Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-10-20

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: I'm still coming there with regards to other prisoners, Mhlongo Makoma and Elijah Mhlaba and myself.  We were four.

MR MCHUNU: I'm more concerned with the other warders or other prison authorities that you mentioned.  From Lieutenant Venter, who else can you still recall, if you can?

BOY VUSIMUZI GWAMANDA: I'm still coming there.  I'm going to explain about other officials like Warrant Geldenhuys.  I'm still coming there.
After we plugged these plugs with Elijah Mhlaba at the shooting range, he said we should go to the kitchen.  There was a kitchen in the prison premises and we used flour.  There would be a sack and you would plug the target, then you would spread your hands with this flour and plug this target.
	After we did that he told us that we will go with him to "skietbaan".  He used to refer to this place as "skietbaan", the shooting range that is.  I saw Rutsi Koronega and Lieutenant Joubert and Warrant Officer Geldenhuys and they were driving a private car.  
	At that time we took the shooting range and we loaded them in the truck and we got inside the truck as well and we drove off the prison and off the Barberton Town and we approached the mountains and we were driving around the mountains until we got to the place where there was a camp, military camp, military base.  We got inside there.
	As you enter the camp there was a key one should get and then you go over to where the shooting range was.  That's when we arrived there with the others I was with plus the AWB who were using the private cars.  We parked just nearby to the shooting range.  
	We off-loaded those targets and there were iron bars that will be used and we will lift up those targets bars and that we used to use for shooting range so that wherever you shot we would, there will be a hole that one could binoculars to identify it.  
	The sergeant left us there and gave us red scarves.  You see the "skietbaan" is so wide, it's so big and there were red scarves that we were plugging around".

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, Mr Gwamanda, I realise you want to tell your whole story but you start getting into detail how wide the targets were etc., we will be here for a very very long time.  If you could please confine your narration to matters that are relevant to your application, and also just to speak slower for the interpreter.
"After that we were trained and we were taught how to shoot.  We were trained by those guys I mentioned.  We were using various or assortments of rifles.  We used AK, we used Run(?), we used shotguns as well as hand-grenades.
	After that training we were sent back to prison.  After we were done with training we were kept in prison.  We were improved or better inmates than others.  After that Sergeant Venter came to me with Elijah Mhlaba and he told us that we should go to the office of Lieutenant Venter and indeed we got there.  That is where Venter told us that we have some duty or some mission to undertake, to shoot Matthew Phosa that is.
	After we have done that we would be rewarded by something or we will be given something.  After that we agreed and we left, the four of us, myself Elijah Mhlaba, Makoma and Mhlongo and we formed that organisation.  
	The following day we left and Sergeant Venter was using the company car, Monza.  The Monza was filled with rifles.  There was an R1 and there were AK's as well and 675.  At that time he took us and we left with me.  Lieutenant Joubert and Colonel Roots were using a private car.
	We left and we went to Nelspruit.  That is when I first saw Nelspruit.  I used to read about Nelspruit but never was there in person.  After we arrived in Nelspruit, Sergeant Venter parked next to a post office and there were other cars, 4X4's which were parked there and there were AWB members in AWB uniforms. 
	After that he alighted from the car and talked to them for quite some time, discussing with them.  After that he came back to us, that is Sergeant Venter, and told us that we cannot continue with the plan or execute this action because things are not going as well and we went back to prison.
	We knew very well that we were better inmates than others.  We could visiting locations and visiting our girlfriends as well and we were never using prison uniforms.  That's when I met Sophie and I fell in love with her and she fell pregnant, Sophie.  We would go to Aubrey's farm for a braai.  I used to meet Sophie quite a lot when we go to Aubrey's farm for entertaining ourselves.  We would go to another butchery in the location as well."

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, whose farm did you go to?