Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-04

RUSSELL ALLY: Now these three people who Vincent mentioned to you the names, you say Piet Ntuli also known as Makawe, a certain Mitimunya and a certain Mgomo.  Did you also know these people, I mean did you know what they looked like?  If you had seen them would you have been able to recognise them or were these names that Vincent mentioned to you who you didn't necessarily know?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: I didn't know many people in this area because I was only here for schooling but I know the names Madota - Makawe, Mgomo and Mitimunya.  Those are the names I can mention.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much.

MR MALAN: May I follow up on the question. I couldn't hear but when - I am not sure what we had on the interpretation service but when Dr Ally asked you when you were at the hospital and he asked you as to the names of these people and who they were, did you say that that Skyline came to the hospital and you wanted to escape?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: No, we were boarding, I was at a boarding school and the Skyline came to attack.  That was long before Maseko was killed.  They knocked at the door as if there was fighting going on.  No, the Skyline didn't come at the
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hospital.  The information I got was the one I got from Vincent while he was in the hospital, that the people who shot at him were in a white Skyline and I connected the two because I had seen the Skyline before.

MR MALAN: Then at the hospital Vincent mentioned the three names to you.

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: Yes.

MR MALAN: In your statement you also say that he told you that when they came up to him he asked them what do you want and they said we are looking for people like you who destroy everything and then you say he told you that he asked them are you Mbokoto.  That is what you say in your statement.  Is that correct?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: In my statement I indicated that I came to see him in the hospital and I asked him what happened to you, he said to me I was shot at and who shot at you and he said Makawe, Mgomo, Mitimunya.  They were driving in a white Skyline with tinted windows.  That is the information he gave me.

MR MALAN: Okay, my apologies. I was really referring to Vincent's mother's statement.  She says in her statement that you told her that these people approached him, they said they were looking for people like him, that he asked them whether they were Mbokoto because they said they were looking for people like him who were destroying things.  That is what she said in the statement and she said she heard it from you.  Is that the same that you said in your statement?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: This happened ten years back and I gave Vincent's mother a call to tell her that Vincent had been shot and she wanted to know who killed her son and I had to tell her that
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it was Makawe, Mgomo and Mitimunya because these are the names that I was given by Vincent.  They will have to explain with whom they were when they committed this act.

MR MALAN: Did Vincent mention who fired the shot, who of the three shot him?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: He said Makawe shot at him.  It will be impossible for one to know who really pulled the trigger because there were three.

MR MALAN: But he did say Makawe shot him.

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: Yes.

MR MALAN: Could I just please get back to you Mrs Maseko.  In your statement you say that your information was that his grandfather took him to the hospital.  Is his grandfather still alive?  Is he dead?  Okay.  Thank you, then I have no further questions.

MARY NOMSA MASEKO: The grandfather, he has died.

MR MALAN: You have never had an account from him.

MARY NOMSA MASEKO: His grandfather told me that he only went to pick Vincent up where he was lying. He didn't know anything and he wasn't given any information at all.  He said to me he only saw people coming to him telling him that your grandson is lying there in an open field and he asked them what happened to him, they said no seemingly he was attacked by Mbokoto.  He asked him what is this Mbokoto.  They said to him no we do not know and he asked them what is it doing, is this a political organisation, is it a student movement, this Mbokoto.  They said we do not know but people are just harassed in this area by this Mbokoto.  That is when I got the full information from Madota who is sitting next to me and I said to him Madota what happened and he told me everything about Mbokoto and he told me about the harassment
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that they went through.  He told me about the torture that they went through.  These are the two people that I got the statement from, that is Madota and the deceased grandfather.

MR MALAN: Thank you very much.

MRS SEROKE: Gregory, are you saying that the windows were dark?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: The windows were dark, you couldn't see inside.

MRS SEROKE: Did you see this car often in your area?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: Yes, but we didn't know who the owner was.

MRS SEROKE: Didn't you investigate who the owner was?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: No, we didn't.  Sometimes you would see it in the evening and sometimes in the morning and you would not know who it belonged to.

MRS SEROKE: Are you still residing in this area?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: I reside in Daveyton. I came here because I heard that the Commission was going to sit here.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Madoda, as a student leader with grievances against Mbokoto, did you perhaps know to whom you directed your complaints against Mbokoto to?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: I don't understand your question.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Yes, in short what I wanted to know is as students did you know who the leadership of Mbokoto was?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: Mgomo was a member of the parliament, he was representing Tweefontein and F section.   He was a member of parliament, he would be a position to tell you who the leader was.  He can elaborate further.  I didn't know their leadership but I knew that Mgomo was a member of parliament.

THOMAS MANTHATA: The thrust of my question is to whom did you direct your complaints to within Mbokoto, you know association, whatever you call it?

CHAIRPERSON: Let me ask you this question on his behalf,
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Vincent Mr Manthata is saying you as students had demands.  Who were you directing these demands to within the Mbokoto group?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: This Mbokoto just erupted and we couldn't march, we couldn't organise a march against Mbokoto but as the SRC we wrote down our demands and we gave them to the teacher and then we would leave it in the hands of the teacher.  We didn't have a specific person to take the demands to.  Because the community outside came into the school yard to ask for assistance from the pupils.

THOMAS MANTHATA: The community from outside, who led that community?  Who led the delegation of the community that was sent to the students?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: I do not understand your question clearly.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Okay.  My question is when you are saying the community came to the students to ask for help who was the leader of this people from this community who came to you?

GREGORY MADODA AMIGO: As I have mentioned that they used to come to school to ask us to assist them.  That was the assistance because they were harassed or as the community - the school children were harassed, the workers were harassed.  When you are sitting around a table studying you would hear knocks and people would be assaulting you in your house.  They just used to come in groups in this school to discuss this whole issue.  They would say to us Mbokoto attacked so many people yesterday but there wasn't a specific leader.  It was a collective effort by the community.  There was no specific leader who represented the comrades or the community.  We only knew that Mgomo is the member of parliament who was in this group.