Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

WITNESS:   The children had now put the couch on the door just to block the entrance.  He ran on top of the couch, he came straight to me.  He went into the children's bedrooms and I followed him.  Then he came back to me.  Firstly he said to me I must switch on the light.  I told him that, "You have tampered with the electricity."  Then he asked me where Sipho was.  I told him I didn't know.  Then he came back to my bedroom.  I am the one who saw him, as well as what he was having with him.  I saw something that looked like a sword.  I saw a panga that has got a hook at the front, a little hook.  He was having that in his hand.  He said I must get into the bedroom.  I went in with him.  He searched and searched, but he just couldn't get whatever he wanted.  There was absolutely no one in the bedroom except me and him.  He went - he came towards me, and by then the others apparently were leaving.  They asked me where Sipho was.  Now, it's the other one who was asking, it was no longer the one who came to me.  He pointed this little sword at me.  It looked like a knife.  Then my other son said, "I am not Sipho."  When I turned around to look at the couch which was in the dining-room I could see something sticking out of the blanket, and when I looked at this I saw Sipho's shirt.  He had got right into the studio couch, right inside the mattress itself, inside the cover.  I got very scared and very confused.  I got a brainwave that I must turn back and stand at the door.  Now I had given Sipho my back, and Sipho was right inside the sofa cover.  As I was standing there one of them said, "Why did you not tell us that this is Gabela's place?  We have destroyed this home.  Why haven't you been telling us that you are Gabela?"  Gabela said to them, "Why did I have to tell you?  How did you come here if you didn't know this was my place?"  Then Jerome went out of the door at that time.  He is the person who was always with me.  Wherever I was going he would follow me.  Then he went out the door.  As he was at the door he turned around and said, "Gabela, if you like you can go and report this to the police.  Even if you can go there's absolutely nothing that they will do for you."  That's when he went out.

INTERPRETER: In your testimony you said when the neighbours saw what was happening they phoned the police.  Did they come?

WITNESS:   No, they never came.  And when my husband woke up that morning he said, "If Jerome could have the liver to tell me to go to the police it won't help me."  Then that is quite shocking and surprising that Inkatha was a law on its own, it was a law unto itself.

INTERPRETER: You may continue.

WITNESS:   One more thing is that we were so harassed by the police force which they call "Ngilokothe."  That's the Stability Unit.  They came to my place, and they used to come and arrest my children.  After that Inkatha attack Sipho went to hide.  He was in hiding at Galuza, a location.  When this Stability Unit came they wanted to know where Sipho was.  We never used to tell anyone where Sipho was, we used to say we don't know his whereabouts, because he was old enough to take care of himself.  He could go wherever he pleased.  Then they would arrest all these other children.  At times they would ... (inaudible) ... even the daughter, the girl, they would hit her, assault her, hit her or bang her against the wall.  They would do all sorts of things trying to find out where Sipho was.

INTERPRETER: (Transcriber's Note:  Side B, Tape 1 ends here.  Side A of Tape 2 is blank.  Recording resumes on Side B, Tape 2, during evidence of Sipho Gabela)

INTERPRETER: (Incomplete) ... wake up so that my mother could realise that I am not dead, and she could stop crying.  And I was trying to indicate to her that I am not dead.  At that time the police realised that I wasn't dead.

INTERPRETER: Sipho, we have 11 other witnesses that we would like to hear.  If you can please summarise your testimony.  We would like to hear just about your testimony, thank you.

WITNESS:   And then the ambulance people realised that I wasn't dead.  They took me to the ambulance and to hospital.  In hospital Inkatha members people used to come and see if I was alive or dead.  Maybe they came because they wanted to finish me, I don't know.  My torture started in 1989 when the police have already tried many things.  After a week I was released from hospital.  Police came to my house and then they kicked the door.  I was with my elder brother and we were sleeping.  When I tried to wake up I was pointed by a torch, and then they asked, "Who is Sipho here?" and I realised that it is policemen and I told them, "I am Sipho."  They took me.  When they took me my elder brother was being kicked because he asked them, "Why are you taking Sipho?" and then they started kicking him, hitting him, and they also started kicking me and hitting me.  And I also found my father outside, and they were also harassing my father as well.  I was out from the court.  They gave me bail.  I don't know where they took me at first, because I was hit by the gun and then I lost conscious.  I was unconscious, but it wasn't 100% unconscious because I could remember them bringing me closer to the van, and I could remember the light from the van.  Inside there I was really unconscious.  When the van was driving I could hear the corners where the van was bending.  I could hear the first corner, the second one, but the third one I couldn't hear.  That's where I lost my conscious 100%.

INTERPRETER: Then when you arrived at the police station ... (intervention)

WITNESS:   No, we didn't go to the police station.  I was 100% unconscious, so I don't know where we were.  At 11 o'clock when they took me they drove with me, and when I wake up from - when I receive my consciousness I was in hospital.  I heard noise, loud noise, and I could smell the hospital smell.  And even those little noises I could tell I was now in hospital.  I stayed there for six days.  I was unconscious and I couldn't even recall anything.  I was a little bit confused.  I don't know whether I just lost memory or it was something that they did to me, because I could feel my whole body - I couldn't just feel my whole body nicely.  It was like they used something in my system.  There were two spots, one in one hand and one at the other.

INTERPRETER: Sipho, we apologise.  We see that even if you can relate the whole thing that happened to you we will need the whole day for you to do this, because you have details, and we would like you to just summarise for us a little bit.  We understand that you've experienced so much in your life that you can take the whole day trying to relate to us, but now it's been a long time, so we also have other people to listen to.  Sorry.

WITNESS:   I was removed from the hospital.  I was taken to Midlands.  I stayed 17 days.  I could eat, but I couldn't go to the toilet.  That's the kind of torture that I can remember.  I can't recall everything.

INTERPRETER: You've told us in your statement that even today if you think about the torture that you've received it disturbs you in your mind, and the Committee for the Reparation and Rehabilitation have noted these things down, and they will talk to you and they will see your witnesses after this.  We thank you very much.  We would like the Chairman to take over.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Gabela, we are happy, and Sipho, we are also happy.  You've started giving us your testimony, and you were the first witnesses to give us testimony, and you've tried to relate to us things that we've heard about from the newspaper and from the media, that you people have been tortured and been harassed, and you came forward to tell us and show us how much you've been tortured.  I would like other Commissioners here to ask questions if they have questions to ask to you so that we clarify everything.