Human Rights Violation Hearings — Umtata — 1996-06-18

MR SANDI: Mr Williams, just to ensure that we stick to the issues, you are part of the group that set up this Organisation, some of you leave the country, you also leave the country, when was this.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: I left the country on the 17th of September 1976.

MR SANDI: And in exile you meet Mr John Nkadamenga of the ANC in Swaziland.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: Yes sir. I was handed over to - well, I then I would say comrade John Kadimane by Mr Mqwala of the PAC because I was, I was restless within the PAC. I even met Vusi Make whom I knew from Jabulani and then I told him that I can't stay here with the PAC. They had wanted to make me a Security member of the PAC. I refused and Vusi Make told me that the ANC is just around the corner. The people who you are looking for are just up there, you see. When Mr Mqwalu came and he was introduced to me I freely talked to him and told him that it is not that I am against the PAC, but because I am already - I am already used, or rather I have contacts with the ANC, I would like to go to the ANC because I already know some policies of the ANC because I knew about the Freedom Charter and some of the books of Mandela - like "His walk to Freedom" I had it at home.

MR SANDI: And at some stage you are taken for military training in an Engineering camp in Angola. Did you say that was an introductory training - what did you mean?

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: Yes Sir. In Angola we were with the Cubans there, in fact they didn't train us, they gave us some protection. We were trained by what we could term Mgwenya - Veterans - we had already trained long ago. They basically gave us just a glimpse of military - that thing, subjects - we didn't train as such. We went to train to Bengela, there was a camp that was established for a short course - three months course at Bengela, and then we later were taken to north of Katanga. It is a little bit South of Luanda. This is where we began our training and this is where maybe physically I got maimed somehow, I am a person who is actually very fluent, but I am not so fluent as before. We got poisoned around September. It was called the Black September. The thing I didn't like the way we got poisoned is that I was one of the ailed there in the June 16th department. June 16th is a catchword, I am sorry. We used to linger around the kitchen when the cooking was done and at one time, one of the leaders - Zondile Lephiliso - was the head of the personnel and training department, gave an order that we shouldn't hand around the kitchen anymore, because nobody knows if anything goes wrong, just about three weeks from there we got poisoned. We were doing night grenade throwing - grenade throwing by the night. I was the first to feel this pain in my groin. I told the instructor and my commander, if he is still alive, I told him that I don't feel OK. I feel nausea and then he said what is it, I said "my tummy is painful and I feel like throwing out" but nothing was coming out and then he said "OK, let me speak to the Cuban Instructor. He talked to the Cuban instructor, the Cuban instructor released me, he said I must go and see the Doctor. I went to the Doctor, Doctor Mpalo - Mpalo gave me pain killers, ten pain killer tablets, I asked him as to whether, are these tablets going to help me - because I had the knowledge of First Aid. I saw that these were pain killers. He said "No, just take two every time you feel the pain". I took two at once and went to sleep. I went to the barracks, the barracks, I started to vomit now, something came out, I vomited, I even shat in my trousers. You see, I vomited and vomited up until nothing came out. In front and in back, you see, nothing came out, it was as if the whole bowels are going to go out and I had a blackout. Time and time again I used to have these blackouts, I was asking myself, what's happening, I am a trained man now, but it appears that I am just going to die hitting in bed. Fortunately, while I was still having these thoughts and these blackouts, I heard some Comrades speaking in the distance. That was Africa was a section commissa. He said maybe I was then affectionately called Phyilo - Philosophy. I was called Phyilo in the detachment. I heard in the distance they were saying "maybe Phyilo is still around there, he hadn't as yet got help" because the others had already seen the Cuban Doctors. The Doctors were, I think the Cuban Doctors were airlifted immediately. There was some kind of emergency and well I remember being picked up and also brought before the Cuban Doctors. I was given two injections, they finished the injections and then I had a blackout. Well I was healed from there and then fortunately again, I don't know, maybe it's the talents that the lord gave me, I was among the first group to go to the Soviet Union and we came back, when we came back we found that there was another camp called Quibaxe, there were Coloureds there when untrained were supposed to organise them and train them. When we came back from the Soviet Union I was made a Commander of the trained group, the Soviet group. Well there were some friction.

MR SANDI: Mr Williams, sorry, just for clarity did you take up the - did you make any complaint about the poison story to people who are higher up in the Organisation and if so, can you say exactly what did you do and what happened.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: OK. Thank you Sir. The thing is when you are a Commander, I mean a soldier you are a subordinate, so everybody speaks for you, especially in exile and another thing is that maybe I didn't explain this better. The whole camp was poisoned, it's only a group of forty individuals who didn't have that thing, eat the food that day and among those who didn't take that food on that day were those who secured the camp who where put to oversee and survey the kitchen. They didn't get poisoned.

MR SANDI: As I understand you, you say you together with others were poisoned.

TEDDY EDWARD MWASE WILLIAMS: The whole camp - we were about 600 in the camp and only forty who didn't get poisoned - the Cubans because they had their own food, they didn't want to eat with us and there was a group of people who wanted the Cubans to have the same food as us. The Cubans because I think they were wary of some of these things, they refused.

MR SANDI: What were these things that were happening that you did not like. You said there were certain things that were happening in the camp which you did not like and you took a position against those things. Can you say exactly what was happening.