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

DAN MONTSISI: Well I must say that the period at that time the ANC was banned in 1960 together with the PAC and there was what you would call a period of lull, but now both the activists of both the ANC and the PAC continued to operate but this they did safely under the cover of Black consciousness.  Not that Black consciousness did not exist in its own right, it did exist, but the understanding at that time, I don't want to delve much deeper into it, was that the Black consciousness movement was a caretaker organisation.  There are political organisations.  This was a community organisation.  I don't want to get deeper into that.  But when everything is said and done within the SRC for instance there could be, even SASM itself, as early as that, there were quite a number of tendencies within BPA as well, all these are Black consciousness organisations.  Some were PAC, some were ANC, some were stalwarts of Black consciousness, but however we were able to find ...(indistinct)  you know because at that time the only ideology which was not banned was the Black consciousness
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
28 D MONTSISI
ideology.  The students when they began their initiative they interacted with a number of people.  Steve Biko for instance we were able to meet him quite earlier, even in the 75's, as SASM we were able to meet with him, and some of the leadership within the Black consciousness movement.  And you had for instance our premier Tokyo Sexwale, these were people who were very, very active as early as those periods, in 1972 when we got involved in SASM people like Tokyo were quite senior.  I mean Tom Manthata, Fanyana Mazibuko, all those were the type of sort of leadership people that we were looking forward to, Oprie Makoena and so on.  Even if Winnie Mandela was banned but she was also quite active during that period.  So the student initiative, when it finally got organised, it was not party political.  There was no political organisation that could say we gave rise to June 16.  It was an effort of ordinary young South African students you know who were just tired of this issue of do Biology, don't do Mathematics, do Agriculture, don't do Science and so on, that has been going on for a very long time.  So there has been that bitterness which has been there.  
 Now given also the fact that the conditions within the African townships, I mean were quite appalling.  I don't want to get back to the conditions also because Mamma Kuzwayo has covered them quite adequately.  So given that type of set-up you were actually grooming very young activists who were quite militant and who would actually live up to any challenges ...(indistinct).

YASMINE SOOKA: You also said at the beginning of your statement that there when the process was planned it was going to be peaceful, what was the reaction of student leaders after the SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
29 D MONTSISI
first bout of violence against White people?

DAN MONTSISI: Well you understand that as a student as a leader you are given the responsibility to ensure that the students follow the course that we had agreed on, and that you would get other student leaders to assist, and as soon as that type of violence exploded, I mean it just became unbelievable.  You are actually struck for the very first time with the reality that now this is it, there is no turning back anymore, because it is the anger of not having been listened to when you had a problem to present to the government or even to those other officials at the lower level, the districts and so on.  So it took us almost all by surprise.  When Tsietsi came to report to us what had happened he was quite ...(indistinct), it was not the type of Tsietsi that you know.  I mean his shoulders were drooping and he looked very, very sad you know.  It had taken all of us by surprise.  The least that we could have expected of police intervention was that they would have come perhaps and actually requested us to disperse, shouting through a loud hailer and so on and so on.  And the mood of the students when the police arrived in Orlando West, even in court when we were tried, the Sergeant Tortela actually said that the mood of the students in '76 was very jubilant.  They were singing and they were dancing and they were shouting slogans.  He was asked also in court whether the students were a threat to the police.  He said no they were not a threat.  They asked him why did you shoot.  It was because he was given orders, that is why he shot.

YASMINE SOOKA: One more question, the question of the hostels, do you think that possibly if they had been brought on board in terms of an explanation by the students that they would
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
30 D MONTSISI
not have been able to be used by the police later on and in fact become the problem that they had become in latter years?

DAN MONTSISI: The issue of the hostels I think perhaps might have to be seen in the context of this migratory labour systems which were some of the appalling apartheid laws that you had, and the Group Areas Act and so on.  Because I mean elderly people were brought from different parts of the country and even from outside and they were housed in hostels like cows you know, and you wouldn't expect people to live a decent life and actually to behave decently.  It would have been difficult still to actually interact properly, although in the past initially there have not been any problems whatsoever between the hostel inmates and members of the community.  So probably through members of the community it could have been possible to have some type of interaction with the residents in the hostels.  The only problem is that as a young person, talking to those elder people it's a question of the culture, ...(indistinct), that type of thing, who are you to tell an elder what to do and so forth.  But in Soweto here, I mean because of the culture, our parents understood and they were able to supervise.  Now getting to talk to a person who stays in a hostel would have been a bit too difficult.

YASMINE SOOKA: One last question.  What is your comment to the report of the Cilliers Commission that Afrikaans was not actually the issue but that it was the SRC who had been the cause of all the problems?

DAN MONTSISI: Well I don't blame Cilliers because he was a judge operating within a certain framework and a certain institution.  Cilliers could not have been able to come out
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
31 D MONTSISI
and contradict his own government because at that time Cilliers was working for that government and they expected him to say the SRC is responsible.  To say that Tsietsi Mashanane was Mandela's son and so on, and he did all that because he got the influence from his father.  Tsietsi is not Mandela's son.  Here are his parents.  So one would have expected that - I am sorry I have strayed a little bit away from your question, can you just recall it please.

YASMINE SOOKA: I think I was just asking for your comment on the sort of final report of the Cilliers Commission which investigated the 1976 riots.