Amnesty Hearings — Palm Ridge — 1998-11-24

CHAIRPERSON: Is that the testimony Mr Sibeko?

MR SIBEKO: It is Mr Chairman.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR SIBEKO

CHAIRPERSON: Any questions Advocate Steenkamp?

ADV STEENKAMP: Mr Chairman I have a few questions if you would allow me?
	Mr Nkosi, I've heard your evidence but maybe there is one section of the evidence which I think was left out.  According to the Commission's file report and I am sure you have sight of it, there were incidents and there is actual information that was placed before the Amnesty Committee during March of this year at the Boksburg hearing where SDU's have applied for amnesty for killing other ANC members.  Now my question to you is this, what was the position in Thokoza in this specific area.  Were there incidents where SDU's were also killing other people like ANC youth leaders or other ANC members?  Do you know of any information like this?

DUMA MOSES NKOSI: To respond to that I would say in our township if a person had fight with someone else, it was important how that was resolved.  I cannot say much but if people differed on how they perceived things, remember that we had an abundance of firearms and as a result we had many people fighting and ending up injuring each other.  For example, in my case, I went to an agenda, the agenda an ABC programme.  There was a group of youths who were not quite pleased about the fact that Mzizi's wife was insulting me and I said to them listen, I didn't come here to insult people but to explain things to people and when I got back to my place some people were angry.  They were so angry they could have easily injured me.  I am saying here that they way of solving problems is different, for example in an area where you were brought up, if you differed over something you always had a way of sorting such problems out.  Yes it is possible that people may not be in a position to solve their problems or differences amicably.  Some of these things are so trivial and some people would say you should have insulted back.  People should know that when a person is talking on such a programme, one is not necessarily directing himself to the Thokoza only but to the entire nation.  All I'm saying here is that they are bringing in those areas as a contributory factor to how people solve problems.

ADV STEENKAMP: My real question is actually how much control was there over these armed SDU members?  We've heard that there was a criminal element within the SDU groupings itself but the real question is, what was the actual control over these armed youngsters?

DUMA MOSES NKOSI: One point that I wanted to raise here is that we would not be in the position as the ANC in Thokoza to say that people, all people, did things according to our expectations.  I also indicated earlier on that yes, some things were happening against our will and expectations.  For example not everybody was armed in our township, not everybody who was armed could be spoken to by ourselves.  Yes, some people were closer to us.  For example if you look at the nature or the culture of killing and burning a person thereafter, it's something difficult, something that would be difficult for me to explain and therefore as a result we were not in the position to talk to everybody who was armed.  I'm not in the position to say that.

ADV STEENKAMP: Another finding of the Commission was specifically referring to the East Rand SDU's was that the ANC was responsible, specifically for the time period 1990 to 1994, of contributing to the spiral of violence in the country throughout and specifically the East Rand by the creation and the arming of the SDU's.  Do you have any comment on that?

DUMA MOSES NKOSI: What I can say here is that yes, there were arms in our areas.  The truth is that we brought armed people together.  I don't know what would have happened if or had we just folded our arms and looked and did nothing about it fearing that people would start pointing fingers at us.  We realised then that the only way to contribute positively to this was that the community was under attack at the time and therefore really we could not have folded our arms whilst things were going wrong.  I am trying to explain here what it is that we did in response to being attacked.  I am simply saying here that some people who are writing like you are saying would have been happier had we sat down and did nothing about the situation.  We realised that that was not the road for us to take, we had to protect our lives, we did all we could in a war situation and nobody is right.  Everybody is in the wrong, nobody would say I am in the wrong but we are saying because it was a war situation, yes people died, people got injured, there was damage to property and we are therefore saying we did not contribute by simply protecting ourselves.

ADV STEENKAMP: May we just for my own information, as I understand the ANC suspended the armed struggle in 1990 but we've heard evidence yesterday that they were still continuing arming the SDU's.  How does that link up?

MR SIBEKO: If I were to interject Mr Chairman, may my learned friend indicate as to exactly which part of the evidence indicated that there were still arming activities of the SDU's after the disbandment?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes in fact if I remember correctly, the witnesses who testified indicated that the arms at least in the Lusaka A Section, the arms that were obtained were bought through contributions by the community and that there were no arms acquired from the ANC.  That's certainly how I understood the testimony.  Advocate Steenkamp, that is my recollection of - there hasn't yet been testimony before us that the ANC armed at least the structures that we are looking at, at this stage.

ADV STEENKAMP: I thank you Mr Chairman, I would just maybe rephrase the question a bit.  Maybe to get to the real question, the real question is we were told yesterday by certain members of the Committee of Seven that there was a policy or a decision taken which they called "The killer must be killed".  I know you've just referred to it briefly but can you maybe elaborate a bit more what was meant by this policy and how was it implemented as far as your knowledge goes?

DUMA MOSES NKOSI: Let me just indicate that in the report, the one that was referred to here yesterday, if you look at this area it is divided into different sections.  Lusaka is a very small portion of the bigger area.  One other thing is that Lusaka as a section at the Committee of Seven excluding the commander.  The commander in the section had certain things in terms of arms for the protection of the community and therefore that could have been the only way they believed they could protect themselves.  That is why I am saying here to you that I don't have a conclusive explanation because different areas and sections had committees and they used whatever measures they saw fit, they took their own decisions.  Insofar as we are concerned yes, there was a policy to the effect that once a person is a member of committee and a commander thereof, such a person had to be in charge and come together with other people, made the necessary and take the necessary decisions among themselves for their protection.  If criminality was rife they had to take a decision to address that.  Therefore, I am saying it was within their jurisdiction, it was their prerogative in that section to come up with principles.

ADV STEENKAMP: Mr Chairman thanks, I don't have any more questions for the witness.  Thank you sir.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY ADV STEENKAMP

ADV SANDI: Mr Nkosi, what are the full names of Mr Umgume Zulu, the one you said his entire family was killed?

DUMA MOSES NKOSI: The full names are Wanda Umgume Zulu and we also called him Mjajo, that is a codename.  That is why I am saying there are two surnames here, one is paternal, the other one is maternal, Mabaso is one of these two surnames but we used to call him Wanda Umgume Zulu.