Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 2011-01-21

WHITE MOHAPE: Ja, but, not 93.

MR VISSER: Well, you have ... (intervention).

WHITE MOHAPE: Sorry.

MR VISSER: ... very eloquently answered my question.  You see, Mr Mohape, I want to put it to you as a fact that there would have been no reason for the security branch members to assault or try to compel any other person to tell them - listen, please, carefully, listen - to tell them that you were the secretary or the vice-president of Cosas.  Do you agree with that, because if they had asked you you would have admitted it?

WHITE MOHAPE: You know, I am sorry, I will request that I am not, maybe I am not restricted in, you know, other things that has been happening, you know, like I spoke to my lawyer and he has, he told me that we must put ourselves, you know, confine ourselves to Ngo and Motsamai, but I think, you know, the questions, your questions honestly comply me or push me into broadly, you know, putting the picture, because the picture you are having, it is, those people who have briefed you they lied to you and they are dishonest to themselves.  I will say to you the had a cause to achieve and their cause was that they either control student organisations or they destroy them and in any given situation of destroying these organisations they must make sure that they infiltrate informers into this organisations and, also, they will make sure that the top people in positions of Cosas, they either buy them and if, maybe I was not a threat to them, I do not think they will have bothered me to have detained me several times, because I was not a threat, according to you, I was just a mere lamp that was running around, you know, and if that is the case, it means then they lied to you, because they had an objective to achieve and if they are lying, if they are saying they have never detained me for security reasons, then I honestly tell you that let them reconsider what they are saying, because they lied to you.  They had all, everything that they wanted to get rid of me or either use me as their informer and because of that they did all the things that they wanted to do.

MR VISSER: Yes, Mr Mohape, your reply, whatever it meant, was no reply to my question as to whether it would have been easy for them to establish the fact that you were a member of the Executive Committee of Cosas ... (intervention).

WHITE MOHAPE: Sorry.

MR VISSER: Let me finish now, but what you have done is you have, and I will argue this, made it quite clear how you hate the security branch and how you believe that they would have done everything in their power to destroy you and your student organisations, we take the point.

WHITE MOHAPE: Can I quickly respond to what you are saying, because you are misinterpreting what I am saying?  I do not hate security branch members, I hated what they did, I hated the manner in which they were treating me.  That is what I hated.  I do not hate Erasmus as a person, but I hated what he represented and that is why I am saying if Erasmus and the rest are really serious about reconciliation, they really want me to accept them in this society today, they will honestly come to me and talk to me and they will honestly say, you know, yes man, we picked you up, we did this thing, it is okay, let us forget about these things.  I will wholeheartedly accept them, but with what they are doing through you, yes, it would make me hate them as people, anyhow I will hate them.

MR VISSER: Are you seriously suggesting that they should accept responsibility for allegations of which they are not guilty?  Is that ... (intervention).

WHITE MOHAPE: They are, not ... (intervention).

MR VISSER: ... what you are suggesting?

WHITE MOHAPE: ... not what they are guilty of, but what they did.  There is a difference between a person being guilty and what he did, that he can honestly talk to me and be honest for what he did.

MR VISSER: Mr Mohape, I am really going to attempt not to get involved in a political argument with you.

WHITE MOHAPE: Okay.

MR VISSER: We are here to consider the applications of Mr Ngo and Mr Motsamai.  You are involved, directly, in one of the incidents by Mr Ngo, namely the kidnapping and assault of Mr White Mohape and indirectly, perhaps, and we will find that out later, in some attacks on some of the members of your families possessions.

WHITE MOHAPE: Yes.

MR VISSER: I want to confer myself to that.

WHITE MOHAPE: Do that.

MR VISSER: The reason why I have asked you the questions which I have is because of the evidence which you introduced here which we again say is irrelevant.
	Mr Chairman, my attorney draws my attention to the fact it is five past four, I do not know whether you, there is no hope that I would finish today or even tomorrow, for that matter.

MR STANDER: Mr Chairman, could I just mention something please?  In the meantime it seems among my clients, as if Mrs Jacobs has arrived, she is in the audience.  If I understood my learned friend correctly, he does not have many questions to ask.  We have had the problem thus far that we could not get her here.  She is here now, we can quickly complete her evidence if it will not be a problem to the Committee, while we will not take very long in any case, it will prevent her from returning on another occasion.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you think you could switch?

MR VISSER: Mr Chairman, anything to co-operate with you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  I think that, I think if we ... (intervention).

MR VISSER: I must just find my notes.

CHAIRPERSON: I think if we could ... (intervention).

MR VISSER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: ... make sure she does not have to come again, we should try.

MR VISSER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: And this witness can stand down till tomorrow.

MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Yes, I will certainly try my best.

CHAIRPERSON: Do not let him disappear.  Nine o' clock tomorrow morning.  Yes, ja.
WITNESS STANDS DOWN

MS JACOBS: (Still under oath).

MS JACOBS: I can hear you, thank you.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR VISSER

MR VISSER: Thank you Mr Chairman.
	Mrs Jacobs, I understand that you are an, unable to see, I just want to explain to you the set-up here.  I am Adv Visser and I appear for persons who are implicated by Mr Ngo and Mr Motsamai and also by the victims in illegal or unlawful activities and I am going to ask you a few questions in regard to the evidence which you gave when your attorney, Mr Stander, led you in evidence.  Do you understand what this is about?

MS JACOBS: I understand.

MR VISSER: I hope not to keep you too long.  I want to ask you this, first of all.  Have you at any time informed the TRC that you consider yourself to be a victim of gross violations of human rights?

MS JACOBS: Yes, I did tell the Truth Commission that I am one of the victims.

MR VISSER: And I am not talking about this particular Committee, I am talking about the Human Rights Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  You understand that?

MS JACOBS: Yes, I understand.  Yes, I went to the TRC offices.

MR VISSER: But, again, Mr Chairman, I am stepping off this point I, with the reference to page 140 of that bundle.

CHAIRPERSON: (...Indistinct).

MR VISSER: Yes, Mr Chairman, in which that name does not appear.

CHAIRPERSON: (...Indistinct).

MR VISSER: Now, ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: Does that mean anything?

MR VISSER: I am just drawing your attention to the fact, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: (...Indistinct).

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone is not on.

CHAIRPERSON: (...Indistinct) being shot by a policeman ... (intervention).

MR VISSER: Yes, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: ... may well be that that is a matter that the TRC considers of importance.

MR VISSER: Yes.  Well, I did not want to waste time about it.

CHAIRPERSON: No, but, so let us go on.

MR VISSER: (...Indistinct) I should, I should, but I can clarify that if it is necessary.

CHAIRPERSON: I do not consider it of any importance.