Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-12-02

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: On that day there had been a lot of violence, there were Security Force soldiers and they were travelling in about 15 vehicles in Ixopo.
	The IFP was actually busy stabbing people.  There is one boy from Hlungelwa family who was caught by the soldiers, and he was stabbed.
	The soldiers were actually not protecting ANC members.  They might as well not have been present.  Such a person called Dindelwa Poswa was caught and they removed his jacket.  The soldiers were actually not performing their duties.  
	The Ixopo area had been demarcated into two, there was an IFP rank and shops and also ANC rank and shops in the (indistinct) area.  On that day, we were actually walking around.  I wanted to go to my sister's house, it was around two o'clock in the afternoon.
	My sister resided in a shack settlement in Ixopo.  On my way when I was just about to cross the main road outside the Ixopo area, I met two or three girls and they were walking very briskly and I enquired what was going on.
	They said they are not sure what is going on, but somebody must be dead at a certain spot where a van was parked.   On that day I had an AK47, which I had exchanged with that pistol which I had removed from the coloured man.
	I had on a long coat and before I approached the spot, I was about 100 meters away from the spot, I removed the AK47 from the safe and put it on the ground and I covered it with a cardboard box.  It was just alongside the road.
	I put the AK about the distance that is from my table to the Committee's table, that is the distance between the AK and the road.

CHAIRPERSON: So you are saying the table where Mr Wills is sitting, that distance?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: Where the Committee is sitting.

CHAIRPERSON: Where we are sitting?  That is about six paces?

MR WILLS: Yes, I accept that.

MR SIBANYONI: The question was, is the distance you are estimating from you are sitting to where your attorney is sitting?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: No.

CHAIRPERSON: The distance that the gun was from the road?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: Let me explain it, I left the main road and the distance where I was from the main road, would be from here to the shops outside.
	I actually approached, or I was approaching the spot where the van was parked.  On that road where I was travelling, I removed the AK and I just put it next to that foot path and I actually covered it with a cardboard box and I continued on my way.
	I actually met, when I arrived there, there were four policemen and I asked them what was going on because the van's siren was on.  I thought that maybe one of the ANC members had been injured or killed, and I would have to contact that victim's family to inform them or assist them.
	The policemen said nothing had happened.  I then proceeded to leave.  There was a group of IFP people, there may have been more than 30 and they were calling out at me.  They were actually whistling at me.  I actually told the police that these people were calling me and they said I should actually get into the van and they would actually take me to the ANC rank.
	I told them that I was actually going to my sister's house, and they said the were leaving.   I then went on my way.  As I was walking, a distance from about there to the road, I just saw people running after me, a group of people running after me.  I then thought that these people are armed because I would sometimes see them armed with assegai's and the likes.
	I then thought that I would run away and hide, because there was a long grass, along there.  I ran very fast and when I actually passed on that spot where I had hidden my AK, I picked it up and they were very close to me.  I then turned and asked them what was going on.  They just stopped.
	I asked again what is going on and there was this one person near the foot path, and I asked him again and he was proceeding towards me with an assegai.
	I asked for three times, for about three times what was going on and when I asked for the third time, I cocked the AK47 and he proceeded towards me.  I realised that he was actually wanting to stab me and I shot him.
	I realised that he was dead because he just fell.  I had actually shot him on the head.  The rest then fled and I didn't fire the gun again.  I also ran away.

MR WILLS: In respect of all the incidents that you have mentioned, you have never been prosecuted or arrested and questioned apart from your processes with the Truth Commission?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: No, I have never been prosecuted.

MR WILLS: Thank you Mr Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR WILLS

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Wills.  Ms Thabete, do you have any questions to ask Mr Dlamini?

MS THABETE: Yes Mr Chairman.  If Mr Chair would bear with me, Mr Dlamini, you say you were appointed, were you appointed or elected as a leader of the SDU's?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: I was elected by the people from the area.

MS THABETE: Did you undertake any training of any sort in handling or the use of firearms?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: No.  When I grew up I used to actually have a...

MS THABETE: So you learned to use a firearm through your experience, you were never trained?

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, he was saying when he grew up?

MR LAX: Sorry, we didn't hear the rest of the translation, it didn't finish.  If you wouldn't mind repeating it please.
	He said when he grew up, and then it just went dead after that.

INTERPRETER: I beg your pardon, he said he had been using a firearm to shoot birds.

MS THABETE: What evidence did you have or how did you know that the people who were stealing cattle, were IFP members and not criminals?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: This they would do in broad daylight, when we would see them.  Because we did not have firearms, we were actually afraid or scared to follow or apprehend them.

MS THABETE: Regarding the first incident at Mazabkweni, you say you never saw the bodies, but you heard from the radio that there were three people who were killed, is that correct?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: Yes.

MS THABETE: After you had heard from the radio that there were three people killed, didn't you ask Pat whether he killed them?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: I asked him.

MS THABETE: What did he say?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: He actually told me after a while, because where he came from, Donnybrook is far from where I stay, he told me that he had actually caught up with them.
	And from the way he said it, I realised that they had actually killed them, because he just laughed.  They would have not have chased them for nothing because even if I had caught up with them, I would have killed them too.

MS THABETE: I am a bit confused, I thought you said in your evidence earlier on, he did not say whether he killed them or not, and you did not ask at that time.  So you are saying you asked later on, after you had heard from the radio and he laughed, so you assumed that he had killed them, is that correct?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: When he returned from that area, he did not tell me that he had killed them.  I actually heard on the radio the following day and I also saw him later on and I asked him how their mission had gone.

MS THABETE: Regarding the third incident, you say that you later found, you didn't know who the victim was, but you later found out that he was from the Sithole family?  My question to you is when did you find out and how did you find out that he was from the Sithole family?

THULASIZWE RAPHAEL DLAMINI: Although I do not remember exactly, I once worked at the Ixopo rank, as a Rank Manager.   We would sometimes discuss about the past, just what the violence was like in the area.
	I don't remember who said it, but somebody mentioned that a person was from the Sithole family and he also said that he also played for a team owned by Bongeni Mzizi.