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

ELLEN KUZWAYO: It was a day like any other day that morning when all of us went to work not expecting anything, except that there was already a humdrum in the community about children who were very dissatisfied with the situation of the Bantu education.  Naturally when they turned to their parents their parents could not help them because I think I am right when I say 75% of the parents of those children had no education, and were therefore very much intimidated by the police, by this whole state of South Africa that made them to be too frightened to approach the White people to say our children say they are not learning at school. So finally these kids took it into their hands I suppose to redeem themselves from that malady of lack of education.
 At that time I was at the University of Witwatersrand and I worked there under, I'll call it supervision, of Professor Cecile Muller, and I worked very closely with her in her office and it was normal that at lunch hour all the workers went out at about one o'clock to going and pick up something if you did not bring any lunch from home.  I was on that journey at Braamfontein to go and get something to come and eat when suddenly I was hit by a poster from the Daily Mail.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  The caption was "10,000 Soweto children on...." I don't remember the exact words, but I think they were expressing an uprising by the students.  I looked at that once and my stomach I think must have been filled.  I didn't feel hungry anymore.  
 I walked straight back to the University and confronted, I didn't confront her, when I got into my office, collected my things and went to Professor to say Professor I am going home, something terrible is happening 
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in Soweto, I can never sit in this office.  We argued with Professor.  She made me feel like I was over-reacting over the situation.  I said Professor I have no choice, I must go to Soweto and see what is happening there.  Finally when Professor was a bit difficult I said, if this had happened in the quiet community, what is happening in Soweto today South Africa would come to a standstill, and as I said so, I walked out and I went to the parking lot of the University to collect my car.
 As I walked towards the car I saw the ladies that worked at the University as cleaners, some of them having their little packages and I didn't know what was happening and they also got into the parking lot of the University and walked straight to my car.  I looked at them, asking myself what do I do in this situation and they didn't ask for permission and as I opened the car they also opened the back door of the car and they cushioned themselves into my car.  I realised it was not time for me to ask questions.  I got into the driver's seat and the one who sat in front sat in front with their packages and I said well if this has to be let it be and drove to Soweto.  All I said to the ladies was you will tell me where to stop so that at least I can get you out of the car.  I realised that the pressure that pushed me to get to Soweto, like mothers, it pushed them too.  
 We drove more-or-less in silence.  I didn't ask who they were and as we got near the Orlando Police Station I think they must have grown cold feet because of the commotion that was going on around that police station.  They said please let us off, we live in Orlando.  But some of them had indicated as they talked amongst themselves that SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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they lived beyond Orlando but they said please let us out of your car.  I let them out. I realised that I had, because I lived in Orlando West and I didn't know what to expect. I drove on to my house, left the car and walked up on foot towards Maponya.  I didn't even know what was happening there.  I was going to meet a friend of mine Matilda, and a member of the YWCA with the hope that I was going to say Matilda what is happening.  As I got near her home she just said Make and this is the name they use in Soweto.  I said what is happening Tilly and she said well the whole of Soweto is on fire.
 She took her car out and I got into the car and we drove up towards Maponya area, which is our shopping centre and lo and behold and she said Ellen when you see any car coming down you just take out your hand and put up the salute.  I did as she told me because cars were coming down and she said do you see these vans that are coming down, some of them are driven by the 17 year-olds, or the 15 year-olds, so to make sure that we are safe we must give a sign that we are with them.  I did everything she told me I should do.  
 But as we came towards Maponya everything was on fire.  Cars were on fire, lorries were on fire.  As we got out of this car one could see these boys who were very furious, very, very furious.  There was nothing you could say to them.  The only way to appease them was to put up your hand and say I am here and I am with you because there was no way of turning away from the youth.  The only thing to help them was if it was possible to hug them, but there was no opportunity of hugging them because they were in the forefront of a battle that nobody had ever thought would be 
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that day.
 Suddenly on the lips of every child you met was "Hector Petersen, Hector Petersen, Hector Petersen".  That young boy on that day, yes he died, he was killed by the police.  But overnight he became a hero.  And you had to ask who is Hector Petersen, and Matilda who was in my company started telling me who this youngster was who was mercilessly murdered by the police who did not see.  
 I still believe to this day, I am still angry because I feel the Nationalist Party government did never see our children as children.  Because the colour of their skin was not the colour of the skin of their children, they were not children, they were not human beings, they were children who were not given an opportunity to grow, to mature, to become adults like everybody.  Sometimes I say I can forgive them to what they did to us as adults but I feel the treatment they gave our children ruined them particularly that I had worked with children in the Black community.  Children that you could mould at any time.  There was a time when I didn't have car, I was a social worker doing my practice in Soweto and sometimes after sunset I would be going through Orlando Station to go to my home and it would be dark and if I saw a group of young men standing there I just ordered them to take me home.  They would be grousing that they should be doing something else rather than taking this old lady home, but they obeyed.  Believe you me today I cannot do that, because I don't trust the very children who ought to protect me because of the handling of the government of South Africa of those days.  They turned our children into animals.  
 I think I will go to my grave with this pain in my heart.  Because as a teacher I saw the potential.  When you 
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are in a classroom you can almost say this one is going far and this one is a mediocre, he might if he works hard, but all those kids, with wonderful opportunities under what we knew, the education that I received called Native Education, it was an education that could give anybody an opportunity in life.  It was an education that allowed my generation group and those slightly younger than me, and those older than me to become doctors, to become lawyers, to become great men, to become great teachers in their schools.  That Native education made a certain community to be so angry that if we walked in the street and we spoke English and they would hit you and say "Swart Engelsman".  With a stroke of a pen the Lovedales, the Hilltowns, the Kilnertons, the Amanzimtoti's Adams Colleges, the schools that made us ...(indistinct) which were run by missionaries from Europe who built them and helped us to go to school were closed overnight and our children missed the opportunity that other children enjoyed.  It is not surprising that South Africa today is in utter poverty, it is there by plan of a government that professed to be Christian but that was in reality a racist government.
 I can go no further Commissioners.  I think I can talk the whole day about this problem.