Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-25

OLEFILE SAMUEL MNQIBISA: I am a soldier with the South African National Defence Force, I am a sergeant, and I reside in Dobsonville.
 My testimony is in written form.  I left South Africa 
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on June 25 1976, after and during the bloody June 16th in Soweto school uprisings, to join Umkhonto weSizwe MK in Botswana.
 I was trained by the Cubans in 1977 in Novo Catenga, a camp in the south of Angola as an MK freedom fighter.  After this training I left for Zambia to undergo survival course training in Zipras training centre, outside Lusaka.  Zimpra was the military wing of Josiah Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Party.  
 In Decembr 1978, after undergoing Zipra training, I was picked up at MK House which we termed Yellow House, because it was painted yellow.  This was the MK underground house in Lusaka, Nychonga compound.
 So I was picked up by Solise Melani, that is his freedom name for Azapo prison.  I was first detained in Zimbabwe house, which housed Zapo officers in Lusaka. This followed a meeting we MK cadres requested and held with Joe Modise's right-hand men to sort out problems we faced then. The men were Solly Smilani, Keith Mokwepe, who is younger brother to Dr Audrey Mokwepe of Azapo, Snoekie Sigilala, who is working for SABC TV and Fundisi, who died in a plane crash in Angola.
 Zipra's training was tough and rough and we were so lean because we went for days without food or food was so little.  We survived with wild fruits fetched from a faraway distance.  The training was preparing us for future military operations in South Africa.  Keith Mokwepe and Snoekie Sigilala were responsible for buying us food supplies and cigarettes.  Food was inadequate and sometimes none.  This led to complaints from soldiers. This was not at Yellow House, after my training.
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 One other problem was lack of medical care for our comrades, who earlier survived a Rhodesian Airforce bombardment in FC, which was former (indistinct) outside Lusaka.  Some of the guys were seriously injured.
 As usual, there were guys amongst us, who were planted to listen or to take names of talkative elements.  To be talkative or to question issues in the ANC, represented enemy agent.
 When we underwent political training in Angola we were repeatedly told by our political instructors to air our views or criticise any wrongs we saw in the ANC.  This became tradition in the ANC and we held monthly meetings, termed criticism and self-criticism, where rank and file were allowed to speak about everything they felt was wrong.
However, these meetings were later banned as rank and file criticisms were interpreted as work of the enemy.  
 In the meeting at Yellow House I was one of the speakers and I spoke very loud, like a soldier. This in turn, Solise Melani, opportunistically interpreted as arrogancy.  Other speakers were Uys and the two late comrades Barney Molekane and Kruschev.  Two of our young brave and fierce MK commanders, who fell in battle with the apartheid forces inside the country.  May their souls rest in peace forever.
 The three were sent to Angola where they served their punishment.  This was a very bad period when Rhodesian Airforce jets were harassing Zambia and Mozambique, to root out so-called terrorists. 
 In Zimbabwe House I was locked up in a cell, smaller than our township kitchen rooms with over 20 Zipra guerillas inside.  We were packed like sardine fishes, with the light
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on 24 hours and we were already used to the sweat.
 Two days later I was put in a disused toilet cell in solitary confinement for three days.  This was my first time to taste prison life.  When I left I was 25 years old, in 1976, a very young boy.
 Later I was transferred to Nampula Farmhouse Prison, 30 kilometres west of Lusaka.  It was an old disused dilapidated Swapo house.  We were 79 prisoners in there.
 In February 1979 three Rhodesian Airforce jets bombarded our prison house and a number of us, including myself, were badly injured.  
 It is painful for me to relate how I escaped this heavy attack. One Jet carried cells, the second carried machine-guns and the other carried a napalm bomb.  Guys were extremely injured and others were napalm burnt. One guy who was bigger than myself, shrunk to someone half my size, because of napalm burns. 
 Napalm is highly inflammable.  I think, if I am correct, it is a mixture of petrol and some other chemicals.  Some guys died on the spot and others died in University Teaching Hospital, UTH in Lusaka.
 I asked for a discharge because Rhodesian soldiers used to enter Zambia on foot, to come and finish off survivors.  Zambian forces never retaliated to these attacks, for reasons known to themselves only.  
 I was then sent to Zapu's medi-clinic in Lusaka for further medical treatment.  Three days later I went back to Yellow House, very sick, with the hope that Keith Mokwepo and company will feel for me in that situation.  Instead Keith sent me back to Zimbabwe House for further incarceration.  He said to me, and I quote him: he doesn't 
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have powers to release me, the only person who can release me was Joe Modise, and that Joe Modise was away in Angola.
 Back in Nimpumwe, before the air raid, Solise Melani came and threatened me in connection with a letter of protest.  (PAUSE).
 Back in Nimpumwe before the air raid, Solise Melani came and threatened me in connection with the letter of protest I wrote to ANC headquarters while they were still in Zimbabwe House, about my wrong detention. 
 Soon after he left I was pulled out of the prison house by four heavily armed Zipra commanders.  I was then interrogated in a tent by them and asked me who in our group in Yellow House was a spy. Also forced me to admit that I was a spy.  I told them I knew nothing about that.
 After the air raid, the survivors were sent to JZ Moyo camp which catered for young Zapo pioneers.  We were kept outside the borders of the camp and we were given strict orders not to jump the boundaries.  Dumisani Dibwengwa, presently Zimbawe's Home Affairs Minister, and best friend of Joe Modise, who was also responsible for Swapo's prisons, visited us one afternoon and gave us orders not to enter the camp or move around the area.
 Some days later we were transferred to Swapo's most notorious prison, Biroma, in the north of Zambia, near the border of Zaire, where I completed all my 14 months prison sentence.  We were driven in a huge Skania truck and ordered not to look outside, so that we couldn't see where we were heading to.  The guy who gave us those orders had with him an AK-47, and also said I will shoot anyone on sight who looks outside.
 We stayed under horrible bush prison conditions.  
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I was kept or stayed in a swampy area. Thanks to the 1980 Lancaster House negotiations on the Zimbabwe settlement, which led to my release, because Zimbabweans were now going back to their country.  
 I went back to Yellow House in February 1980, in a state of shock, because I thought they will now send me to Angola.  The ANC's prison, Quattro prison in Angola was hell on earth.  According to friends who served prison sentences there.  I was extremely afraid to go to Angola.  
 For my sentence I was tried and sentenced by a Judge -  I don't know - in a Kangaroo Court.  Two months later I, together with three guys, were posted to Livingstone town south of Lusaka.  We were to run two ANC farms, one was a long the Zambesi River and the other inland.  We were disguised as farmers.  Our mission there was to ferry MK units across the Zambesi River into Botswana and Zimbabwe, for them to carry out military operations in South Africa.
 Zambesi River was highly infested with crocodiles and hippopotamus. We used rubber dinghies to cross these units over.  This was a test to prove if I was still a loyal member of the ANC.  We fulfilled this task hundred per cent and this needed mainly guards to take part, because of animals in that river.  Because we used to cross after midnight, when everybody, the villagers were asleep.
 Late 1983, my unit was transferred back to Lusaka.  Maybe because the river animals failed to destroy us.  I say this because after we left, another unit replaced us and I am made to understand that a hippo overturned their dinghy and nine of them perished.  God bless them also.
 July 1984 Joe Modise felt I was a nuisance in front of his eyes and he flew me to Daqya, ANC settlement in
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Tanzania.  Known amongst us as ANC dumping ground for so-called agents of the RSA regime.
 In 1988 MK Quattro inmates were released into Tanzania, because of the settlement of, I think, either Angola or Namibia, because it was said all foreign troops must leave Angola for the settlement of that country.
 Some of these guys, I trained with them in Nova Catenga in the south of Angola in 1977.  I became so close and friendly with them.  They were incarcerated in quattro for taking part in MK mutineering in 1984 in Angola.  They tell of shocking and hair-raising incidents, in Quattro concentration camp. 
 Early in 1991 Mogodo thugs - Mogodo is ANC security - once more detained me and locked me up at the ruthless prison in Dachua near Morogore town in Tanzania.  
 I was harshly interrogated with the Tanzanian government special forces.  That is Field Force Unit S accomplices.  Field Force Unit was a special presidential guard. It was a very brutal force.  I was accused of propagating against the ANC, telling the truth is propaganda in the ANC. I must stress that I am lucky amongst the best politically trained detachments in the whole of MK.  That is June 16 detachment. Our political education shocked ANC leaders throughout our stay in exile.  Hence we were inhumanly abused. 
 I managed to escape, that is in Dachau, on the 16th day of my incarceration and flew to Dar-E-Salaam.  I reported my case to the prime minister's office and home affairs minister's office. The treatment I received from these offices was extremely hostile.  
 Mogodo influenced high officials in the government 
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structures.  There is extreme poverty in Tanzania and Mogodo bribed Tanzanian police, soldiers and government officials, with foodstuffs to believe their lies and opportunistic tendencies.
 In Dar-E-Salaam I informed my friends, my friends in the USA and UK about what happened to me.  For MKs I disappeared, which was possible and this happened to our comrades who were loyal members of the ANC in all African states where the ANC operated from.
 My friend in the UK informed the British Government about my problem and also justice for Southern Africa, which then campaigned for the independent commission of inquiry into human rights violations by Swapo and the ANC.  My friend in the USA who was in fact my girlfriend, and she is still there, continuously phoned my parents about this problem. 
 I later officially resigned from the ANC in order to place myself outside Mogodo's jurisdiction,  because Mogodo was the law unto itself.  For instance, if they managed to lock up Pallo Jordan.  Pallo Jordan was released with the intervention of the late Oliver Thambo.  
 I came across obstacles at both the ANC offices and government offices in Dar-E-Salaam from resigning.  After a long struggle I managed to resign. I now became a refugee under the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. I  faced total destitution.  That was total destitution, I repeat.
 The wife to the former Tanzanian Prime Minister, Mrs Warioba, refused to offer me financial assistance which I was entitled to. She insisted I go to a refugee settlement centre far away from Dar-E-Salaam.  She was the official 
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responsible for refugees at the UNHCR office in Dar-E-Salaam.  I flatly refused to move to a refugee centre, and I stayed with my sister-in-law, with no source of income, until I returned home in 1992.
 My wife then, whom I married legally was a Tanzanian.  We have a daughter. I am with her daughter, but she remained behind. I am still struggling to bring her in.
 Joe Modise must tell the people of South Africa why and how many of our friends were murdered by his Mogodo.  Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda must also tell why they allowed Mogodo to run Kangaroo Courts on their soil and execute our comrades in cold blood.
 Mogodo once threatened my life in Walmersdal assembly area in Pretoria on the night of 28th June 1994.  I have got letters which will support this.  I was surveilled throughout my stay in exile, by Mogodo thugs.  I was also denied education opportunities in the ANC, in Walmersdal camp I was unranked because it was said I don't have academic qualifications.  I was also blacklisted by Joe Modise, hence my inferior military rank.  
 I love the ANC because the ANC is the people and nobody, I say nobody must misinterpret me of what I said about.  Individuals within the ANC abuse their powers and they must be exposed.  They hide behind the ANC and continue with their criminal activities.  
 I once more and lastly appeal to President Mandela to please take action against those who abused us in exile. This will help in healing our land.  Perpetrators must be brought in front of the TRC in our presence, so that we question them.  
 Here I have got a list of the people who abused me.
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In 1978 in Lusaka Joe Modise, Keith Mokwepe, brother to Aubrey Mokwepe, Snoekie Sigilala, Solise Melani, who I think works presently at Shell House.
 1991 in Tanzania, Cliff - I just know him by the name Cliff, (indistinct), son to John (indistinct), SA Ambassador to Cuba.  Jackie Morate, Sidonay.
 I am heavily traumatised and sick. I had a lot haemorrhoids which we know as piles, cold feet and bronchitis during my detention. My memory is also affected hence I always write my stories on paper. My wife and daughter were also affected by these problems.  In 1987 I underwent haemorrhoids surgery or operation in Tanzania.    Cold feet is still troubling me, especially winter time, and doctors are unable to cure this. Bronchitis developed to sinusitis and last year I underwent surgery in the Military Hospital in Pretoria. 
 Joe Modise has done harm to my health. I hate him extremely.  He is a Facist and brutal. He is ANC prisons' architect. I have serious emotions and I am also short-tempered. Ex-ANC prisoners are all suffering the same, as you experienced with Jessop, we are all the same. We are highly emotional, because of what we experienced in the past.
 I must also comment on one of your briefers here, unfortunately she left, Dabisan Mokhale.  In 1992 I think some two, three months after I returned from exile, she counselled me repeatedly while she was still at Wits University. Her ideas are keeping me strong up to this day.  The ideas also helps me to control my temper. I am very much strong psychological.  This is my comment.  I will come to this comment after I have read letters which support my 
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abuse.
 This is part of the letter I wrote at Walmersdal after I was abused.  The incident in question took place in public at Base 13, Walmersdal assembly area, Pretoria.  On the night of June 28 1994.  There were about 20 witnesss, including the commander of Base 13.  I was staying at Base 13, that was the veterans' base.  According - Mr Stephen Khobe and two colleagues were drunk on SANDF premises.  While drunk Khobe verbally abused a subordinate under his command, myself, in front of other military personnel.  
 I won't read this one, because this is a letter which was written by my friend in Britain to President Mandela.  In short I can say this Stephen Khobe threatened me in Walmersdal on that night, by thrice lifting his military jacket in a threatening manner, trying to shoot me.  By virtue of his rank he was entitled to carry a gun.  SANF personnel had to restrain Khobe while others moved me to a place of safety. After he left, I came out.
 Let me just stop here, because I think  ...