Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-05-07

WITNESS:   On the day he died I wasn't at home, I was in Diepkloof.  I was in Johannesburg in Diepkloof.  Other people heard it on the news as one of the persons I spoke to, Mrs Mgoma, who heard it on the news.  I got a telephone from Zanele telling me that Pro was chased by police the previous day, and on the following day.  Zanele didn't tell me, she just said they were being chased by police.  When I arrived home I had already heard on the radio news.  I asked my cousin to speak ... (inaudible - end of Side B, Tape 2) ... I found Thabile, who was in the house.  And on the following day he was taken and brought to Durban so that we could examine his body.  In his body - when Pro died it means he was put at the back of his car.  We do not know if he was put at the back of his car while he was still alive, or maybe he was dead.  It was at the back seat of his car where he was burned.

MR DLAMINI: Take your time, Mama Sibankhulu.  Would she give you some water.

WITNESS:   Thank you.  We went to mortuary, where we found that his body was burned.  It was only the head that had remained, and the torso, the upper body up until the beginning of the lower legs - of the upper legs.  That was the body we found.  The eyes had bursted, he didn't have arms, he also didn't have the lower limbs.  We went back at Anville, which was our senior home.  We went to Anville, where we made arrangements for the burial.

MR DLAMINI: Don't rush yourself, take your time.

WITNESS:   The police arrived.  the police said to us they have come to get statements from us.  I asked from the police - at the first thing when they arrived they went straight to the car.  They didn't ask any permission from us if they could examine the car.  My family asked them where did they get permission to go and check in the car.  From there they came to me in the house and said they were asking if they could examine the car so that they could gather evidence.  What I asked from them, I said, "This person it's already a week since he died and you didn't come, you didn't come

MR DLAMINI: /"to gather

MR DLAMINI: ""to gather any evidence.  On the second week you are only coming now to say you are coming to gather evidence.  Why don't you go to the person who phoned the radio and gave all the full names and the information that a person had died?  That is the person who has got information who killed Pro."  They said, "That is the reason we have come here."  Since they gathered that evidence and went away with it they never came back to me to tell me what did they find, what evidence did they get there.

MR DLAMINI: Have you related all your story?

WITNESS:   Pro was harassed while he was still alive.  He was harassed by Inkatha until he was arrested.  While there was still a state of emergency he was arrested, but they were not satisfied that he had been arrested.  Up until the previous day he had been chased by the police with his sister, and on the following day Pro was no more.  What I would really like to know, what he had done to who?  Because I became suspicious that there are senior members who had planned that Pro should be killed, because Pro was the chairman of ANC and he was in a higher position within ANC.  So I became suspicious that it was planned that Pro must be killed.

MR DLAMINI: Maybe we will come back to the questions, because some of the questions might be answered once all the others have related their story.

MR DLAMINI: Thabile, we believe that you are the one who went into the car and saw the body, and you saw that it was your brother's body.  Could you relate this to this Commission that what did you find out when you went to look?

WITNESS:   The first thing I found the car that had been completely burnt.  Fortunately there was some remains of the paint which showed to me that it was Pro's car.  When we got closer inside I found the body lying at the back seat of the car.  That was lying upside-down on his stomach.  His head was put near the petrol tank to make sure that he would be burnt completely.  His body was lying on the seat at the back seat of the car.  What really surprised me was that my brother, as tall as he was, he wouldn't have been able to fit completely at the back seat.  I didn't touch the body after that, but when they turned the body over we did see that even if it wasn't easy to recognise him, but when they've turned the body over to check if there was any remains underneath we found that there's no flesh left.  But how we managed to recognise that he was ours it was the structure, the bones of his face.  What had remained, the head bones, the front head bones and the neck, right down towards the neck and the stomach up until the waist bones.  The arms there was nothing.  There wasn't even a sign whether they had been burnt until the bones remained.  The lower body also wasn't there.  That could indicate to us that even if the legs are burnt there were bones or even the ashes that were the remains.  Near us, where the car was found, there was a group of KwaZulu Police, who when they saw us started towards us.  They laughed aloud.  They didn't even car about us.  After that we left and went back.  We left our brother lying there.  From there we prepared ourselves to tell Mama, because she wasn't at home.  Because I was also at work I made preparations to go and report at my work that this had happened.  When we were already at home there was no police who came to tell us about this occurrence, but when people started coming to see they said they had heard on the 7 o'clock news that Pro was found burnt.  What really surprised us is that at about seven we had not yet known, we were still looking for him.   Please give her some water.   ---   We were really surprised at home.  Who was this person who - how does this person who had issued the news on the radio that it was Pro who had died in the car, because it was even very difficult for us as the family, as sisters, to identify him and recognise him when he was burnt.  What also appeared to us is that the person who ran to radio to listen and to report to the news at radio, what was his intention, because this person had not told us, but he told the whole world what had happened?  Another thing that appeared to us, we were expecting that the police would come and officially tell us about this thing that had happened, but the police didn't come to us.  They only came late at around three in the afternoon.  There were only two policemen, senior police from the KwaZulu Police.  When they came in the afternoon nobody realised that because we had already gotten to know this news in the morning, and also from the radio.

MR DLAMINI: Do you know who took this news to the radio?

WITNESS:  It would seem like it was the police who phoned the radio station, but I haven't got all the information as to which policeman did this, but it could be the Madadeni Police Station, but we thought they were people from the Madadeni Police Station, because that is our local police station.

MR DLAMINI: Thank you, Thabile.  Do you still have any further information?

MR DLAMINI:  Zanele, there are other things that happened before your brother met this fate.  Could you relate all those things that happened?