Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-02

MR MALAN: Thank you very much.  I am sure you would not mind being available to us for some time.  I am sure most of us will have some questions to you.  May I start off with the last statement that you made that the conflict was not between the Ndebele and Northern Sotho, but that it was the Imbokhoto that attacked the Northern Sothos in Moutse.  Is that statement not, perhaps, I am asking you, a little simplistic to the extent that they did experience some conflict at that level.  Are we totally excluding also the origin and the cultural origin of Imbokhoto when we say that?  Could I rephrase the question.

UNKNOWN: Do not make it long.

MR MALAN: The message.  That is what I now want to do.  I am sure I made it too long.  The message I got from you was
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this was only political and it was only pro or anti-incorporation independence.  Are you sure that is the only frame and that it was Imbokhoto on the one side and the rest on the other side.

UNKNOWN: I will try to answer your question if I understood you well.  I will answer the question.  For us to say it was not a fight between the Northern Sothos and the Ndebeles and to say it was a fight between the Ndebeles and the Moutse people, it is because even among the Ndebele people there were those Ndebeles who were opposed to independence, who were against incorporation of Moutse.  That is why I would say not all Ndebeles were fighting the Ndebele people.  Even within KwaNdebele homeland, some were resisting the independence itself.

MR MALAN: Thank you.  The statement that you made according to the statement was presented to Mr Derek Nielsen.  Now some of the content is history which, surely, you as a relatively young man would not have experienced first-hand.  In other words it represents some research or oral history.  Is that correct?

UNKNOWN: I believe that next to me, an old man is sitting next to me.  Some of the old things, we got them from this old man.  That is why I am bringing him along so that if I have a problem, he will be able to help me.

MR MALAN: Thank you.  We will certainly consider that when we get to the older era.  Can you tell me at what stage can you first-hand recall, from your experience, the conflict?  Which years more or less or which incidence or which phases?

UNKNOWN: Let me say when they began to remove Moutse to annex it to KwaNdebele.  That is the act which I saw it myself.  I was there, even the meetings which were held, I
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was there.  Even those attacks by Imbokhoto, I was there myself.

MR MALAN: So are you talking, when you say the attacks of the Imbokhoto you were there yourself.  You were here this morning when Mr, what was his name, Simon Mahlangu, is it.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Kedu.

MR MALAN: Kedu Simon Mahlangu gave evidence.  Do you recall that he referred to an attack on Imbokhoto people prior to the Siyabuswa incident?

UNKNOWN: If you are careful, if he was testifying, I was not there, but I believe that what he said was not true.

MR MALAN: You believe it is not true.

UNKNOWN: I do not believe it is not true, I know it is not true.  It is a naked lie.  He himself, knew that they were responsible to attack first the people of Moutse.

MR MALAN: We may have to get him back because he referred to some killings four days before the incident and I am sure if it is lie, it will show itself up.  If it is not, we may not be able to find the bodies, but we may find the records.  We will have to check on that.
 In your statement the inference that you make is that when Mr Heunis, I think, announced the incorporation.  No, no sorry.  You say that, where was that, somewhere you say on the same night, yes.  After Mr Heunis' proclamation R227, say that same night vigilante groups moved in.  Are you saying that was an organised thing, co-ordinated with Heunis' announcement?

UNKNOWN: You may know that the Central Government was forcing this incorporation.  This shows that before Chris Heunis made that announcement he did connive with the KwaNdebele Government that on that day I am going to
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announce this and they themselves knowing that we the Moutse people are against that.  They would anticipate that there will be a resistance therefore they formed themselves, they mobilised themselves so that they should harass these people that they have power so that we should not resist the incorporation.

MR MALAN: Thank you.  The incident at the Siyabuswa Community Hall where these youngsters were beaten and where you say here Skosana and Piet Ntolie were leading the beatings.  The question in my mind which I want some expansion on.  Maybe you can help us is whether that style of beating had any semblance in the Royal tradition or Royal kraal tradition or other tradition?  Was this something that was more or less known happened before?

UNKNOWN: In our culture, in African culture if a person is beaten, he is beaten if he has been taken to the Royal court where he is prosecuted and be given to given his own side of the story.  If he is found guilty it is then that he is beaten.  Not old men were beaten.  Only young people were beaten and firstly you ask themselves that if they took this old man in Siyabuswa Hall and making this old man to undress.  What does it show in the mind of a person?  What did they do.  Just because they denied to be incorporated.

MR MALAN: Just a further question.  You say also that that occasion, you statement is, a further revelation, was that even that the KwaNdebele police were present and provided security and escort for the vigilante.  Are those the people at the beating that you are talking about or the people going in that night?

UNKNOWN: This old man is disturbing by keep on saying MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
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uhm, so you will pardon me.  That is so.  When Imbokhoto was attacking the Hippos would come first.  They would confuse people.  Then when people were confused and people are in the houses then Imbokhoto would come with pick handles because you have seen the guns of these police and we are now confused from that they will stay at the periphery of the situation.  Imbokhoto continued to do their atrocities.

MR MALAN: So in your mind you have no doubt that was a collating between Imbokhoto and the KwaNdebele police?  Collusion, they were one and the same team?  You have no doubt in your mind about that?

UNKNOWN: To show that I have no doubt.  In one of the incidents where they went house to house at four o' clock, early in the morning at Ntwanye, I myself, I was arrested that night and people who took me were Imbokhoto people.  Only to find that when we were assembled at the ground, we were taken to police cars.  We were taken by Imbokhoto people from our houses.  That is a good example which shows that these people were conniving in their acts.

MR MALAN: May I take you a little further back in history and, maybe as you say, the old man may respond.  This relates to the incorporation and the exchange of land Mkwansalesloot.  Our research showed that a lot of people, indeed, did move and did move voluntarily because they did not want to stay under the authority of the KwaNdebele Government.  Can you confirm that or give a perspective on that?