Human Rights Violation Hearings — Upington — 1996-10-02

CASE NO: CT/01400/

MR POTGIETER: Welcome,  I am just going to ask you to stand so you can take the oath.
ANDERSON MPENDELO LIZO Duly sworn states

MR POTGIETER: Thank you, you may be seated.  Welcome to George as well.  Mr Lizo, your evidence relates to two incidents.  The first one concerns an incident which happened between 1986 and 1987 where you were arrested and tortured by the police, and the second incident relates to August 1993 when you were shot.  Now let's talk about the first incident in 1986/87.  Would you like to tell us what happened to you in that first incident?

WITNESS:  Yes, it was during 1986/87 I was still at school.  I was still at school, after school we played soccer against another team.  It wasn't actually soccer, it was rugby we played.  Three of us came to the soccer fields too early.  We were waiting there for the others.  We were chatting.  Suddenly a vehicle drove up, it was a Landrover and inside was Red Major and his friend.  The friend asked what we were waiting for and we said, no, we were going to play rugby and Red Major's friend said, when we come back and you're still there, we're going to put you in the van and Red Major said, no, put them in the van straight away, and they picked up the three of us, two Coloured people and myself.  They took us to town and they took us to the bridge over the Orange River and they said we had to get out of the vehicle and they, I ask him what was happening now - and they asked who was causing all this chaos and problems in Paballelo and I said I didn't know.  I didn't know anything about these matters.  Why don't you ask these other people and they said, I'm not going to ask people who is of my colour, we are asking you -but the way we were treating us, but they should treat me the same way as they treat them.  Then Red Major said we had to undress.  The bridge has a high rail and Red Major said if you speak the truth you needn't jump and we said, what had we done and he said, don't talk rubbish, and then they pushed us over the edge into the river.  We had to swim across the river and as soon as we got back they came to that side, took us, brought us back to the bridge and pushed us over again, and then they asked again who was causing problems in Paballelo and I said I didn't know, then he pushed us over the bridge again.  That went on for a whole hour, and he said I must open my mouth, and he asked me, I must open my mouth and he said do you like your teeth, and he said keep open your mouth, just open your lips and I, while my mouth was open, he hit me with the butt of the revolver, but three teeth were broken.  I was the only one who was treated so badly that day.  Then he lit a cigarette and he tipped the ashes on my teeth.  As soon as the cigarette was dead he lit it again and he stubbed it out on my teeth.  He took us back to the abattoir.  There I ran away but I did not go straight home.  I went to some family in Brown Street.  The man was deceased but the woman was still alive and I told them that the police had assaulted me but there was no time for him to go down to the police station because he was a guard at the municipality and he put some ointment on my wounds because my father was not there and they were both at work.  I did not tell anybody at home what had happened to me.  At school the doctors came who looked at our teeth and gave us injections and they extracted two of my teeth.  At a later stage they extracted the third tooth.  So I could go back to school in a normal way.

MR POTGIETER:  First, before you get to the second incident, I would like to ask you a few questions.  There was no case made after this assault?

WITNESS:  No, no I did not know that you could make a case against the police because I was still a young person.

MR POTGIETER:  The person whom you told what had happened.

WITNESS:  He was a guard at the municipality and he was, wore a khaki uniform with a short pants and long stockings.  He is deceased but his wife is still living.

MR POTGIETER:  So he just help you and he rubbed some Deep Heat into your wounds but he never made a case with the police.  How old were you at that stage in 1986?  How old are you now?

WITNESS:  I was 15 years old.  I'm 25 years old now.

MR POTGIETER:  So you were about 14/15 years old and you said that you didn't do anything, you were just waiting there to play soccer and they just picked you up and took you to the river and harassed you.  You were the only one who were assaulted.  The other two were just pushed over the bridge.

WITNESS:  I was the only one who had been assaulted.

MR POTGIETER:  And he asked you, who were responsible for the problems in Paballelo.

WITNESS:  I did not know at all.

MR POTGIETER:  This Red Major, is he still in the police service in Upington?

WITNESS:  This Red Major is not a policeman anymore.  He is now, lives now in Kimberley.  He is now a reverend in Kimberley.

MR POTGIETER:  Thank you.  Is it a white person?

WITNESS:  Yes it is a white person.  I don't know to which church he belongs but he is a reverend at the moment.

MR POTGIETER:  And you say you lost three teeth during that incident.  Is it high from the bridge into the river?

WITNESS:  Yes!  It's very high.

MR POTGIETER:  Sixty to seventy-five feet high and you were only 14/15 years old.  How did you feel when you were standing on that rails and pushed you down into the river?

WITNESS:  I mean they do that until there are no tears in your eyes.  There are also stones in the river which hurt you.  If you fall on those it could hurt you terribly but fortunately that did not happen to us.  It was about 40 metres from the side that they pushed us over.

MR POTGIETER:  During what time of the day was that?

WITNESS:  The school closed at quarter past one, it was about half past two that afternoon.  It was in the broad daylight that they did these things to you.

MR POTGIETER:  Then there is the second incident about the shooting in 1993.