Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-06-09

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: There were broken bottles smelling petrol.

MR AMEEN: Mr Mphoreng can I ask you, where is Jeff Lingani today?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Jeff he lives somewhere in the Vaal.

MR AMEEN: Does he know about this application of yours for amnesty?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Yes he knows about it.

MR AMEEN: And did you or your attorney try and get hold of him to support this application by giving evidence here today?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: According to my knowledge Jeff has applied for amnesty.

MR AMEEN: Comrade Sam and comrade Tamee, where are they?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: They have since died.

MR AMEEN: Being and adopting a very cynical attitude, I put it to you that you used their deaths to say that they are the ones who gave you orders.  That you actually did not receive any orders from these people.

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: It is true that I found my orders from comrade Tamee and comrade Sam.  The people who were active in politics in those years know comrade Tamee (?) and comrade Sam Siema.  Comrade Tamee was the leader of the Azanian Student Movement, he was involved in politics.  The two of them were underground members of AZANLA.

MR AMEEN: Can I interrupt you.  I am not questioning their political credentials, I'm putting it to you that you are being opportunistic, you know that they are dead, you know that they cannot be called here to give evidence and you are using their senior positions within the organisation to say that you were given orders by them and so absolve yourself of an extremely cowardly deed, a criminal deed.  What do you say to that?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Chairperson what Mr Ameen is saying is not true.  What happened was a political situation, unfortunately comrade Tamee is dead and I do not involve him just because he is dead.  I got the orders from comrade Tamee and comrade Sam.

MR AMEEN: What I can't understand is that if the order was given for these people to be killed and the order were included to say go and kill them in Shawella, your colleague the first applicant has testified that they still went to, not a member of AZAPO, comrade Glen, who was a senior member of an affiliated organisation, someone outside of the organisation, for guidance on where to kill.  I put it to you that your version is not true, that you are lying to this amnesty committee.

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Chairperson I have told the full truth.  Mr Ameen sees it differently because - I am aware that the TRC will consider your application if you give a full disclosure.  I have given a full disclosure, I have even given out who gave instructions.

ADV BOSMAN: Mr Ameen can I just come in here please.  Tell me Mr Mphoreng when comrade Tamee and Sam, when they left that morning did they say that they would be coming back?  You told us that they left and they came back later, when they left did they say where they were going?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: When they left they did not tell us where they were going to but the indicated that they will come back to check the situation.

ADV BOSMAN: Now if they had not come back, these people were badly injured, what would you have done?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I was a trained soldier, I worked through orders.  An order of killing a person it's a serious order, I would have never taken that decision on my own.

ADV BOSMAN: Who else would you have consulted.  Let's just - I know it's hypothesis, but let's assume they were arrested on their way and they could not return and you were there sitting with these six seriously injured persons, what would you have done about it?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: If they had not come back we were going to consult with other senior members of our organisation, would have explained to them the situation that we have members of SOSCO here, they have given us information, what do we do then.

MR MALAN: Could I just ask you here, you say killing a person is serious and you work through orders, you're a trained soldier.  At the time, according to you evidence, if I remember correctly, you said you had two weeks para-military training by comrades Siema and Tamee.  Is that correct, you didn't have any other formal training when you say you were a soldier?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: That is the only para-military training I had received then.

MR MALAN: Yes and if you took it seriously and only operated on orders, who gave you the orders to manhandle the youngsters and to attack and assault them and hit them with a bottle and break the bottle and stab him with the bottle, who gave you those orders?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: When comrade Tamee and comrade Sam trained me in the early months of 1986, they had taught me that if there were issues involving people I shouldn't take decisions on myself but with orders such as interrogating people, assaulting them those are decisions I can make on my own.  There was a general order from the senior leadership of the organisation to defend ourselves because the UDF was fighting with AZAPO at that time.  Such orders were issued out by senior members of AZAPO organisation.

MR MALAN: So are you saying then to us that the assault and the hitting of at least Oscar with the bottle and stabbing of him with the broken bottle, those were decisions that you took by yourself, you acted on your own, it wasn't under instructions.  Is that what you're saying?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Let me put it this way.  The top leadership issued out a general order ... (intervention)

MR MALAN: I heard about the order please Mr Mphoreng, I understand that, I understand the broad order that you could take the decisions yourself.  Now the assault that was a decision that you took yourself in terms of what you believed to be the broad mandate?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: It was a decision taken by myself ... (intervention)

MR MALAN: So the assault on the youths wasn't an assault in terms of order, but in terms of this broad mandate of self defense?  I just want to get the frame of the political background which you sketched to us.

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: The comrades did not issue out an order to assault them, an order was that they should be shot.

MR MALAN: Okay, so the assault was just your decision there on the spot?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: That order was related to the general order of the organisation.

MR AMEEN: Thank you.  Mr Mphoreng I want to put it to you that the information you say you got from the youths - and at least my clients who are now the survivors of those six - they will say that they did not give you any of the information you claim to have got from them, that they did not admit to being UDF members, they did not admit to burning the house, they did not admit to (indistinct) any other houses for purposes of burning or any similar information which you got from them, the will deny that.  What do you say to that?  Is there a possibility that that is true?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I would not agree with what they say because we got information out of them during the interrogation that they were members of SOSCO and they burnt the house and the reason for being in the vicinity of Orlando, they were going to (indistinct) for the purpose of attacking our homes later that evening.

MR AMEEN: You said earlier in your evidence that comrade Sam and comrade Tamee shot the other two youths in your group, you shot Oscar and the two of them, Sam and Tamee, shot the other two.  You were arrested with your co-applicants and and (indistinct).  Why were the other two not arrested?  Do you know if they were arrested?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: They were not arrested.

MR AMEEN: Right, why not, do you have an explanation for why they were not?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: It's because when we were being fetched by the police from Protea for interrogation, we did not mention their names, we did not mention that they gave us orders.