Amnesty Hearings — Thohoyandou — 1999-07-12

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, let's look at it from this point of view then.  For the purposes of a pending change in this country for political reasons, did the youth distinguish between those traditional healers who made such, or gave such advice that certain body parts of certain people need to be obtained to allow the royal family to further their objectives and their position on the one hand, and those people who they regarded as witches, did they make that distinction, or were they all in the same political basket that needed to be done away with so that change can be brought about in the country?

UNKNOWN: Although they don't make a great distinction between such people, there were some few traditional healers who, because of their fame in the areas, were now saved.  I can quote one.  They found one old lady and they said you must eat all your herbs here, all your drugs to prove that none of them is poisonous.  Just while they were doing that a bigger boy arrived, "But look in this area she is the only lady who had assisted in the birth of all of you here, there was no demon here, therefore she can't be a witch".  She was saved.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, that is precisely the point, that it was proved to them that she's not a witch by virtue of her assistance in their birth, but had it not been for that proof, would she not have been regarded as a witch then?

UNKNOWN: At that emotional state, she could have been killed.

CHAIRPERSON: For political reasons?

UNKNOWN: You may say a political reason, but Sir, the situation was so out of control here.

CHAIRPERSON: No, I can appreciate that, that it was out of control.  They were not able to sit like we are sitting in the comfort of this hall to investigate whether someone was a witch or a traditional healer or whatever.  I quite understand that.  I'm just asking whether the youth made any distinction in unusual practises, let's call it that, whether by way of witchcraft or traditional healing where someone advised the royal family to kill somebody in order to prosper.

UNKNOWN: If at that particular time somebody would just come and say Mr A is a witch, that particular person won't be saved.  So the questions of a distinction, in that emotional state, there was none.

CHAIRPERSON: It was non existent, are you saying?

UNKNOWN: It was not there.

ADV DE JAGER: If I understand you correctly, in a ritual murder some of the parts of the body would be taken to be used as muti, while in killing a witch, that wouldn't be the position.  They would kill the witch and leave the body to be buried, they wouldn't take parts of the body.

UNKNOWN: There are very good reasons.  When you do it for ritual murder, there has been a very serious meeting before, they have deliberated why they want to kill A, what do you want from A?  Whereas now in this issue of just getting some people, killing them in great numbers, no such meeting was actually held.  Other boys just join others by seeing them singing Viva, Viva, they just join them and throw stones.

ADV DE JAGER: Yes.  Mr van Rensburg in this particular case we're dealing with, it is not alleged that it was a ritual murder.

MR VAN RENSBURG: No indeed, that is the case Sir, I agree with.

ADV DE JAGER: So they didn't kill him to get muti from him.

MR VAN RENSBURG: Yes, no that is so.

ADV SIGODI: Just to get some clarification on this part.  As my colleague has said, that the deceased in this case was not killed in order to get muti from him, but would you say that with the leaders, were they perceived by the society to be people who had used muti from ritual murders in order to secure their positions in society?  Was that the case?

UNKNOWN: Could you please repeat that?

ADV SIGODI: I say were leaders, that is the chiefs or traditional leaders, perceived by the society as people who had used muti, muti, whether it be from ritual murders or from herbs or whatever, in order to secure their positions in society, in order to be able to rule the society?  Was that the case, or was that not the case in this area at that time?

UNKNOWN: I'll answer as follows, the chief would never like the people to see him as a murderer, as a killer, he's a symbol of justice and wherever people go he said,  "No I don't want killers at my own place," it was never found that the chief is arrested and the person was going around, but my area unlike the other area, does not have ritual murder., but after a very serious police investigation, you found that that same chief who was saying that "my area does not have murders", was actually directly involved. ...(indistinct)

CHAIRPERSON: And the youth knew that?

UNKNOWN: It was difficult for the youth to know.  I'll cite some two cases where a chief had a very serious problem with birth.  He had three wives but these three wives didn't have kids, so he went to see a traditional doctor who said, if you could get certain parts of your closest relation, the man that you eat with, such parts when mixed with certain drugs, if you take them, all these three wives of yours will have children.  The chief said "but I've never killed a person ritually".  "Don't worry, go and see Doctor A."  He went to A and he said "don't worry, I'll call in others, on a Christmas Day we will meet there and do the whole job, but you must be there too".  Well they killed a very close uncle of the chief and after a very serious police investigation, the chief was arrested, he and his closes subject were sentenced to death, that was 1949.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but by the time this particular incident for which we have gathered here occurred, the youth was aware that those practises were being carried out, not so, because those have been exposed by police investigations?

UNKNOWN: Then again there are some problems here.  At that time chiefs were holding political power not only traditionally, but some of them were also Cabinet Ministers and that made it very, very difficult for the police to go and investigate when their own minister was involved in the murder.  So now the youth became aware that the police were no longer effectively doing their own job because chiefs were now seen as strong, that they could conceal evidence, so from there now it was important to clean out the whole rot, have a new structure.

CHAIRPERSON: Professor I'm going to ask you a question just for interest sake, because I want to know these things also.  It's got nothing to do with this case.  Have there been police investigations and follow-ups and perhaps convictions of those people who advised others that you need body parts of another human being?

UNKNOWN: To the best of my own knowledge I do not know of such cases, but what I do know is this, when any of the so-called witches fled into police stations for their own custody, they were physically protected but they were verbally not protected, because these people used the same loos, toilets, if it's about 1 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night, when you hear "cuckoo re coo", oh witches are coming back now, they would be teasing those people who had fled into the police station, in any case many of these police also believed in witchcraft.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but you see, I don't mean to tramp on anybody's toes, I don't mean to be disrespectful to anybody's beliefs, but if a traditional leader has to advised somebody that he needs to take the heart or kidney or whatever of another human being and he must struggle and this must be done when he's alive, if you remove the heart of somebody who is alive, he'll die.  Now that person giving the advice, surely knows that someone is going to die because of that?

UNKNOWN: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Have there been any prosecutions of such people?

UNKNOWN: No Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: And do you know why?

UNKNOWN: The point was that it was not proved in court that indeed somebody killed A after he had been ordered by B to go and remove a certain part.