Amnesty Hearings — Vanderbijlpark — 1999-05-04

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: It would have put me at a disadvantage, telling the police those names would not have ...(indistinct) an advantage, it would have done the opposite.  If I had mentioned Victor Kezwa's name and the other person's name they would have not have been arrested along with me, I would have been the only one who would have been arrested because Victor Kezwa never spent even six months in prison after killing people.  He had been sentenced for four years but he only spent six months.

CHAIRPERSON: Who is that person?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: Victor Kezwa.

MR LOWIES: But the point I'm making is so that's good for you because they are your friends, you don't want to see them in jail.  What is the point you're making, why were you not conveying their names to the police?

MR LAX: Maybe I could put it a different way for you, Mr Lowies, are you not trying to say to him, why didn't you say "I'm a friend of Victor Kezwa and Hunter Ndhlovu and therefore you would not be arrested the same as them?"

MR LOWIES: Yes, much better put, I agree with the Chair.
	Could you just answer the question then?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I did not mention that they were my friends.  It was difficult to mention Victor Kezwa's name because even if he would be arrested he would be released later.

CHAIRPERSON: Wasn't it a good reason therefore to implicate him because he would have been released in any event?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I was not in a position to mention their names because thereafter I would not have been on good terms.

CHAIRPERSON: But if he learns that you had implicated him, he might harm you?  Isn't that the fact of the matter?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Why didn't you tell us?

MR LOWIES: Mr Nosenga, I see you get angry when you talk about the IFP and my wanting to protect them.  Why, why do you get angry?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: There is no truth within the IFP.  An example is Ingandla, a person who was arrested and thereafter, after he had committed an offence the Chief Minister denied any knowledge of him or as he had been sent by him.  That is what makes me angry because he unlike other leaders denies knowledge of his followers.  The same goes for Themba Khosa as well.

MR LOWIES: So you're angry with Chief Minister and with Themba Khosa?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: That is so.  They deny knowledge of something that they themselves said at the rally in Ulundi.

MR LOWIES: Do you hate them?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I do not hate them, I hate their actions.

MR LOWIES: And you're still a member of the IFP you say?  Are you serious?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I said it before that I am still a member of the IFP because my presence here is because of the IFP, they ordered me to go kill people at Boipatong.

MR LOWIES: But you are here out of your own free will applying for amnesty, not so?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: That is correct, no one coerced me.

MR LOWIES: Mr Nosenga, I would like to check certain aspects with you pertaining to statements that you made for amnesty and I'd like to turn to page 1 of your application.  Your first application you state that your date of birth is October 1993, that is yesterday you - I'm sorry it says October 1973, page 1 paragraph 5.  Yet your evidence is that you do not know which month you were born correct?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: Yes, that is what I said.

MR LOWIES: If one has a look at page 18 of your sworn statement, you give a date as follows in paragraph 1
"I was born on the 12th October 1973."

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I do not know about that, what I stated was I do not remember the month in which I was born.

MR LOWIES: Now this raises some interesting questions.  The first aspect, do you deny that you told the person who took this statement that you born on the 12th October 1973?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I said I was born in 1973 but I do not know the month.  Maybe that person misunderstood me but that is not what I said.

MR LOWIES: But it's rather exact, it mentions two things.  It mentions a day and a month, the 12th October.  You say this person acted on a frolic of his own?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: Maybe that person did not hear me properly, I said that I did not know then, what would help to assist is to maybe get my birth certificate.

MR LOWIES: I see.  Now in paragraph ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Well are you - just before you go on - is the position therefore that you don't know how the date 12th October 1973 came to be written there?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I do not remember, I gave the statement but I mentioned there that I do not remember the month that I was born.

CHAIRPERSON: You told the person who took the person who took the statement that you don't know when the month in which you were born?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: Yes but maybe we did not understand each other because there could have been a problem with the interpreter.

CHAIRPERSON: I see and similarly the date the 12th October, that you didn't give out either?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: Yes I did not.

ADV SIGODI: Sorry Mr Nosenga, do you have an I.D. document?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: No I do not.

MR LOWIES: So he could no have even got this from your identity document because you don't have one, correct?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: As I stated before, maybe the interpreter did not understand me properly because I did not mention the month.

MR LOWIES: Chairman, my attention is drawn to the hour, if this is an appropriate time?

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct) about the statements?

MR LOWIES: Okay, in this statement I think I will be another four or five hours at least.

CHAIRPERSON: I beg your pardon.

MR LOWIES: I said I think I could still be another four or five hours.

CHAIRPERSON: You're not serious Mr Lowies?  You're not serious?

MR LOWIES: I'm not lying, I would not do that.

CHAIRPERSON: No, you're not serious.  You cannot tell me that you're going to spend five hours on the statement?

MR LOWIES: Well not only the statement, what I'm saying is the events regarding the statement as well, so in other words what is said must then be checked against the events and the statement of course would be ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Well in that event continue then.

MR LOWIES: Thank you Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR LOWIES: Till what time to?

CHAIRPERSON: Well we'll adjourn at quarter past 4.

MR LOWIES: Thank you Chair.
	Mr Nosenga, in paragraph 9 of your statement, page 2, you were requested to do the following.  Page 2 of Exhibit R.

MR LAX: You mean the form 1, not his statement.

MR LOWIES: Ja sorry.

MS CAMBANIS: Sorry to interrupt Mr Chair, may I please be excused just to make phone calls just to reschedule?  Thank you.

MR LOWIES: And ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Cambanis, we will rise at quarter past 4 so if it's quarter past 4, you don't have to come back.  Okay.

MR LOWIES: Now first of all, it appears to me that this was the very first application for amnesty and that was whilst you were in Leeukop according to the date stamp at page 7 thereof.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Nosenga, do you know whether this was the first statement you made or not?  Do you know whether this was the first application you made or not?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: I think the first person who took the first statement was Mongese at Leeukop.

MR LOWIES: Then let's get the following clear, Mongese only took one statement for one form on your behalf, correct?  Ever?

ANDRIES MATANZIMA NOSENGA: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: He just took a statement?

MR LOWIES: I brought in the question to include filling the forms yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well don't bother if that's not what the witness said.

MR LOWIES: No, that was a question.  Sir, I don't want to take it further.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.