Human Rights Violation Hearings — Mmabatho — 1996-07-08

DR RANDERA: Thank you Mr Thwane.   I want to go on to my next question.  Again I just want to understand.  At the time you gave your statement to us and in your statement you say when you were questioned by the police in Mafikeng you said you knew nothing about the coup.  I understand why you would say that at the time, but at the time that you gave your statement to us your statement does not actually say very much about the very central role that you yourself played from what you said to us today, in strategizing for the coup and organizing for that coup.  Why was that?

MR THWANE: The statement that I gave to this Commission is the statement that is in the hands of my lawyer at the moment.  So, I did not want to reveal all to my lawyer.  At the time I made the statement.  One has to be very careful, because the lawyer mans the office.  The office is his but he employs people who goes through these files one might have gone through that, gone through my file, seeing all that, then unexpectedly revealed.  And just to find myself again in trouble, so I kept most of the information to
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myself, which I would I only give when appearing before the court with my lawyer.  And I did not, when making the statement here, actually talk as I am now.  I just gave over what I have asked from my lawyer.  
 I asked my lawyer to give me the statement.   I made a photostat copy and I gave it to the people who were taking the statements.  So now it appears as if there is a difference.  What I have said here, forms part of the strategy and what is not right in there, was to attract the Commission to get this information.

DR RANDERA: Mr Thwane I raised that very point because I suppose the story for me in that is that for everybody else who is making statements, there is nothing to fear in making the statement.  And, therefore, when people make their statements they must be as inclusive as possible and not exclusive.
 I would like to go on to my next question.  Mr Thwane you say in what you have been talking about today in the strategising for the coup you recognised that if it failed, it meant disaster, personally and for your PPP, Progressive People's Party.  You also go on to say you were willing to take life, whether the life of Mangope, President Mangope at the time, or anybody else for that matter who supported him.
 My question, therefore, is in your arrest were you, therefore, prepared for what was going to happen to you in terms of the torture and beatings that you experienced or 
not?

MR THWANE: When people started running around for shelter, leaving the country I decided to stay and face the rest of the law.  So whatever would have happened to me I was prepared for.  Rather than allow the sufferers to remain MMABATHO HEARING TRC/NORTH WEST
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suffering.  People suffered a lot during the Mangope regime.  He did not value life.  That is why so many people died during his time and I was bend on revenging on behalf of the people.  They did not have the nerve to face him.  Up to this day people still see him, they don't believe that he is obscured, he is rotting at his place there.  They still fear just his appearance.  His voice heard over the radio, people would say, there he is still alive and about.  I don't care for that.

DR RANDERA: Why you think the coup failed?  And secondly, despite your intimate central involvement in the planning of the coup, why do you think you were not charged at the end of this period you were in detention for almost three months?

MR THWANE: Whenever one is in detention, having committed a crime or not, one is charged by implicating himself.  How you approach the case, in whatever result it comes out.  So, I planned it in such a way I must conceal the information until I die.  It is fortunate that people today know of the plans, because I am safe now.  Although, possibly having revealed this, the other people like the Security Police might decide otherwise.  But, ok, it is ok, but I don't expect it to happen.  It is only that I am a human being.  You never can just guarantee anything.

DR RANDERA: Thank you sir.

MR MALAN: Mr Thwane, just two or three very brief
questions.  Did I hear you correctly in saying that in all the time that you were in detention and all the torture you never gave any information, relating to the coup, to those that interrogated you?

MR THWANE: My response in most of the cases was, the radio MMABATHO HEARING TRC/NORTH WEST
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has stated that the police has toppled the Mangope regime and they will hand over to the PPP, so I always told them I was not a soldier.  The soldiers toppled the Mangope regime, not the party.  So I would have featured as a member of the party on receipt of the reigns of government from the soldiers.  That is how I responded.

MR MALAN: Could I repeat the question.  My question really is, you are saying that at no stage did you disclose any information about the planning of the coup, you did not admit any involvement in your planning to the police?

MR THWANE: I did not.

MR MALAN: The second question is really a follow-up of Dr Randera's about your preparedness for what really followed.  If you look back on this period, do you see yourself as a victim, or do you see yourself as one of the major role players, or do you see yourself as both?  And why I am asking this is because the actor enjoins us to look at the perspectives of witnesses. So how do you see yourself?

MR THWANE: Well, I have sacrificed in my life.  I had told myself that having been involved in opposing the Mangope regime I should accept the ultimate ...

CHAIRPERSON: ... that when the coup was planned people thought of committing murder, but by strange twist of events that did not happen, because where murder occurs it goes on like a rolling stone.    The civilians would have been in great danger, admittedly there would have been other lives involved, rather than those who has planned the coup, and for this we see the moral strength of those who were involved in the coup, that they did not remain adamant to the schemes of the plot that they in mind earlier on.
 And we are very thankful that you have shared with the MMABATHO HEARING TRC/NORTH WEST
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Commission this kind of valuable information, which is information on determination, more especially determination to rid the people of that which is considered evil, but it was done with such graciousness if I could call it that, that in the coup of Bophuthatswana there was no life lost.  If it was, perhaps it was long thereafter.   For this we are truly grateful and you can rest assured that the Commission takes kindly to what you have done and you can be assured of our support at any time when needed.
 We thank you and your family and your community that you were able to be with us here and share with us.  Thank you.

DR RANDERA: Chairperson, I would like to suggest that we break for tea now and come back at 11 o'clock.
COMMISSION BREAKS FOR TEA