Human Rights Violation Hearings — Venda — 1996-10-03

MR RADAMBA: Truly, what was happening is that when I was living up until today, I was a person who in 1981 and there were people whom when I met them, they were having information that they can be helped by food, but I helped them not knowing that giving them food is a crime.
 But later, on the 11th 1983, when I was out in my field or orchard, as I was working in the orchard, by that time in the evening when I was thinking of going home to get some food, on my way to home, I met my younger brother who is Daniel Radamba, having policemen.
 And those policemen were coming from the Sebatsa police station, they were Venda police.
 When approaching me, my brother told me nothing, the only thing that I was told was told by the police.  The police welcomed me, it is a Mr Mangaka who told me are you Mr Radamba?  I said yes, I am Mr Radamba.
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 And then they told me that they were here to take me.  When telling me that they were here to arrest me, we are arresting you in connection with the case of harbouring the terrorists or the people who are not needed in this country, from there I was a person who was so anxious and there was nothing that I can do because there was nothing that I can do.
 I was forced to go with them where they car was.  When we arrived where their car was, it is next to my home.  On arriving there I was not allowed to go home, I was simply asked if I have got an ID and then they told me that they sent my younger brother to go and fetch my ID from there I was handcuffed.
 When my brother came back with my ID, I was allowed to go with them.  On our way I was told that I must walk, reminding everything which I have done when walking with the terrorists.
 Then there was nothing which I can tell them, I kept quiet.  We went on and reached the offices in which those policemen were working.  That is next to the Veterinary  offices.
 There I was taken into a building and there I was told that.  Do you know that some of you are here who are Mr Tsokusamwe Remagawera and Itwane Petros Msrewana.
 I said, yes, I know that and they said to me do you agree that those people might have told us something about this case and now we want you to tell us exactly what you have done and exactly what is it.  I told them that I have got nothing that I know and I will explain nothing.
 In the second place, I've said that twice.  In that office I found that there were many police men and women.  
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I realised that there is nothing that I'm going to do and there is nothing that I can do.
 I kept quiet sitting there, they asked me again.  Women saying is binding, then stop him, we'll deal with him accordingly, we women.
 It is then that I told them it is true, there are people which I offered food, but I was not aware that that was  a crime.   By saying that I was given time and then the others were told that they must go and we will deal with him, we will tell the whole truth.
 I was forced to take a statement.  From there I was taken out of those offices and I was led to the Tumtale police station.  In Tumtale police station I was placed in a house in which it was not a house built by bricks, it was built by corrugated irons.  There were no lights, no bathrooms, there was only a toilet.
 There was nobody in my room, I was alone and I was allowed - and I asked them to go and fetch my Bible and then I was told that there is nothing.  Even a piece of paper that you must be in possession of whilst sitting there.  
 I sat there for three months in that solitary confinement.  All days that I spent there, I still remember that I spent 108 days sitting there.  What I can explain is this, while in that solitary confinement, there were times although I was not ill, feeling nothing, no pain, I felt that certain policemen Mr Tshivhase came and fetch me.
 He took me from the Tumtale police station, he took me to Cherizene hospital.  In arriving at Cherizene hospital we did not follow the queues with others, I was just taken to a place where there were no other people being there.
 I found him going - in front there were houses and he 
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came back with a White Doctor.  That person was having an injection with a needle and a thing which looks like a car fuse.
 In arriving inside it, in opening it there was a liquid which was inside there and I was injected with that liquid in my left hand.
 From there I was taken back to that solitary confinement at (indistinct)
 Within some few days on the 24th of February I was told that Mr Tshivhase will take me to Sebatsa police station where I was taken to from Tumtale police station.
 In there I was told that I am released, you must go back home where you are going to do all which you used to tell us how to do it.  From there I go with Mr Mambele Tshivhase that we are going back home.
 In the middle of the road where we were going back home, Mr Mambele ordered me that I must keep on reporting at the Chief's kraal at the Headmen (indistinct).
 At that place, I used to go and report there, which I started from the 25 and I go and report that I am back.  I lived there keeping on reporting every day until on the 9th of 1990.
 While living that way in May I was having a problem which was disturbing me when I was told a terrorist by that, that I am a terrorist.  I led me that being named something which I was never  accepted by anybody, that thing cost me that in my life everybody that I met, if he could see that I am living in that way, that person we must try and make relationship with me, will be asked the kind of information which we used to talk.
 One day I happened to stay with my brother who is Mr 
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Ramashia.  There were tents built at Sherowa River when the bridge was erected.  That day Mr Ramashia told those people who were erecting the tents, that - because the tents were built on the way for the cattles and Mr Ramashia told those people that why they are building their tents on the way in which we use for our cattle.
 And those people there were no police.  It was taken by those people that were present there who were police informers although I did not know them.
 Although some, I used to know them.  They took the information to the police station at Sebatsa.  The following day I was being prepared to plant sweet potatoes, a van arrived.  Fortunate enough the keys to lock the place were the prisoners used to be put, were not available and then I was told that, come we are here to take you again.
 And I was taken to the police station again.  I was asked that when coming from that dipping places, enquiring that those people who have erected their tents there, why you were questioning those people who have erected those tents.
 What is it that you were questioning them.  I told them they have erected their tents in the path for the cattle and I was afraid that the cattle might disturb their camps and they are saying, no okay, we understand you.  Now we are going to take that man who you are saying have said this.
 If we heard him saying that he did not say that, we will come and take you again.  By myself I started to realise that I am living in a very different place and I am hurt and I am very disturbed in that way.
 The Headmen of that place was given all powers to work with the police.  At the Headmen's place it was like the 
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police office, where they used to gather information from me.
 From that day that is how I was working.  That is how the police used to work with me at home, it was Mr Mambele Tshivhase, (indistinct) and Mr Mpapole.
 The last day of the 9th of 1990, I ended up arriving at home with my wife.  That man came and blow a hooter and going there, he told met that how is the life?
 I forced him to tell him that, oh, my friend, if there is anything which is left, please take me and allow me to go back to jail or anywhere, because I was hurt and I was eating the same stuff everyday and I was disturbed and I was tired of daily soup.
 And they were saying there is nothing that they can do.  Make it that there is no one who will be allowed to give you food from outside, because if someone from outside gave you food and it killed you, then it means they are saying, the people will say we have killed you.
 But in fact I was hurt.  That life outside the prison is something which in my, in the way I can see, I have got lots of pain because pain which hurt me a lot is this, the way in which I was working.  Since I was injected that liquid in my hand, what I am now as I am talking, my left hand, is not working properly and it cannot scratch the right hand.
 In that way when it reaches the back of my right hand, there are lots of pain that I can do nothing.  If I can try to take a hole or to work hard, to work from here to there, I feel very tired and if I can work, I feel very tired that I cannot sleep well.
 And now I ended up saying it is better if I were dead, 
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because even now when I'm living, there is nothing that I can do.  If I want to eat, (indistinct) I must find someone who can assist me, at least what must be done is this, that if we have got donkeys we can work for by ploughing, using donkeys.
 Now my wife is not working.  I also think those people who are saying that as I'm living I am a person and if I can say that in coming here today, the money which I have used is not mine, it is not coming from my pocket because in my life, I've got no cent in my pocket.
 By that I feel, I feel hurt.  That terrorist plant which was sown in my name, is a problem and even today, where I'm living, I find myself a person who is unacceptable.  That is a hatred in my every day and I don't know what I must do, which can, at least led me into taking off that hatred.
 I normally feel pain especially when I consider that at the moment in which we are living, we are living in the present moment, unlike like the past, which used to rule in the past.  When I consider that, I realise that people talk about where the source of money is, I don't even know how much they are earning, they might be getting pay cheques, I don't even know how they are earning, but there are people who are happy that the moneys they are getting is better than the moneys we used to get in the past.
 When the talk about such things, I feel pain when considering the fact that I am, when I am being troubled, when I am unacceptable, whilst I am considered to be guilty of having provided food to the people, although I didn't know that I was that guilty.
 The very same people who at the very same time are 
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working in the very same Government at the moment, the services and the moneys that they are receiving, we are not even refusing the moneys because they receive them through maybe the existing Government was applied by the people who are not acceptable, they again say -