Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-17

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes, he was in the company of Victor Buthelezi.  He gave me explosives that was made of heavy metal and they seemed to have PE4, which is a plastic explosive, you ignite it and put it where it's supposed to explode and once the wax has been ignited, it then explodes.  He gave me that together with bullets.

MR WILLS: Yes, I wanted to get onto that, obviously your operations must have involved you going through a fair amount of ammunition.  Where did you get the ammunition from?  Try and be as accurate as possible in your recollections.

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Bullets came from various places, some came from Ulundi brought by Dina Mkhize and some were brought by the Mayor B.B. Biele and we used to get some from Joyful Mtetwa at Ensileni and Chief Inzunza also gave us some of these bullets but most of them came from Ulundi.

MR WILLS: Did you ever travel to Ulundi to pick up bullets?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: No Dina used to do that.

MR WILLS: Mr Chairperson, Members of the Committee, I am going to go onto specific incidents, I see that it's ten minutes before tea time, I am in a position to start if the Committee would like me to but this is a convenient time to take the tea break depending on the..[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Yes it doesn't make much of a difference Mr Wills if we take the tea break now we'll just start ten minutes earlier, so if we can take the tea break at this stage seeing it is a convenient point and we'll reconvene then at twenty past eleven.  We'll just adjourn now for tea.
COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Wills are you ready to continue?  Sorry, Mr Mpshe?

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: Thank you Mr Chairman, I just want to inform Members of the Committee that due to certain commitments I've got to attend to.   Mr Nati Ladla will be the evidence leader in the meantime.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Mpshe.

MR WILLS: Yes, Mr Chairperson, Members of the Committee, I would just like to disclose here discussions that I've had with evidence leader Mr Mpshe concerning certain incidents.  You will have seen from the affidavits that certain of the incidents involved people from outside the eSikhawini area for example in Ermelo and Durban.  Those people have not been notified and obviously cannot be expected to be here so I'm purposely going to skip those incidents and the agreement with the evidence leader is that the effected parties will be called at a later date of this hearing and where those matters will be dealt with.

MOKOTEDI MPSHE: I confirm that Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes thank you.

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: (s.u.o.)

MR WILLS: Mr Mbambo we're going to start now discussing the various incidents that you were personally involved in and first of all we're going to concentrate on the murder of Mr April Telewe.  We have recorded in the affidavit as Mr Tilly Makwanasi but I think that we've established beyond doubt now that this person's name was in fact April Telewe and so I'm going to refer to this person as April Telewe from now on.
	Mr Mbambo, we've heard the evidence of Mr Mkhize in respect of most of the incidents that you were involved in together with him and that Mr Mkhize gave evidence as regards the setting up and the orders and such like.  I don't want you to go into detail other than confirming what Mr Mkhize has said and I'll ask you that question.  I want you to, in all of these incidents, just concentrate as briefly as possible on the role that you played in these particular incidents.  Is that clear?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes.

MR WILLS: Okay, we're going to start with the murder of April Telewe.  Now you've heard Mr Mkhize's evidence.  Do you confirm that as being true and correct to the best of your knowledge?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes that is correct.

MR WILLS: You confirm that the persons involved in that incident were yourself, Mr Zwele Dlamini and Mr Mkhize when the actual incident occurred, when Mr Telewe was shot?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes that is correct.  There were three of us.

MR WILLS: And that although Israel and Mrs Umbiasi knew about this incident, Israel was left behind because you had initially just gone out for reconnaissance, is that right?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: Yes that is correct.

MR WILLS: Can you describe your involvement in this matter?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: I was picked up by Dina Mkhize at my place, it was in the evening and he was driving a white Ford Meteor belonging to B.B. Biela who was the then Mayor at eSikhawini and he was accompanied by Zwele Dlamini and he told me that there was a sudden task that we had to carry out and I asked him whose job the task was and he said it was Daliwe Makanosi involved.
	I got into the car and we went to Mrs Umbiasi's place.  She was at home together with Israel Hlungwane and we discussed Daliwe briefly after which myself Dina and Zwele Dlamini got into the car and we went to J1 to look for him.  We saw his green car, it was parked next to house and there were some people talking to him but the cars engine was running, ready for leaving.  We drove past him and we confirmed that he is the one driving and we stopped at a T-Junction in J1 and after a short while his car drove past us and we followed him.  He joined the Main Road to eSikhawini just next to J1.  
	I was driving the car at the time, Dina was occupying the passenger seat and Zwele Dlamini back seat.  We followed him and we concluded that he was going to take a right turn at the cross, proceed to Sonobilo Hostel.  We overtook his vehicle and took a right turn and we went to wait for him at the Sonobilo Hostel gate because we knew that they used to lock the gate.  He would delay there and we would get an opportunity to shoot him there and after the turn as we were proceeding, he indicated to turn towards the left and that's what he did.  He took the road to Bongoye and I quickly made a U-turn and followed him and approaching the Moholoholo Hill near the bush Dina suggested that we shoot him then and there.  Dina had a G3 rifle - I drove and pretended to be overtaking his vehicle and as Dina's window was directly facing his window I brought my vehicle closer to his.  Dina tried to shoot but the gun jammed.  
	At that point Daliwe was not aware what was happening because it was dark.  Dina tried to fix the gun and he made his second attempt and still the gun jammed.  At that point Daliwe was beginning to suspect that something was happening so Zwele from behind indicated that he is ready, I should bring him closer, direct opposite to him.  I drove a little faster so that Zwele's window could be directly opposite to that of his, then Zwele fired a shot using a 7.65 mm pistol and after that we saw the car moving off the road and I drove faster and Dina tested his gun to see why it was jammed and this time it was ready, it was now shooting.  
	We fled and took the Port Danford Road and we went back to eSikhawini and we went to the police station to confirm that he is indeed shot and indeed a report had already been received that he had been shot and he is dead and we then moved on to Mrs Umbiasi's place where we reported that we fared well and we explained how everything happened.

MR WILLS: Who did you report to?

ROMEO MBUSO MBAMBO: We reported to Mrs Umbiasi that very same evening.  It was then Dina's duty to phone Captain Hlungwane and I went back to my place to sleep.

MR WILLS: I see in, taking you back very briefly, to paragraph, the first paragraph in this instance, the last line of that paragraph you say
"I dressed in dark clothing, armed myself with my 9 mm. service pistol, took my balaclava and accompanied Mkhize and Dlamini."
Is this the sort of dress you'd wear continually on these operations and I specifically 
refer to the item of clothing the balaclava.