Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-02-17

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: As I explained Sicelo was a person who had been recommended and seconded to join the cell and therefore they don't have problems with him joining and being a cell member.

CHAIRPERSON: Carry on.

MR RICHARD: Thank you, Chairperson.
	Now Mr Dube, if I understand the impression that you've created correctly, you didn't know the deceased,  you didn't know what his activities on a day to day basis were, you simply accepted whatever Clive Zungu said, the commander said, is that correct?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: That is true.

MR RICHARD: And when the deceased supposedly disappeared, which as you know is in dispute, you did nothing at all personally to locate him and you took no initiatives of your own?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: I explained before that I issued an order to the cell members that we should look for Sicelo and try to locate him, which was not easy.

MR RICHARD: Now what I'm asking you is, is that all that you did, gave an order, beyond that you took no part in it and showed no interest in it?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: Personally it was no easy for me to look for him because I did not know where to look.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, can I interrupt you here for a minute?
	Going back to what you've just said, did you say, do I understand you correctly, did you say you left it to Clive to question him to find out about his background, Clive was the commander of the cell and it had nothing to do with you?  Clive was the person who knew him.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: Yes, that is what I mean.

CHAIRPERSON: Well when the deceased arrived at Clive's house that afternoon, why didn't you tell Clive to find out where he'd been? -  Clive was the one who questioned him and knew him.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: The problem is that it had been a long time since he disappeared, that is why I was the one who questioned him.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't understand that answer, why could Clive not have questioned him?  Clive would have known the houses he mentioned, would have known the people he mentioned, you wouldn't know them, would you, if he'd said he'd been staying somewhere?  You've just been telling us that you didn't know the region.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: What I am saying is, because Sicelo had disappeared for a long time and when he arrived I was present, I found it important that I question him.

CHAIRPERSON: And you'd never found it important before?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: When I issued an order that a cell should be formed and when I asked Clive on who could he identify as people to form the cell, he mentioned several names including that of Sicelo.  When he gave me these names I would not dispute or disagree with him on the people that he had identified because he is the one who knew the area of Emdeni and the people living there.

MR RICHARD: May I continue?
	Mr Dube, do you know one of the commanders at the time in Soweto, one Vuyisile also known as comrade B?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: No, I do not.

MR RICHARD: Well ...(indistinct)

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike.

MR RICHARD: What he has mentioned in the Motsonyane Report which records details of investigation into human rights violations in certain camps during the '80's, we are aware of one case at least during 1987/early '88 when an Umkhonto weSizwe cadre was recalled to Lusaka because he was suspected of some sort of involvement in the death of two commanders, one of whom was known as Vuyisile and he was a prominent commander in the Soweto area at the time.  Have you never heard of that incident?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: No, I do not know about it.

MR RICHARD: Well for the sake of the record, it was an instance where the suspects were taken to Lusaka for further investigation rather than summarily executed, even though a commander had been killed.  You know nothing so I cannot take it further.
	Did you tell the deceased, Sicelo Dhlomo, that you were about to kill him?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: No, I did not.

MR RICHARD: When did you tell Clive Zungu that he should execute the deceased? - sorry, Clive Makhubu.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: I don't quite remember as to whether I told him at home, at his house that is, or on our way going out.  I don't remember quite well.  I will ask for him to remind me.

MR RICHARD: So you're saying it could have been at the stage that you were at Clive's house, that you told him what to do next, that was before you had met up with Sipho and Precious?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: That definitely happened before we met with Sipho and Precious.  As to whether that happened at his house or outside, I don't remember.

MR RICHARD: But it was certainly before the second applicant, that's Sipho Tshabalala and the fourth applicant, Precious Wiseman Zungu had joined up with the group?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: Yes.

MR RICHARD: Now why was it necessary for the two of them to be present at the scene of the execution in that situation, in those circumstances?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: They were the members of the cell and we had a problem, all of us, that he had disappeared for months from us.  Then I deemed it fit for me to report this to them as well.

MR RICHARD: You had already made the decision that he should be executed.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: Yes, I'd already taken that decision.

MR RICHARD: Very well.  At what stage did the deceased first become aware that he was about to be shot?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: I don't think if there was a right time where he discovered he'll be shot, or realised he'll be shot.

MR RICHARD: So the execution came as a complete surprise to him, that his comrade, Clive shot him, he wasn't warned, he wasn't told why he was about to be executed?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: Yes.

ADV SANDI: Sorry, can I just interpose for a moment, Mr Richard?
	Mr Dube, did it appear to you, before Sicelo was shot and killed, did he appear to you as someone who was expecting that something was going to happen to him?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: That I don't know, I have no answer to that question.

ADV SANDI: But from what you have said from yesterday and today, it seems that he was taken completely by surprise, he was not expecting anything of this kind to happen to him.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: As I have already said that as to whether he suspected this, I can't answer to that.

DR TSOTSI: Mr Dube, you say that Sicelo suddenly came into Clive's house where you were, did you find out from Clive whether he had been there previously?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: No, I had not established that.

DR TSOTSI: Did you consider that Clive might have important information as to where Sicelo had been all along?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: You mean if that occurred in my mind?

DR TSOTSI: Yes.

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: The thing here is, I found Clive sitting in his house, I joined him and we started talking and chatting about other things, but that had not occurred in my mind that I should ask him but I would have asked  him as time went on.

CHAIRPERSON: No, but the question is that the two of you were sitting there and Sicelo quite casually appeared, he came as a visitor, and you decided after you had spoken to him, that you should kill him.  Did you before that ask Clive if he had been to his house before?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: No, I did not find out anything from Clive.

DR TSOTSI: Just one other question.
	You say you destroyed this transmitter, didn't it occur to you that it was important that you should be able to show it to the other members of the cell in order to  convince them of the necessity to kill Sicelo?

JOHN ITHUMALENG DUBE: As I said earlier on, I only showed that broken transmitter to Clive.  That happened spontaneously so that I could be in a position to break in in a communication if there was any progressing.

CHAIRPERSON: But after you had removed the batteries you've told us already you then knew that the thing couldn't transmit further, that it worked from batteries.   You had operated similar machines in your training, hadn't you?