Human Rights Violation Hearings — Johannesburg — 1996-04-29

DR BORAINE: Mr Chairperson we invite to the stand Mr Ben Kgoathe.  Mr Kgoathe on behalf of the Commission I would like to welcome you.  You have come to tell your story of a very dreadful experience in the life of your family and we want you to know that you are very welcome, that we are anxious to hear you, that you should relax and tell your story.  Now before you do that I have to ask you to take the oath, and I would be grateful if you would stand please.

BEN KGOATHE: (sworn states)

DR BORAINE: Your father was Mr Nicodimus Kgoathe and was arrested under the Terrorism Act in 1968.  The story that you are going to tell us is what happened after that and what happened to him, and in order to assist you Mr Russel Ally is going to help you in telling your own story about your father and what happened and what happened since.  Thank you very much.

RUSSELL ALLY: Good day to you Mr Kgoathe.  I am Russel Ally.  Thanks for coming to speak to the Commission.  The case we just heard previously  was also about a death in detention.  your father also died in detention, Nicodimus Kgoathe.  If you could tell us a bit about yourself and a bit about that event.

BEN KGOATHE: I thank you Mr Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, the Commission.  I am the child of Nicodimus,
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(...indistinct) Kgoathe of Hebron in the North West.  My home is in Hebron, that's where my father stayed.  I am the eldest son of the eight children.  Our names are Ben, number 2, Ernest Sigule, 3, Rebecca, 4, Herman, 5, Louisa, 6, Johannes, 7, Amon Ramosale, 8, Dahanitara.  All of these are here except number three who could not make it.  I have a family, I left them behind with the children.  
 My father was working in Johannesburg all those years at Doornfontein.   He was working at a furniture shop.  He was staying at Dipi(?) Hostel. We saw him last on the 3rd of November 1968. On the 10th he didn't come back home because of other reasons. He had gone to Soweto to make plans, he had some function there.  He was the planner of the family, the one making arrangements.  He was supposed to bury this person on the 11th. 
 While it was still like that on the 11th, round about 10 o'clock we phoned him at work.  The phone was answered by his boss, they explained to me that my father was picked up that very morning by the security police.  When I found out what the reasons were why he was arrested he told me that, he said because of the laws of the country - involved in this Terrorism Act, or the communist involvement in the country South Africa.
 Now after the police arrested him they didn't know anything.  They didn't even inform us that my father had been arrested.  We just heard from rumours that our father had been arrested and that he was fighting against the South African government, he and his organisation and the news said that those were the people who were being taken to Robben Island.
 At home it was only me who was working.  My mother 
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wasn't working.  I had to look after our family, look after our younger sisters and brothers who were still at school.
 Christmas of 1968 passed, we didn't hear anything.  We didn't even know of his whereabouts.  Until on the 17th of January 1969 I was coming from work, I was working at Rosslyn then.  I found one gentleman waiting for me at home at around about 5 o'clock in the afternoon.  Then he told me that he was Ben, he told me that your father is at the (...indistinct) police station and he wants to see you.  We made arrangements with Jewel.  Jewel had also been arrested also because of the South African law regarding the passes.  In January 1969 I went with Jewel, we went to Silverton Police Station.  When we arrived there we were welcomed by Sergeant Geldenhuys.  We explained to him who we were coming to see.  He took us to the cells.  Before Sergeant Geldenhuys opened the door of the cells he told me, these are his actual words, "your father is sick", but he didn't even tell me what was the cause of the sickness.  He opened the door one, two, three.  
 When we arrived there we found my father.  He was lying on the floor, flat on the floor.  He just raised his head and he recognised me and we greeted each other.  We spoke about family matters.  When I asked what was the problem my father, Nicodimus said, he told me he slipped while he was bathing at Compol building at Pretoria.
 Now by then Sergeant Geldenhuys was listening and was watching us.  He asked me what is your father saying.  I explained to him in Afrikaans that he slipped while he was washing.  Now Sergeant Geldenhuys said Nicodimus tell your children what happened at Compol in the Compol building, and my father changed the statement.  In his statement he 
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said I was called by the police on the 16th and the 17th of January at Compol building.  And Mr Geldenhuys agreed with that statement that my father gave, the second statement when he said he had been called by the police to Compol building.
 On the following day, it was a Sunday, the 19th of January 1969 I made another arrangement with Mr Masinga.  Mr Masinga was a friend of my father.  We went to Silverton Police Station to see him.  Even on that day we also found Sergeant Geldenhuys who allowed us to go and see him in the cells.  We asked him that our father should be taken to the hospital.  He promised us and said yes that he would make arrangements that my father be sent to the hospital.
 Since that day of the 19th of January 1969 we heard nothing, until on the 5th of February 1969 when the police came home at Hebron looking for my mother.  They found my mother not at home.  She had gone out to visit her sister at Garankua.  They followed her and found her at the bus stop.  The police took her and told her that her husband was very sick and he's in hospital only to find that they took her to the mortuary next to H F Verwoerd Hospital.  My mother went to identify his body.  It was for the first time that my mother heard that my father had been arrested and that he had been at H F Verwoerd, while he had died the previous day, in February 1969.
 At Hebron it was not only my father who had been arrested.  There were a number of gentlemen with whom he was arrested together with.  There was a lot of uneasiness, a lot of families of these men who had been arrested they didn't know where their men were.  The names of those people that my father was arrested with were Sita (...indistinct), 
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Tswana Adam, (...indistinct) Lot, Makwe Bennett, Mumakwe Estron, Muche (...indistinct), Ntwani Thomas, Mtakule, Mumakwe Ahas, Tsite Joseph, Sibedela Nelson, and many others were also arrested.  Some of them I didn't write them on my list.  Even his brother-in-law Pelele Joe had also been arrested but unfortunately his wife in the interim, who is our aunt had also died in 1969.  So in the family we lost my father and my aunt.  
 We went to the inquest in 1969.  I had gone there with my mother, my late mother, she has passed away.  In the inquest the one who was handling the case it was Mr G T Strydom.  The first evidence was given by Dr P J E Joubert who was the district surgeon.  He spoke how he saw when he examined my late father.  His own findings.

RUSSELL ALLY: What were his findings?