Amnesty Hearings — Nelspruit — 1999-02-03

CHAIRPERSON: And that hinges on my further question being, have there been an instance wherein such a request, such a similar request, had been refused by Mr Nkonza?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: He always instructed us that we should stay in one place, in houses, so that if they start to attack us, we should defend ourselves.  However, he never issued instructions that we should go for a specific purpose to say, go and kill because you have been killed.

CHAIRPERSON: On the night in question, when you killed Mr Phumayo, had you not seen him next to the electrical box, you wouldn't have been able to have carried out the killing?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: I was hunting him, trying to find him.  I will get information.

CHAIRPERSON: How long did this hunting last before you actually committed the offence for which you are asking for amnesty?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: It took a long time, because my wish was to do it in such a way that it will be a, I will do the act and it will be unknown, nobody will know how he was killed and who killed him.
	I didn't want this to come into light within the community, because that would destroy the organisation's image, as it happened now that I have killed him.

CHAIRPERSON: I find that a little interesting in passing, that you did not want the person who would have killed Mr Phumayo, to come to light, because it would destroy the image of your organisation.
	I understood your evidence to have meant that the reason for killing Phumayo was to intimidate the members in order to join the organisation.  If your intention was to suppress any information, about the people who were responsible for his death, how would that intimidate ANC members to a point of making them jump ship, to come to the IFP and join the organisation?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: I would like to explain.  If that happened, probably the ANC people would definitely have known that he has been killed by Inkatha, even if they don't know who exactly killed him.

CHAIRPERSON: But haven't you said that you didn't want the members of the community to know about how Mr Phumayo had been killed, because if that act was associated with the IFP, it would destroy the IFP?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: That is correct.   I tried to hide that so that when they come to  join our party, they shall take us as people who have just been started by the other party, as the innocent party.

CHAIRPERSON: But those are the people who would hardly have been intimidated by the act of Mr Phumayo's death?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: I find it difficult to answer the question, but to say as I have said before, if we kill him, we thought we would achieve some, gaining members joining us, and that is the way we did it, and we expected them to be afraid and join us.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I also find it difficult to comprehend how that would be tantamount to an intimidation, that would increase your membership as you have testified.
	In your evidence you say that you were hunting for Mr Phumayo for a long time?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: That is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Because of your intention to kill him immediately?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: Yes, because of what he has already said.  If he didn't mention any killings, I wasn't going to hunt him.
	I tried to speak to him about the situation at Davel and I told him that I didn't like what was going on, but what he said is that if we were not all dead, there was nothing that was going to be sorted out.

CHAIRPERSON: I am just confining myself to the hunting.  You were hunting for Mr Phumayo.  Just try and confine yourself to what has been put to you.
	How did this hunting, what form did it take?  How did you hunt for him?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: It will happen at night.  Sometimes we would see them, burning houses.  He was always in front of the people who were burning houses.
	That is why I was hunting him, or that is the way I used to hunt him.

CHAIRPERSON: Had you seen him in the course of burning houses down, is it your evidence that you would then have been able to kill him?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: Yes, I have seen him too many times.

CHAIRPERSON: I don't know whether my question was translated to you properly.  Is it your evidence, are you suggesting that if you had seen him burning houses down, you would have been able to kill him?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Even though you would have been in the company of the other comrades?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: That is correct.  What we had in mind was that if we were going to get hold of them, we were going to kill them, or attack them, because they used to burn down old people's houses, who were members and who didn't have other people to protect them.
	We didn't want to lose members.  Members were going to be scared to be members of the IFP if we were not protecting them.

CHAIRPERSON: And you would have so killed him in the presence of the comrades, notwithstanding your earlier evidence that your intention was that you should kill him under circumstances where it would not lead to the IFP being associated with his death?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: If I have to explain, what I really wanted is that I didn't want the ANC people to know that I was the one who killed him, because I knew if they had to find out, they were going to revenge.  The comrades were going to revenge on us.

CHAIRPERSON: This is what puzzles me and this is why I asked you that question.  You are saying that you would have killed Phumayo, even where other comrades would have been present?
	That would have exposed your organisation to the wroth of the community, because they will know from the comrades, who killed him?  Do you see the contradiction in your evidence?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: I think I have explained, if I am not mistaken, that we were going to attack all of them, not just him so that the person who was attacked, or whom his or her house was being attacked, was going to know that we were the ones who were responsible in protecting him or her.
	It is not that we wanted to expose ourselves in front of the ANC.

CHAIRPERSON: You used the plural term, you say we would have attacked all of them.  What do you mean by that, you mean yourself and who?  Did you operate as a group?
	I thought you did not want anyone to be aware of your intention to kill Mr Phumayo, least it leaks out?  I thought you were the only one who was going to be involved in this operation, and nobody else?
	Now I hear you are using the plural term in your evidence.  Is that intentional?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: I alone, my apologies there.  I was the one who was willing to do everything on my own.
	My name was named as someone who was going to be the victim.  It wasn't because of hatred, because we never quarrelled, it was because of our affiliations.

CHAIRPERSON: You are unable to say how you hunted Mr Phumayo, because this all emanates from the question, which I earlier on posed.  How did you hunt for Phumayo?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: I meant that if we found him doing something to other members of the IFP, I wasn't going to take this any longer.  I was gong to pay revenge there and then.  They have done this too many times to IFP members.

CHAIRPERSON: You keep on referring to the plural term though I take it that you mean yourself?  The simple question is what did you do, what steps, what active steps did you do to kill him, before the day in question?
	Is it not your evidence that you knew where Mr Phumayo stayed?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: That is my evidence, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Why didn't you go to his house to kill him, you seem to have hunted for him for a long time?

SOLOMON COLLEN MTAMBO: What made me unable to go to his house, I didn't have his direction as to where he was staying, or how he was staying.