Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-09-10

VUYISILE MKETSU: It is a roll call, kept by the Treasurer and the issuing of cards, and also the Secretary of the Branch who had the roll call.  That is the list of new members.
	This data base word is new to me, I don't know its meaning.

MR FORTUIN: If the data base was established in 1992, would you have known about it?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I am very unclear about the word data base, to me it is very new.  I do not know what it means.

MR FORTUIN: Do you know when the Task Force of the PAC was established?

CHAIRPERSON: Where?

MR FORTUIN: When?

CHAIRPERSON: Where?

VUYISILE MKETSU: No, I do not know much about, I don't know anything about the Task Force.

MR FORTUIN: In the Western Cape I meant Mr Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR FORTUIN: The conflict of 1991, can you explain to the Commission what the conflict of 1991 in Crossroads was all about?  What was the reason for the conflict?

VUYISILE MKETSU: It was houses that Mr Nongwe was attacking.  He was the person who led people to attack houses to prevent people from going into those houses and using them as their own, that is occupying, as new occupiers of those houses, that was Mr Nongwe.

MR FORTUIN: Was that also the case in 1992, 1993 and onwards?

VUYISILE MKETSU: It was the same, or the similar problem.

MR FORTUIN: Do you know whether the PAC blamed gangsters for the attacks on the people in Crossroads?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I don't know anything about gangsters.  What I knew was that everybody who occupied a house at that place, was being attacked, regardless so that they could be driven out.  It was Mr Nongwe who did that.

MR FORTUIN: When an attack occurred in Unati, who did the people suspect as being the perpetrators of the deed?

VUYISILE MKETSU: The suspicions of the people was that the attack at Unati must have been planned and executed from Section 4, that was what people believed.

MR FORTUIN: The house of Mr Elese that was attacked in 1993, could we assume that the people also were under the impression that it was done by Mr Nongwe or the squatters in Crossroads?

VUYISILE MKETSU: People thought it was Mr Nongwe who initiated the attack or who instructed people to go and attack that house, and those who he led.

MR FORTUIN: Do you know whether a person by the name of Tinage is a member of the PAC?

CHAIRPERSON: Well, first of all does he know whether there is a person by that name?

MR FORTUIN: Excuse me Mr Chairperson.  Do you know a person by the name of Tinage?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I only hear about the name Tinage, but I cannot point that person out.  I only hear about a person called Tinage, but my knowing Tinage, I take it that he is a taxi driver, he is a person who drives taxi's, but I won't be able to point him out.
	In the PAC, no, I never heard of a person like that.

MR FORTUIN: Do you know whether Mr Victor Sam was a member of the PAC?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I know it is so that he was a member of the PAC from 1974.  I heard from them that he was a PAC member.  We used to hold meetings with him, general meetings.  He was not usually there, even when we went for elections, he was there.

MR FORTUIN: Can I just repeat.  Did you say that Mr Victor Sam became a member in 1974 or 1994?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I am sorry in 1994.

MR FORTUIN: Do you know whether Mr Victor Sam is still a member of the PAC?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I know that he is no more a member of the PAC.  I now know that he has joined the UDM, that is what I heard.  I have never met him, but that is what I got to know.

MR FORTUIN: Do you know these attacks that took place in 1991 and 1993, if these attacks were ever reported to the Police?

VUYISILE MKETSU: What happened was that meetings, community meetings were held, Policemen were not involved.  People would sit down as the community to discuss as to what must be done as a community, as to how they can defend themselves.  That is all.

MR FORTUIN: Just lastly, Mr Mketsu, do you know if there was any talk or rumours of gangsters attacking the PAC in 1991, 1992, 1993 for that three years?

VUYISILE MKETSU: No, I never heard such rumours about gangsters, that gangsters were attacking PAC members.  I never got to hear about such a thing.
	I did not hear anything like that.

MR FORTUIN: I've got no further questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR FORTUIN

CHAIRPERSON: Are you still a member of the PAC?

VUYISILE MKETSU: No.  I left them in 1996.

CHAIRPERSON: Ms Goso?

DR TSOTSI: To what Organisation do you belong now?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I joined the ANC at the community, I am a Chairman of the Unit SANCO at Unati, SANCO Unit.

DR TSOTSI: When did you join the ANC?

VUYISILE MKETSU: Then, 1996.  When I left the PAC, what happened that I left the PAC, I was at the rural areas at home, Emacoseni, I saw that I as the Deputy Chairperson of the PAC, I was elected as the vice and Goco was a Chairman and when we got the report, what made me to leave the PAC, it was RDP that was elected.
	I was at the funeral, at my father's funeral at home and when I came back, I heard those news.  I told them that I agree with the decision about development, that development in Crossroads should go on just like in other places.
	That actually caused a misunderstanding between myself and the members, and what actually, the thing that made me to be unsatisfied is because Mr Nongwe is not the member of the PAC, but he was there.  At the meeting I asked why was Mr Nongwe there, because he was not a member of PAC, then other members of the PAC disagreed with me.
	Mr Nongwe ordered me to go out.  I left.  That is what made me to leave PAC as an Organisation.  PAC was not for development.

CHAIRPERSON: All right, right now we are concerned with other issues.  Can you proceed?

MS GOSO: Thank you Mr Chairperson.  Mr Mketsu, you have proved yourself not to be, not to have been a loyal member of the PAC, haven't you?

CHAIRPERSON: He showed you the reason for his disagreement with the PAC, if that makes him disloyal, he has a difference of opinion.

MS GOSO: Can I rephrase Mr Chair?

CHAIRPERSON: Please do.

MS GOSO: Mr Mketsu, you are the sort of member who when you do not agree with policy, would break away from the Organisation, aren't you?

ADV SANDI: Yes, but with due respect ...

VUYISILE MKETSU: I am not that type of a member, I sat down, I called three meetings, trying to discuss with the members of the PAC.  Three times, discussing with the members of PAC because we would go to Site C and Langa and the PAC members in Langa and Site C and Harare, we used to visit them.
	We would find them meeting, talking the same language, speaking the same language about dissatisfaction.  I sat in about three meetings with the PAC members.

MS GOSO: And therefore Mr Mketsu, you are not happy with what the PAC did to you, isn't it?

VUYISILE MKETSU: I was not satisfied by what the PAC Branch did.

MS GOSO: Here you were, you had dedicated so much time of your life, and here they are, they do not allow you to go and join the RDP, and that made you feel disgruntled, isn't it?

VUYISILE MKETSU: Yes, that is correct.  Certainly.

MS GOSO: And in fact, you went and you aired your disgruntlement on air, is that not so?

VUYISILE MKETSU: Where?

MS GOSO: You spoke on air about your unhappiness about the decision of the PAC not to allow you to go and sit at the RDP, isn't it, on radio?

VUYISILE MKETSU: Are you talking about myself, yes, I did that.  But I started, I didn't go straight to the radio, I started discussing the matter with the PAC members.

MS GOSO: In fact, these people so much made you angry, they suspended you, didn't they?