Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much Mamma Kuzwayo.  Actually even if you see us interrupting you, it's not because it's irrelevant, but it's because we want to pick on some of the other things.  We really appreciate the perspective you are giving.  As I indicated when we started that much as people think June 16 has been over-publicised but there are many gaps in people's minds.  You have just portrayed levels of confusion in Soweto around that day.  You have referred to
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the smell of blood, you have said a lot about pain and anger which you still have today.  Maybe just using what you have said I will ask you this question that I suppose that if up to today you are still living with pain and anger at that time I suppose many leaders and residents of Soweto had similar feelings, I want to know whether were there any initiatives, community-based initiatives which aimed at talking to the government about what was happening?  Because you have made emphasis on the drama of the day, how devastating it is, surely the question is what did the community do?  Did they only talk among themselves?  Did they make efforts to make sure that the government hears the impact of what they had orchestrated?

ELLEN KUZWAYO: Sometime, I shouldn't even say sometime, because this was the way of life, even at local government level the government of South Africa at that time had structures that were still very racist in that they did not even think as they put people into this local government to make sure that these people qualified.  You know the people that were given opportunities I suppose were given opportunities to be councillors because they were being paid for by the government for maybe to try and, or to be bribed, to be on the side of the government.  There were, I think there was something that was called Urban Bantu Councils that were operating in Soweto at that time, which even the children of this community ridiculed as useless boy's clubs, UBC's, and these Urban Bantu Councils were extremely ineffective in whatever they were doing.  And it was at that time sometime that people in Soweto, I remember somebody spoke earlier about Percy Goboza who was a journalist,  a far-thinking journalist and he called a meeting that he
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wanted all the people from Soweto to come to and they invited us, I don't know where they were operating at, at that time, but I think that is insignificant, we went there and we got into this meeting and he led the meeting by saying he felt that something needed to be done.  He was a journalist with concern for the community, and we started deliberating into the late night about what should be done in Soweto because we realised that the Urban Bantu Councils were nothing else but twice that the South African government of those years used for their own benefit and youth.  
 And it was in that meeting, at the end, that about ten members of the community were elected to go and do some homework about the urban council that would be effective.  The few names I remember because I'll always think of Mtata Motlana who became, he was the doctor in the community, he's been a funny doctor, a doctor, yes, with a surgery, but a doctor who has had concerns about the community he lived in.  Matabata Leghou was one of them who was the principal teacher at Morris Isaacson.  There were many other people.  I see Thomas Manthata, he was here, he also belonged to this group where we came together, about ten of us, Fanyana Mazibuko was one of them, several people who were called upon.  
 And I sat with these nine men in this committee that was called a Committee of Ten where we tried to deliberate about what a local authority is about and we were given only three months, that within three months we were expected to come with an answer with what we thought should happen in Soweto.  We came up with a blueprint.  We worked hard to work on this blueprint that we were going to present to the 
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people of Soweto inside three months, to say what we thought the local authority should be like in Soweto.  
 I am very grateful today to talk about some, I think there was a man called, I can't remember his name but he must have been in the Town Council of Johannesburg, a Mr Moss, I am not too sure whether I am right, I stand to be corrected, but he worked with us.  We went to libraries in Soweto to try and learn more about what a local authority should be.  As I say at the end of three months we presented the blueprint to say this is what we thought should happen, little realising that we were annoying the powers that be in South Africa.
 On the 19th of October 1977, if I remember well, I was sleeping, in the early hours of the morning, round about three, four in the morning, I heard the hoofs in my yard. I saw the torch at my bedroom window and I knew the police had arrived, but I didn't know for what.  My little boy who was about, my youngest was about 17, 18 and we were only two, my husband had died by that time, and I ran into his bedroom and said "Bobo the police are around, I am sure they will be knocking at the door soon.  You get up and watch that they don't drop anything that is wrong in this house, that they are going to turn back and say they found in my house.  I know you are young, but you have just got to be vigilant child and follow them where they are".  And at that time they got to the door and knocked and I opened the door and they got in and they said we have a warrant to search your house.  I said you are welcome to do so.  
 Somehow, I don't know how I tricked them because at that point I took my towel and everything and got into the bathroom and as my son was monitoring them when they went 
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into every room I got into the bath and finally they realised I was in there and they knocked and "Gaan uit, gaan uit, gaan uit".  Of course I had to "gaan uit" and walk out and get dressed.  They were very impatient.  They were pushing me.  They were very annoyed that I even stole to go and get a wash.  But I still didn't know why I was being collected.  It was when they dropped me after I had got dressed that suddenly I saw the nine men that I was serving with on the Committee of Ten who were sitting there, and as they saw me they said we have been praying that they shouldn't go and collect you.  
 And that's how we were sent into detention for doing this gallant work of creating a local authority for our community where other countries would have given us medals for doing this, but our medals were nothing else but to go and serve in jail for doing this gallant work. Forgive me for taking your time to interpret some of these things.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much for that exposition.  So on the basis of what you are saying community efforts or initiatives were again repressed if you say all of you who formed the Committee of Ten were then arrested, is that what you are saying?

ELLEN KUZWAYO: Exactly.

MS MKHIZE: Then in your statement you go on to talk about other efforts like to communicate with liberation movements which were outside the country at the time like the African National Congress, can you talk to us about those endeavours?

ELLEN KUZWAYO: Could you please repeat that?

MS MKHIZE: In your statement I see that besides local initiatives of trying to approach the government there were
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also efforts to communicate with the African National Congress outside the country, can you tell the Commission more about that?