Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-07

MR MACADAM: 1B was a person who exercised daily, and he was a quiet person - not talkative - and I knew that he would be able to maintain the secrecy, and he wasn't a man that would just go around with women and he didn't drink.  Even today he is not drinking.  I realised this is the kind of person I would like to work with, and he loved Inkatha a lot, and I could see that he was a very strong man and he could be effective.  Even when you look at his chest you can see that he's a hefty man and a big man and brave.  Then I went to Captain Langeni and asked him to be given permission to approach this man and tell him the truth.  I mean the truth which transpired between me and the people who had the meeting with me, the previous meeting.  Captain Langeni asked me as to how far do I trust this man and I told him it can't be possible that he's so closely related to Siphiwe Mvuyane.  If he is an ANC member it would be difficult for him to be close like that to Siphiwe Mvuyane and I thought that he was a real Inkatha supporter.  Captain Langeni and Madlanduna asked me to bring him to them, so that they can see him.  I told them it's not that easy.  I can't just bring him.  I had first to go and try to ask him to come or to find out whether he will agree to undertake the kind of work that we wanted him for.  However, they warned me whether I knew that if I tell him the secret and he refuses to join us it's possible that we might find ourselves sold out and therefore it became clear to me, because I didn't think about that.  However, we agreed that if he refused, after having divulged the whole truth to him, we will be compelled to take care of him.  I went back.  I tried to get closer to him.  After a time where I had to approach

MR MACADAM: /him directly

MR MACADAM: 1A him directly and I told him everything.  He didn't doubt a lot.  However he wanted to know how much backing we have behind us and I said to him I won't tell him.  However, I will take him to the seniors.  After that I called the seniors, telling them that I will be coming with Romeo and they said that's possible, I can come with him.  We took a car and we left to the seniors.  I don't remember the date.  We went back to Captain Langeni's office at Ulundi.  It was an office at the Legislative Assembly.  We had a discussion with these seniors whom I've just mentioned, and I introduced Romeo to them.  It was a very short meeting, because they were in a hurry because they had other work to do.  However, even if we didn't get into deep details Romeo was satisfied because they told him that I will tell him - I will give him the flesh.  However, they promised in my presence that he would be safe and we left and went back home.  After that we developed a good relationship, with the same aims and objectives.  As they promised, Madlanduna sent Israel Hlongwane to me to come and stay with the Mayor, B B Biyela, because I didn't have a place to accommodate him.  They also sent Zweli Dlamini.  Zweli Dlamini was one of the Caprivians whom I knew.  We trained together at Caprivi and he grew up in front of me at Mpumalanga, together with Hlongwane, while I was a leader in Mpumalanga, where I was in charge of 12 wards, and I knew them as people who have grown under the wing of Inkatha Youth and we taught them a lot of things about politics, and I knew the two very well.  I have already stated in my evidence yesterday about Israel, that we also went to training together at Cape Town.  Therefore I was ready to

MR MACADAM: /work with

MR MACADAM: 1B work with them.  I also introduced them to Romeo and he knew them, and we started working as a syndicate.  While at Esikhaweni it was myself, Romeo, Hlongwane, Zweli, Mrs Mbuyazi and B B Biyela.  There was someone by the name of M R Mkhize, who was in charge of the regional office at Empangeni and we also used to work with him at some time, but we were not very active with him in most cases.  As I have already mentioned then we continued the task of fighting against the ANC.  However, I kept contact with Captain Langeni and Daluxolo.  We had many ways to contact them.  Sometimes I have to go to Ulundi or call them, and they used to call me or Daluxolo would come to me at Esikhaweni.  So we kept that contact timeously and I also had to submit reports to Captain Langeni, because he was the one who was giving instructions to me directly.  Sometimes they were the type of instructions which I knew they were coming because most of the time they would be suggested by the local leadership - the same people with whom I was staying at Esikhaweni.  The local leadership couldn't give me instructions as to what I can do.  The instructions should come from Captain Langeni.  However, the contact with the local leadership made it clear to us as to what was happening.  I'm trying to explain that if we knew that particular person whom I was told that he should take the first bus, I knew the reasons why he should take the first bus, and I will also get the reason, because when I take the report back to report that we have found the person, Captain Langeni would always tell me that, "You did your work very good because that was personally very dangerous because for this and that reason".  That made me to be in a position to know the

MR MACADAM: /reason why

MR MACADAM: 1B reason why a particular person was eliminated, and that's how we worked at Esikhaweni.

MR MACADAM: Could you just explain to us this term, "Take the first bus".  What did you understand that to mean?

INTERPRETER: I didn't hear you.  I think there's a communication problem.

MR MACADAM: The term, "Take the first bus", what did you understand that to mean?

WITNESS:   This is a term which is normally used because we have to use telephones.  We knew sometimes that the telephones might be bugged by the white people or the enemy.  This was a code name which was used to make sure that even if you hear us discussing about this you will never understand what we are talking about.  This means that you have to kill the person.  So we didn't have to say, "Kill him", we had to say he must take the first bus.  However, we knew very well that person has to be killed.

MR MACADAM: And what I want you to do now is to just briefly comment on certain specific cases and, in this regard, on the questions I ask you and not to in detail describe everything blow by blow.  This is simply to enable your evidence to be heard in the time that is available to this Commission to hear it.  Firstly, I want to put it to you that a person, Taliwe Mkhwanazi, was murdered in the Esikhaweni area and I want to ask you whether you have any knowledge of that person and his death.

WITNESS:   Yes, I do.

MR MACADAM: Can you, firstly, tell us who that person was?

WITNESS:  I got the instruction that that person should take the first bus as soon as possible.

MR MACADAM: From whom did you receive that instruction?

WITNESS:   From Captain Langeni, and I did that, together with my

MR MACADAM: /other members.