Amnesty Hearings — Tzaneen — 1999-05-04

SISI KHAMPEPE: I don't know whether you understand my question.  My question is why should you ascribe the assaults that you committed on the victims as being minor when you yourself must have know that these were serious assaults?

MR RAMALIGELA: Well, somehow you know, maybe it is also because personally these people were really frightened of us and they couldn't really tell us exactly where they were hurt.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Didn't you see blood flowing from some of the victims during the assault on them by amongst others yourself?  In the case of Mr Farisani was he not hurt to an extent that he had to be taken to hospital, wasn't that information within your knowledge at the time when you completed this application form?

MR RAMALIGELA: Well, I at the time when I was filling in my application form I had forgotten, but now it came to my mind again when I was filling in this form, no there was not much I didn't have a representative who was guiding me as to how serious the case was.  Up to the time when I got this representative who is currently here who explained to us that now this is how things work.  Well, I am just an ordinary person who was not quite aware as to how many, how things are done.

SISI KHAMPEPE: The statement that appears on page 64, paragraph 42, where you say 'I can safely say that no person was ever seriously assaulted, no person ever had serious wounds inflicted or even needed medical treatment.  Wasn't that statement told to the attorney who subsequently prepared this document?

MR RAMALIGELA: Well, some of these things were taken before the legal representative.  This application was done before our knowledge of the legal representative.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Was this not prepared by a lawyer?  What I am reading to you, was this not prepared by a lawyer?

MR RAMALIGELA: Well, after we had written these things before we got somebody to guide us and our legal representative wrote these things, anyway it is true that he is the one who wrote these things.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Yes, you were therefor legally assisted.  Is it not so?  That is why the state is paying for your legal representation so that you can be able to comply with the requirements of the act.  You went on if you check, paragraph 49, you say 'I respectfully submit that none of the assaults were at all serious.'  Now you are not speculating here, you are saying this as a fact as something that you know, that you remembered quite well.  As mentioned before you proceed in paragraph 44, 'there was never any blood, serious injuries or necessity to receive medical treatment.  I respectfully submit that there was no gross violation of human right'. Did you not say this?  Are you saying your attorney put something that you never instructed him to put in your application form?  This is a supplementary affidavit that was prepared by your attorney, Mr Ramaligela.  You can't say that you were not legally advised.  By this time when you completed this supplementary affidavit when you deposed to the supplementary affidavit, you had the benefit of a lawyer.

MR RAMALIGELA: It is true, there was legal help. I admit that some of the things that I mentioned here were not enough that is why I am able to commit myself and also to correct what is written here, that it is not actually true, I am just trying to add on what happened subsequently as I did explain today.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Why did you not say that people received medical attention if something that was within you at the time when you consulted with your lawyer?

MR RAMALIGELA: Let's say that Chairperson, well it could have just come to my attention at the time, however what I am explaining today is exactly what I did.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You are not responding to my question.  At the time when you completed this application form, at the time when you deposed to this documentary affidavit, you must have been told that the condition of being granted amnesty is full disclosure.

MR RAMALIGELA: Yes, I was told about that.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You had a time to reflect on what you had completed when you previously completed your written application form, which appears on the previous pages.  Am I correct in assuming that?  You completed this on the 9th of November 1996.  Subsequently, your attorney's caused a supplementary affidavit, a supplementary affidavit to be completed, on your behalf.  As a result let me remind you, as a result of enquiries that came from our office they requested for further particulars.

MR RAMALIGELA: Yes.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Now why did you then lie and say there was never any blood, nor serious injuries that necessitated medical treatment when you must have know then that people who were tortured by you did suffer serious injuries, that people who were tortured by you, ultimately had to go for medical treatment?

MR RAMALIGELA: I admit that I didn't write these things and also my attorney told us that we should speak the truth.  As a person I do realise that it is wrong, I shouldn't have said the way I said it and I do understand, Chairperson, that what I am explaining now is, with regard to the statement I did a serious omission, did make a serious omission.

SISI KHAMPEPE: In your having to lie to your lawyer.

MR RAMALIGELA: Well, perhaps I don't understand exactly what you, I am not saying I did lie, maybe it was just a serious omission somehow.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You may proceed Mr Meyer.

MR MEYER: Is it correct Mr Ramaligela that after you had deposed to this affidavit, signed in December 1997, if I am correct, did you have further consultations with your legal representative and your co-applicants?

MR RAMALIGELA: Yes I do consult with the person who is next to me.  In the first incidence I was consulting the person next to him.  In their document I explained that this principle I mentioned I explained to them why I assaulted them and how I tortured them.  On Friday I was with them, explained to them that there is something which we have omitted and I will explain that to the commission, and I explained to them which things were that and then is this that I am explaining here in front of this Commission.

MR MEYER: Would you tell us what was your objective when you committed these assaults and tortures on the detainees.

MR RAMALIGELA: My idea to assault these people was only to find the truth as to whether they involved themselves in the bombing of the police station.

MR MEYER: Do you know what happened to the detainees later on after, or can you tell us which one of them were charged criminally and what was the outcome of those proceedings?

MR RAMALIGELA: Some of them, except Reverend Posiwa -there are cases where we have drawn Posiwa went to court and he was found guilty by the court.  Then further on Reverend Posiwa and Reverend Poswana and Dean Farisani and others who are appearing in 15.1 to 15.7, also make a civil charge against the government that they were assaulted and then we didn't appear before the court to give evidence, but we issued statements to say we know nothing about that, which is something which I feel I must also apply for amnesty for that, because I submitted a statement which is saying that I know nothing, but now I'm telling the truth.

CHAIRPERSON: So is that civil litigation concluded, is it finished?  Do you know?  Do you know what happened with it - that case that the victims sued the government for damages?

MR RAMALIGELA: Yes, it was completed, and in our ...(indistinct) as a government we didn't go to court.  It was settled outside the court.

MR MEYER: The statement you were referring to, is that the one appearing at page 102 of the bundle?

MR RAMALIGELA: This is the statement I'm referring to.

MR MEYER: And more specifically the part, the paragraph just above your signature or the one above that, the second last paragraph, 'Posiwa was not at any stage during his interrogation assaulted or ill-treated by anyone of us.'

MR RAMALIGELA: Yes.