Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietersburg — 1996-07-18

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: (sworn states)

PROF MEIRING: Welcome to the stand, it's nice to have you with us.  May I ask is it your son sitting at your side?  That will be a good experience for you and for him to have you with him.  Welcome!  What is his name?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: Paul.

PROF MEIRING: Paul? Very welcome to you!  If we look at the written testimony that you have given to us, it seems to me that the first of May 1991 is a day that you'll never forget.  Would you like to tell us about that day and what happened after that day?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: On the first of May 1991 I left home with my two younger brothers, and we met a car at the shop which is next to a lounge.  We saw a white guy sitting in the car.  I went to him and I greeted him. We really thank and are happy to see white guys coming to our place, coming to relax with us. I asked the guy if there was anything I can get for him the bar lounge or in the shop.  He told me he had already sent someone.  I left him there.  When I went into the bar lounge, I met another guy chasing one boy called Mathe.  Mathe fell in front of the guy who was chasing him and he woke up just in front of me and he ran away again.  I asked the guy who was chasing him how he can chase someone and then just leave him to get away.  This guy then beat me up with fists, and I hit him back.  The younger brother Samuel also helped by making us talk, then we went aside and we met the guy who was in the car coming to us with a gun in his hand.  Then someone raised his hands and begged him not to shoot.  The white guy didn't shoot and we tried to discuss and solve this problem, then this guy ran away, I made a grab at him but he went to fetch a gun from his car.  I then faced the other way around as I didn't want him to shoot me in front.
 The guy shot me and the other one helped so that he did not hit me in the body but in the leg.  I ran away with my injured leg and went into the bar lounge where I fell.  I didn't know what happened because I was unconscious, and I woke up in the hospital the next day and realised that my leg was bandaged and didn't know exactly what happened.  When I asked they just told me that I came the day before with an injured leg and no one knew exactly what happened.  Then my wife and parents came and they said people said that he was shot by soldiers the previous day.  I didn't know what to say, I was just confused.
 From there I was hospitalised for three weeks and the doctors realised that my leg had to be amputated.  It was amputated during the third week at the hospital and the doctors came again and said I had to have another amputation above the knee.  Then they told me that the whole leg had to be amputated. I just told the doctors to help me.  
 After those weeks on police guy came for the statement.  He told me that the guys who shot me were Augustine Mabuya, the soldier and another soldier whose name I forgot.  Then they told me they arrested them and gave me the date of the court hearing.
 We went to court and were questioned and we just told them what happened like I just explained.  They also asked the doctors about my medical report and the doctors explained everything.  They charged those chaps three years.  I asked the police what I should do and they told me that I must go to a lawyer.  My lawyer Eben Smit helped me and he made it possible for us to go to Pretoria.
 When we went to the Supreme Court, we told them the statement like I told you now and those guys also gave a statement and they told the court that they came to our place because they heard that they heard AK 47 shots.  Then they reminded us that we would have to come to court again the next day.  My lawyer told us that we were not to remain in Pretoria.  Then he said we should just go home and we'll get a report the following day.  He said I should come there at 2 o'clock.  When I arrived there he told us that we had lost our case. The reason why, he didn't know and he just said the government favoured the SADF guys, so I didn't understand this.  Then I asked him how we could solve this problem of ours.  I knew that there was an appeal and I asked the lawyer about that and he told me that it required a lot of money to make an appeal.  He told me that it can cost us something like R10 000, and I realised that i didn't have that as I was unemployed from 1991.  Then since that time that we lost that case, I was just happy to know about the Truth Commission.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you for your comprehensive story, for everything you told us.  It seems to me I made a very serious mistake, is it your wife sitting next to you?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: No.

PROF MEIRING: Otherwise I should have welcomed her too.   There are a number of things I would like just to clarify, in your testimony and then maybe some of my colleagues will have a few questions to ask too.
 The first thing I would like to ask you is, in your written testimony you say that there was a lot of tension in the area when this happened in 1991:
"There was a high level of political tension in the area, I myself was politically active".
Can you tell us a little bit about that, about the tension and about your own activity politically?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: To tell the truth, at my place there was conflict about the chieftainship and the situation is still like that.  Chief Mutapo and Chief Refilwe are fighting about leadership.  I didn't know why the soldiers came to our place.  I don't know if they were called by the other people because houses were burned and people died at the time, so I wont be able to talk for other people but I know those kinds of things happened at the time.  All those things happened during the time that I was injured, it was because of this conflict for chieftainship.  Even the way I gave my statement I did not want to include anything about this other conflict, I just wanted my problems to be solved.

PROF MEIRING: What I would like to establish is, do you think you were injured, you were shot because of political activity, because you were a marked man or were you shot because of a scuffle that broke out that day near the lounge, because you were unfortunately the man that this person ran into and there was a scuffle, and it was because of that you were shot?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: I don't understand your question clearly, could you please repeat?

PROF MEIRING: Do you thing you were shot because of political activity, you were a marked man, or do you think that you were shot because of the scuffle and they could have shot anybody else standing there at the lounge that say?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: I think I was shot because of the situation at my place.  Actually I had just arrived at that place and I was unfortunate to meet those people, so I do not really know the reason why I was shot, because it was like peaceful when I came on the scene.  The person whom they were chasing, I do not know what was wrong, I was just unfortunate to get involved in that.  I think that was just done to me because I was unfortunate.

PROF MEIRING: So then after you were shot you were taken to hospital and then you told us and you realised, and the doctor came and told you that your leg has to be amputated, and then in your written testimony, you say that it was discovered that there was poison on your wound, and because of the poison the leg wouldn't heal and it had to be amputated.  Can you tell us a little bit about that?

PHILIP LESETJA MADRAAE: In that three weeks when I was in hospital they tried to heal my wounds and they didn't want to amputate my leg, but the wounds were so bad that they couldn't heal, and they say some bones were lost during the attack.. The poison that they were talking about, I do not know if it was from the bullet or something, so that is what necessitated my leg to be amputated.