.  I was with an aunt of mine, my family  and I, we attended a birthday party, it was her 80th birthday and we left there rather late.  And I decided that - or  suggested to my wife she rather stay home with the kids and I go through to  church  end of Tape 18, Side A ...   [indistinct] it was rather quiet you know it was a winter evening and light drizzle and nothing seemed very suspicious to me.
I entered the church and became part of the Congregation and participated up to the point where two young persons had rendered a duet.  Now they were close to finishing this song when suddenly the doors where the perpetrators entered - when suddenly these doors just flung open.  And nobody could - I myself I couldn't imagine that it was a possible  or imminent attack.
At first I heard a gun shot and immediately thereafter for the first time, now, I've seen in - I am in the Post Offices you know - they have these models of hand grenades but for the first I actually see - saw a hand grenade hurling towards a live audience.  And while this hand grenade was still airborne the other gentlemen -  there were I saw about three - three people and there was possibly a fourth person.
The second person while this hand grenade was still airborne, he opened fire with what I will call a very heavy machine gun.  I say a heavy machine gun because the explosions were extremely loud, extremely powerful and I know it was a machine gun because of the type of firing.   And he was just spraying bullets you know randomly just across the Congregation and I was sitting on the end - on the end f the pew and that pew was rather full.
And you know everything seem like very slow motion, you just cannot imagine.   But when I really realised that it was an attack when I saw the explosion coming from the loop of the - of the rifle.  You could actually see it  the smoke and the fire -  the explosion.  And we tried to take cover and the pew was full and we  went down rather slowly but I managed to get on the - on the floor and I managed to get down on the - between the pews.
I curled myself up to sort of hide my face from the gun firing.  I curled myself up  and just prayed and hoped that I'll be okay but soon after I just  felt the thud of the bullet hitting my lower back and it was like - it was like  a tension wire snapping and with that went a lot of pain. I just - I had stretched my body and my lower body just became very numb.
Now I don't know much - too much about ammunition and arms but I heard from guys that went to the border that ammunition can be rather lethal and they can actually rip your body apart and that is what I thought happened to me,  that my lower body was ripped from my upper body because it was totally numb.
Nevertheless I was on the floor and in severe pain.  Help did come to me immediately in the form of my fellow brethren. What they did was they took off the jersey I was wearing and they actually stuffed the sleeve of the jersey into the hole where the bullet actually went through.  I lost a lot of blood in the process and became extremely weak.
And fortunately the ambulance arrived fairly quickly to give further attention and medical help.  That is basically what the attack looked like from my perspective because that's all I could see because I had to go down between the pews and  I couldn't witness what happened sort of after going down into them.  But it seem like a day because I thought these guys were actually moving up the pews and trying to gun down each and every person - it was absolute horror.  But  thank God I came out of it - not too okay but I'm grateful for my measure of health I'm enjoying at the moment.
My injuries I think were - are pretty severe for a young man of 40 in the prime of my years I guess -  my injuries are pretty severe. I have total paralysis of the left foot, my left leg muscles have collapsed and I have numbness in a lots of places in my body.  And also right foot especially my three small toes.
My one seat has collapsed completely and there's no chance that it will recover because I was given a year for it to mend and it did not mend after the year.  And doctor feels that there's no chance of a recovery as far as that is concerned.   I still suffer severe pain, thank God for medication of which I use a lot and that helps me - helps me through the day, thank you.

MARY BURTON: Thank you very much Mr Williams thank you.   I know you've come a long way since that time and we are grateful to hear the details of it horrific as they are and share your thankfulness that you are - you have the measure of health that you do.  Could you tell us perhaps what you think that the TRC can achieve, what it can help you - in what way it can help you.

MR WILLIAMS: Help ja well personally I - I  would like these guys to - I would like the TRC to establish who the real perpetrators are.  I'd love to know why they did it because I do feel their timing was completely out. I tell you why because the democratic elections was a reality,  it was just about in place.
And just all of a sudden out of the blue here - here come this attack.  I feel it really wasn't necessary.  And I feel a lot of innocent  people have suffered as a result.  I think especially of the Russian fathers and those families who lost their dear ones ja.

MARY BURTON: Thank you, questions?

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Any questions, yes Pumla Gobodo.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you, Chairman, Hi Paul.

MR WILLIAMS: Hi.