Human Rights Violation Hearings — Nelspruit — 1996-09-02

MRS MKHIZE: Elizabeth, I will help you as you have just given us the written statement.  Can you tell us in short the type of life you were living during the time of the 1986.

MS MDLULI: During the year 1986 I was still a scholar then.  If I remember well I was doing standard 7.  The place where I come from my family I grew up in a Christian environment but through schooling you normally do whatever is being done at school.   During the year 1986, it was the year where it was not possible to attend school.  At school we normally experienced the visit of the police.  Even if we were just seated and we were prepared to learn you could find us scattered outside because of the tear-gas which was thrown to us.  I remember the other day as we were busy attending classes, teachers were also present, we saw a tear-gas coming in through a window and that caused that we should move outside and we did not know actually to which direction should we move to.  And there was sort of - we were told that we should go to Gabogweni magistrate offices because some of the pupils were arrested and we went to the Gabogweni magistrate offices.  There were buses made available at school.  There came our seniors.  Some actually had sjamboks with them and then they said to us all of us should board the bus and we followed that direction.  We
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went to Gabogweni.  When we arrived at Gabogweni we were so many.  We found that there were many buses and we followed the rest.  On our arrival there people were actually singing the freedom songs.  I was standing there looking at the people.  As I was looking there up front it was my first time to see such a big gun.  I was actually shocked when I saw policemen with guns.  I said to myself no I better go back home or rather go back to the bus because I was afraid then.  I went back to the bus.  Because the buses were just across the road, as I was about to go through on my way to the bus I heard a gunshot.  I was very much shocked.  I nearly fell down.  I stopped a bit to breathe and I ran.  I did not look at the back.  As I was running forward I heard something at the back of my head as if something is burning me.  I felt as if I could fall and roll and I had a bit of saliva in my mouth.  When I spit it out it was blood outside.  I only heard that people were running and then I said to my friends better help me and another brother of mine helped me.  Another boy helped me.  He took me.  As we came to the road he said to me well things are bad here.  Can you see the security forces here and I said no I can't see them. Then he said to me open your eyes, you will see there are a lot of policemen here and I only looked just one look.  Then I said to the boy well leave me and then run away.  Then he said to me I will never leave you behind.  Then I said no we will die being two, it is better that you leave me alone and then he said to me do you know me, I said well I can hear your voice.  He said who are you.  Then he said to me I am mechanic (?).  In other words this boy is actually of Mdluli surname.  We are not related.  It is just because we know one another.  And then I said to him leave
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me behind even though things are bad, just go and inform them at home that I am injured.  They will come and check me at the hospital.  If they don't find me there they will check wherever they can.   If ever I die well I will die with you.  When we reached the road and then there was another vehicle which stood across.  At that time taxis could not stop, even cars could not stop, people were afraid and school pupils actually realised that many of us were injured and they were forcing a person driving a vehicle that he should actually give us a lift.  And he took us to the hospital.  The person actually who helped me in the registration at the hospital was this very same boy.  I can remember very vividly when we were taken to the X-ray.  After the X-ray they took me to the theatre.  I woke up while I was sleeping at the ward.  At the ward I found here at me there was a pipe which was put inside.  It was draining the blood out of my body and yet on the other side there were drips.  I was there at the ward, many things actually what happened there, principals and other students also came to pay us a visit there.  During that time I can't remember very well other people came with navy blue clothes and they had maroon epaulettes on them.  And they were going around you know, going around to the beds and the patients.  They came to me where I was actually sleeping and they checked me and they said to me police are here and the police are here in this very floor and they are busy taking statements.  I don't know what happened and thereafter another message came through that these police are back again, they want to arrest us right from the wards and take us away from the hospital.  I did not see them, I only heard that it was Dr Throater (?) actually who was actually in
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charge of the hospital then.  Then he said to them no he doesn't have comrades here, he has got only patients there.  He cannot allow that police - that people should come and arrest patients here before they can be released.  All that was actually heard from the sisters who were working in that ward.  Then I saw the principal.  What made me feel sorry, I did not know actually that I was sick, I only knew that I was just injured.  And principal came to see me at the hospital together with the students.  But when the principal came there he could not look at face to face and when he was looking at me he could face the other direction and start crying.  Then I had to ask myself what is happening now.  He could not afford to sit for a longer period here but the principal for him it was too difficult to sit there and talk to me.  But what worries me and what actually made me feel painful it is because I am not a member of any organisation and I am not actually a person who is affiliated to any movement but today I am crippled because it is just I was found at school, that was my sin.

MRS MKHIZE: I am just going to request you to explain further to us as to what happened.  We have heard that you are heartbroken because you are now crippled and you were not born like that.  If I have to take you back just a little you said earlier on at your school police were continually coming.  Can you tell us briefly what time were the police arriving at your school and when you were given an explanation at school what were they saying.  That is the teachers.  Why were the policemen coming to your school?

MS MDLULI: At that time it was the beginning of the year.  We were only told at assembly that there are students that have been arrested because you know there was just violence
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but now we got angry because in one school a child had died and we wanted to support that school and that led to unrest in the school.  Here in our school there were also students that were arrested at Gabogweni and we had to attend their court hearing.  The aim was actually to go and support the case at Gabogweni magistrates court and when we arrived there we found the police.  They would come at school.  I can't speak on behalf of the school kids but as I see the police would come and just their presence would make these school kids feel very uneasy.  They would throw tear-gases into the school yard and you would never carry on learning in that kind of a situation.  We would have to disperse.

MRS MKHIZE: You have just said that you were doing standard 7 at that time.  How old were you then?  What were your ages when you met this incident?

MS MDLULI: If I am not mistaken I was 18 years old.

MRS MKHIZE: How old are you now?

MS MDLULI: I am 28 years old.