Amnesty Hearings — Phokeng — 1996-05-20

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Thank you, Mr Chairman, I have no questions to put to the witness, arising from what has been said. Thank you.
NO QUESTIONS BY MR MPSHE

JUDGE MGOEPE: Do I understand your evidence to say that the deceased was a distant uncle?

MR MOKGATLE: The deceased was my uncle.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Mr Mokgatle, the PPP you referred to, what is it in full, just for the sake, for purpose of our record?

MR MOKGATLE: The PPP stands for the People's Progressive
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party.

JUDGE MGOEPE: Thank you.

ADV DE JAGER: Did you know the deceased well?

MR MOKGATLE: The deceased is my brother's brother. He was like a parent to me or like a father.

ADV DE JAGER: There wasn't evidence directly about it, but it transpired from the court record that he was 83 years of age.  Is that correct?

MR MOKGATLE: The way I heard it was about 85 years.  When I was told my uncle's age it was about 85, or someone told me he was 85.

ADV DE JAGER: So the ten of you attacked this old man.

MR MOKGATLE: That's true, sir.

ADV DE JAGER: Did he plead to you to save his life?

MR MOKGATLE: I didn't hear him say anything because there was much noise out there.

ADV DE JAGER: Did you at any stage search his pockets for the key or the house for the keys?

MR MOKGATLE: I never searched anything because I wanted him to tell me where the keys were.

ADV DE JAGER: And did you see anybody looking in his pockets or search in his pockets whether the keys were there or in the house where he was staying, looking for the keys?

MR MOKGATLE: I can't say anything about what happened in the house because when I entered the house people were going out carrying him. But in the Kombi I never saw anyone searching for the keys.  All I saw was when he was assaulted.

ADV DE JAGER: When you assaulted him with the panga, did you see sever his head from his body?

MR MOKGATLE: No, the head was not separated from his body. I never saw that, by the time I used that panga.  The head
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was not detached from the body.

ADV DE JAGER: Thank you.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Mokgatle, at the time prior to the meeting in St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, you were working in Johannesburg at the Randburg Town Council.  Is that correct?

MR MOKGATLE: That's true.

SISI KHAMPEPE: How did you come to know that there was going to be a meeting at St Josephs?  Did you receive an invitation, and if so, who invited you and were you told the purpose of the meeting at St Josephs at the time you were given an invitation?

MR MOKGATLE: We were acting as the Baphokeng action committee.  When we had a meeting at Phokeng, we were talking.  When leaving again and going to Phokeng, before we went back to Phokeng, we had already arranged for a day on which we will assemble or meet again at that same church.  That is how there was no one who would invite us like an invitation to a stokvel.  We already knew that on a certain day we will meet so that the people could hear what we had in our hands for them.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Who presided at the meeting at St Josephs?

MR MOKGATLE: The days were never the same.  That is, when the chairman Mr Lawrence Skosana was present, he could run the meeting. If he was absent the meeting was run by Mosibo Gupani.

SISI KHAMPEPE: I think I must rephrase my question.  I probably did not ask too explicit a question.  At the meeting where a decision was taken that you would go and demand the keys of the civic centre, who presided at that meeting?

MR MOKGATLE: On that day, I can't remember well who
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conducted the meeting on that day when we came to look for the keys, because by the time I went into the meeting, the meeting was already in process.  Therefore I couldn't see clearly who was the chairman of that meeting.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Nevertheless that meeting gave an order that keys will be demanded from Mr Mokgatle.

MR MOKGATLE: By the time I entered the meeting, I met people and they said let's go and fetch the keys, because those keys we had a couple of days talking about those keys, demanding them, and then we started going out and we were in a hurry to fetch those keys.

SISI KHAMPEPE: So you are unable to say whether at that meeting there was any alternative plan discussed to obtain the keys of the civic centre?

MR MOKGATLE: The keys to the civic centre, that is when I entered the meeting. I heard people saying that we have to fetch the civic centre keys from Mr Billie Ramoresi.  He had to tell us where the keys were or where they were supposed to be.

SISI KHAMPEPE: In your testimony you have advised this Committee that you went to Mr Ramoresi's place.  Then you were dispersed by the police when they started shooting with tear-gas and rubber bullets. And you then decided, as the action committee, to march to Mr Mokgatle's place to demand the keys.

MR MOKGATLE: That's true.

SISI KHAMPEPE: The action committee members decided that you had to obtain the keys.  This is when you were now a smaller group. I think your counsel spoke of your participation in a larger group and a smaller group.   I am expecting a
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response.

MR MOKGATLE: That's true.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Is the committee a publicly known organisation at Baphokeng tribe?

MR MOKGATLE: That's true.

SISI KHAMPEPE: When you went to Mr Mokgatle, did you - well, let me rephrase my question.  Obviously the significance attached to the appropriation of the keys, was to obtain control of the civic centre.

MR MOKGATLE: That's true.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Were there no other means which could have been employed to obtain control of the civic centre, other than demanding the keys?