Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-08-23

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: The disappearance of Charles Ndaba and the subsequent disappearance of Mbuso Shabalala was a problem for us.  We were satisfied by Tuesday the 10th of July that these two had definitely disappeared.  They had not conformed to the regular practice that if you went out on work, you came by the appointed time and reported back and if you failed to make the appointed time, you had a fall-back arrangement.  The fall-back arrangements were not too far apart.  If they were made too far apart, they would have no sense.  I was in constant communication with Siphiwe Nyanda who was in Durban while I was in Johannesburg at that stage.  We were clear that these two people had disappeared.  Now the question was, how had they disappeared?  So far as I knew in different places their circumstances of disappearances has now been unearthed.  Ninela, who everybody says was the arresting person, askari, says in his affidavit that he was with Goodwill Sekakane.  It's a sworn affidavit.  I think its an exhibit here.  Why he doesn't ...(intervention)

MS POSWA: Sorry Mr Maharaj, for purposes of the record, what exhibit number is that?  Do you that, Ms Evidence Leader?  Can you help us here?

MS THABETHE: Can you also help us...(indistinct)

MS POSWA: I'm asking what ...(intervention)

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: The affidavit of Ninela.

MS THABETHE: The affidavit of Ninela?

MR LAX: Yes, it's in a batch from the TRC.

MR VISSER: Exhibit F, Mr Chairperson, it's a page marked 22 in Exhibit f.

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: I'm sorry, so it is.  Thank you.  Ninela, page 22, says that he was, paragraph 7 page 23 that he was with Neville and they were in the street when they spotted Charles and he goes on to recount the arrest.  From the amnesty application of Eugene de Kock and I have extracts of his, he says he was called upon, informed about the death of two Vula operatives and required to eliminate Goodwill Sekakane because he was threatening to tell about Vula, how these two colleagues had disappeared.  Indeed Goodwill Sekakane was an askari and he was executed and I believe his body has now been exhumed and identified and he was killed.  So, in my view, the evidence of de Kock and Ninela suggests that the detention, the arrest, was carried out by Ninela and Goodwill Sekakane and I do not understand why it's not been put open cards.

MS POSWA: Still in Exhibit D, Mr Maharaj, can you comment on the contents of paragraph 59 please?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Paragraph 59, Chairperson, it's difficult for me to control my language when I speak about paragraph 59 because it's the biggest give-away to a cover-up conspiracy.  It says there that
"Charles Ndaba was privy to vital information about Pretoria systems.  The first ones", it says, "is that during Charles's stay in Swaziland and Zambia, Ndaba was coupled to the communications and logistics infrastructure of the Security Branch".
Now I have shown you documents which indicate that if we were to suppose he was recruited, he could only have been recruited late in 1988, but within weeks of recruitment would have gone out of Swaziland.  What infrastructure would he have learned?  What communications system would he have got known to except some telephone numbers to phone?  Then we were told by Capt Botha that when he was sent, told to go to Zambia, he was given no contacts in Zambia.  What logistical infrastructure and communications network of Port Natal would he have found out in Zambia and by his own admission Capt Botha says he had no contact with him while he stayed in Zambia, in fact he claims that the contact was established 4 to 6 weeks before the 7th of July inside the country at the initiative of Charles Ndaba.  What infrastructure?  So it puts this huge word, communications and logistical infrastructure that Charles Ndaba would have got to know in Swaziland and Zambia and then uses that to justify his murder.  Then it says:
"these communication and logistical networks were not only used by Charles Ndaba"
but they themselves said that he didn't use it.  I find that diabolical.  Then it goes that he had information about the Intelligence network in the Security Branch in Durban but they say in their evidence that he made contact 4 to 6 weeks before the 7th of July, which places it at its earliest in May and then goes on to say that he had 2 to 3 meetings and did not have him meet other people.  What again, is this huge word Intelligence network?  If Durban, Port Natal was working that way, making an individual informer know that elaborate network, then they don't deserve to be called Durban Security Branch.  And then, Chairperson, we come back to the smearing of Charles Ndaba's name, after they have murdered him because in the next paragraph they then throw a hint that there was another informant inside Vula.  I am satisfied, head on the block, they did not penetrate Vula.  I'm ready to say, on the contrary and Capt Botha referred to me the other day when he was giving evidence, he said: "Ask Mac Maharaj about the houses in Reservoir Hills and Chatsworth".  Sir, I won't tell you about that unless you ask me, but he raised the matter.  Those two incidents shows that we had penetrated Durban Security Branch right to the top.  These four reports that I have filed today is from that stack.  You show me one from the ANC, from Vula.

MS POSWA: Mr Maharaj ...(intervention).

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: You see, I don't regard this thing as at all significant, it's fabrication, justification for killing.

MS POSWA: Thank you.  When it was discovered that Messrs Ndaba and Shabalala were missing, what actions did the ANC take in the media in view of the negotiations being conducted at the time and with the government of the day?

SATHYANDRANATH RAGUNANAN MAC MAHARAJ: Firstly, we got in touch with the families and Mbuso's brother, Will Shabalala, was a member of MK, had been outside the country trained, was one of the first of the trainees to come and operate in the country, had retreated, was operating in the political section, had come into the country clandestine before I came in and was successfully operating here in touch with his brother Mbuso.  So we put out word through the family to make inquiries.
	Secondly, just as the Security Branch were putting their propaganda to the media, we spoke to the media to raise the question of the disappearance of Charles and Mbuso and we already put it out by round about the 15th of July that we were satisfied that they were killed.  Then I briefed Pres Mandela on his birthday the 18th of July on his arrival at Johannesburg airport from the East, I briefed him about the arrests, about Charles and Mbuso and I briefed him about the observation and surveillance that was being carried out around me and on the morning of the 19th at 7 o'clock in the morning, from his home in Soweto he phoned F W de Klerk and in my presence requested a meeting which meeting took place, where he told F W de Klerk that these are ANC cadres that you have arrested and you better go carefully.  He had a subsequent meeting with Pres de Klerk, raising the same question because after the arrest of the 12th, about a week later Billy Naair was arrested in Durban at the Teachers' Centre.  By that time, round about the 20th, 21st, 22nd of July, the National Executive of the ANC had met and once more he met Pres F W de Klerk to raise the question of these arrests and the disappearance of these two men.  The Security Branch assured him and assured the public that they had no knowledge of the arrest or otherwise, or presence of these two people.