Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-05-10

MR DLAMINI: 21A/7 involved in the struggle.  He was very much active, but when he came back he was just very disturbed.  He used to stay at different people's places.  He wasn't working.  He didn't even have food.  Comrades would give him food here and he would sleep at different places from day to day, and he didn't have a home.  He used to come where I was living.  He would just stay for a short time.  He would say, "Sisi, I don't want you to be involved or implicated and I don't want them to destroy your home here.  So I will just come and visit you and not stay for a long time".  That's how he used to come and have short visits with me and eventually he got a job.  He worked for this trade union, but he was complaining about how he was working and I said to him, "Okay, since you want to fix things you also want to build your own home now, and our father is no more" - our father died in 1989 - he died on the 15th December.  Because he heard about the death of his wife, he just got a heart attack and a stroke and he became very sickly until he died.  While he was still working there, he had this girlfriend he was in love with.  They used to come together at my home and they didn't stay there, they would just visit me for a short while and go.  On the 20th January - it was a Saturday - there was a telephone in the morning, before half past seven.  This girl phoned.  She said, "There is terrible news.  Your brother is no more".  I just cried.  I didn't know what to do and I just put down the telephone.  I was very confused.  I didn't know.  Our father died and Nje after a month just died but now I was all on my own and I didn't even have money.  This girl phoned again.  She said, "What should we do?"  I said to her, "Let us meet in town.

MR DLAMINI: /"There's nothing

MR DLAMINI: 21A/9 "There's nothing I can do, because you are explaining to me that you were at a party at Thusini".  I might be mistaken, but I think it was at a party at the university when he tried to swim and he drowned and he died at King Edward Hospital.  So we must go and get his clothing where he was staying.  There are some houses in town, which I didn't know them well.  He was one of the people who was renting this house.  We went to get his clothings with this girl.  We came back home.  I made funeral arrangements and I went to report this at my company.  In my company I found that in my company that if your loved one has died there are some benefits that they give you - death benefits.  Yes, they made those arrangements and gave me some of those death benefits.  What we noticed when we went to the mortuary on Saturday.  We were too scared to look at him.  He died on Saturday.  We went to see him at the mortuary on Monday.  They brought him on a stretcher.  They said he got injured while he was swimming, but he was wearing a suit.  Even the shoelaces were tied.  I said, "But how could this person have been swimming?", but I kept quiet, because I had been harassed because of the struggle, but I wouldn't know what to do.  I don't know if these things were done through the death or through these companies that were complaining about him, because he was an active person.  I didn't tell anyone, this person, but I complained inwardly.  How could a person who was swimming be wearing a suit with shoes?  The second thing, the place he was at they said there were white people and there were even doctors, but I couldn't understand what kind of ... (inaudible) ... they could have given while he was wearing a suit.  I thought about

MR DLAMINI: /all these

MR DLAMINI: 21A/11 all these things, that something suspicious seemed to have happened in this party.  It would seem this party was the party that had been organized to kill him, because of how I saw him in the mortuary.  He was very tall, that he could drown in a swimming pool.  He was also a lifesaver.  He had training.  He wouldn't have drowned or sink in a swimming pool.  But I didn't say anything about these things.  I was just too scared.  I was too worried.  I didn't know who was the enemy and I realised that I was all on my own, if I tried to do a follow up on this and how safe could I be to follow up this matter.  When we were making arrangements to bury him I got a death certificate.  Here is the death certificate I've got.  There is a stamp.  The stamp says 1991 and 1993 in the first month.  While it was still being investigated but there were still some funeral arrangements.  I was surprised how they were going to continue with the investigation when we were burying this person, but I was too scared to raise this issue.  I just didn't want comrades to hear this.  They were very angry.  They were furious.  They were very upset.  They just couldn't understand how could Nje just die like that.  They had faith in him.  They were looking up to him.  He was their hero.  I just realised that at that stage I shouldn't raise all these issues.  I was also afraid for my life, because I didn't know what was the cause of his death.  I didn't understand if it was the company involved or other people were involved in his death.

MR DLAMINI: Do you know if a post-mortem was conducted and the inquest?

WITNESS:   Post-mortem - they removed him from King Edward because we had seen him.  They took him to the

MR DLAMINI: /Government Mortuary.

MR DLAMINI: 21A/13 Government Mortuary.  He stayed at the Government Mortuary and they said they were conducting a post-mortem.  After that I got this certificate, which I couldn't speak about it.  I just stayed with this certificate in this condition.  Another problematic thing to me, as a person who was with this girlfriend, they had been invited to this party.  Not that it came to us as a family and said, "Please let us organize and show you where Nje died".  Nobody organized that for me.  I don't even know where they said he sank, but even in his workplace they didn't come to us.  They didn't come to sympathise with us and pass their condolences.  I was just in the middle.  I really don't know how Nje died.  Again in this company, when we were making arrangements for getting his money they made a comment that I shouldn't get this money, because I was a married person - I was married before.  They said my other sister must get this money.  They said there was Nje's money which they'd taken to make funeral arrangements.  I said, "How could you have made funeral arrangements with the money that was due to him", anyway the company does if they bury him.  They said they saw that as a need for them to take this money.  And last year - this person died in 1991 - they deducted this money.  They gave this to my sister.  Now, I've got a problem, because all our parents are dead.  In 1992 I was retrenched.  They haven't fixed the graves of these people.  They said there have been lots of rains.  I didn't go to check their graves in that condition that they were in because I knew I didn't have money.  I couldn't fix them.

MR DLAMINI: Where is Bridget at the moment?

WITNESS:   I don't know

MR DLAMINI: /where is

MR DLAMINI: 21A/16 where is this Bridget, but I think she is somewhere in Durban.  She was a social worker.  It would seem it's the house that she's moved.  She's moved houses because when I tried to phone there there's nobody who takes the call.

MR DLAMINI: Bongikile, you have said you would like the Commission to assist to investigate how your brother and your mother died.  Is there an idea you could give us that who are people whom we could contact to start our investigation or certain steps we can take in this investigation?