Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-02

MS COLLETT: Do you have any information about the missions that were carried out by the other people that used your house as a stayover?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: No, I know nothing.

MS COLLETT: Were you ever informed of the nature or extent or what actually happened on any of those missions at any stage?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: No, I heard nothing, nobody told me anything.

MS COLLETT: Now, in connection with your amnesty application now, how do you feel, in retrospect, about the victims and the persons who suffered injury and damage as a result of the missions in which you were involved?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: You know when I'm thinking about the victims and their families I feel very hurt because you know their kids you see, were - those people who were congregating and worshiping God and we came and shot them, took their cars from them, I feel hurt very much.  It's worse when I hear that these people are not South African Citizens, they were coming from Iran.  They too know all liberation movements in South Africa, never had problems with Iran.  That's one country that supported our liberation movements.
	But it did happen that we were sent to that church and instructed to do what we did there not knowing where those people are staying, we were only told about white people who were in that church who we were supposed to go and attack.  
	I do not want to lie to those people because I'm in front of them, that indeed during the time that we were sent there we knew that it was not white people there, it was people who were foreigners like people from Iran. I would not lie and say: if we knew that we would then have left them, I'm sure we would have hitted them but I'm very, very, sorry.  I apoligise for even those soldiers I was moving with, some of whom are now late, we apologise.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you saying that if you had known these people were not South African white people but were people from Iran, who you have just said had always supported the freedom struggle, you would still have hit them?  Did I hear you correctly?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: Yes, you heard me correctly Sir.  We would have hit them because we had been instructed to go and shoot them.

CHAIRPERSON: So your attitude was if you'd been instructed to do something it didn't matter if it was right or wrong, you would do it?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: That is so Sir.

MR LAX: May I just add one thing?
	It would also not have concerned you, is it not correct, as to whether it was PAC policy or APLA policy or not, you wouldn't even have considered that, you just got an order and you executed the order?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: You see Sir, the duty of a soldier Sir is to follow orders.  Whether the order is right or wrong, as a soldier you are a human being and you can see what is right or wrong but you are told: "Man do this", you do not have the right to ask, you simply have to do that.  You may ask only later as to, if you have any questions.  That's how the rules of soldiers work.

MR LAX: You see my question is directed, not about the morality of the issue, not about the ethics of the issue but APLA was a political formation, it wasn't just an army and it had policies and principles that it stood for.

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: That is so.

MR LAX: Now if you received a command that was directly against such policies, would you have carried it out?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: I would have obeyed it because that is above me.

MR LAX: So even if the command undermined your struggle and your commander was behaving completely out of line you would have still obeyed that command?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: That is so Sir.  You know Sir, in the PAC that is a democratic organisation.   APLA too has democracy but the army democracy changes, it is not equal with that of the PAC, it changes.
	There are things in the army that you cannot question even if they are wrong and think that we may ask: "Why are things going this way"?, you must simply do as ordered.

CHAIRPERSON: I think you should know Mr Zukile Mbambo that you are not applying for amnesty as a member of an army, you are applying for amnesty in respect of acts that you alledge you committed with a political objective.  You are now telling us that you had no such objective, you just would carry out any command that was given to you.

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: Yes, it is so, I simply did what I was ordered.  Even now - I know I'm not asking for amnesty for APLA I'm applying for amnesty for myself, Zukile Mbambo who did things under orders of APLA.

MR LAX: You haven't understood the Chairperson's question to you.  The issue that you yourself must have had a political objective when you did these things and you're saying you didn't care what the objective was, you just followed the orders.

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: I'm sorry I did not hear the question of the Chairperson properly, I did not follow it.  Clearly what APLA does is political, they are political aims, that is why we were following orders too in doing what we were ordered.

MR LAX: Just one last thing.   Take for example the order to shoot the bus full of children at Nahoon, how would that in any way have further APLA or the PAC's political objectives?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: You know, with the bus that was supposed to be hit carrying school kids, I was sent there.  I must tell you Sir, as I thought - I do not whether I'm right in my thoughts, as I know when they sent me they had different reasons for sending me to that bus that I do not know.
	To shoot at a bus full of school kids, as far as my thoughts go, it was to cause the government of the day to be under pressure of the parents of those kids that they free those who are appressed because the oppressed are now hitting at their children, that's how I thought. I do not what the commander, when he told us to do those things, what is motives were.

MR LAX: You see my worry is this, you say that now, the fact of the matter was this was in March 1994 barely a month before the national elections, do you confirm that?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: Which one, before I am correctly with you because there are many things we have come here for Sir?

MR LAX: Well all these acts happened in March, all of them?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: That is so.

MR LAX: So it doesn't really make any difference which act we talk about.

CHAIRPERSON: You did now about the national elections in May didn't you?

MR LAX: Sorry, it was April the 27th.

CHAIRPERSON: April, sorry.

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: I knew that there were going to be elections in April.

MR LAX: And you knew that that election would transform this country, at least begin that process of transformation, is that not correct?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: Yes, I knew.

MR LAX: So how would shooting anybody, no matter who they were at that point in time, put any pressure on a government which would be out of power within a few days, at the most a couple of weeks, how would that make any difference?

ZUKILE AUGUSTINE MBAMBO: Sir as I've said, the shooting of a bus full of school kids or other acts committed then, as I've said that's how I think, it was a way to put that government of the day under pressure, from the parents of those kids, so that he can let people go, that is black people be free.  That's they way I think I thought about it.  I do not say I was right.
	And Sir, I said the reason for the commander to send us to do those things I do not know because that he did not discuss with us.  What he does is give us orders and how it must be done.

CHAIRPERSON: Why did you not ask?  You say that you knew the political objectives, why did you not ask your commander?  He was somebody you had close contact with, you stayed together with, he was a little bit older than you, why did you not ask him and say: "But what is the purpose of this, they've already given up power"?