Human Rights Violation Hearings — Venda — 1996-10-03

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much.  Just briefly, Mr Radamba you are the second person today who has mentioned the policeman Sergeant Mambele Tshivhase.
 Where was he based, at Sebatsa?

MR RADAMBA: Mr Tshivhase, I think he was based, but I think he is a person from Mgumbani, but now I don't know where he is staying, is working, but I have little knowledge that he has got a house right in Mqarera, but I don't know if he is not using it because he might change it and one remain thinking he is still using it.

RUSSELL ALLY: Do you know what branch of the police he was working in?  Was he security branch, was he detective branch, do you recall?  Was he plain clothes, uniform branch?

MR RADAMBA: They were not wearing clothes like other people, he was not wearing clothes like other people.

RUSSELL ALLY: Now, you also mentioned that you got a cheque from the South African Council of Churches, is that right?  When was that?

MR RADAMBA: If I am not mistaken, I think it was in 1984, before the end of 1984, or in the beginning of 1985, but I think it is before the end of 1984. (tape starts) ... I found it being a cheque but I just believed that it is coming from the Government, because I was unable to differentiate where it was coming from.
 I just realised that it is not coming from the Government, because when it was heard that I found that cheque, the police came back and investigated where I found that cheque and they saying, am I repeating the same thing?   I told them that I thought it is coming from your Government, but it is not coming from.  They say yes but it 
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is not coming form this Government, but information what I must use that cheque for, was not there, but I just used it for my family.

RUSSELL ALLY: You said that the cheque was given to you by Mr Simon Nacombe, is that right?

MR RADAMBA: Yes, Simeon Nacombe.  Mr Nacombe, I just know him as a person who was a scholar by then and he was attending school at Pherper Secondary school.

RUSSELL ALLY: You said that when you were given that cheque and the police found out about the cheque, Sergeant Mambele came to your house and he fired a shot near you and he hit you in the face and saying that people like Mr Simeon Nacombe who gave you the cheque, should be shot in public, is that correct, you've said that in your statement?

MR RADAMBA: What happened, when I received that cheque is that I go out of my people and help a certain teacher who was ill and help him to go back to his home.  When sitting at his home with his family members, I saw a boy coming and he told me that I am being called by someone there between Maqwarani and Tswitsebe.
 In arriving there, I found Mr Mambele Tshivhase and the Headmen Mr Netzizewe.  There they told me that we have heard that you have received a cheque and those are the things in which I was clapped and I was told if I was - he took out his gun and explaining that those people need to be brought in front of the people and be shot when people are looking, so that they must fear.
 And then he shot one bullet and faced it to the east.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr Radamba, if you could just help me with one thing please.  Just in your statement and in your testimony now, you said that when you were released from solitary 
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confinement, you were told that you had to report to the Headmen, Mr Injadiva.  Now this Headmen was visited in your statement regularly by police, you mention Mr Tshivhase who used to come there as well.  Now when you were speaking, I got the impression and maybe I am wrong, but if I am you can correct me, because you were also told to report there on a regular basis and that the policemen used to come to the Headmen's house, was there an accusation against you that you were also working for the police, was there ever that type of accusation against you, that you were an informer or a collaborator?

MR RADAMBA: On my side, by the way in which I was working is this, what is important is for me to go and report there that I am around.
 When they are seeing me it was good for them, because if I spent two days without going there, it is then that the Headmen used to take the information to Mr Thompson Tshivhase and then gave him that information and he take that information to the police.
 And the police, the other police like Mr Mambele will come there and come and fetch me and then they ask me if I am still recruiting that thing, because the Headmen is saying you are not around here, where were you, were you with your terrorists and by that I cannot see any way which could lead people into saying that I am working as a police spy.
 Because if I was working with them, they could not ask me if I am recruiting.

RUSSELL ALLY: In your testimony Mr Radamba, you are the second witness today who comes forward and speaks about solitary confinement.  As you say you were kept for 108 days and you
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also spoke about the impact it had on you.
 Especially on your mental health and I think that it is very important that the Commission hears these accounts of the horrors and evils of solitary confinement because at the end of the life of the Commission, we are going to have to report about what people experienced and particularly these harsher forms of detention.
 So thank you very much for your testimony.