Human Rights Violation Hearings — Lusikisiki — 1997-03-24

ADOLPHUS CELE: Thank you very much Mr Chairperson.  The things that happened in the 1960's, 1959, we heard that the chiefs were called in Umtata and there were two things which were decided there, one of them was about the land and the other one about the money, and they were made to choose between the two, money or land.  Most of them chose the money and there was only one chief, Chief Nomakhotecana from Zise who chose the land.  And they came to us telling us about the report back from Umtata.  People from Mbobeni, as they were nearer to the chief, were told about what was decided in
Umtata in 1959, and they were not satisfied about the report back. They felt that they were not represented in this tribal court and they gathered together on one hill and stated their grievances. They decided that they have to tell the magistrate that they were against what the chief has told them.  Some men were elected to go to the magistrate to inform him about this and to ask him to come to the place where they were governed.  Instead of the magistrate coming to them, he sent the police and soldiers to shoot at the people and the police came and scared the people with guns so that they ran away.  When other people heard about this, they decided that we have to have a meeting in the hill in order for people to voice their grievances.  
 We were complaining about the tax because we had to pay taxes with our cows and we had to pay R12, and this money was known as nosheleni.  We were also against Bantu Education because we saw that the chiefs chose money and they sold out our land.  We decided to have our own meetings and to make our own laws and to decide who to voice our grievances to.  We met in the Ndhlovu Hill and we stated that a person has the right to go wherever he wants and a person has a right not to carry a pass.  A person has a right to have an identity book.  We called the magistrate from Bizana, we told him our grievances and we talked to him from about nine up until three, and he told us he was hungry, he did not have anything to eat all day.  We were asking him all sorts of questions and he said that he cannot answer our questions because we demanded that he must give us answers immediately.  He told us that he will talk to the chief magistrate in Umtata who was Librant at that time. Librant came to Ndhlovu, he tried to disrupt the meeting 
because he came with soldiers who came with their caspars and tried to scare us with their guns.  Some of us ran away and some of us stayed and we told them that we are not fighting but we just wanted to talk to them.  On these two 
cases, when we called the magistrate from Bizana, and when the chief magistrate Leibrand came, we sent a message to Flagstaff and Lusikisiki and Ntabankhulu and Mount Elif, Mt Frere that we were in a struggle, and we wanted to be liberated, because we could see that we were oppressed by the past government.  We wanted them to be present when the magistrate came and when the chief magistrate came. They came to this meeting and we had a meeting with the magistrate from Umtata from 9 and at 3 o'clock  he said that he was hungry, he wanted to go.  He also said that he will send another magistrate to us and we released him.  Abraham came and he also tried to scare us and we did not disperse, we talked to him just like we did with the past two magistrates.  He said that we must gather near the shop so that he can get some tea and food.  It became clear that he was trying to disrupt us.  We agreed to go to gather next to the shop.  All along he was trying to move us from the people from Flagstaff, Mt Frere, Mt Ayliff, Lusikisiki and Nthabankhulu, he wanted us to be far from this place. Because we were using horses at that time they managed to come and he told us that he would report this matter to Pretoria.  He said that we must wait for men who would be coming from Pretoria.  
 We waited and after two weeks, the third week we got a message that we must go to town as the people from Pretoria will come to address us.  We sent out messages to villages nearby and we went to town on this particular day and we 
talked with people from Pretoria until it was late afternoon and they told us that they will report this matter to the Pretoria Government.  We must go to our villages and wait.  We went home hoping that we will get response quickly and 
two week thereafter soldiers came who would not listen to us and began arresting and killing people.  There was an informer, Mr Rhadebe from Ndhlovu who lied to the soldiers telling them that we were going to gather in Ndhlovu,  I think it was on Wednesday but we were supposed to have a meeting on Friday, not Wednesday.  The soldiers came to Ndhlovu with their helicopters and they came to Ngquza where they killed people.  The spokespeople were arrested because they were viewed as being dangerous and the organisers of our struggle were also arrested as well as those who were organising finance for our organisation.  There was one Solomon Madikizela in Ndhlovu who was our spokesperson, he was well known as Mbambeni, there was also Leonard Mdingi and the reverends from the Methodist Church because we used to open our meetings with prayer.  
 We heard that people from Ngquza had shot. There was nothing going on after that, our questions were not answered.  We made a plan that we should try to go to Natal so that this matter can be known in the whole country and even in outside countries, and we took Inoch Kambele from Bizana, we already had a plan at that time. When we were in Durban we talked with other men, Leonard Mdingi, and saw that as Ghana was liberated, their president was Nkhruma, we wanted to give him a gift from South Africa congratulating him to be the first black president in Africa. We arranged for that gift and took men from Durban and from the villages
of Kwazulu Natal and form Johannesburg.  We had a big box 
box where we put in drinks which were to be given to the president of Ghana.  We placed Inoch Mbele and boys from Lamontville and from Mdendwe in this box and others from Johannesburg as well as our drinks and we closed and posted 
this box by boat to Ghana.  We knew that there were men inside that box.
 When we were waiting for them to get to Ghana we heard that this matter was even known in Nairobi.  We decided that we should inform the United Nations so that the whole world could understand and know what we mean when we say that we are fighting for our rights.  There were people from the United Nations who came to look at this Ngquza incident and in 1961 there was a way we saw that our grievances were being heard.  There was one man Doug who came to Ngquza with a helicopter and the white men were trying not to allow him to come here.  We hoped that our matter would go well.
 ...(indistinct) then left, went to Pretoria.  I got the Mercury the next morning where it said that South Africa had given ...(indistinct) a lump sum to oppress the matter of Ndhlovu.  We realised that it was the truth.  The Mercury was reporting the truth.  We then tried to make a way to let our grievances be known yet again at Ndhlovu.  The United Nations then sent a secretary. Men came to help us, men with whom we spoke the same language.
 The boers came to my house, they took me as an activist of the African National Congress, it was the third time they'd come.  They burned down four of my huts, nine of my sheep were killed, an informer helped the police find me, they shot at me, the bullet first hit a stone and then my knee which was injured.  It was clear that they could not take me to hospital because they'd always been wanting me.  Solomon Mandigizela, who was our spokesman took me to someone he knew to help me. They took out the bullet and then took me to Natal.  Solomon Mandigizela was then detained, Mboshla  was detained, Changela was detained as 
well as other activists.  They were accused of standing against the government of the day and the informers. Three men had gone to ...(indistinct)swana, then to Maritzburg where they were sentenced where they were sentenced to six months imprisonment.