Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1997-06-10

BONGANI FINCA: Turn the mike towards you.
MR BELLING (SNR): They knew before they went there what their intentions were so to me it's a premeditated issue they'd already planned it because according to the witnesses I won't mention it now but according to the witnesses there these people were sitting and having something to eat there and they got up and opened their jackets and they just ... or opened up the butts of the AK47's and then they took off and that's when they started shooting.  So they were there long before, they had already sized the whole place up.  These guys knew what they were doing before they even went there they knew what their intentions were so there's no argument that it was done on the spur of the moment or anything like that.  What he's gone through is terrible.  This guy had septicemia, he nearly died like he said he nearly died a couple of time without the heart problems.  The one specialist phoned me at twenty to six on a Saturday morning, I'll never forget it and he said to me Mr Belling I've got to rush your son into theatre because if we don't operate he's going to die and if we do operate he's only got a fifty percent chance.  Now you must hear something like that.  It's not funny really it's not funny.  This went on and on.
 My wife was working and came home at night, we had a nurse looking after him for five days a week because he had a huge hole and I'm not exaggerating of that size on his leg.  They had to drain it three or four times a day and their was an AK47 bullet in the leg and every time they X-rayed I marked of the X-rays and so on the bullet had disappeared.  In the meantime it was moving up and down his leg.  We've got the bullet.  I should have brought it with me it was corroded and a badly corroded bullet.  This is the type that the terrorist used.   They come out of all the filthy places and I know because I've dealt with this before.  Anyway with all the septicemia and so on he nearly died a few times and they had to operate on him and this was terrible things he had to go through.  He's had many operations on his hip.  The authopedics had to sort him out.  This guy went through endless pain and then my wife had to deal with him when she came home because the nurse went off.   Many of the times she'd work right through the night with him and went back to work the next day with no sleep.  This was killing to all of us it wasn't funny at all.  We had no lifestyle at all.  There was no ways we could go out or anything like that not that we were people to do that but Saturdays, Sundays and right through the nights we went on and on with him to fight with him.  I even built everything, an authopedic bed at home even on top of that monkey chain.   I built all of that because I'm a versatile guy, I can do welding and that type of thing.  I made all these things better than what they had in hospital.  I had everything there that he could try to do exercises with weights.  We went through everything and everything costs money.  I've got no money left either because of all this.  My money is also finished.  We spent everything on him.  It runs into money all the time it just runs into thousands of rands and it doesn't stop, it doesn't stop at all.  
 I'm just trying to explain to the Commission how we went through this whole issue and we still have got problems with him and he still goes to the doctors now and again although he's settled down a lot.  Our biggest problem is all this pain that he has, that he lives with.  He's got to take six hundred tablets a month which is not very funny at all.  He's forced to take them, he's got to take them otherwise he can't move around in any way.  He's still on crutches and he'll be like this and suffer like this until he's fifty odd.  He's got a colostomy bag too.  That's not a funny thing to have either because you can't be in company with a colostomy bag and this type of thing.  There's nothing nice about it at all.  We went through compete hell with this issue really and it's just buggerd our whole life up completely.  It's messed our whole life up.  
 I feel that the Government should look at compensating these people.  We were talking about a little business.  It might be something small that he can keep himself and his mind occupied so that he can try and drift away from this issue that he's been through because it's never going to leave him completely.  Even his cousin that was with him, if something bangs next to him this guy takes off like a bullet and he goes down on his tummy.  He's still very, very nervous this guy.  He's been going for treatment too but he was the worst hit out of them all except for those people that were shot and killed and also those who lost ... like Webber lost his arm and so on and Doreen and these people, they also got badly injured.  He was really the worst hit.  He was living in hospital all the time, all the operations he's had is unbelievable.  I've handed all the reports from all the specialists to the Commission so that you people can go through them and study them whenever you like.   I've given you copies of that.  Then you'll really see what he went through.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you very much Mr Belling Senior you have referred to this as a premeditated act of brutal murder.
MR BELLING (SNR): Yes.