Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1996-04-17

MR NTSEBEZA: I'd like you to, there are interpreters, sometimes you are speaking too fast, you make it difficult for them.

CHARITY KONDILE: Sorry.

MR NTSEBEZA: So if you don't mind I will try and pace and ask questions so that, you know.  So you went to Lesotho to enquire about Sizwe, what year was this?

CHARITY KONDILE: It was in 1981 after we had received information that he had been released, as they said at that time.

MR NTSEBEZA: Just tell us, who did you see when you got to Lesotho?

CHARITY KONDILE: When I came to Lesotho I went straight to the offices of the refugees where I met a certain gentleman, I forget his name, Mogele who, when I asked him in detail whether he knew Sizwe.  I asked him a lot or questions and they established that I was Sizwe's mother. Well then at the refugee offices, they asked that I should go back to his friends, that was on a Friday.

MR NTSEBEZA: Who asked you this?

CHARITY KONDILE: The official at the refugee office.

MR NTSEBEZA: They said you must go back to his friends, who were his friends ass you understood it.

CHARITY KONDILE: His friends like Vusenze, Mr Bikole here and all those friends when I had spent Christmas with them.  I had spent Christmas with Sizwe and his friends in December.

MR NTSEBEZA: Did you do that.
EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
7 C KONDILE

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes I did that.

MR NTSEBEZA: And?

CHARITY KONDILE: Well I must explain to this Commission that even on that day, when I greeted one of Sizwe's friends in the street, to my disappointment, this girl shouted at me and said that Sizwe had stolen their car.  I immediately realised that there was some trouble.  If I went to one friend where I was staying, a certain Dolly Mabusela, and immediately I came to Dolly's house, Dolly phoned some people and Dolly told me that these people were saying, some ANC officials were saying that I should get out of Maseru immediately.

MR NTSEBEZA: Why was this.  Did you establish?

CHARITY KONDILE: I didn't ask Dolly, she was afraid to talk, I don't know why.

MR NTSEBEZA: What did you do then afterwards.

MR NTSEBEZA: I went to sleep in my hotel and I phoned some girls from Port Elizabeth and I told them I was in Maseru, and they said I shouldn't sleep in the hotel, because at that time hotels were being bombed, so in the morning I had to go and look for them.  I stayed with Mantis O'William.

MR NTSEBEZA: And?

CHARITY KONDILE: While I was there, I was visited by the Tclemia Brothers who got to know that I was in Maseru, and I told them I'd come.  They told me that some officials of the ANC had said that I should not go to the refugee offices again.
 One other mission I had while I was in Maseru, was to fetch Sizwe's belongings, so I wanted to meet these people to get his clothes and his certificate.

MR NTSEBEZA: Did you establish why it was that these people EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
8 C KONDILE
didn't want you to go to the refugee camp?

CHARITY KONDILE: They told me that because of the confusion sown by the South African Police, amongst his colleagues now in Maseru, there was some doubt as to whether Sizwe had left Maseru on his own or whether it was true that he had been kidnapped.  There was some suspicion that he had turned traitor.  When I tried to reassure them that he had been kidnapped, they would not believe me.

MR NTSEBEZA: Are you saying, I don't know if I understand you well, correct me if I'm wrong.  Are you saying you established an impression that to some people in the ANC in Lesotho, Sizwe had not been kidnapped by the police.

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes that is correct.

MR NTSEBEZA: W#as it your impression that the view was that he had voluntarily left because he was working for the South African Police?

CHARITY KONDILE: That was the impression that had been sown in their minds by the South African Police.

MR NTSEBEZA: Is that what was communicated to you by word or deed?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: How did this affect you as a mother who had lost her son due to his disappearance?

CHARITY KONDILE: As I say I was very disappointed to learn that people who had been so friendly to my son about six months ago, should have turned against him so soon, and according to Mark Anthony, when he says, "Oh judgement that art fled to brutish and men that have lost their reason", that's a quotation I taught, that's it seems today when I'm so anguished, looking for him, these people would not
EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
9 C KONDILE
sympathise with me, they would still think that I was telling lies, they said I knew I was in the Transkei.

MR NTSEBEZA: Did they say that?

CHARITY KONDILE: Some of them said that.

MR NTSEBEZA: That you knew...(intervention)

CHARITY KONDILE: ..had gone to the Transkei.

MR NTSEBEZA: ...that he was not captured by the police?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes they said that if he had been captured, he should have been able to communicate with them inside jail.  And I asked them, "how is it possible for a man under such tight security", you understand when you have been kidnapped by police, how tight security can be. They said, "Well he knew how to communicate with us", and I asked them, "What do you do when one of you has been caught?"  They said, "We changed our strategies". But I said to them, "he has been caught, I'm telling you he has been caught, if you're suspecting he'll talk, I'm advising you that he has been caught".

MR NTSEBEZA: Now did you know that Comrade Chris Hani was in Lesotho at that stage?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes but when I had been to Lesotho in December, I never met him.

MR NTSEBEZA: So you were not able to meet him even in this occasion?

CHARITY KONDILE: As I say, while I was in Mandisa's house, we waited for the ANC, these ANC people to come.  They said they would come and visit me, but the whole weekend they said I must not go to...(indistinct), they would come to me.  But at the end, on Sunday evenning, the Clinea brothers came and said, "The ANC people are not coming to see you, they are saying you must go to the refugee offices and if you
EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
10 C KONDILE
want Sizwe's belongings, we don't want a woman, a man must come alone." and I think they meant his father.  This is the message I got, I never met the ANC people.

MR NTSEBEZA: In short, did you return without having met anyone?

CHARITY KONDILE: No except the refugee office officials and the Clinea brothers and what surprised me, each time these young men came to me, they were crying, the Clinea brothers. I didn't know why they were crying.

MR NTSEBEZA: Right, now when was it that you read later on an article in the New Nation.

CHARITY KONDILE: I went to Port Elizabeth and reported everything that I have just related to Mr Kondile.  I must say he was very bitter and he is still very bitter about it, the way he was harassed.  Any way, I went back ...(intervention).

MR NTSEBEZA: Is that the reason that he has not come?

CHARITY KONDILE: I don't know, when I asked him he said, he was never there when Sizwe was kidnapped, he feels he, I don't know why he's not here, but he said he's got nothing to witness.  he is a depressed man about all this matter.

MR NTSEBEZA: Yes.  Now you said when you read the New Nation article, that was in February 1990, was it?

CHARITY KONDILE: Yes about now nine years after he had been to Lesotho, but in between there had been the hearings in the Harms Commission, where Dirk Coetzee testified and the lady on my right will give a testimony.  She has also got her affidavits in front of you there, as how Sizwe was captured, she's the one who will relate how she thinks Sizwe was captured.  I'm not sure if I'm communicating correctly.

MR NTSEBEZA: Ja...(intervention)
EAST LONDON  HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
11 C KONDILE