Human Rights Violation Hearings — King William's Town — 1997-05-14

MARK RICHARD SPARG: I mean '93, sorry, and I was asked by the ANC Branch in Nochga to stand up and put some proposals forward to this Commission as to what we thought should happen to the Nochga scheme, because at that stage it was in complete disarray.  No direction, and even people working there had no tenure of employment.  They didn't know how long they were going to be employed.  I don't think that what I said actually appealed to a lot of people and I think perhaps I made some enemies, possibly with  people that were in charge of the Unions at Nochga, but anyway I think that is a salient point because towards the, from then on towards the end of the year we used to get the sort of statement to say well what do you white people want here.  We don't want you here.  Very strange, because I'm an ethnic person myself in a sense.   I'm a Transkeian.  I know nothing else.  Trading is in our blood and we didn't understand this, it sort of  took the ground out from under our feet.

JUNE CRICHTON: You talk about threats being made to you.  Were they verbalized to you personally ?.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: In the shop, Ja.

JUNE CRICHTON: And so you knew the people that were making these threats.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Not particularly.  People that we..  weren't regular people in our shop and that's you know that's  what worried us because had they been people we knew, we could have gone to the structures in Nochga and said look, you know this is what is happening.  Can you help us here ?.

JUNE CRICHTON: Continue.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: And we also found that people that we thought we could trust, we could no longer trust, because you could judge by a person's attitude towards you.  Anyway, towards the end of  November in 1993, we received word through our guard who worked in the shop and now he's job was to assist us with theft and all the necessary things that, the normal things that a guard would be expected to do and he came along and said, look he must leave because he's been threatened with his life.  Now at that, by that time I had opened what they called The Nochga Flats Store.  They were about 4 kilometers apart.  That was really near the heart of the scheme, the second shop.  So, I went over to the, to the Nochga Flats Store with the intention of closing it immediately, because I couldn't control 2 shops if a Toi Toi arrived on my door and at the time, I said to my customers, look I didn't know what's going on but I must close this shop.  I have to ask you to leave, but I believe that some of my staff could enlighten me as to what's going on here, because I believe that some of my staff are being intimidated to try and make my shops unrunable, if I can use that word and I had an argument with one of my staff members and he said well look he would see me later.  He knows my security, so I said well it's a free country, you know, if you come to see me later and if you're bearing arms, take the consequences.  So, needless to say I went back to the main shop and about an hour later I'd sent my wife into the house.  An hour later  3 gentlemen walked into my  shop  one of
them being one  of my staff members,  whose name is  David.          I can't remember his surname and they started telling my customers to leave the shop and at the same time David moved to the left, away from the 2 gentlemen with jackets on and he said to me well you know, you draw your 9mm.  Now unbeknown to David I had also purchased a shotgun which, it's one of these shotguns that has a barrel that holds about 12 shots in it.
So, I pulled this out and of  course the gentlemen that came in were expecting me to pull out a 9mm and I suspect they were carrying automatic weapons.  So, what the long and the short of it was that I put shot into the wall because I didn't want to kill anybody.  I have no intention of doing that, ever in my life and these gentlemen left and I closed the shop and I went over to the scheme.  They were busy having a meeting and I informed the people what had happened and I said under these circumstances I must leave Nochga.
So, to cut a long story short, we didn't know who was behind all this sort of thing and we actually left.  We were asked to stay at the Manager's house for an hour or so while they could try and find these people, the local chaps and they never found them and we decided when it was getting dark that we would leave.  I actually went through Elliot and all the way round because I didn't know what would have been waiting for us on the road and we were still very puzzled as to all this business.  I mean, lets face it, that's certainly no way to treat people that are trying to do a service in your Community.

JUNE CRICHTON: This is your wife and did, did you have children ?.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Oh yes, my two, three children and a gentlemen that worked for us.  So, over the weekend we contacted the scheme again to try and find out what was going on and I went back on the Monday to a meeting which the locals arranged so that we could try and clear this matter up and of course I took the weapons back that I had in my possession so that people could see exactly what the situation was.  I had nothing to hide.
The meeting got a bit heated.  There were claims made that the gentlemen came to ask for his wages.  I don't see how that could be when you start asking someone's customers to leave the shop and then you ask him to draw his weapon.  That doesn't seem the way to ask for wages to me.

JUNE CRICHTON: The people you were meeting with, who were they ?.  Were they ...... or the Headmen ?.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: They were Headmen from the immediate village.  I had asked for all  the citizens of Nochga to come to the meeting, because those are the people we serve but very cleverly or for whatever reason that would have been the only immediate Nochga village people came and were present at that meeting.

JUNE CRICHTON: Including the Headman ?.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Including the Headman, Ja.

JUNE CRICHTON: Who was who?.  What was his name ?.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Ndobe is his name.  When I first arrived at Nochga, I was told by the Headman and that I was not to be interfered with and I should run the shop as I saw fit as a businessman and of course words began to be exchanged and the meeting was getting heated, in other words, you know I realized that I had to back down in this scenario so I said look I'm new in the shopkeeping business.  We're new here at Nochga.  Lets leave this business.  I'll open my shop and we'll carry on as normal which took the heat out of the meeting and the next day I went back with my family and opened the shop.  Well in December, late December, probably about the 18th, 19th, round about the time shops were closed for Christmas I went to Mazepa and I contracted Hepatitis.  I probably had contracted Hepatitis  before I even  left  Nochga and Doctors orders,  I had to stay in East
London for 2 months.  So, in January and February I kept my family away from Nochga and a gentleman that worked for us ran the store.  Things never worked out very well but anyway at the end of February, I went back to Nochga and we lasted 1 week there.  You know the threats came back.  Our normal customers that were cheerful and happy didn't look happy to see us.  It seemed to me as though there was a lot of  intimidation going on behind the scenes.

JUNE CRICHTON: Can I just interrupt you to ask you another question ?.

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Yes.

JUNE CRICHTON: Who was it who ran the store while you were ...

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Trevor du Plessis.

JUNE CRICHTON: Who ?

MARK RICHARD SPARG: Trevor.

JUNE CRICHTON: Trevor du Plessis.