Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-03

TEBELLO TRYWELL MBATHA: As it was explained before, that this Chesterville was a place where there were many comrades.  I can say there were ANC supporters there.  All of us, we were politically educated from a young age.  We were used to attending meetings and the young boys would be victimised or harassed by the police because of that.  That led to a situation whereby we wouldn't sleep at our homes as young boys.  I am one of those boys who did not sleep at home during those days, who couldn't sleep home.
	On the 20th, I think it was between 6 and 7, I met with Russell who was my neighbour.  We used to sleep together or spend nights together.  We used to sleep at his sister-in-law's place with Stanley, because he was also in the neighbourhood there.  I cannot be sure at what time it was, I think it was before or after 10, I'm not sure, we went up to the house where we were going to sleep.  We stood at the door.  We were still smoking our cigarettes, as we did not want to do that inside the house.  As we were still smoking there at the door, we were at the road called number 15 as we were going up to number 16 road.  The coming from road 16, going to 15th road.  The house is in road 15 where we used to sleep.  If you are at road 15, 16 would be further down.  We noticed a car, as we used to take note of each and every car that would go past.  It was white E 20, if I'm not mistaken.  It was standing right at the end of the road at road number 16. That was next to a shebeen.  We asked ourselves some questions as to what was the car doing there because it had been there for some time, but we decided to go to sleep.  
	When we got into the house we went to bed.  Perhaps after an hour and a half or so there was a knock at the dining room in that house.  We could not respond because we were not the occupants of that house.  The owner of the house went to open the door.  When he opened, we saw a person who was known to us, it was Sandile who was staying at road 16.  He was with another gentleman called Ray, who was staying at road 8.  Road 8 is quite at a distance but Chesterville is such a small area, therefore we used to know one another, therefore that did not disturb us, meaning the seeing of the seeing of the ...(indistinct).
	Sandile came to tell us that he was there to wake us up.  He said there were people who were at the ring who were looking for Charles.  Perhaps he had some idea that we can tell him about Charles' whereabouts.  We told him that we do not know where Charles sleeps.  He said the people had showed him some guns, or firearms and hand grenades,  they said they were looking for the youth of Chesterville, to help the youth as they were with another person from Chesterville, who was in exile but they did not want that person to be seen.
	We woke up because we were in need of firearms in Chesterville.  Russell told them that we could not meet with the people that we did not know at the door.  He told them to meet us at Ncapeshe's shack.  When we left there it was myself, Russell and Stanley and Sandile and Ray, the people who came to wake us up.  We told them to go to those people and we told them that they would find us Ncapeshe's shack.  We got in there and we told Ncapeshe that there are people who were around.  We waited for them to come.  We couldn't trust them and we just closed the door and we were not saying anything inside the shack.  After some time we heard the footsteps and they were talking in some rather strange language.  I cannot say it was Zulu or Xhosa.  At least I know those languages, I even know the Sotho language.  That was a language that was not familiar to me.
	They knocked at the door.  We kept quiet.  No-one told the other that we should keep quiet, but we just kept quiet.  They tried to knock, or they kept on knocking until such time that we realised, that we heard some footsteps, that they were rather, they were like going back to where they were coming from.  Though I cannot remember who said that the door should be opened for them, though I cannot remember who said that the door should be opened, but someone said that we should open the door.  When they came back, they came back with Sandile as well as Ray.  Two men came into the shack as well as one woman.  We were seated in such a way that we were crammed together because the shack was small.  The door of the shack was on the side and we were sitting on the other side of the door.  There was a bed and I was sitting on the bed, Ncapeshe as well, Russell as well.  Sandile and Ray came in and they stood on the other side of the shack.  	The people who came into the shack stood next to the door and one of them stood somewhere in the middle of the shack but not nearer to the position where we were sitting.  They introduced themselves.  There was one dark-skinned person and he said they were coming from exile, they were ANC soldiers sent to Chesterville because of the problems that were prevailing there and that there is one person in the car whom we knew, the person is from Chesterville, but we would not be allowed to see the person because we were told they were working underground.
	They then started asking us questions as to what was happening at Chesterville and what problems we had.  We then explained to them what problems that we had.  Our major problem was the police, we explained and the vigilante group, the group that was called A Team, which group was assisted quite a lot by the police, that was our main problem.  They then asked us while we were there, they referred directly to Ncapeshe, because he used to be a boxer and he was wearing these boxing pants and he was naked on the other part of his body.  They then indicated to us that they were going to make arrangements for us to go to exile.  They also mentioned the death of Moses Mabida.  
	We had discussed with them to such an extent that one person among them, one person who was standing at the door, unzipped his jacket and drew a firearm.  It could have been of this size.  He indicated to us that that was an AK47 and gave us a brief course on how it operates.  One person, I think it was myself, requested to have a look at this AK47 and he removed something which I think was a magazine.  He then handed it to me.  We then all came together to have a look at this AK47.  We then requested to use it, to see if it was indeed working properly and they responded by saying if we were to fire a shot, that might draw the attention of the police because there was a police camp nearby.  We accepted that.
	After discussing with them, they then agreed that they were going to fetch some firearms and ammunition which they thought we needed.  The lady then went out.  She apparently was their Commander.  They had indicated to us that she was their Commander.  They were still standing at the door and we were sitting down.  When they went out, I requested to go out to relieve myself.  They refused.  That is when we started suspecting that something was wrong.  
	After a while after the woman had left, she came back.  She just opened the door ajar and whispered to the person who was standing next to the door.  They then went out.  On moving out of the shack, gunshots were immediately fired.  Gunshots were fired to what I can estimate to have been 6 to 7 minutes.  I think it was 2 minutes, I wanted to use seconds in my estimation, but it was something that happened swiftly.  After the shots I heard footsteps.  I heard a car engine running and I heard the revving of the engine, that the car was moving at a high speed.  
	I shouted once I was sure that they had left.  I called out to Ray.  I think he tried to respond to my shout but something that sounded like water dropping was happening at the same time and when I shouted again, trying to establish who was still alive in the house, I was alive, but I didn't know whether I was injured or not.  What I knew was that I was not able to move.  I could only move my hands and my head.  There were people who were on top of me.