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

B MDINGI: I mean that it was put as a confrontation between student activists and the police and to me this showed that it was different from other children, other issues in that Andile was 18 and they were waiting for them when they were coming out of this house, they weren't armed, they hadn't
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done anything, they - and there was nothing violent that they had done.
 But in spite of us having objected, they continued reporting in this vein.  There was no sensitivity whatsoever shown towards the family.
 Because at some stage you would establish that what was said by the police, would correspond with what was being reported.  And it was obvious that there was no sympathy.
 And if anybody showed any sympathy, they would harass that person as well.

MR SANDI: Did you say that Andile's body was at Siyo Funeral Undertakers?

B MDINGI: When we took the body from the State mortuary, we took it to Siyo.  The police went to the Undertakers as well, because there was this fear that if they did not confirm when the funeral arrangements were going to take place, because they weren't prepared to give us the permission to bury in Mdantsane, there were instructions to the Undertakers that you do not dare release this body, because it is possible that this body could be taken and be buried and the manner in which the funeral will be conducted, would be in a manner which would start political uprisings.

MR SANDI: Is it so that  this funeral was going to take place at Romaanslaagte in Whittlesea, but according to what you have said the funeral ended up taking place here in Queenstown?

B MDINGI: Yes, the funeral ended up taking place here in Queenstown, because when we found that we could not bury him in Mdantsane, and the situation in Mdantsane was the same as Romaanslaagte in Whittlesea, we considered coming to bury
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him in Queenstown and that is where my mother was.

MR SANDI: How long was Andile buried after he was killed?

B MDINGI: We couldn't bury him for three weeks after that.  The day that was finally set for his funeral was the 21st of September and on the Friday already, the body was here  at Stone Funerals in Queenstown.
 And even Stone said that they may not sympathise, but advised us not to proceed making arrangements for the 21st because even though we proceeded with the church service on the 21st, the police had instructed them not to release the body on the 21st.
 The body was only released for the memorial service which was held on the 20th if I remember correctly.
 And it was supposed to be taken back and on the 21st it could not be released. In the week that we were preparing a time was set for the memorial service and when people were going home, you would always hear reports that people have been assaulted and harassed and everything had to be finalised before the sun set.
 Food that had been prepared for instance, I am not sure if it was the Moravian Church or the Apostolic Church or the Methodist Church, what happened was where people left, the police would be left looting the food.
 And in the evenings they would be seen braaiing from food that they had looted.

MR SANDI: This was food that was supposed to be used for the funeral?  Let's speak about the day of the funeral.  Were there any conditions set by the police in connection with how the funeral was to be run - for example the amount of people that were allowed to attend the funeral?

B MDINGI: When the funeral, when the church service came out QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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on the 20th, we were told that they - they were told to leave, that the funeral would take place on Monday and because we were always between the Undertakers, police, home and the Church, you would find that every time you got to the police station, there were busses from somewhere else and there was confusion outside and you would find that people were asking, do you know Andile Matshoba and if you did, what did you do?  How did you know him, what were your connections with him?
 So on that day after the people had left the Church, we went to the police station and we found that we were going to be given a time, an hour or two in which the funeral had to be finalised on Monday afternoon.  And not more than 50 people were allowed to attend.

MR SANDI: What happened, what other things happened to disrupt the funeral on that day?

B MDINGI: On the day of the funeral, the police were not too far from where the funeral was taking place and we were told that people may not sing freedom songs.
 A lot of people could not come to the funeral even though it took place at the Methodist Church.
 They could not stop more than 50 people from attending, but a lot of people were turned away at roadblocks outside of Queenstown and they could not come to the funeral.
 I cannot forget the day of the 23rd of September because in our culture, in the way in which we operated, I had never come across a funeral that took place during the course of the week.  It was on a Monday afternoon, on the 23rd of September.  The 23rd happens to be my birthday, so that left a totally different meaning to the 23rd of September in my life, because of the treatment we received.
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 And not being able to decide that, when somebody in your family was killed, that the people who killed him, could not allow you to show your last respects and bury this person with dignity. 
 So, it changed a lot of things in my life.

MR SANDI: Ms Balakazi, without delaying you too much, I find that according to your mother's written statement, one of the things that you want from the Commission is to investigate whose gun the bullet that killed Andile, was from.  Is there anything else, any other request that you would like to ask from the Commission?

B MDINGI: I would like to express once again that I would like to find out because after the police, we weren't able to establish anything from the police after Andile was killed.  There wasn't even a inquest.
 Instead, after that the police would come to us and ask if we had any information about who had killed Andile, where were his friends who could help the police in their investigation, because these were students that had been with him then.
 Otherwise they could not continue with the case because their investigation did not yield anything.  So this was very painful to us, because we do not know the truth.

MR SANDI: Once again, I know that you work in Cape Town, you have come a long way here to Queenstown.  Did you come down specifically for this or were there other things that you had come down for?

B MDINGI: I had come down specifically for this hearing.   Even though I work, it was very important to me that I be at my mother's side, be of support to her and at the same time, know that anyone with a better explanation, if there was
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anyone with a better explanation, it would be me.

MR SANDI: Have Mundu Bartman mentioned to you that he himself intends assisting the Commission in their investigation since he was there on the day Andile was killed?