Human Rights Violation Hearings — Krugersdorp — 1996-11-11

RUSSELL ALLY: Sir, what we will do is we will give you a little break if you want to, just to gather your thoughts.  If you would not mind, then I would just like to ask you a few questions to try and assist you.  Unfortunately, we cannot really have your sister talk because we do not have a statement from your sister and it is very important when people actually speak in front of the Commission, that we have a statement and as it happened before you started, you actually took an oath, if you remember, on the basis of your KRUGERSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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statement, so for that reason.  What I would suggest, though, is that your sister make a statement.  We do not have statement takers here, we have people who can actually organise for a statement to be taken from your sister and, as Dr Randera explained in the beginning, that statement will be looked at as we will look at all other statements.

MR GOLIATH: That is alright.

RUSSELL ALLY: I will just give you a few minutes to gather your thoughts and then if you do not mind I would like to ask you a few questions, just going through your statement, just to help us with our enquiries.
 ... been a member of the ANC.  Now, we know that the ANC was only unbanned in 1990.  Now, do you just want to clarify that.  When you say ANC, do you mean more broadly the United Democratic Front.  In other words organisations which were sympathetic to the ANC or are you actually saying that your brother was a member of the ANC's underground structures, because remember it was not a legal organisation in the 1980's.

MR GOLIATH: Yes, it was banned at the time, but the youth was active even though it was banned.

RUSSELL ALLY: And your brother, he was an active member?  Can you just tell us a little about the kind of political involvement of your brother?

MR GOLIATH: He was very politically active.  Everything he did he did in the name of the struggle.  He was a full-on member even from the beginning.  He was not into sports, he just liked his organisation, he lived for it.

RUSSELL ALLY: Do you know what political structures in the community he was involved in or that he was a member of.

MR GOLIATH: No, there are not many organisations where we
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stay, we just have one.  The ANC.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr Goliath, you are speaking in your statement about a person called Gerry and it seems as if a lot of what happened to your brother has some connection with what happened to Gerry.  Can you just tell us a little bit about Gerry and about the connection between Jerry and your brother.

MR GOLIATH: Gerry and my brother, Shadrick, were big friends.  They did everything together.  Gerry and Shadrick were the leaders at the time, but he is also deceased.

RUSSELL ALLY: Can you tell us what happened to Gerry?  How did he died?

MR GOLIATH: Gerry was shot by the police.  He was shot before my brother.  My brother told me that he will also, probably, be killed.  I asked him to stop his political activities.  He said there is no turning back, one must only go forward.

RUSSELL ALLY: Can you tell us how Gerry was shot.

MR GOLIATH: Gerry was on his way to a funeral.  Perhaps it was also an ANC member that was being buried.  I do not remember who it was that was being buried, but Gerry was shot at the funeral.

RUSSELL ALLY: Was your brother a witness to this shooting?

MR GOLIATH: He did witness the murder.

RUSSELL ALLY: Did he witness it in the sense that he actually saw the people who did the shooting or did he witness it in a sense that he saw Gerry fall down?  Could you just clarify for us?

MR GOLIATH: What he said to me was that they killed Gerry.  How Gerry was killed, the details, I do not know, but he did see Gerry being killed by the police.
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RUSSELL ALLY: Sir, I do not want to press you on this, but if you could just help me.  You say your brother said to you they killed Gerry.  Did he put any names to the they or did it just remain at that level, that they?

MR GOLIATH: He did not name anyone.  He just said it was the police.  He did not mention anybodies name.

RUSSELL ALLY: Sir, in your statement, you say after Gerry's death and I am going to read to you from your statement and I want you just to, perhaps, speak a little bit to this point because I think it is a very important point.  Shadrick, and I am reading from your statement that you submitted to us now.  Shadrick told me that a group of people including himself were planning to avenge Gerry's death.  He said they were planning to attack the police station in Khutsong.  Do you just want to speak a little bit to that point?

MR GOLIATH: After he told me, he said he and the youth will revenge, because they had killed his best friend.  They said they would bomb the office.  I tried to convince him not to do it.  He then responded and said that he would not listen to me because they have already killed his friend.  That particular night he said they would bomb the office.

RUSSELL ALLY: Did that ever happen?  Was Gerry taken away before anything happened or do you know if anything actually did happen?

MR GOLIATH: Is this about Gerry's death?

RUSSELL ALLY: No, about the bombing.  You said that Shadrick said to you that they would bomb the police station.  Did that ever happen?

MR GOLIATH: That is the last time we saw him, on the 7th.  The evening of the 7th is when they were supposed to bomb
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the police station.

RUSSELL ALLY: So, you have no knowledge that it did happen.  Are you saying that the bombing did not take place or you do not know.  I am sorry, because I seem to have missed some of the interpretation.

MR GOLIATH: What I know is that the day they said they were going to bomb down the police station, they did not succeed because he was arrested by the police on that day.

RUSSELL ALLY: I wonder if you could just tell us a little about what was happening in Khutsong around that time just so that we can have some understanding of the background because clearly a lot seems to have been happening.  There were funerals and police attacking funerals and people being killed, youth organising counter-attacks on police stations.  Can you just tell us a little bit about what has happening and just your own perceptions of why you think these things were taking place.

MR GOLIATH: What I know is that there was a lot of fighting in the township.  The police was fighting the youth.  It was terrible.  Everyday there were fights.

RUSSELL ALLY: Sir, do you have any idea what this fighting was about?  Could you tell us.

MR GOLIATH: There is only one reason.  At the time you could not form certain groups.  The police wanted to break down the ANC.  It was just fighting.  The group was fighting the police as well.

RUSSELL ALLY: Sir, just to go back to the death of your brother.  You mentioned two names who you believe know something.  The one name you mention is a black policeman, Lewaai, but you also say that Lewaai is no longer living.  How is is that you come to these two names?  Why do you mention these two?
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Lewaai is the one sorry, the black policeman and then you mention a white policeman by the name of Skeepers.

MR GOLIATH: The reason why I mentioned Lewaai is that after two days Lewaai was not aware that where he drinks, the people there know Shadrick.  He then said there he killed the dogs.  Therefore Skeepers, he was the one that told us that the dog at the mortuary, we are going to get him on the day that we want him.  Skeepers is the one who instructed the police to shoot the people at the funeral with rubber bullets.