Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-07

WITNESS:   The reason why Sergeant Khumalo was killed is because he used to steal dockets at the Esikhaweni Police Station - dockets containing information - or I will put it in this way - dockets which were opened and relating to the deaths of ANC members, who were killed by our hit squad.  As I have mentioned before that the ANC have sown it's own police within the KwaZulu Police, they had people who they would use as their contact, who worked in disguise.  They were people whom we used to chat and laugh with and we were not able to find out about their involvement.  It so happened that we discovered what was happening.  Khumalo was one of those policemen who would take particulars or information and supply it to the ANC.  However, the main reason why he had to be killed was because of the dockets he stole and took them to the ANC leadership.  Those were serious documents, because they were relating to our work - our syndicate or hit squad.  They were dockets involving the death or covering the death of ANC people.  So he tried to steal them and he gave them to certain members or leaders of the African National Congress.  I would like to lie before the committee to say how we found out that Khumalo was involved - was doing what I have explained.  However, it must be remembered that we had a structure called BSI.  In

MR MACADAM: /the BSI

MR MACADAM: 2A the BSI - the people in the BSI were dealing with things like this, because they were trying to find out information and to protect, so it was a kind of an underground movement and they were dealing with sensitive political issues.  I remember one day, while I was with Romeo at Ulundi we decided to disagree - we disagreed about Khumalo's issue because we didn't believe that he could do such things.  He was a trusted person and we trusted him and he acted as if he was an Inkatha member.  There were no signs which could alert us that he could do such bad things.  However, we ended up confirming that it was possible that he could do such things or he did such things, because Khumalo had whispered or told in secret to Captain Masinga, who was the man in command of the CIDs and Romeo was attached to the CIDs.  He was an investigator under M A Masinga.  Masinga told Romeo on a certain day that he should be careful, "Romeo you should be careful.  Khumalo has told me that you must wait.  The big fish are going to be arrested.  There are big fishes who are going to fill up the prisons and included you, Romeo, among those big fishes", and that frightened us a lot, in such a way that Romeo had to come to me, because I wasn't there.  He told me this story.  He left to Mrs Mbuyazi.  We discussed this issue.  Mrs Mbuyazi said we should call Langeni.  We left and went to the council chamber, the three of us.  Israel was with us.  If I remember well, Israel was there.  However, he wasn't there where we were discussing the issue but when we were in the car going to Hlanganani he was with us.  We arrived there and Mrs Mbuyazi went to one of the offices and made a call.  We didn't enter once she was on the phone.

MR MACADAM: /However, while

MR MACADAM: 2A However, while she was busy talking on the phone, she called me and she gave me the receiver and said, "Here is Langeni" and referred to him as Njomani and said I must talk to him.  Njomani, it's an explanation of a surname meaning Langeni.  Captain Langeni said as he have already told us about Khumalo we have to confirm ourself how dangerous Khumalo could be and he asked us whether we knew what might happen if our hit squad could be exposed.  Whether we are aware that they will arrest us up to our leader, prominent leaders, and I agreed, saying that, yes, I can see that.  He said we have to find a way - establish as to where the documents were and also the amount of information which has been leaked out.  However, we should leave this with him and he said what we have to do as soon as we left, we should make sure that as soon as possible Sergeant Khumalo should board the first bus, before he destroys a lot of things.  I took that as an instruction that Khumalo should be killed, and we ended up killing him.

MR MACADAM: Madlanduna, did he have any knowledge or involvement in this case?

WITNESS:   I'm not sure.  I wouldn't like to say something which I don't know.

MR MACADAM: Can I just take you back to the previous incident - the attack on the bus after the IFP rally.  Are you in a position yourself to describe briefly how that attack on the bus took place?

WITNESS:   The bus attack came as a result of the instruction given by Prince Gideon Zulu, that we should stop hitting single targets.  Because of his involvement we should direct our attacks at groups of people.  We should hit their buses which they used to go to meetings or rallies.  We should hit them at their

MR MACADAM: /streets.  Let

MR MACADAM: 2A streets.  Let me put it like this before the Commission.  At Esikhaweni there were demarcations.  The place was divided into areas.  Therefore Inkatha people couldn't go to an ANC area and it was known that the boundary it's along that particular area and this area for the ANC and that other area is an IFP area only.  And because of the war you always know that this particular person belonged to this particular organization.  So when the Prince said, Umtwanakaminyo, the Prince, we should attack them at their bus stops, we knew that the stops at that particular area belonged to the particular organization and we knew that this particular shop the only people who go there to buy are these people from particular organizations and also the shebeens we knew that members of a particular organization frequent that particular shebeen, and we knew that those shebeens were belonging or were used by a particular people from particular organizations.  People were divided in such a way that you have to ascertain whether you were drinking with your people from your own side or you are travelling with people in buses from your own side or not, so you have to be careful.  So that's how the place was divided, and also the sections were divided.  This made it easy for the ANC to know that if they attack J2 section, even the cat that is going to be killed belongs to Inkatha, and we also knew that if you attack a particular place - for example, there was a place called Emakhlandeleni, you wouldn't find any person belonging to any particular group except the ANC members.  The strategy which has been started by Umtwanakaminyo had to work and it was going to be effectively employed because we knew the areas where the ANC people live and we also knew their

MR MACADAM: /bus stops and

MR MACADAM: 2A bus stops and our bus stops too.

MR MACADAM: Are you in any position to indicate how many people were killed in this process that you've described?  This random retaliatory attack.

WITNESS:   Do you mean the attack on the bus?

MR MACADAM: Yes.

WITNESS:   Not many people died there.  We discovered that only one person died and the others were injured.  We didn't have enough equipment to use.  We only threw a hand grenade into the bus and we shot at the bus two rounds and we left.  We were standing on the sides of the road at the stop called KwaGundani.  ANC members, when they got injured, they were not going to report to the KwaZulu Police because they knew that if they go to report at the KwaZulu Police we will be happy and they also knew that they would lose their support, because that will be rumoured that they have been hit.  Therefore they went to report the matter at Empangeni.  However, we discovered that many people were injured and one person died.

MR MACADAM: Finally, at a certain stage you came to be arrested by members of the South African Police for certain of your unlawful activities.

WITNESS:   That's correct.

MR MACADAM: Did you or anybody else make any attempt to be arrested at all?