Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-03

ZUKILE MBAMBO: After Kid had shot the kombi at Nahoon Dam, if I remember well, he was asked by TNT why did he do that.  I do not remember his answer, it was a long time back, 1994.

MR LAX: The evidence of your co-applicant is that he was reprimanded severely and told that he must never do that kind of thing again.  That was his evidence.  And you were presumably present when that happened because it happened right there and then in front of you.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: You see sir, it may be so as I am saying, I do not remember his answer.  It is a long time back.

MR LAX: Well my question was how could TNT have done that without authority?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: Sir, I would like to explain again TNT's powers.  I will explain again TNT's powers, while it seems as if you don't follow TNT's powers.
	The power TNT had, was not, his authority was not beyond that of mine.  I could have asked him too why he did what he did.  You perhaps didn't follow that TNT's powers are not beyond mine, that is why at Da Gama there was an altercation.
	It was not TNT alone speaking, we all were discussing.  Others were saying man, we discussed this and said this was going to happen and other said no, this must happen.
	TNT's powers are not above those of others within the Unit sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Haven't we heard enough about these powers now, can we get on with it?

MR NTONGA: Mr Chairman, I have no further questions for this witness.

MR NTONGA: .

CHAIRPERSON: We now have one of the relatives of the deceased.  Could you please give us your full name?

DINA ANVARI: My name is Dina Anvari.  I am the wife of Hushman Anvari.

CHAIRPERSON: I heard that you want to ask certain questions?  I gather you want to ask certain questions?

DINA ANVARI: If I may.  I guess before everything, I have to follow what Mrs Razavi mentioned, that basically whether anyone is guilty or not, it is the decision of the Amnesty, and we have no revenge or hatred or anything for that matter, towards any people, all the people who had been involved in this attack one way or the other.
	We would like the truth though and there are loop holes that are constantly here in these hearings, and the hearings that were in Bisho that I would like to put it to this gentleman.
	The first thing that I would like to ask is that, forgive my ignorance ...

INTERPRETER: Can the speaker please speak a little bit slower so that the interpreters will be able to interpret?

DINA ANVARI: I am just a little bit nervous, so excuse me.  I don't know, I would like to ask anyone who is here actually, if whether any other attacks that happened on behalf of APLA after the armed struggle was finished, beside the attacks that was done by this Unit?  Does anybody know the answer to that?  Do you know of any?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I will not lie to you Ma'am.  As I have said already in this Commission, as a soldier when a soldier, or let me put it this way, if we are all soldiers here, five soldiers, we are supposed to go out and attack a certain place, those who stay behind at the base, are not supposed to know where we are going, and what we are going to go do there.
	Even if we came back, they must not know where we come from, and what have we done, where we were.  The one who is supposed to know about it, it is the Commander who gave the order and the Base Commander only.  
	And this makes seven people who are informed about this.  Other soldiers must not know about it.  We ourselves are now coming back, must not in our talk explain or talk about what has happened.  I am trying to answer your question.  I cannot say there are attacks that may have taken place, except the ones we were involved in or there were none, I do not know.

CHAIRPERSON: We have been supplied with a list of attacks which appears to be a very, very incomplete in that it doesn't contain details of the ones that are the subject of this enquiry, but it does refer to attacks in the Richards Bay area on a swimming pool and on a disco.
	An attack on a house in New Brighton, and an attack on a bus.  There do appear to have been other attacks, but I am afraid I cannot give you details.

DINA ANVARI: How far away were those attacks from the date that the armed struggle had stopped?

CHAIRPERSON: The 30th of January, the 5th of February, the 6th of February and the 14th of February.

DINA ANVARI: I suppose it sort of leads me to the next question.  If the armed struggle had stopped in January, in some place like Unitra, only an hour and a half away from Butterworth, I can understand it takes until mid-February to get to Richards Bay, but why is it it took so long to get to Butterworth, it is an hour and a half drive?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I can be sure Ma'am, that those who read newspapers and those who listened to the radio's got the message immediately, and those people who went physically to the Congress at Unitra at the time this matter was being discussed, they heard this thing.
	With the Army a message or an announcement comes via radio and newspaper, television, we as soldiers were told we must not accept what comes via those media.  A person like the Commander must come and tell us, this is the situation.  This is the decision, and then we must accept it.
	It becomes difficult then because soldiers were scattered all over South Africa and then it became difficult to inform all soldiers that indeed the situation is like this now.

DINA ANVARI: I had heard that you were in Butterworth, we are not talking about all over South Africa, we are talking an hour and a half away from where the decision was made.  I am sorry, I don't want to be like the Commission and I don't want to necessarily say that you are telling the truth or not, I accept what you say, but in my mind this stays that an hour and a half away from Umtata, if the messenger had walked, he would have been there before the 13th of March, when this happened to my husband.
	I also have to say that you know, I have basically no political mind and I don't know how the command of things work and how the Army works and all that stuff.  Could I find out what is a definition of soldier in your organisation?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: A soldier in our organisation is somebody who was fighting for Africans who were oppressed here in Azania.

DINA ANVARI: Therefore you were fighting for those who were oppressed against those who gave the oppression?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: That is so.

DINA ANVARI: From what I understood, you obeyed orders and that is all.  I understood that personally you had no political motive in order to go to that Bahai Centre and do what you did that day, is that correct?

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I will be lying to you Ma'am.  The mere fact for anybody to associate themselves with the liberation movement shows clearly that you are coming from a political organisation, you have political education, you then go to a liberation army and you do get some political classes.
	We were given an order to go and undertake the attack at Bahai as people who were politically taught, we then went and undertook that attack at Bahai.  If it were not soldiers, you could not have sent anybody else to do that.  Anybody who does not have politics, who is not political, will not easily accept an order to do things like those.
	I don't think somebody who is not political will follow orders like we did.

DINA ANVARI: Yes, I actually can suggest to you who are the other people who follow orders like that, they are paid assassins and killers.  They do not ask questions, they just go and do what they are asked.
	The next question ...

MR LAX: Maybe he could answer that question.

ZUKILE MBAMBO: I don't know now about the people you are talking about Ma'am, the ones you say are hired to do such things.  I never came across such a case.  We as the soldiers, we are told, instructed to go and do certain things at certain places.  We then go according to instructions and do as instructed wherever.