Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

WITNESS:   My grandfather was getting pension money, so we had problems, financial problems.  My grandmother always tried to get help.  From 1982 we kept on relating this story to people.  Even today we have never ever had any help from anyone.  Then my grandmother died in 1989, we were left with my grandfather.  My grandmother was very strong, she had a strong character, stronger than my grandfather, because my grandfather is old.

DR MAGWAZA: Have you ever tried to go to ANC people?  Because your father was working for the organisation have you ever tried to get some help?

WITNESS:   Yes, we tried.  We tried.  My father was a member of Umkhonto.  There are certain things that they say that members of Umkhonto we Sizwe are getting demobilised and they are not getting any money.  There's absolutely nothing we didn't try, but up til today nobody has ever come to our assistance.  We are not working.  We go to school right in the middle.  We have to stop because of financial problems.  Nobody earned a living at home.  At times we would sleep without food.  We even got used to that.  We are used to suffering.  There's no type of suffering we haven't gone through.

DR MAGWAZA: Let me just ask a few questions.  When your parents died how old were they?

WITNESS:   Let me just find out from my sister because I am not sure.  My mother was 34 years old and my sister was 36 years old (sic).

DR MAGWAZA: There are two surnames here, there's Nzima and Nyawose.

WITNESS:   My father used this surname outside in order to try and camouflage, but he is Nyawose.   That was just to distract attention from him.

DR MAGWAZA: And what about your uncle, Mlungise?  Where is he?

WITNESS:   He survived the attack because he was sitting in the car.  Whatever happened never actually affected him.  I think there is - it was a situation where by he was somehow perturbed.  He didn't move, nothing happened, but he saw all that happened but he survived the attack.  Both of them survived the attack.

DR MAGWAZA: Do you contact each other?  Where's your uncle?

WITNESS:   My uncle went away in 1976 to join Umkhonto we Sizwe.  Then he came back in 1992.  There's nothing we can expect from him, or what he can do, because he has just come back now and he's trying to pick up the pieces of his life.  There's absolutely nothing we can expect from him.

DR MAGWAZA: I want to ask you, your parents - have you ever gone back to where your parents were buried?

WITNESS:   No, we've never been there.  We never went there after the funeral.  We do wish to go and see our parents' graves, but at times we say maybe other people had been buried on top of them now.  But at times we feel if we could go there to the graves, cry in front of the graves, so that we can be satisfied, because at the time we were still very young when this happened.

DR MAGWAZA: In your statement you pointed out that other people say this trap - Mamasela is involved as well as Nofamela.  Are there any people who were arrested?

WITNESS:   At that time in Swaziland I think it was on the 4th.  Probably or approximately on the 6th the newspaper reported the matter, and when we got here we were destitute, we were desperate.  When we went around telling people we felt as if we were just talking, making up stories, because people just looked at us as if we were mad.  We went to the library to check the newspaper, and we kept on making photocopies of the paper, an each time we got to ask for help we would produce this little paper as a piece of evidence as to what actually happened to us.  But after quite some time, when we went there trying to get the very same piece of paper, we were told that all the papers had been destroyed.

DR MAGWAZA: So which means you don't have any more knowledge as to whether Mamasela or Nofamela were involved?

WITNESS:   Thereafter my sister went to the library to investigate about this article.  We got a man in the library who said, "If you can't get this piece of article I can help you.  There is a book in the library which is called "In the Heart of the War," which is written by Jacques Po.  Then I will investigate about the whole matter and update you."

DR MAGWAZA: He opened the book up and he saw Petros and Jabunzima, written that they had killed in Swaziland in a car bomb.  Then it went on further to say that people who were watching my parents' movements were Joe Mamasela, Chica Lana and Nofamela.  When we saw this it was on a Monday.  The previous day was the Truth Commission.  I watched this man who was making details as to what he was doing to people.  That's when we started crying, because there was somebody who was admitting.  I don't know whether I was excited or I was just angry.  I had mixed feelings.

DR MAGWAZA: Was there any inquest held, or any court case with regard to that?

WITNESS:   I don't think so, because we were staying with grandparents and there was nothing major that we heard.

DR MAGWAZA: Now, coming to you as the siblings who were tortured at quite an early age, you look very much tortured.  You look angry, like you need help because you were traumatised.  We shall contact you in due course, see how we can help you get rehabilitated.  It is very apparent that you are in difficulty, you are in financial troubles, you are in a problem as to furthering your education.  We shall take your requests and we shall try to rehabilitate you.  We thank you very much for having this courage to come and appear before us.  We hope and we trust that all of us as we are sitting here we have been touched so deeply by your story.  We are here to support you when you need it.

WITNESS:   Thank you. I'll hand over to the chairman.

DR MAGWAZA: I have got a question for you, Nomzamo.  As you are relating your suffering, the suffering that you have experienced after your parents' death, are you at school at the present moment?

WITNESS:   We are not at school.

DR MAGWAZA: All of you?

WITNESS:   No, Philani is the only one who is at school.  He is doing standard eight at Sobantu.

DR MAGWAZA: Are you working?

WITNESS:   No, we are not working.

DR MAGWAZA: How old are you respectively?

WITNESS:   The two of us were at Technikon, but we didn't finish.  We were about to do our third year.  We just stopped before June because we had a problem.  We wanted to continue with our education but at the Technikon when they need the prescribe books.  When you have to buy the book you find that you don't have money to buy the book.  You don't have money to even pay for your tuition.  Technikon is not like high school, where you could say to your neighbour, "Let's share the book."  Each and everyone has got a book, so you can't share, and the books were very expensive.  And we failed the first term because we had no books.  We could wait until the end of the year and have whatever money, see where we get the money, but we don't even have a single book.

DR MAGWAZA: Which Technikon were you?

WITNESS:   It was Technikon Natal in 'Maritzburg.

DR MAGWAZA: What were you doing?

WITNESS:   I was doing travelling and tourism.  My sister was doing business education.

DR MAGWAZA: (Inaudible) ... and Ntombenhle, we express our deep sympathy to you.  It is very hard for us on this stage, and I am sure for members of the audience, to see four young people suffering so much, and we can only imagine how much harder it is for you to tell this story and to relive those memories of your parents' death.

DR MAGWAZA: Your parents were killed by agents of the previous Government in a foreign country, and there were many others like them who were murdered in this way in Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, and also in Europe, if you think of people like Dulcie September and Joe Meyer and Jackie Quinn.