Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

DAN MONTSISI: Ja.  I think the Commission was not fair because at that time we were in prison.  I might have been in Robben Island by the time they were actually investigating.  Nobody spoke to me.  The leadership of the SRC for instance they were outside.  They didn't come to the community structures which were set up as a result of June 16.  At that time we also took issues of the community because there was no civic organisation and there was no type of structure that would be able to attend to those type of problems.  There was a committee of ten for instance, the BPA, the committee did not come to verify with those people, so in a way it was very, very biased.  They actually wanted to come up with what they had perceived even before they started with the Commission, that the SRC was responsible and so on and so on.  I am not quite sure if at this stage I can proceed to torture in detention which has taken place.

YASMINE SOOKA: Hlengiwe Mkhize will deal with that part of your evidence.

MS MKHIZE: Okay can I ask you to bring the mike closer to you, it seems to me some of what you are saying is lost. Can SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
32 D MONTSISI
I ask you this one question that as student leaders at the time did you anticipate a violent reaction on the part of the security at all?  If you did anticipate that kind of reaction what precautions did you think of taking at the time?  I see here in your statement you do refer to what is regrettable to be the loss of life.

DAN MONTSISI: Ja it's unfortunate because the number of lives which were lost.  Like I said when we planned the demonstration in our small minds we never thought that it will be met with that type of violent confrontation by the police.  And I had earlier indicated that after we had demonstrated we were supposed to go back to school the following day and the precautions that we took obviously without expecting too much was just to indicate the peaceful intention of the demonstration and the fact that we would be marching at a certain route, not taking different routes because we wouldn't be able to control the students.  So there was a particular route which was fixed which every student had to follow.  That way we would be able to control the students.  And the display of placards for instance and so on and the fact that we passed two White people you know, there is this one that I mentioned.  Another one was driving a furniture van I think or something like that, I wasn't quite sure, but it was a company van, he passed across the demonstration and he drove to the area of Mafula and so on, so there was a van which was very, very clearly belonging to one private company in town, but it was not torched, it was just left.  So I think there is no way in which we can be able to explain the honest, peaceful intentions of this than to indicate that the destruction that took place later after this meeting had started, I mean actually propelled to
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
33 D MONTSISI
actually embark on that type of violence.

MS MKHIZE: Often there is concern about crowd violence, on your part as leadership did you at any one time think about the risks, potential risks in continuing with the mobilisation of highly, of emotionally charged young people who at the time were vulnerable, not using much of their cognitive abilities?

DAN MONTSISI: I understand, I mean youth will always be youth.  Youth in nature they are very vibrant, very active and probably even susceptible to temptation at times.  But I think with the experience that we had as student activists starting from the early 70's right up to 1976 we thought we could be able to embark on a demonstration which was going to be peaceful.
 And given the fact that quite a number of students who came out and parents who came out, to us it was just proof of our ability to organise and we were very happy that the demonstration finally took place because we were not quite sure whether all the schools had actually been informed, because we thought that some of the key schools like Meadowland and Madibane High School, which were not properly informed about the demonstration, but the fact that the demonstration did take place in 1976 we felt that we were quite successful and we were able to organise a proper march.  
 Now the only unfortunate thing like I say is the loss of life.  It becomes very difficult for instance, even up to this point in time for me to look at somebody who as a result of June 16 is condemned for life in a wheelchair.  It becomes very, very difficult.  But we understand that the whole intention was not to be violent, it was to be 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
34 D MONTSISI
peaceful.  We had a problem and that problem we wanted to actually, in a symbolic way, disclose it to everybody to see.

MS MKHIZE: One last question from me is that in your statement here you indicate that you were later on exposed to extreme forms of emotional and physical torture, I wonder whether, given your position now, you have given a thought to possible measures that need to be taken today to ensure that our security officers devise different modes of extracting information from people rather than the methods that you referred to here in your statement?