Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-06-23

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: I do agree that at time Mr Mkhize had resigned and yes it's true that he will come to us and tell us not to fight but I personally, I used to ask myself what he meant if he was saying to us we should stop fighting when we were watching people dying in front of us and I thought that I cannot stand looking at these people killing for instance my mother or himself, I didn't want them to go to that extent.  Yes he will come to us and tell us not to fight but after a day he told us not to fight, we will hear that someone has been killed and we are there sitting doing nothing.  Yes, Mr Mkhize never told me personally that I must take a gun and go and shoot someone.  I made that decision alone, I made this because of what I felt inside and because of what I saw, the situation was bad and I thought that maybe one day my mother was going to be killed in that way or in that manner.

MS THABETHE: When you say you made that decision yourself to fight the enemy, did you make it yourself as Mr Mngomezulu or did you have any kind of meeting with anybody else or with the ANC, other people of the ANC, did you have any meetings discussing what was happening in the area and how you were going to deal with it?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: What I can say is that the community in the area was tired of this fight but no one came to us as a group of ANC boys and said we must go and kill but we decided on our own that we were not going to give up and this happened after we fought IFP and there was no time to hold meetings at that time because of the situation in the township, there was no control at all and those people used to come maybe three times a day looking for you and they will tell everyone they meet on the streets that they are looking for so and so and even with Mr Mkhize they did tell people that they were looking for Mr Mkhize first to kill him.

MS THABETHE: Madame Chair ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: What you are basically saying Mr Mngomezulu is that inasmuch as the wishes of your local leadership and that would be the leadership under the chairmanship of Mr Mkhize whilst he was there before he resigned inasmuch as it was their wish that you should not engage in any kind of attacks whatsoever with the Amabumvu members.  You as the membership of at grassroots level, you say the heat was just too great for you to leave things as they were and not to engage in such attacks and that you as the membership at grassroots level, you acted on your own against the wishes of the local leadership in your organisation?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: Yes, that's basically what I'm saying.  No one made this decision for me, I saw the way things were happening in the area and I decided that rather than running away it's better to die if it's your turn to die.  As I've already mentioned that I was attacked by a bomb and I was asleep in the house.  My mother wasn't safe, everything near wasn't safe in that township.

MS THABETHE: No further questions Madame Chair, thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS THABETHE

ADV DE JAGER: At the beginning you told us that you killed this man in self defence because he approached you and you killed him because you feared for your life.  Is that right?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: Yes that is right.

ADV DE JAGER: So you took the decision to kill him on the spur of the moment there when he came towards you, isn't that right?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: That's right.

ADV DE JAGER: Or did you plan long before to kill him?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: As I have said before that I never had any personal confrontation with Chris Phewa, this was a decision which I'd taken then and there.

ADV DE JAGER: So you didn't sit down and say this man is my political enemy, he's working against my party, I'm going to kill him?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: The way the situation was, so tense, there was no time to sit down and think that whoever is going to come and attack so and so, there was no time for that.  We were scared we were going to lose our lives and I decided there and then that if I were to let him go he was going to kill me.

CHAIRPERSON: I would like to understand you clearly on this point.  Are you saying that had you not been confronted by Phewa about the death of his father you would not have killed him even though he was a member of Amabumvu and you had running battles with Amabumvu members?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: Yes I will agree and I would support my answer.  When I killed Mr Phewa junior it was because of the situation in the township.  Even if it wasn't him but if it was someone from his group I was going to do the same, I was going to take the same decision.  For anyone of who would come and approach me who was from the Amabumvu I was still hurt at that time, they had killed the school principal, the uncle of my friend and they had attacked my house with a bomb.  That's when I realised or I decided that if I don't use a slightest chance that I get then they will come after me.

CHAIRPERSON: Let me make a follow up to that question.  Are you suggesting to this Committee that you had made a conscious decision to kill members of Amabumvu because of the political situation at Wembesi at the time of Mr Phewa's killing?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: I'd like to clarify one thing to this Commission, I wasn't going to take a decision to kill my brothers because they were my brothers but the only problem came when they used the name of the SACP wrongly.  I know what SACP means to me.

CHAIRPERSON: May I interrupt you.  My simple question is and please listen carefully to what I'm saying.  Had you taken a conscious decision to kill any member of Amabumvu at the time when Mr Phewa was killed.  Had you as Mr Mngomezulu, being a member of the ANC, taken a decision to kill any member of the Amabumvu.

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Now if that is not so, how could Mr Phewa - how could you have killed Mr Phewa simply because he was a member of Amabumvu which is what you have just stated prior to my second question?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: I had already explained to this Commission that when he approached me at the taxi rank he said some insulting words to me and at that time I had already heard that in the morning they had shot the uncle of my friend and two or three days ago they had killed a school principal.  At that time I was still bleeding inside my heart.  It wasn't easy for me to be not scared or wanted to react there and then when he approached me.  I did this in a split second, that's why I'm here to apologise.

CHAIRPERSON: Had he not confronted you about the death of his father would you have still killed him bearing in mind the many events that you have now just evinced to, that had happened to you and your relatives?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: No I wasn't.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.   Ms Moodley, do you have any re-examination emanating from the questions from the bench as well as from Ms Thabethe?

MS MOODLEY: Yes your Honourable Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: You may proceed to do so.

MS MOODLEY: Mr Mngomezulu, my learned colleague asked the question to which you replied that you did not view Christopher Phewa as your opponent, political opponent, would you like to clarify that response that you gave considering the full affidavit and the facts in the affidavit that you deposed to and handed to this commission?
Is there anything that you would like to add to that?

HAPPY AUBREY MNGOMEZULU: Yes I will add something.  I saw Chris as a political opponent after he joined the Amabumvu and his father was the person who was on the forefront of Amabumvu.  He had a position on that organisation.  I knew Chris before the Amabumvu was formed and if Amabumvu was not formed I am certain that I wouldn't have done what I've done in 1994 but because of the situation between the Amabumvu and ourselves it led me to be in prison today.  Thank you.