Human Rights Violation Hearings — Sebokeng — 1996-08-06

MR ERNEST SOTSU: Surely I am prepared to throw light on that period because I was - that is a right period for me, of which my political activity were already matured.  I shall simply say that UDF was launched in 1983 and therefore the VCA was also founded and then it got affiliated to the UDF.  Then at that time there were these councils which were being introduced and there were elections that were conducted during that period and that is a time when certain councillors were elected not by the will of the people, they were elected by approximately 3 per cent of the population of the Vaal and that was because the UDF and its affiliate were opposed to these councils because these were apartheid councils.  In fact they were going to do the dirty work of oppression, assisting to oppress their own people.  It was on that basis that we hated them, we were opposed to them vehemently.   Not physically. Take it that way.

COMMISSIONER: Well I was just going to put that question to you.  Did that mean opposition also in terms of removing these people?

MR ERNEST SOTSU: Not necessarily to remove them physically.  Not that.  But when you say you want to remove a person you want to remove him from that structure.  That structure.   So that you don't recognise that structure and that
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structure must be disbanded.

COMMISSIONER: Mr Sotsu I am now going back to the 1990's.  When one reads documents, the newspapers and listening even to you today, the climate that seems to be appearing is that here was a struggle between the community and the IFP.  Yesterday even when we listened to a witness from the 1960 killing at Sharpeville one of the ladies clearly said that when they were going to work they were told that if you don't go to the police station and demonstrate you will be killed.  Now I want to actually also understand that atmosphere that was created because people were living in this community.  They didn't just turn up at Kwamadala.  How much intimidation or to put it in another way if people were not for the struggle they must be against the struggle, and how much of that actually went on in that period that we are talking about.

MR ERNEST SOTSU: If you are referring to the period between 1990 and 1993 somehow, are you referring to that?

COMMISSIONER: Yes, I am particularly referring to that period.

MR ERNEST SOTSU: Good.  The impression which was brought to my mind by the activities of the Inkatha which wanted to you know bring its image through dirty means was that they wanted to make themselves to be felt to organise by means of the gun and a spear and cause fear.  What they were doing they knew that they were not an organisation which was a political organisation per se.  They were just a tribal minded organisation which or whose intention at that point in time was to make people to understand that Zulus and only Zulus have got the power and strength to force people to toe their line and therefore that was a way of building their
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organisation.

COMMISSIONER: Mr Sotsu my last question.  You said earlier on that you are a man of the faith but at the same time you recruited people for the armed struggle.  Is there a contradiction in this?

MR ERNEST SOTSU: I think you should understand very well that there is practically nothing which is wrong with that.  I am coming to clarify this in this manner.  As a man of God a man of God shouldn't be a coward.  Moses, Joshua, I can mention a lot from the Biblical point of view, that they led the people with the word of God but where clearly there were enemies on their way ....

COMMISSIONER: Order please.  I did ask the audience when we started that don't have your own comments when the witnesses are testifying. Thank you.

MR ERNEST SOTSU: I had not finished.  I was just interrupted.  I wanted to make it a little bit clear to the Commission that there is nothing wrong with a minister, a real man of God, to fight for the rights of the underdogs.  Down trodden people. At that point in time there were not so many opportunists as there are today.  There were real fighters, real people who were interested to liberate .... (nothing more recorded on tape).  .... who wanted to fight and eliminate white domination and therefore a real minister of religion would never have agreed with the principle of white domination.  It is on this basis that Ernest Sotsu, the speaker so to say, joined the liberation movement and became one of the so-called Moses' of this time.

COMMISSIONER: Thank you very much.

DR ALI: Mr Sotsu I am not going to keep you much longer but
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just one or two questions.  The first one is about defence units, self defence units.  Were you yourself actually involved in self defence units and what were your views about these units.

MR ERNEST SOTSU: As a member of the underground revolutionary movement led by the African National Congress when I emerged from the prison the atmosphere was still very, very volatile to say the least.  The police were still harassing the youth, harassing all people who were inclined towards the liberation movement.  Therefore there was one way in which we could live and that was when you back into the country, those who were coming from exile and from jail, that there should be these defence units.  Defence units were meant, among other things, to defend the lives of those leaders who were coming back into the country.  It was not the intention of the movement that defence units should themselves be the killers.  Theirs was to defend their leaders and the community in particular where clearly there were cases similar to that which emerged when Inkatha started to make its swords and spears and guns to be felt in the Vaal.

DR ALI: There are though accusations, Mr Sotsu, from people involved in other sides of the conflict that self defence units themselves would often get involved in violence, in conflict and would themselves also be not only defending but often also attacking.  How would you respond to that?

MR ERNEST SOTSU: I would simply say that defence units which you are referring to, some of them were people who infiltrated the structures of the defence units of the African National Congress and decided to confuse the issue by doing the opposite.  They were not disciplined.  They
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were people really who were there clearly to destabilise the situation.

DR ALI: Do you think there is still a role for self defence units presently?

MR ERNEST SOTSU: No, there is no need for them anyway.

DR ALI: Thank you Mr Sotsu.