Human Rights Violation Hearings — Mabopane — 1997-05-08

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you and now Ms Joyce Seroke will assist you with a number of questions as will the other colleagues at the table.

MS SEROKE: Mr Modimoeng, questions are going to be very short, what you have given us is very concise. What I want to know is, you were a unionist, ....you removed from Oukasie to (?) ... or you had a particular position.

MR MODIMOENG: I was the resident of Oukasie and I was not a member of the committee at that time except to say I was a union official.

MS SEROKE: At the time when your house was petrol bombed, what was happening in your area which made it possible which made it possible that there should be a state of emergency again?

MR MODIMOENG: What I can remember is that that there should be petrol bombs ... (no further interpretation)

MS SEROKE: You think that people who threw the petrol bombs, would be, that you as a unionist, they were trying to intimidate you, that you should remove from Oukasie, for the petrol bomb.

MR MODIMOENG: I don't agree with that. What's in my mind is that all along people were against forced removal and those who used the petrol bomb would be the state and nobody else.

MS SEROKE: In your statement you also go on to say that you had a suspicion that this would happen to you, then you did precautions that there should be a corrugated iron on the window. Unfortunately the corrugated iron didn't help, it fell on the ground and the bomb was able to penetrate. Those whose houses were petrol bombed, what offers did you make to report.

MR MODIMOENG: When I remember well, is that they reported, but at that time, because of this campaign of forced removal, they would tell you and report to the (?), that's the answer you'd get and there was no security, particularly for the activists.
 When I remember well, is that (?)'s house was petrol bombed. They closed the windows with their wardrobes.

MS SEROKE: You were injured, and you have described your injury. What happened to Gladys and the other child, were they injured also?

MR MODIMOENG: Gladys and Miriam, we took them for shock treatment and that's all.

MS SEROKE: It seems that   (no further interpretation)

MR MODIMOENG: With Miriam it's better , but with Gladys it is a problem, because she heard (?) because of the bomb sound. She's not living a normal life because we're always taking her to the doctor, she's not normal. She had an ear problem after some time, she has a breathing problem, she  has nasal problem.

MS SEROKE: You say also you were helped by (?). Did you lay a charge so that this case should be investigated, then after you have reported this case, what was the response of the police?

MR MODIMOENG: I'm happy for that kind of question, because even I did  answer back, but if you report a case they say go and report it to the . What happened is that I opened a docket in Brits, up to this day I tried many times to make a follow up , so that to check their progress, how far we are with the investigation for this case , up to this day. What they used to tell me, outside, people like Pretorius, whom I've mentioned already, he would ask me - how's your leg. Then he would say - my leg is better and I'm going to let it be amputated, but I did open a case but to no avail.

MS SEROKE: What do you want the TRC to do?  Find out and at the moment our investigators, .... from there they would get help about other questions and other answers and I'll hand over to the chairperson.

MR MEIRING: Thank you Joyce. Any questions, Dr Ally?

RUSSELL ALLY: In your statement, under the section, Perpetrators, you don't mention any names but today in your testimony, you mentioned quite a few names. Is there a reason for that?

MR MODIMOENG: I was not informed that I should not raise names, but with my experience, to sit down with a problem doesn't help me. The people I'm talking about, their intention was to kill my entire family and is not going to help my whole family that I should be afraid to tell people's names because even during the incident they were there. To raise their names, it is relevant because I want this Truth Commission to investigate.

RUSSELL ALLY: ..... criticise or anything, I just wanted to know why in the statement itself so what I would suggest is that those names that you raised today, if you could actually give them to us and then all other information that you may have so that our investigators can follow up.  You see the reason is that it is so important that the names should actually be in the statement is because whatever names appear in a statement where there are allegations made, we are obliged to send letters to those people to inform them, then to give them an opportunity to respond. On the basis of a name in a statement we can also follow up, if people don't respond we can call them in for questioning, so that's why it is important. So I was raising the question of names in your statement, not as a criticism at all, you can raise whatever names you want to or whoever in a statement ....(?).....public debate helps our work a lot if in the statement we are given as much  information as possible, because if that was the case in your statement, we could already have started the process of contacting those people, trying to contact them and say that your name has been mentioned in the following incidents, do you want to comment on this.
  So just an appeal to people to try and be as comprehensive as possible in their statement and to you to give us additional information, which you have now given in your testimony, to give that to us and we can try then to follow up on some of those names. Thank you very much

MR MEIRING: Dr Randera.

DR RANDERA: David, just two questions. You said just now that you thought that they wanted to kill your family and yourself, now, where there other threats to your life prior to this particular occasion when your wife was killed, during either that year or the previous years?

MR MODIMOENG: There were no threats except that you were able to see that the situation was tense. If you have a campaign (?) then because of that, they were using every tactic that we should be forced removed from Oukasie.

DR RANDERA: And my next question is related to this campaign, and the struggle of the people of Oukasie, you said earlier on that people were refusing to move to Letlabele, because of the concern of it being incorporated into Boputhatswana. How much pressure was there from the government of Boputhatswana itself, for people to be pushed out from Oukasie, or was it just the state of South Africa at the time, and did this in itself engender factionalism within the community?

MR MODIMOENG: If I remember well, they wanted to move people from Oukasie. If you come and look, it's a different situation altogether. They were saying Oukasie is just like Alexander, therefore according to us, they wanted to move us from Oukasie because Brits was white dominated. They wanted the white people to say there. Our experience has shown that their intention is to take us to Letlabele (?) which is about 25km from Brits, so that they wanted to dump us there. So according to us Letlabele was going to be a slum unless we wished to compare that we don't want to go there. Until people wanted to, until it became a model town and the standard now of Oukasie has been brought because of that pressure and that campaign we lost from that time. Because we didn't want to be away from facilities like hospitals and work. It even affects transport.

DR RANDERA: Thank you David.

MR MEIRING: Mr David Modimoeng, just before I say a last word, I didn't ask you who was sitting next to you on your right hand.

MR MODIMOENG: The one who is sitting next to me is N (Mogose) who is my neighbour. That is one of those people who ran to us during that day to help us in that incident. He's my next door neighbour.