Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-17

MR MKHIZE: Yes that is correct.  Myself and Hlungwane. I really don't know why we're being charged.  I think it was bungling on the part of the investigating officer who thought that maybe we are friends we could also be involved in this incident but it was clear that, in court that, we were not involved and we were all acquitted.

MR WILLS: Is it not so that during the trial of this matter these charges i.e. charges 1 and 2 - the charges involving the robbery were the only charges that you did indeed put up a defence against in the trial?

MR MKHIZE: I didn't even try to refute the evidence, I just kept quiet and the court took the decision to acquit us on it's own, I did not refute the evidence.

MR WILLS: Is it also not true that the evidence in relation to this part of the charges against out of the four weeks of evidence on the merits in this trial, this evidence took approximately two weeks, the evidence concerning the car?  Can you remember if that's the case?

MR MKHIZE: Yes I remember, it is so.

MR WILLS: In other words the court, the trial court, went very thoroughly into this theft issue?

MR MKHIZE: A lot of witnesses were called and all evidence was thoroughly questioned.

MR WILLS: Yes Mr Mkhize it wasn't clear in your answers to Mr Ngubane, to my mind, I want to know why were you so worried about Romeo being arrested in relation to this charge?

MR MKHIZE: Firstly Romeo's arrest was very dangerous.  Romeo was one of the people that I trusted in the syndicate therefore he's arrest, when we were so busy involved in such a tense war with African National Congress, if you break or if one of the members of the syndicate was arrested that fact alone would mean that our side would be defeated because there would be someone who was no longer there.  I would use Romeo in intelligence activities as well as well physical activities therefore the IFP would have really lost out if Romeo was no longer involved in our activities.
	Secondly, there was people involved in a political battle knowing very well that his arrest was on political grounds.  If I can just explain this, yesterday I said that both these organisations used whatever means to fight off their enemy.  If I can just make an example, one day Umbiasi's house was shot at and this was an IFP house but because we knew that this was done for political reasons, we had to sit down with the local leadership that I mentioned yesterday and devised a way that we're going to use since the ANC had attacked, a way for us to retaliate so that they would be sorry for their actions.
	At that meeting we decided that Mr Zazi Sibande should be a witness in the trial of Umbiasi's shooting.  Zazi Sibande was supposed to testify that he had seen Bongani Nsomi shooting and he had also seen him giving orders to his followers or to his colleagues to shoot.  In actual fact, Bongani Nsomi had never even been there at the scene.  Even Sibande whom we made into a witness was not at the scene of Umbiasi's shooting but because there was a political struggle, we said Zazi Sibande should testify that he had seen Mr Nsomi shooting at Umbiasi's house.  
	You should see how intense the war was, we were using all means because we realised that Bongani was strong and was attacking us and we couldn't get hold of him, we couldn't track him down and therefore it was easier to have him arrested and in jail therefore to get rid of him he would have to be arrested or be killed.  The only thing we hadn't as yet done was to use traditional medicine against him, bewitch him.  That case is known by Mr Nsomi and Sibande was indeed a witness.  Bongani knows very well that he was not there but Sibande did in fact give the evidence that he was there.  So he knew that this allegation that Romeo has stolen a car could be the same strategy that was being used against us because there was this political struggle and each side wanted to defeat the other.

MR WILLS: Yes thank you Mr Mkhize.  The last area that I want to cover also related to some of the questions that Mr Ngubane was asking you yesterday and that concerned his questions where there were the attacks on areas and generally ANC areas or ANC buses and he indicated, he was asking you about the risks involved about innocent people getting killed and he was using the phrase "toddlers".  What was your feeling about these issues?

MR MKHIZE: Although it is difficult to explain this question, I will explain it according to my party's beliefs or policy.
	I would also like to remind you, Mr Wills, that the war between the ANC and the IFP happened in this province of KwaZulu Natal.  It mainly happened between Zulu people.  If you are aware of the history of the Zulus they are the kind of people who are used to having faction fights.  These faction fights involved struggles between Indunas, Chiefs and so on.  
	Even though this faction fighting stopped, but this spirit of being Zulus remained so when this political struggle started, that was resurrected therefore we should expect that the political war between the Zulus in this province, although it was political, there were other factors that would have influenced it - those factors being cultural.
	Traditionally when there's a war, there is no differentiation, you do not target specific persons.  Traditionally speaking your enemies are just there to be shot.  After you've killed the men you will take the women and make them yours.  The war between the ANC and IFP in this province cannot really be separated or differentiated from faction fighting.  In faction fights children are killed, everything is killed, even cats.  If the war begins traditionally, no one is spared.  What happens is that an area that had been declared as an enemy area is annulated therefore we cannot avoid that the war between the ANC and IFP took a similar vein.  You cannot really control a war situation.
	Even though I admit that when you sit down and think retrospectively, you realise that you were wrong to kill women and children but when it actually happens it's really a situation that you cannot control.  Such things do happen.  Even in our case it did happen.  Our sisters were killed, people like Mathilda and a lot of other people who may not really be known to this Committee.  Even within the IFP side there were a lot of women who were killed.  I am not by this trying to justify anything but I'm just explaining the situation as it was, as it happened in this province.  Therefore we cannot run away, we do not deny that we have killed innocent people.  
	You can look at the Gommakuta where thirteen people were killed by the Caprivians in collusion with the Boers.  You will remember that women and children were killed there.  I don't care how much IFP denies this but the truth is that the people who were killed there were killed by us for the reason that we were wanting to murder Mr Ndula.  Therefore there is the reason why the IFP slaughtered a goat because they had 
killed women and children unintentially.  Therefore such things did happen, we should not hide them now that we are here before this Commission.  We are well aware of them and we shoulder that responsibility.

MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson, I have no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLS

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Wills.  Mr Moloi do you have any questions to put to the witness?

MR MOLOI: Thank you Mr Chairman just a few, one aspect actually.
	Mr Mkhize I would like you to take me through this one aspect of your evidence.  You stated that the establishment of the hit squad was aimed at gathering support for the IFP by eliminating firstly the leadership of your enemy who stood in the way of the IFP gaining membership, is that correct?