Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

MR UNTERHALTER: Now were you in Mrs Mandela's house on the 13th November 1988?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I'm not sure of the dates.

MR UNTERHALTER: Did you witness in that house on that day the assault that took place on Lolo Sono?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: No, sir.

MR UNTERHALTER: Had you been in the house would you have seen had there been an assault that took place in the house?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I'm not sure if I was in the house whether I was going to see, but if it was something that is exposed, yes, I was going to see it.

MR UNTERHALTER: Yes.  Now Mr Sithole you say in your statement, and your lawyer has said now that this is precisely what you said to him today, you say the MUFC, that is the Mandela Football Club, was not used for violent purposes.   Do you see that?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, sir.

MR UNTERHALTER: You state that in the affirmative, as if you have certain knowledge of that fact.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: That's what I know.

MR UNTERHALTER: You don't say I don't know whether or not they do.  You say they were not used for violent purposes.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: What I said to my lawyer is what I know.  I can't say what I don't know to my lawyer.

MR UNTERHALTER: But, Mr Sithole, you actually can't know, because there has been evidence of matters, for example concerning the assaults upon Lolo Sono, which occurred on the 13th November 1988, and if you weren't in the house, you couldn't possibly know who carried out those assaults and what the consequences were.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, if you are saying to me, is it possible that the assault happened, I can say to you I can't see the impossibility of that or the possibility, because at some stages I'm not present.

MR UNTERHALTER: Yes.  And therefore if persons had been abducted and were kept against their will in the house, you might also simply not know, according to your evidence.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, I don't know.  That's what I said in my
evidence.

MR UNTERHALTER: Yes. And therefore this is simply a falsehood where you say the Mandela Football Club wasn't used for violent purposes.  You can't say that, you just don't know.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, I just don't know.

MR UNTERHALTER: Exactly.  So that's false, it's a lie.

CHAIRPERSON: Order, please.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I don't know the logic of your objection to my statement because, according to my knowledge to the Mandela United, I'm stating my knowledge to the Mandela United Football Club, that it's being said here of which I know the comrades.  I'm saying here that those people, according to my eyesight and according to my knowledge, I didn't see any violent thing that they did in front of my eyes.  That's what I'm saying in this statement.

MR UNTERHALTER: You see, Mr Sithole, what that statement really suggests, and that's what Mr Vally has been putting to you, is that you actually have a much more detailed knowledge and you've tried to make that statement to exonerate the football club.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Sir, I think you heard that Mr Miller didn't show me the statement before it came here.  I think you do understand why some of the things are being writing like this.

MR UNTERHALTER: Mr Sithole, do you know of a man by the name of Michael Siagamela?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: No, I didn't know of him.

MR UNTERHALTER: Do you know whether he worked for Mrs Mandela?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I don't have any idea, sir.

MR UNTERHALTER: Did Mrs Mandela know the names of the members of the football club?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I can't say, sir.

MR UNTERHALTER: You can't say it?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes.

MR UNTERHALTER: She knew your name, though, and you weren't even a member.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, I know that she knew my name.

MR UNTERHALTER: Yes.  Did you ever see her giving instructions to members of the football club?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Pertaining what?

MR UNTERHALTER: In any way at all, at any time.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: What I can say, the instruction that I witnessed maybe is of sending one to the shop to buy bread and come back.

MR UNTERHALTER: I see, and were those instructions carried out?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, definitely, because she is an adult.

CHAIRPERSON: Order, please.

MR UNTERHALTER: Yes. You say that you returned from overseas in, I believe you said 1994, is that correct?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, sir.

MR UNTERHALTER: Have you seen Mrs Mandela since then?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I used to see her during - on my workplace because I'm working at Johannesburg International Airport.

MR UNTERHALTER: Did you speak to her when you saw her?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, we greeted one another.

MR UNTERHALTER: I see.  Did you get any assistance from her?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: On my return I didn't speak to her, only at a distance because I'm working ...[indistinct]

MR UNTERHALTER: I see.  Did she say anything to you concerning making a statement before the TRC?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: No.

MR UNTERHALTER: Or the Commission.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: No.

MR UNTERHALTER: Nothing at all?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: No.

MR UNTERHALTER: You've said that Mrs Mandela did give certain instructions and you've said for example to go and buy bread.  Could anyone ever refuse an instruction from Mrs Mandela?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I believe as Mrs Mandela, she is a grown-up woman, if maybe she is sending me to the shop, I had to acknowledge to that, as I can do it to each and everyone who is elder than me.

MR UNTERHALTER: You didn't leave the country for political reasons, you left to avoid standing trial, isn't that so?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: That's negative, it's not like that.

MR UNTERHALTER: What political reason did you leave the country for?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I was active.  Being a comrade we are harassed by the police by then.  Then the alternative definitely was to leave the country in order not to be murdered or to be harassed.

MR UNTERHALTER: You were standing trial and you were out on bail at the time.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Yes, that's correct.

MR UNTERHALTER: Who was harassing you at that point?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: As I've stated, sir, that I was a politician, I was active in politics, organising for the African National Congress.

MR UNTERHALTER: So you were a loyal member of the movement?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I'm the loyal tried and tested, yes.

MR UNTERHALTER: Yes. And on whose instructions did you leave the country?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Nobody instruction I did leave the country, but I manoeuvred and I decided with some of my comrades to leave the country.

MR UNTERHALTER: Who were those comrades?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: They are comrades whom I left the country with.  It was the same Brian Mabusa.

MR UNTERHALTER: And who assisted you to leave?   If you were leaving for political reasons and for the purposes of the movement?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: Nobody assisted me to leave the country.

MR UNTERHALTER: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Yes, Mr Joseph?

MR JOSEPH: My surname is Joseph.  I represent Katiza Cebekhulu.  I just want to understand your language and I want to understand your thinking.  In 1988 if an MK soldier or a comrade who was operating from a safe house in Soweto killed somebody in the execution of his duties as a soldier, and the police were after that person and that person left the country, what reason would you give for the person leaving the country?   In other words, would that be a political reason for leaving the country?

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: In 1988?

MR JOSEPH: Yes.

JOSEPH JABULANI SITHOLE: I don't know whether must I answer that question because by that time I was not an MK soldier.  Can you talk on behalf of a politician, an ordinary activist of the African National Congress?  Maybe I can understand it better.