Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-10-19

MS VAN DER WALT: I would like to refer you to page 137 and it appears from that that your brother, because that was placed by this Committee in the bundle, it shows there that your brother in the 9th month of 78 went to Kibasch in Angola where he got military training.  Do you know of that?

MS MADONDO: Yes, I do know that.

MS VAN DER WALT: I would like to put it to you that the fifth line from the top it is said that
"G T did not see him again"
but in 1983, the 7th month, there's the name September Sidebe who identified him on a photo.  You will not know about that, but what I want to put to you is that you are not able to tell this Committee that this Scorpion, to whom my clients refer, is the same person as Oupa Madondo, because here it appears that Oupa Madondo was still alive in 1983.  Would you like to comment on that?

CHAIRPERSON: Is that the only inference that you can draw from that?  I would like to propose then that one can infer from this that September Sidebe maybe got information that Oupa was working with the police and that he, at that stage, showed a photograph, but that does not say that that person was still alive then.  They got information such a person worked with the police, now he shows a photo and says that because that person possibly was a collaborator of the police, that he must be eliminated.

MS VAN DER WALT: With respect, Mr Chair, if one looks at this print-out on page 137 in total, then with respect I would like to put it to you that he should still have been alive because an instruction was given there.  I think the ANC was quite up to date with its records and if he had been dead by then, the ANC would have known it especially if he was one of their members and Oupa Madondo, if he had died in 1980, the ANC would have known it and then they would not have given such an instruction, especially seen in the light of the position of Sidebe.  He was one of the Commanders of the ANC and he would have been up to date.

MR LAX: With respect, the only inference one can draw is that the ANC thought he was alive and therefore wanted him killed and that is the fairest thing one can put to the witness is that from here you can draw the inference that the ANC thought he was alive, because clearly they wouldn't have tried to eliminate someone who was dead, but to say that the man had been missing from 1979 as she suggests and that they necessarily knew about that, well then we're far in the realms of speculation.  I think the fairest way to put it to the witness is, from this police file it appears the ANC thought he was still alive in 1983, does she have a comment to make on that.  I think that would be the fairest way to put the question.

MS VAN DER WALT: I accept it as you put it.  I say with respect that I see it otherwise, but I want to ask, what do you think of these details here on the police printout?

MS MADONDO: I dispute this because in 1981 when my mother was still alive, my mother sent me to Swaziland to go and look for him in the Twala family.  It was in 1981, March.  When I arrived in Swaziland I only found his belongings, his clothes and everything and they told me ever since he left, they don't know where he was.  I found his clothes, I didn't take them, but they didn't know his whereabouts and my mother passed away after discovering that we can't trace him back.  I went in 1981 March to Swaziland to look for him.

MS VAN DER WALT: You see, Ma'am, I saw this statement.  I'm very grateful that you are telling the Committee this because it is also to me a further indication because if your brother, if that man at the dam and in Soweto was your brother, what would his clothing be ding in Swaziland because this information goes further and strengthens my viewpoint that your brother was still alive at that point and that he got, when he got training, he moved between Swaziland, are you saying that he did not work in Swaziland at all?

MS MADONDO: When I left for Swaziland in 1981 it was because my mother realised that he never disappeared for such a long time, even though they were outside.  Sometimes he would write letters and give to other comrades who were infiltrating the country to give it to my mother, but then this time he disappeared with no contact at all, then my mother realised that something was wrong.  I went to Protea and I found his car and they said they didn't know where he was because he ran away and they just took his car and that alone, he had clothes in Swaziland because he would infiltrate from Swaziland to South Africa and back to Swaziland.

MS VAN DER WALT: You must have heard in the past couple of days about all the deeds that the ANC committed, all the people that were killed especially in Quatro camp, all the people that they know that worked with the Security Police.  Did you hear that these people had been killed?

MS MADONDO: The only thing I know about my brother is that he was recruiting for ANC.  He will help them to go to exile, not that he was helping to kill anyone, but he was recruiting for ANC and helped comrades to leave the country and to come back.

MS VAN DER WALT: All I want to know from you and I want to hear whether you heard of it is that the ANC killed people in the Quatro camp, especially people that they knew worked with Security Police.

MS MADONDO: Yes, I heard about such things but my brother wasn't in Angola.  In 1979 he wasn't in Angola.

MS VAN DER WALT: How do you know that?

MS MADONDO: He left his girlfriend that morning and he was going to Kliptown to my mother.

MS VAN DER WALT: So that's all you can say.  You do not know whether he was in Angola.  You don't know where he was at all except that he was on his way to his mother, that's all that you can say?  Is that correct?

MS MADONDO: No, I don't know anything about him working with police.  He wasn't going to collaborate with the police because at the same time he was hiding ANC people in my mother's coal yard, so if he was collaborating with the police, how was he going to do that because all those people he was helping, they were never caught by the police.

MS VAN DER WALT: Madam, it appears clearly from all the statements before the Committee, your first statement on page 87, that you believe that around October 79 he disappeared and you, in your statement on page 104, you say that possibly he disappeared in November 79.  Ms Kunene said that she saw him on the 19th of September 1979 for the last time.  What do you say of this difference between the dates?

MS MADONDO: It has been a long time, that is why we cannot be specific whether October, November, September, one cannot recall the exact date, we are just estimating.  It has been 20 years since he disappeared and I'm telling you that I received a telephone call and the SP's hit me after I went to see them, because they said to me they wanted my brother and they said to me if I was claiming that that car was my brother's car then I must tell them where my brother was and they were lying because they knew where he was.

CHAIRPERSON: I think we've heard the evidence.  I don't think we'll be able to shed more light on it at this stage.  It's clear all the witnesses complained that it's more than 20 years ago.  We appreciate that and it is common cause that her brother was at some time arrested by the police and held under Section 6.   According to the papers before us he was released and after that we don't know what happened to him.  There's no - nobody can say what happened to Oupa, neither Mr Visser nor the witness here, so I think that's as far as we can go with this.

MS VAN DER WALT: I have nothing further.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS VAN DER WALT