Amnesty Hearings — Hammarsdale — 1998-08-11

MR STEWART: Will you mention what this attack was, explain it to us?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: It was myself, Mse Mdunge and Walter Mtalani, we were at Magoba which was a shebeen and they also had rooms to let.  One Caprivian, Mubengu stayed there.  We were sitting there drinking.  I heard gunshots and some screams and I told Mtalani that I should go outside and check what was going on.  I then saw something happening near Mosaxulu's house.  I saw our supporters running towards us and comrades chasing them.  I then went back in and I told Mse that there was trouble outside.  We told Mtalani to go into the house because he was drunk.
	At that time I had a 9mm pistol with me.  Mse went into the house and took a knife from the house and we went and joined our supporters.  When we got to the corner there was a comrade who was on top of a tree shooting down.  I shot once with the gun and thereafter I gave it to Mse and he gave me his knife.

MR STEWART: Mr Khumalo, why did you exchange weapons like that?  If you had the gun, why did you give it to your colleague and take a knife from him?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: I felt that I was too drunk.  I had missed when I fired my gun once so I thought that I should give the gun to Mse because he was trained in offensive attack and therefore we exchanged weapons.
	We proceeded until the comrades ran away.  When they reach ...[indistinct] we stopped chasing them and returned home.  I was walking along the street and there were some other IFP supporters near the houses.  A boy approached from the passage, there was blood on his chest.  He tried to jump over a fence but fell and when he fell I stabbed him.
	Police approached thereafter and we ran away.  We did not go back to Magoba's house, we instead took a taxi to Unit 4.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Khumalo, why did you stab that boy who tried to jump over the fence?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: My intention was to kill him because he was an enemy, a UDF member and they had attacked us therefore I got a chance to do what he would have done to us.

MR STEWART: Mr Khumalo, how did you know that he was, as you describe, an enemy?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: He was wearing a UDF T-shirt.

MR STEWART: Do you know whether he died?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: He did not die because I later heard from someone that he had seen this guy.

CHAIRPERSON: If you had not consumed liquor that night, would you have stabbed him?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Mr Khumalo, you've just responded that the reason why you stabbed the person was that you saw him or you perceived him to be, you stabbed this person ...[intervention]

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike is not on.

SISI KHAMPEPE: You've just stated that you stabbed this person because he perceived him to be a UDF supporter by the fact that he was wearing a UDF T-shirt.

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: That is correct.

SISI KHAMPEPE: In your application you stated that you knew this person even though you could not remember his name, to your knowledge, was he a member of the UDF?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: As far as I know, yes.  Besides the fact that he was wearing a UDF T-shirt I would sometime see him but I'm sure that he was a UDF member because I had seen him wearing this T-shirt before and he was wearing it on that day.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Apart from the fact that he was wearing a UDF T-shirt, was he to your knowledge a member of the UDF or a supporter or sympathiser of the UDF?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes, I did know.

SISI KHAMPEPE: Thank you.

MR STEWART: Do you now know his name Mr Khumalo?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: No, I do not.

MR STEWART: To your knowledge, have you ever been investigated for this offence?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: No, I was never.

MR STEWART: Incident 7 in your application at page 363, deals with what is described as an attack at Three Lines in Mpumalanga.  It is also said to have been during 1988.  Before we deal with it specifically, at this time were you staying in Mpumalanga?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes, I resided at Mpumalanga.

MR STEWART: And was this the same time that you referred to earlier, when you were working under the auspices of the KwaZulu Police?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes, it is.

MR STEWART: And you were also receiving instructions from time to time by Madlanduna to carry out particular operations?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes.

MR STEWART: Well explain to us how you came to be involved in this incident, being the attack at Three Lines.

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: At that time the situation was tense because nobody went to school in our area, it was only Caprivians who were able to go to the shops because we had guns.  We would collect money from everybody in the area and they would give us a list and we would go to the shops to buy for them.
	Some people who were employed no longer went to work.  Some died, like a girl from the Xginsi family who was killed at Nxoi area, so the situation was very tense. 
	On a particular day there was a Caprivian called Bongo Somi who resided in a stronghold of the comrades.  Bongo came with the information that, he told us of areas where ANC members resided, so on that day we saw UDF members approaching from an area called Five Rand and went into Dennis's Shebeen.  Through the information that we had been given by Bongo, we knew that comrades went to this shebeen to drink.
	I, Smu and Nati as well as Mosakulu were sitting somewhere across at a spot where we could observe.  We saw the people going into the shebeen.  An hour did not elapse and these comrades came out of the house, they were singing.  They were actually singing that they were going to attack our area.
	At that time we did not have guns.  There was somebody called Teacher who had a 7.65 gun.  We went to him and it was decided, because he trusted me, I should be the one who borrows the gun from him.  He gave me the gun.  I explained to him what the situation was like and he also could see these people who were toyi-toying.  We could see that they were preparing to attack.  There were a few of us and therefore he could see that the situation was bad.  He gave us his gun.  
	We thought that we should ambush these people whilst they were still on the way so that they would not reach the area because if they did indeed reach the area they could cause much more damage.  We then went across ...[intervention]

MR STEWART: Sorry, before you carry on.  This person, Teacher that you've referred to, would that be Teacher Dlamini?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes.

MR STEWART: So at that time when you were preparing to ambush these people whom you thought were coming to attack your area, was it only yourself now that was armed, and that was with the firearm that you'd acquired from this Dlamini?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes.  The others had knives and butcher knives. ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Khumalo, could you give an indication as to approximately how many people there were in this group that you intended to ambush?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: There were more than 20.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you notice whether any of them were armed at all and if so, with what were they armed?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: Yes, we realised that they were armed.  They had these butcher knives that they were scraping on the ground.

MR STEWART: Will you explain then how you laid an ambush for this group?

BHEKISISA ALEX KHUMALO: They were outside Dennis's house and we positioned ourselves near the corner.  A car approached from the other side and it passed them and when the car approached them they moved to the side of the road.  They were divided into two groups to let the car pass.  I fired my gun.  They ran away and some ran towards us and the people who had guns stabbed some of them.  I don't know how many people were injured but I saw one person on the ground.  We tried chasing the others.

MR STEWART: Did you check to see whether that person had died?