Human Rights Violation Hearings — Queenstown — 1996-07-22

ADV POTGIETER: We, as the Chairman pointed out already, we do have your file.  We have all the documents that you have pointed out or referred to and we've also given to our representatives, your request and you've also asked that the perpetrators should be prosecuted.  You've also asked for compensation and we have all this information in front of us and I would very much like to listen to your wife.
 Is there anything else that you'd like to add to your statement?

AP VAN WYK: Yes, I think if I can in conclusion, maybe just highlight one or two things.   Three Black men walked into the Spur.  They for no apparent reason planted a bomb, there is no reason I can think of why they should have done that.
 There wasn't just White people or just Black people, there were a mixture of races and to the contrary, there 
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were more Black people in the Spur that particular night that there were Whites.
 How can those people plant a bomb, I ask why?  It is a silhouette, it is a Black person, I see the line ... (tape ends) 
 (Tape starts) ... very much like those people to come forward to the Commission and to me and the people here Michelle, Heila and all the people who were injured as to come forward and say, we are sorry.  And I think that up until such time that this happens, I would simply not be able to forgive those people.
 I am not able to forgive a faceless person and I cannot accept and forgive without that.  I have never gone for help to anybody, I think today is the first time I have been given or granted the opportunity to really say how I feel inside of me, because I am not generally the kind of person who open up.
 I have not gone for any counselling, the day after the explosion a very good client of ours, came to us and myself and my wife were standing outside the Spur and it wasn't a very good picture, and this friend of us Themba, came to us, he is a big Black man and he came and he said Andrew, don't worry, those people who did this, will be caught.
 And I think that already then, the healing process started.  The fact that a Black man could come to me the very next day and say to me, don't worry, we're with you and he said, I'm taking you right now to Clarence Mqwetu and I want to know why his people did this to you.
 And I think this gesture of Themba personally helped me so very much.  I would also like to ask the Commission that the reparation committee, perhaps contact me at a later 
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stage and you know, we can discuss things, because I don't want to be sitting here all day, I would therefor just like to thank you very much for the opportunity.
 I would also like to thank my lawyer for his advice and support and I now forgot the lady, Dr Maya, she came to the Spur the other day just to have a cup of coffee, and two hours later I already felt better and thank you very much for listening.
 I already feel better.  I would also like to listen to my wife and for her it was also a very traumatic story.  
 The last three months have been particularly hard for her.  You know some people are able to suppress things and others can't. 
 But she was able to do this.  And now, for the last four months, she has had to go for counselling, she's had to go for psychiatric help.  It is due to the stress, the financial setback we've suffered.  I was not even aware of the fact that they were undergoing counselling.
 Up until the other day when she asked me to accompany them.  It was a great shock for me and I would like the Commission to be aware of this, because it has not been easy for us.  Thank you.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you very much Mr Van Wyk and thank you very much for your evidence.  We take note of everything you've said and we are now going to listen to the evidence of your wife and after that my colleagues might have a question or two for you and perhaps you just want to change places.  Good day Mrs Van Wyk and welcome to you.  We listened to your husband's evidence and we have a fairly good picture of what happened there.
 We also have pictures.
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BONGANI FINCA: There continues to be a disturbance in the hall.  It is coming from a particular section of this hall.
 And I want to appeal again that let us not have that disturbance.  There are those who are waiting to interpret our handling of this particular hearing and of this particular case, who are waiting desperately for us to do something amiss and carry it on the headlines.
 And we definitely are not going to be dragged into that.  So we are again appealing for total silence, for the respect to the witnesses which were given to other witnesses before.  
 And if there are people who are finding it difficult to honour, we are requesting those people to please requise themselves.  Thank you very much.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you Chairperson for the assistance.  We come back to you Mrs Van Wyk.  I'd like to give you the opportunity to add to the evidence of your husband so feel welcome and relax.

H VAN WYK: When I think back of that day of the 3rd of December which is quite a while back now, when I close my eyes, I hear words that stick in my mind.
 I hear can you give us a Hunters to take away.  And I said, I'm sorry sir, but it is against the law, you are not allowed to take this from the premises.  And he said but we want this, because we want to celebrate.
 Needless to say that a couple of days later, the celebration would actually be a celebration of the fact that customers and our workers that within an hour, that they would celebrate because they want to dispose of us all.
 I didn't really at that moment realise what exactly they were asking me.  Because it was somebody that looked me QUEENSTOWN HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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straight in the eyes and somebody that I treated the way I would treat anybody else. 
 The person looked me in the eye when he paid me and he smiled at me when he walked out.
 And an hour later everything, everything was chaos.  I didn't know what was going on.  I thought that one of our gas bottles, because we work with gas bottles, I thought that one of those exploded.  
 And two of the customers sat at the bar, I screamed to the griller, "Peter, what happened" and the person said that it is a bomb, and I said no, but it can't be a bomb. 
 The moment that the police came and instructed us to come out, the deceased who was laying on the pavement and who was burnt, he was black from the way he was burnt, we could only see the white of his eyes and he, he actually asked you "are you okay?"
 And that is when I realised that I have to go and look for the people who worked for us and I went and I established that they were all there.
 And I am talking about the Black person who was washing the dishes and all of them.  We missed one lady, but she was already being taken to the hospital.
 And that is basically all I can remember.  And each one of us that were working there, the moment we see each other, you know, that at least we survived, we were there.
 And I said to someone the other day if I could have taken upon myself the pain, the burn, the suffering that everyone endured, if I could have taken it upon myself, I would have, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
 Fortunately I wasn't injured at all and as I said if I could have taken that upon myself, if I could rather have 
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burnt and suffered the way everyone did, I would have done that.

ADV POTGIETER: But although you physically did not, weren't injured, what other effect did this have on you?  Your husband referred to the fact that you go for counselling and you've been for counselling and you are now attending psychological treatment.