Amnesty Hearings — Thohoyandou — 1999-07-12

UNKNOWN: I think if you look into your own tradition, in Venda the richest person traditionally was a chief, not a commoner, but after this area had become under white influence, certain local people became affluent and people would not want them, wouldn't want to see them succeeding.

CHAIRPERSON: Why would that be?

UNKNOWN: Well I think there are many reasons.  To be seen as a foreigner in your own area is not like in South Africa.  Here, if I was born and bred at a place, let's say Louis Trichardt and I come here, establish myself, even as a Venda person the local people would say look, he is an outsider, he's made it, he's now boasting, he thinks we are stupid, so they will try to sort of create stories that A is now doing that and hence even if perhaps you were never involved in such things, it might happen that perhaps in this area you are in love with somebody's wife.  Now that particular man who is very unhappy, who is very bitter, will organise young people saying that you are a witch, and you find yourself driven out.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, I must say I've heard that happening elsewhere too, not only in Venda.

MR NDOU: So what you are saying is that motives differ?

UNKNOWN: Yes.

MR NDOU: Now in this particular instance when the boys all of a sudden came out and killed people in the name of the struggle, you've just told the Committee that that was because there were people who had come to influence them to use that as a tool in order to make the place ungovernable, is that correct?

UNKNOWN: Correct.

MR NDOU: Is there anything else that you wish to explain to the Committee?

UNKNOWN: What I want to stress is this, most victims, in other words most people who were actually seen as perpetrators of violence, happened to be young people.  This is quite different from our own traditions, but what was quite common was that in the past people linked with witchcraft were elderly people, but at this time certain people would just influence certain youngsters to go and kill Mr A and some of these youngsters were easily misled.  But I must also stress this, people were not just killed because all of them had been involved in witchcraft things.  There was the element of jealousy, if you were doing it very, very well, so if you were working very, very successfully in your own areas, your enemies would go to young people and those young people would either drive you out of the area, or kill you.

MR NDOU: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Why would the youngsters want to attack these people, especially the chiefs?

UNKNOWN: At that time, perhaps I didn't put my case very straight, it was not just a question of chiefs.  The youngsters attacked those people who at that time represented the status quo.

CHAIRPERSON: Apartheid.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Well as I understood your evidence mostly that was orchestrated by the chiefs by virtue of their powers from Pretoria.

UNKNOWN: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: And when there were issues like jealousy and other reasons why people would want to attack others, the youngsters would be used as pawns under the veil of politics?

UNKNOWN: Correct, Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: Professor, if I understand your last answer correctly, if I would have been jealous towards Mr A because he's become wealthy, I would go around and influence young people to kill him under the veil that he may be connected with witches or witchcraft?

UNKNOWN: Correct, Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: But that wouldn't be the case, he would be quite innocent as far as witchcraft is concerned, but because I've got this personal malice towards him, I would use sort of other people to kill him?

UNKNOWN: Correct Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: Like some people would use a hired killer to go and kill somebody?

UNKNOWN: But then of course at this time they made use of young people, people who could not easily interpret situations.

CHAIRPERSON: Were those people who would honestly believe what they've been told?

UNKNOWN: I think at that time there was so much violence that there was that sort of a feeling that we're not as bad as people think.  Although we are rurals, we're also as modern as those who are forcing the situation to be ungovernable, let's say in Jo'burg and so one, so in other words ... (indistinct) we are now like people in P E, East London, Jo'burg and Pretoria, we are also doing what others are doing, so we are not stupid, we are not backward.

CHAIRPERSON: Part of the struggle.

UNKNOWN: Correct, Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: But what about the other possibility, that while that may be so and they were learning from other areas, especially the youth, that there was a genuine belief that they needed to contribute to the changes required in this country.  The youth played a big role in those days.

UNKNOWN: There is not doubt that the young people played a very important role, but it is not every young person who fully understood.

CHAIRPERSON: I accept that but ...(end of tape) you say were doing, or wanting to show the world that they were just as good as anybody else, for example in Port Elizabeth, East London, Johannesburg, in doing this struggle bit.  I'm asking you that while that may be an option, what about the other option that they honestly wanted to contribute to the changes of this country in their own right?

UNKNOWN: Very true.

CHAIRPERSON: Proceed.

MR NDOU: I'm through.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you through with that?

MR NDOU: Yes.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR NDOU

CHAIRPERSON: And you say that this attitude and approach was rife from 1988 right through to maybe the end of 92, 93?

UNKNOWN: When did Ramushwana take over?

MR NDOU: 92.

UNKNOWN: I'd say yes because now when Pretoria appointed Ramushwana and his leaders, they had thought that there would be order in this area.

CHAIRPERSON: I see.

UNKNOWN: When local people realised that even during Ramushwana's time there was no order, the struggle continued.  The violence increased.

ADV DE JAGER: Professor, at the time were you living here in Thohoyandou?

UNKNOWN: I was living here, Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: So you experienced it yourself, actually?

UNKNOWN: Correct, Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: According to the papers before us, the release of Pres Mandela in February and later 1990 had an influence on the situation here.

UNKNOWN: Correct Sir.

ADV DE JAGER: The occurrences we're dealing with occurred shortly thereafter, I think in April round about 1990.  What happened at that time?  Do you know of this particular incident?

UNKNOWN: Put it this way, shortly before the release of President Mandela there was already violence going on here, but then after his release the feelings, perhaps I'll put it this way, the general feeling in the area was that we should also do what others are doing, remove the old order and then have a new structure.  This probably explains why even when Gabriel Ramushwana took over the government, the people did not say well, we've got a new government now, they regarded his as part and parcel of the old order.

CHAIRPERSON: Was part of that need to establish re-incorporation into one South Africa?

UNKNOWN: That was a way of going back to what they regarded as the old homeland.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, okay.  Is that it?

MR NDOU: That is all.

ADV DE JAGER: Did you know the deceased in this case, Mr  Mahvunga?

UNKNOWN: I certainly did not know this individual here, but what happened was this, long before these troubles started, the Venda Grand Foundation of New York gave me a lump sum of money to do research on witchcraft and ritual murder in Venda in 1976, so this was just the final part of my research work.

ADV DE JAGER: Oh, I see.  In your research did you find anything that could assist us as a Committee to judge whether this was a politically connected death or a death out of jealousy, or a death connected with witchcraft?