Human Rights Violation Hearings — Klerksdorp — 1996-09-23

SUSAN J VAN DER MERWE: Is that better, can they hear me clearly? On the 1st of November 1978 and the works thereafter, on the 1st of November I saw my husband for the last time. We had breakfast together at the house where we living at the house in Swartklip. At approximately seven o'clock the morning I left home to the school where I was teaching. My husband would have gone to the farm called Doringlaagte that day, a farm which belonged to his mother, because he intended to shoot a goat for us. That farm is approximately 60 kilometres from our home. I was never to see him again.
 That same afternoon I received a report that my husband's mother had suddenly passed away. I immediately tried to make arrangements to trace my husband to inform him about the report about his mother's death. A neighbour at 
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Doringlaagte, Mr Jan Smit, found my husband at Doringlaagte and informed him. I was not worried when he did not return home on the evening of the 1st of November, because I assumed that he had gone to his sister's house where his mother was staying, to make the funeral arrangements. It was only five days later that my husband's car was found near the border at Buffelsdrift. At the time of the anxiety, there was an even bigger sad news waiting about my husband. What had happened to my husband? And this uncertainty hung over us like a dark cloud. Excuse me. 
 I had to compose myself as quickly as possible so that I could support my children. What happened to me and my children since the 1st of November; the uncertainty and the worry about my husband's disappearance was to get worse in the months that followed. There were three possibilities. His disappearance could have been due to a sudden loss of memory or kidnapping or his killing. Thereafter we placed our hopes on the fact that he could possibly have been found alive. 
 At this stage my children were as old as I had indicated earlier. All of a sudden I was alone and I was responsible for their maintenance. There were no funds, except for my monthly salary which was approximately R600,00 per month. We were expected to survive on that. Two children were at university and three were at school and I had to keep myself together in order to give my children emotional support in a world which had suddenly crushed and fallen apart around them due to the death of their father.
 My two eldest children failed their November exams at the Potchefstroom University. The university had understood the position in such a way that they allowed the children 
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to write supplementary exams. 
 At the beginning of 1979 the two children wanted to go and reregister at the university, but the bank manager informed me that I did not have any security. The circumstances were such that I was completely dependent on my husband. He was the one that was running all the financial matters and from November to January circumstances were such at my house that I did not even think about money. It was a question of trying to survive on a daily basis, from day to day. It never occurred to me that because of the way in which my husband had died, that if there were any funds available from him, that it would have been taken away from me because we were not married in community of property.
 The bank manager informed me that I did not have any security and thus I would not have any funds to enable my children to reregister at the university.
 With the greatest of difficulty and worry, I managed with the assistance of the children to get them to complete their studies, but they could not all do that. I had to remind myself constantly that I should not let my emotions affect my children, and at the same time I had do everything in my power to answer the questions that were running through my mind and try and fill the vacuum that had been left by the disappearance of their father.
 This uncertainty and the utter feeling of helplessness that was caused by the disappearance of my husband, was probably worse than receiving news of his death one time. If I could put it this way, it would have been better for me just to hear that he had an accident with a gun or he had a car accident. It would have been better for me to digest KLERKSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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the news, but the fact that there was no body even to bury, led to the fact that there was no official evidence of his death. This led to me not being able to conduct financial transactions such as buying a house. The Transvaal education department which I was working for and the financial institutions did not regard me as a breadwinner as such. My whole life was then an uncertainty.
 The South African Police's findings of what happened after the 1st of November 1978 in the Supreme Court of South Africa, were that due to he - was due to that, that the investigations had revealed that four Freedom fighters had gone to the region of Thabazimbi in November 1978 and their instruction was to make contact with the farmers there and also identify places where there were possible bases that could be used to their advantage.
 An interview with a leading figure with regard to the infiltration figures to Botswana, in the report, someone known as Mr X revealed the following. The four Freedom fighters went to stop next to the road and were hiking when a White man in his car appeared on the scene. He stopped for them and they got in the car and they forced him at gun point to go back in the opposite direction from which he had come from and go and load some things.
 Thereafter they led him into the bushes, whereafter two of them who were known in the MK unit as Pedro and John Msibe, shot him from behind. Thereafter Pedro turned the White man around who had fallen on his face, turned him around and shot him in his forehead. After these findings the Supreme Court certified my husband as dead, left my children in another vacuum of uncertainty. Why was such a horrendous deed done to my husband, which cost him his life. KLERKSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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For what purpose, what were they hoping to achieve by that?  Mr Chairperson and honourable members of the Truth Commission, you have heard so many stories of horrible deeds. Stories of people who have hurt others without batting an eyelid. You have gone into the hearts and minds of people whose wounds have shattered their lives. 
 My story and that of my children is but a minor story in comparison with these others for whom we feel sympathy. Our pain is but a mere drop in the ocean of South Africa's suffering.
 Even if we do not want to use this opportunity to highlight our problems, and looking for sympathy, that is not what we want to do. In doing this we have done that in all the years. That is why I sat and thought about it for a long time before I came to you.
 My story is the story about a woman with five children, whose husband was a peace-loving citizen, who, wherever he lived or worked, was also respected by the Blacks in those communities. A man who was killed unnecessarily in a cowardly and cruel manner, while he was helping his murderers. They abused the best of humanity. 
 I would like to add to this, that my husband had the trust of the local community. He was fluent in Tswana, he was known all over as someone with a big heart, who would not leave a stone unturned in a quest to assist other people. This way he would take Blacks to the hospital if they needed it and some other times he would take his family's food and medication and dish it out where it was necessary.
 Now I would like to say to you, that the years that we were living in Botswana, were years of extreme drought. The 
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same as our people are suffering today. People used to come to us, come walking to us. I can remember one particular incident where a father had come, had walked for days with his little daughter until they got to us. The man told my husband that this was his only surviving child and that this child had also taken ill and that he was now looking for help. My husband took all the medicines that the doctors had given to us, because we were living in such a remote area, he took all those medicines and used them to help get that child healthy again. We kept the father and child there until the child was completely recovered.
 At another time an entire family turned up on our doorstep, where they were on the road for days, because where they had come from there was no food any longer. Their crops had all failed and they had come to ask my husband for work. My husband showed them that there is nothing on this farm, but at the same time there were extreme problems and the crops were destroyed due to the drought, but in spite of all that, it was a family of seven, and he took that entire family and kept them on the farm. There was no work for them, but he told them that he was keeping them on the farm and that they could eat with us. They would share what we had with us every day and that was the man, that was the man I married, that was my husband.
 The Tswanas in the region gave him the nickname RasiTswana, that means father of the Tswanas. Ironically enough, it was his fatherliness that led to his death. 
 My story wants to put this question to you. Would these people that were responsible for the deed, now that the liberation struggle has been completed, be able to answer us what was achieved by this, who benefited from 
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this, what purpose did it all serve? From a military strategic point of view or from the viewpoint of the struggle, if these questions could contribute to answering the questions of the senselessness of what took place and this one deed in isolation could highlight the folly of what took place then, then this story has a humble contribution to bringing our country to where it is today, and will have made a contribution to the liberation.
 If we could learn from this that violence does not provide any answers, and that each and every person that commits violence with a revolver in his hand, could start all over again and just think about the consequences of what a single shot could do. 
 My submission to you is not a prosecution, Mr Chairperson. I have no need to have anyone prosecuted. My submission is a plea for reason. If your Commission could be put in the state to put our country under the impression of the folly of the violence of the past, then every bit of evidence that could contribute to that, should be submitted to you. If you could find the faults of the system, then it is good, but if you can show that violence is primarily a waste and that it has no part in a system, that would be even better, because we in this country have to show that each and every person has to accept responsibility.
 A system cannot be used as an excuse for violence. How else are we supposed to, if we are not to take responsibility for our own deeds, going to take responsibility for others. The Tswanas have an idiom which I learnt from my husband which goes "a person is a person by other people, a person is only a person with other people". We do have this duty to each other. The survival of our 
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people in this country depends on our co-operation with each other.
 My plea to you is, help people to throw their weapons away. Ask the State to do this by implementing effective rules, an efficient police force and an efficient judicial service, because no person's life is a waste. Every person's life is far too precious. 
 My story, Mr Chairperson and Commissioners is but a story of a woman who could not bury her husband because there was no corpse. Thank you very much for having listened to me.