Human Rights Violation Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1996-06-26

DR BORAINE: I'd like to welcome you very warmly on behalf of the Commission.  For obvious reasons we thought that we would make this arrangements during the tea break to be of as great of assistance of you as possible and obviously I will now ask you to stand for the taking of the oath.  As I was saying, I will not ask you to stand for the taking of the oath, because you bear upon your body the marks of a very bad attack, which you are going to tell us about. 
 So Mr Mashumi, I will ask you to take the oath, but let me make sure that you can hear me.  Can you hear the voice?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: Fine.

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: (sworn states)

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much indeed.  Mr Mashumi, you will tell the story in your own words, so I am certainly not going to repeat it now.  But the fact that you were shot and very cruelly injured, must be of enormous pain to you and a burden to you.  We feel with you and we want you to be just as relaxed as you possibly can be as you tell your story.
 Miss Tiny Maya is going to assist you to do just that and I am going to hand over to her now, thank you.

MS MAYA: Thank you Dr Boraine.  I greet you.  Sorry for keeping you too long, this whole day.  Thank you for your patience as well.  I just want to confirm that your names are Melvin Mluleki Mashumi and that address in the statement in front of the Commission.  You find that although your
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home is in PE in 1992 you were in Cape Town where you sustained your injuries but you also have other stories to tell us.
 Can you tell us about yourself.  The whole story about yourself from the time you left PE until you settled in Cape Town?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: I am very thankful for this opportunity to talk in front of this gathering.  I am thankful for the opportunity to talk in front of this gathering about the injuries I sustained in Cape Town.  I am Mluleki, my other name is Melvin.  I stay at 1239 Kwazakeli.
 Can I go on?

MS MAYA: Yes, yes go on.

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: The reason I am sitting in this wheelchair now it started with a rally in Cape Town in 1992.  It started with a rally in Cape Town at Steve Tshwete, where I was.  I went to this rally, it was full and I listened to the speeches there.
 And on our way out of the stadium, I saw a crowd of policemen.  There were many of us.  And as we were nearing, they spoke on a loud haler that we should stop what we are doing and then when we had gone past them, we stopped and we started again when we passed them.
 And we were facing makaya, our homes and the police shot with rubber bullets and having done that, they started with live ammunition and I was hit in that way.

MS MAYA: Do you remember what the rally was for, what was it about, the rally?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No, it was a ANC rally.

MS MAYA: Were you a member of a particular organisation?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: I was an ANC member.
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MS MAYA: You mentioned someone who was going to address the rally.  What was he going to talk about and who was he?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: It was Steve Tshwete, but I can't remember what he said because it is a long time since then, I've forgotten.

MS MAYA: So you sustained injuries as a result of the shooting?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: Yes, yes I did.

MS MAYA: How were your injuries?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: I was shot on my thigh and this arm.

MS MAYA: Were you taken to hospital?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: Yes I was taken to Grootte Schuur hospital but under police protection.  I was under police protection in Grootte Schuur hospital.

MS MAYA: How long did you stay there?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No, they didn't treat me there.  I think I spent a week without receiving any treatment, then I was changed and I was taken to Tygerberg.  Even in Tygerberg they didn't even touch me.  I was transferred to Conradie, that's where the treatment started.

MS MAYA: What did they do at Conradie?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: They operated on me at Conradie.  Two operations that I underwent.  One on the thigh, the other on the arm.

MS MAYA: So when did you first realise that your - the lower part of your body could not work?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: At the time I was shot because immediately after I was shot, my lower body couldn't work.

MS MAYA: How long did you stay in Conradie?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: It could have been eight to nine months, because I came back in 1993.
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MS MAYA: And the costs, the hospital costs, who paid that?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No, no one has paid that.

MS MAYA: So what is the situation with regard to that now?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No, no one has returned it to them because no one is working even at my home.

MS MAYA: You stated in your statement that you did have some conflict with the police besides that encounter in Cape Town so much that you left PE to go and hide somewhere.  Can you tell us more about that?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: Here in PE there was a mayor in our area, his name was Qnala, his house was destroyed together with the other one of the police and then some comrades were identified and I was - some of us were pointed out and then I ran away because I was scared.
 I ran to Alice.

MS MAYA: Why did the policemen destroy the house?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: He didn't like what we were doing.  He didn't like the ANC.

MS MAYA: So when did you come back from Alice?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: I came back when I thought that things were quieter.

MS MAYA: There is something else you mentioned that happened to you on your return from Cape Town after you sustained the injuries.  What happened?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: At the airport as I was alighting from the airplane, two Boers appeared and I recognized them as police from Le Grange police station.  They asked if I was Mashumi, I said yes, I am Mashumi and they took photographs of me and they left.

MS MAYA: Did you know their names?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No.  No, I didn't  but I can point them out
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if they can be paraded.

MS MAYA: After you reached home, did you not get any harassment?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No, they came - some came one morning very early in the morning, but not the ones that I met at the airport.

MS MAYA: What did they do?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: They said they wanted to take a statement from me about my injuries.  I said no I didn't have a statement for them.

MS MAYA: And so what happened?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: They never came back.  Then one Detective from New Brighton came, I don't know his name, he came to my place.  He said he was sent by my lawyer from Cape Town to get a statement from me.  So I went into his car with my sister in case this Detective wanted to lock me up again, so my sister went with me and this man took a statement and he brought me back.

MS MAYA: About your injuries, did anyone get arrested?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No.

MS MAYA: Was there any case afterwards in court?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: I did claim whilst I was in hospital in Cape Town and I was being visited by a lawyer now and again in hospital and even when I came out of hospital, he wrote me a letter in 1994 and since 1994, 1995, he has never contacted me by letter again.
 But I wrote to him, but he never responded.  I still know his name, Trias Paprio was his name.

MS MAYA: And now, are you getting any assistance or grant?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: Well, I am getting a disability pension.

MS MAYA: And your wheelchair, how did you get it, how did
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you get it?  Was it yourself or was it the Government?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: No, I bought this last year with the money I get.

MS MAYA: Is it from your own pocket?

MELVIN MLULEKI MASHUMI: I got it on account with the money I pay.