Human Rights Violation Hearings — Vryheid — 1997-04-16

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... you're going into a great deal of detail about your dismissal at the mine, and I wonder if we could just deal with what actually happened in the end.  From what I understand at the end of the day you were in essence dismissed.  They said you had resigned from your job, is that right?

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: And you took this matter to the Labour Court as far as I'm aware.

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: What happened there?  What was the outcome?

WITNESS:   (Incomplete - start of Side B, Tape 3) ... were not fair.  The Judge told me that I wasn't supposed to run away because I am not Xhosa.  The Zulus were killing the Xhosas.  That's what the Judge told me.  I wasn't supposed to run away.  Now, I am telling myself that I'll be a lawyer for myself.  I am still waiting for a date because I have also applied for appeal.  I also wrote for a condonation file papers.  This will be heard in Pietermaritzburg.

MR LAX: (Inaudible)

WITNESS:   That is correct.  I am still waiting for Mr Martin from 'Maritzburg, because he's the one who is going to tell me the response.  They are still waiting.

MR LAX: That's Mr Potgieter you're talking about.

WITNESS:   That is correct, Mr Potgieter.

MR LAX: I want to just take you back a little bit to the time when this incident happened where the people were killed.  What you have described to us is a very confused picture.  Not in the sense that you are confused, but in the sense that there was confusion on that mine.  You describe a situation where people are running away, and not quite sure what's going on, and the gist - these stories of other people attacking them.  Who was attacking who on that mine?

WITNESS:   I can't say who was attacking who because no one knew who were asleep.  I was also from the hostel in that night.  No one knew who was attacking who, but what surprised me is that when I arrived at the Industrial Court the boers who were there for the Iscor they said Zulus were attacking Xhosas.  Yes, this was partly true, because some people were known.  I knew one guy whom I went to - when I went back to the mine he said I was supposed to be killed.  The one who was a police, and who was told by some other people that I was supposed to be killed, he stopped the van, the police van, and he put me inside the police van, at the back of the police van, and he told me that my mother wanted to see me.  But I had this picture with me that you can't trust a police, but what I heard is that I should get inside this van, this police van, because there were other people at the back of the van.

MR LAX: You yourself weren't actually injured that night, is that correct?

WITNESS:   No, I wasn't stabbed, I just got a fraction in my leg, and I went to see Dr Nel and he gave me 10 days' leave after I told him I can't go back to the mine.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... I didn't hear the translation very well.  What happened to your leg?

WITNESS:   As I was running I got inside the hall, so I got a fraction on my leg, my leg was swollen.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... a break, and this wasn't a break?

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: You said that you were told you could either resign or take 21 days' unpaid leave.

WITNESS:   That is correct.  Mr van Rooyen told us that the management gave us three options, that one, if you want to resign you can resign, and if you want to take an unpaid days you can take those unpaid days, but it mustn't be more than 21, and if you want to take a 10 days you can.

MR LAX: Was that 10 days' paid leave?

WITNESS:   (Inaudible)    And the 10 days?   ---   There were three options - 10 days to resign, and 10 days unpaid days, and 21 days unpaid days.  I came back before my 21 days' leave was finished, because I also asked him if I can do that.  He said yes, I can.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... why would you - why did they want you to take this leave?  What was the purpose of that?

WITNESS:   The boers realised that the situation was too tense, and then they found us at the post office, Mr van Rooyen, and he told us these three options that we were given by the management.  So I chose the 21 unpaid days' leave because I thought when I came back the situation will be calm.  People were dying, so we were scared.  People from Nquthu were killed, and they were carrying spears in front of the police.  People from Mondlo, people from Dundee, the same happened.  Nondweni people were killed, were killed by the people from Hlobane.  Sometimes early in the morning on Saturdays you will see them carrying spears, walking around with them in town.  When I went to Mondlo I saw other people who were working at Hlobane, and the ZP Police were accompanying them to go and kill.  At that time I had no position or no place for me to sleep because I was scared.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mr Muali, when you say "at that time," what year was that?

WITNESS:   This was in 1990, but this started in 1986.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... understand is this incident you're talking about with police accompanying workers, when did that happen in terms of your story?  Before the massacre, after the massacre?

WITNESS:   It was after the massacre, weeks after the massacre in Hlobane, because this happened in Hlobane for weeks, not just for one day.  People were being killed inside and outside the mine.

MR LAX: I want to just go back and look at this.  The people that were killed, you said there were 17 people as far as you can remember.  Was there ever an inquest into their death?

WITNESS:   That's what I want to know, if there was an inquest, because if there was an inquest who was the investigator, and how he conducted his investigation?  And then again going back to the mine management and ask what did they do, knowing very well that there were people who had weapons inside the mine?  And then again police, what did they do, how they investigated this?  And again go back to the Attorney-General.  If he received the statements from the police or from anyone what did he do?  I never came to know if the investigations were conducted properly, because if it was I would have known.  We know today that, for example, at Hlobahlobane people were attacked  and there are investigations being conducted.  I still want to know who killed the employees and what happened.

MR LAX: Do you remember, of these 17 people that died, what were their affiliations?  Were they union members, were they a particular ethnic group?

WITNESS:   I can't say that they were Xhosas or Zulus, because some Xhosas died and some Zulus also got injured.  The only people I found in the police station who were injured were the Zulus.  I can't remember very well that from those people who died whether they were Xhosas all of them, because I never got to know their names.  Because the situation was so bad that I couldn't find this information.  I still want to know who were those people who died, how were they killed.  Were they shot, were they stabbed?  I remember one guy, Mr Malayishe, and even today his house was burnt.  Securities and the police who were there they said he was stabbed by someone, and then a group of people burnt his house, and then they said when he tried to escape one guy stabbed him using a spear.  And then his wife as well was stabbed - or rather he was beaten by a spear, not stabbed.  When I went to the mortuary, I went to Avbob mortuary, it wasn't easy for me to see or to recognise them because their bodies was bad and I couldn't look at their bodies very well.

MR LAX: Do you know whether the union tried to investigate this incident at all?