Amnesty Hearings — Vanderbijlpark — 1998-08-12

MR BERGER: Chairperson, can I ask Mr Miga to stand?  Mr Tshabangu, that is Mr Miga.

MR TSHABANGU: Yes.

MR BERGER: You encountered him at your hearing, is that correct?

MR TSHABANGU: Yes.

MR BERGER: And at that hearing, you and Victor Geswa threatened to assault Mr Miga, isn't that correct?

MR TSHABANGU: That is not correct.

ADV PRIOR: Mr Chairman, with respect, I don't know how this relates to the question of amnesty or the Boipatong incident, unless my learned friend can indicate, but I would ask the Committee to exercise its discretion and place reasonable limits on these collateral issues that are expending a lot of time away from the main, central issues Mr Chairman.  Time is of the essence and although one doesn't want to stop my learned friend from canvassing issues, it certainly seems to be collateral matter which doesn't take the matter at hand, very much further.

MR BERGER: Chairperson, I have two points in answer.  The first is that it is our contention that Mr Nana Tshabangu and others including in particular Mr Victor Geswa, were part of a gang who were terrorising the community of Boipatong.
	It was for those reasons and in particular the death of Lita Zwane that this applicant was forced out of Boipatong.  It goes to the question of whether this was political or whether this was criminal.
	The second point Chairperson, is that these are issues which are very close to the heart of many, many members of the community.  In my consultations with the community, dealing with Nana Tshabangu, these are issues which have repeatedly come up.  I understand that one of the purposes of these amnesty hearings, is reconciliation.
	If I can't canvass these issues with this applicant, the members of the community are going to feel that the issues which are important to them, are being bottled up.  That is the reason that I am pursuing this line.

MR LAX: Mr Berger, while you are quite correct that the purpose of the Act is, one of the purposes of the Act is to try and foster reconciliation.  The purpose of these hearings is very specific in the Act and there has already been a human rights violations committee hearing which intended to canvass a whole broad variety of issues that you are now introducing and it was held in this part of the world and many of your clients would have been there and had that opportunity to ventilate those issues.
	While we don't want to pour cold water on their feelings and we perfectly understand and respect their need for further elucidation, we also have a job to do with severe time constraints and we need to be a bit more focused and so, if you could try and keep the issues as narrow as possible, rather than opening up as many cans of worms as possible, we would facilitate our process a lot better.

CHAIRPERSON: If you want to put to this witness that he was part of a gang of criminals who were terrorising the township, put that to him.  Let's not go around in circles, just put that to him and let's hear what his answer is.

MR BERGER: Chairperson, with respect the applicant will deny it, and ...

CHAIRPERSON: But please put those facts to him and let's see what he has to say.  Just put them to him.

MR BERGER: Mr Tshabangu, is it correct that you were part of a gang of criminals who were terrorising the community of Boipatong?

MR TSHABANGU: That is not correct.  I knew that most people think like that.   From what you get from the Boipatong community, me and my friend, we were not terrorising the community or going around terrorising the community.
	I didn't understand or had the feeling that I go around terrorising, I am surprised when you mentioned Miga.  I never even greeted a single person from Boipatong or speak to someone from Boipatong on the day of the trial of Lita because I knew we were enemies.
	I was never a gang member and I will never be in my life.

MR BERGER: Victor Geswa was your good friend, am I right?

MR TSHABANGU: No.

MR BERGER: Was he your friend?

MR TSHABANGU: He was my comrade.  I understood him to be my comrade.

MR BERGER: George Khumalo was also your comrade, was he not?

MR TSHABANGU: Yes.

MR BERGER: Do you deny that after the release of George Khumalo, that you, George Khumalo and Victor Geswa terrorised the area of Boipatong?

MR TSHABANGU: I deny all that because I believe that Victor Geswa ended up dying, people would know exactly who he was.
	I would tell you something that you don't know, even today people don't know who is Nana, what kind of person is Nana.  If you go and ask a particular person who is Nana, they will give you different descriptions.
	I and George Khumalo never terrorised the community of Boipatong and if the community themselves understood this to mean that when we go back to the township where we were born and bred, where we have friends, if they consider as bad when we come in a car and we find them sitting in a group, they start driving away and they think it is the way we are terrorising them, that is wrong.
	I used to travel in a car, and I will go to the township during the day unarmed, but I knew that my life was in danger.  I used to take the grocery to where one of my children stays.  I will find people standing in a group in a corner.  When I appear in a car, they will run away and it will be painful to me like I have turned into an animal that people were running away from me, because I didn't understand why they were running away from me.
	I don't know whether you consider that as a way of terrorising the people.

CHAIRPERSON: Let me understand this.  You are saying that very few people know who Nana is.

MR TSHABANGU: What I am trying to explain, I am trying to explain that people talk about this person as if they know this person, meanwhile they don't know.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you referring to the fact that people don't know what type of a person Nana is?

MR TSHABANGU: It is so sir.  When they see me in the company of Katis, I would say most people when Katis died, they never knew what kind of person he was.  I was saying this with reference to that.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know why when people see you stop the car, they would run away?

MR TSHABANGU: I think it is because they were afraid of the things which they had done against me about the house that they burnt and the other things that I have mentioned before this Committee.
	Maybe they were thinking that I knew that it is them and I will fight them or that I will fight because they did that and that to so and so.  But it was not the case.

MR BERGER: Do you deny that George Khumalo killed Amos Miga?

MR TSHABANGU: I don't agree with this and I don't deny this.  I don't know how he died, whether he was killed by George, when and why were the reasons of his death.
	I don't know anything about the involvement of George Khumalo.

MR BERGER: Damara Qonqo was also your friend, is that correct?

MR TSHABANGU: That is wrong.  He was one of the persons I was staying with in the hostel.  Maybe you have to clarify or explain to me your own perception of what is a friend.
	How shall a friend be?  What kind of things do you do with your friend?

MR BERGER: Is it not also correct that Victor Geswa was known throughout the Vaal as the Vaal Monster?

MR TSHABANGU: He used to be referred to like that in Vaal.

MR BERGER: And why do you think you were associated on that wall that is depicted on the photograph, with the Vaal Monster as being wanted dead or alive, why the two of you?

MR TSHABANGU: I am not the only one whose name was written with his name on the wall.  I can take you to (indistinct) in Vaal where his name is mentioned with other people names.  I think people thought that he was a leader of something, something like a gang who always instruct people to go to this particular place to do this and that.
	But that was not true.