Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pretoria — 1996-08-14

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: No, we took those bullet cartridges and put them inside the glass.  When the police came to my house I show them the glass, I show them the cartridges and then they asked me do you know Piet Macawe and they said these bullets belong to the gun of Piet Macawe.  They said that is the, those are his bullets and they started removing those ones which were in the wall, on the wall.  They were in the boys room, also in the kitchen.  They took those cartridges.
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DR BORAINE: Thank you.  Was there any inquest held following the death and the funeral?  Was there any formal  inquest or court case that you can remember?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: No.  There was nothing.  They came to me to ask if I have found the people who killed my children.  I asked them, no the matter is in the hands of the police.  I am not a policeman who is going to go around looking for people who killed these children.  You are the people who were supposed to investigate this matter and arrest the perpetrators because they said the police cannot kill a person and burn him because truly speaking I stayed for two months without even entering my house because I had these nightmares.  I will hear gun sounds and I will go back.

DR BORAINE: Did you receive a death certificate for Ezekiel?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: On the certificate I think the people who stayed in Mamelodi and those who were at home and my mother said did not get the death certificate.  The time they went to the Government Mortuary they never told us, the other families.  They went with my brother.  They came back, they did not tell us anything.  When the time arrived that they should go there to give a statement they said they want a death certificate.  I went to my mother.  My mother said she do not have the death certificate and then they have to go to Bronkhorstspruit to go and ask for a death certificate.  Then I asked, they said my children, it is not my, my younger brother is not dead.  Only theirs is dead and I asked them the time we are burying him, were we burying just the spirit?

DR BORAINE: Mrs Skhosana, I only have two more questions.  The first is that it is clear that you are very, very
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distressed about the killing, but that you are also very distressed that some people blamed you for that and you have in your statement now, today, tried to make it clear that this was not of your doing and that you have no blame or responsibility.  I hope that, as a result of this, you will be accepted again into your own community.  Do you think that, are you hopeful that this will happen?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: Excuse me.

DR BORAINE: Let me say you are very distressed that people blamed you for the killing of those nine boys.  You have protested your innocence today.  Are you hoping that this will help you to be accepted again into the community?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: I do not know why because I do not know what is in their heads.  Just now, today, they arrived they were sitting that side.  They did not even greet me.  They were supposed to greet me because they know who killed their children, but they did not even greet me.

DR BORAINE: In your statement you told one of our staff that in 1996 you were visited by three policemen who asked you to give a statement about something that happened ten years ago.  Did they explain why they were now, after ten years, looking at this?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: Amongst these three policemen, since that time until they came this year no police came to my house.  They were police from town.  It was the first time for me to see them coming to investigate about this case.  They took me to photos.  I said I want to remember it and then they took the photo and gave them, they started photographing the house.  I destroyed the house and they took photos for their, for the destroyed house.  They went away and then Emmah spoke with them because I was not there.  After that
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they left.  They came back again, I was there.  I just remembered now.  They came back again, I gave them a statement, I went, they called me in town, I went to town.  Then they gave me the photo of these children and they said can you remember your younger brother?  So there was a belt in his waist and I said to them, they said, I said this is the one and they said I should come to town.  I went to town.  They said the people who killed your children, we are going to find them.  I said I can be very much happy if you can find them because when I go to Mamelodi they say I am the person who killed their children and they say when they have arrested him they will call me to the court and it ended up there.  They said the money which we use for transport, they were going to give us.  We were two.

DR BORAINE: So, they came in January in 1996 about ten years later and you have not heard anything since that time?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: No, no.  It was the first time for them to come.  They came for the third time year.  They came three times this year.  That time even they told us that I should go to town.  They never came back again.  All these years they did not come.

DR BORAINE: I just have one very last question.  Can you tell me which police station they came from so that we can go back to them.  Where were they based or where did you go and give your statement?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: It is in Kwagga and Kwamshlanga.  It was in Kwagga and Kwamshlanga and then the white policemen who came are staying, are here in town.

DR BORAINE: You mean the Pretoria?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: Yes, here in Pretoria.

DR BORAINE: Thank you Mrs Skhosana.  I do not have anymore
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questions, but I am going to hand you back to the Chairperson in case anyone else wants to.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  Russell Ally.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mrs Skhosana, why did these boys come and stay at your house?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: Actually I cannot explain why because I just saw these children coming from Mamelodi.  There is Victor who can explain how they came there.  I just saw them when they arrived in my house.  I accepted them, why, because I knew their parents.  I think there were five families.  Five parents I knew.  The others I did not know.  I wanted to take them back to their homes and they said Comrades are going to discipline you if you expel them and then I did not expel them because I knew their parents.  So I thought they agreed with their parents that they should come to my place.  That is why I let them to stay in my house because I knew their parents, their mothers and all their parents are here.  If I did not know their parents I could have expelled them, but now I am surprised that they say I have killed their children.

RUSSELL ALLY: So it was because of that family connection that they came to your house?  It was the family connection?

JOHANNAH VILIE SKHOSANA: They said the Comrades will discipline me if I send them back home.  If you chase them away the Comrades are going to discipline you because they would think that you were involved with Mbokodo.

RUSSELL ALLY: At the time when those young boys came to stay at your house, this was the time when there was a conflict between, on the one side, Mbokodo and the other side the youth or Comrades of UDF.  You yourself, were you involved in any way in this conflict?
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