Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-24

MS MKHIZE: The way they buried your children, do you think
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the funeral was normal or do you think the funeral was conducted in such a way that they were politicians?

ROSSY MOLOI: No, my son was a shop steward.  So he was buried by his colleagues.  They were putting on the shop stewards' attires, T-shirts.  He was a shop steward at work.

CHAIRPERSON: Tom?

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mrs Moloi, we hear that Mr Sisulu came.  Who called Mr Sisulu?

ROSSY MOLOI: Journalists by the name of Ophloite, and he went to the hospital, looking at the hospital. He discovered  that he could not locate the child, and he could not get in.  He decided to go and call Mr Sisulu  Mr Sisulu is the one who called the police station to ask if they cannot find the child, and that the ANC poeple will intervene and that is when the policeman came to give us a report that he is there at Umziluzi.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Sisulu, did he go to Umziluzi?

ROSSY MOLOI: No, he never went there, he just called the police, to ask the police to go and look for my son.  He gave them 30 minutes and he told them to go and look for them.  That is just when the policeman took a statement.

THOMAS MANTHATA: When the policeman, who took Rebecca to hospital?

ROSSY MOLOI: No, there is no one who went to hospital. They were taken by Black Maria.

THOMAS MANTHATA: What do you mean when you say Black Maria?  Is it a hearse?

ROSSY MOLOI: Yes, it is a hearse.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Whose hearse was it?

ROSSY MOLOI: It was the Government hearse.

THOMAS MANTHATA: So from there did you identify the corpse?
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ROSSY MOLOI: Yes, I did.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Did you let Mr Sisulu know that you had found the corpse?

ROSSY MOLOI: I don't know whether the journalist told him or not.  Because we were just so confused.

THOMAS MANTHATA: The way I understand you were, if I understand you correctly, things took place so dramatically that you could not even know whether those people, whether they were school friends of your children or whether they were just people or whether those people were from Inkatha or what?

ROSSY MOLOI: Yes, at the hostel, the dwellers there are from Inkatha.

THOMAS MANTHATA: I thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mamma Moloi, thank you very much. If I could ask one final question. You mentioned that he was a shop steward, your son. What was this union?

ROSSY MOLOI: It was Sawctu.

CHAIRPERSON: And your daughter-in-law, was she also in a union?

ROSSY MOLOI: No, she was working at Donald (indistinct), no, at Fordsburg.   The union, I know it is the Cosatu union, that is Rebecca.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  We are very grateful to you for coming.  I think that as with other cases that we have heard, what you have told us, is a story of people really caught in the middle of a dreadful horror which is worse because of the difficulty of understanding what is happening within this political conflict, where ordinary people are caught up in the middle.  So the pain and the suffering is greater in terms of the loss, and we understand as well the problem of not knowing, of trying to break the
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silence.  What we will do as a Commission is to try and help you break that silence.  We have heard your plea and we hope that we can help heal the sorrow that you feel and bring you somehow to come to terms with your grief.  We thank you very much indeed.  Thank you, Mamma.
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