Human Rights Violation Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-06-09

DR BORAINE: I call the following witness, Mandla Siqaza, will you come to the stand, please. I just want to test out to make sure that you can hear through your ear-phones. Can you hear and can you hear the translation?  Thank you.  Mandla, let me, on behalf of the panel welcome you very warmly.  Thank you very, very much to come; the story you have to tell is a very grisly and awful one and I am going to ask Prof Piet Meiring to lead you and to facilitate the telling of the story. Thank  you.  Once again, I have forgotten to ask for the swearing in.  So Mary Burton will do that now.

MARY BURTON: Mr Siqaza, will you please stand to take the oath.

MANDLA SIQAZA: (Duly sworn, states).

MARY BURTON: Thank you, please sit down.

PROF MEIRING: Mr Siqaza, Mandla, if I can call you so, can you hear me properly?

MANDLA SIQAZA: Yes.

PROF MEIRING: You are going to take us back nearly 12 years ago.  It was the day before Christmas, it was the 24th of December 1985 that a horrible thing happened to you and your family.  Please tell us in your own words what happened on those two days, on 24 and 25 December 1985.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: There is no Xhosa coming here.

DR BORAINE: We are having a slight problem with the interpretation.  We want to make absolutely sure that the witness can hear the Xhosa translation.  So if you would give us just a minute we will come back to you.

DR BORAINE: It seems to be okay now.  Can you hear the Xhosa?

MANDLA SIQAZA: Yes.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you so much.  Will you please tell us Mandla, what happened on 24, 25 December 1985?

MANDLA SIQAZA: On the 24th of December I saw this girl running and I told her that her father was burning and I ran and people were coming out and then I found the car burning. I went in and I saw the car and I didn't see my father in the car.  As I was coming closer and when I got there, there were people that I saw there. When they were running, the police came.  They said what do we want. I said this is my father.  They took me to Guguletu and asked me for a statement.  I said I couldn't give a statement, I wasn't there.  So I went back home, I told my mother.  And they said they were looking for me.  The people I know who saw him and indeed there were people who saw him.  I ran to KTC.  They looked for me and they found me.  Two men came. They pointed at me with guns.  They took me away to KTC.  At KTC there was a tyre and a five-litre tin of petrol. They said who did you see.  I said no, I didn't see anyone.  Another comrade helped me, who said he was ...  He said they couldn't burn me after they had burnt my father.    And that's how I escaped.  Then I left.
 Then at home my mother is sick and the next day the house was burnt. Then we went and fled to freedom. Then we went to Khayelitsha after that. Then we got a place at B.  That's where we are up to now.

PROF MEIRING: Mandla, thank you.  In very few words you have told us a very harrowing tale.  Tell us about your father.  How old was he, what was the work he did when he was killed?

MANDLA SIQAZA: My father was a councillor at KTC.  At that time there was an organisation there which was called UDF.

PROF MEIRING: Was he very often threatened with death because he was a councillor?

MANDLA SIQAZA: Yes, sir.

PROF MEIRING: And your family too, was the family also threatened, did you have a hard time because your father was a councillor?

MANDLA SIQAZA: It is so.  Especially they wanted me very much.

PROF MEIRING: Did anybody explain to you why your father was killed in such a horrible way?

MANDLA SIQAZA: No, sir.

PROF MEIRING: The people who were responsible for doing this, the perpetrators, do you know their names?

MANDLA SIQAZA: There were many.  I know some of them, but not all of them. Some of them I still stay with in Khayelitsha.

PROF MEIRING: Please tell us about your family afterwards? What was the result to your family when this thing happened; your mother and yourself and the other children.

MANDLA SIQAZA: When they burnt our houses, went to the single hostels and from there went to Khayelitsha.  Even the funeral, it was difficult to bury him.  We buried him very early in the morning.  He stayed less than a month
thereafter.  The comrades went to dig out our father's grave, which is still at NY5 here.

PROF MEIRING: Why did they do that?

MANDLA SIQAZA: I don't know.

PROF MEIRING: Mandla, it must have been very difficult for you, for the family, were there people who looked after you, who helped you with money, who helped you with treatment afterwards, to help you cope with this terrible experience?

MANDLA SIQAZA: No.  No, we are not getting any help from anyone.

PROF MEIRING: And the police, did they make an inquest, was there an investigation into the death of your father and into the burning of your house, on the next day?

MANDLA SIQAZA: No. No, there was no inquest. I simply went to the police station and gave the names of the people who killed my father, but there was no inquest.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you. I have only one question before I pass you to the chairman, to my colleagues. Twelve years ago things were very difficult in the township.  There was hatred, there was violence. Have things changed now?  Do you think that people are able to live with one another in this new South Africa of ours? Are the people, your family willing to reconcile with the people who did this to you?

MANDLA SIQAZA: We are happy where we are staying and by the look of things it doesn't look like we will have another problem again.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you very much, I hand you to the chairman.

DR BORAINE: Thank you, Prof Meiring. Can I just ask my colleagues if they - Mrs Burton?

MARY BURTON: Thank you, Chairperson. Mr Siqaza, I wanted to explain to you that our research team and our investigation team have been working very hard to try and put together for us a picture of what happened at that time.  We know in fact that we are very close to the place where your father was killed, and that on that day there was, the funeral was happening of a young teenager who had been killed, and that your father happened in a way, to arrive at that place just at that time.  Therefore, that his killing happened just where the other burial was taking place.  You have explained to us how you got that news.  Then you told us that afterwards the people who had killed him or perhaps people who were associated with them, were also looking for you.  Were they looking for you for any special reason?  Were you the eldest child or were you also involved in the work that your father was involved in?

MANDLA SIQAZA: I don't know, because I am his first son, it could have been one of the reasons, but I don't know.

MARY BURTON: So the target was really all of your family and because you were the first-born, you were the one who were singled out, perhaps?

MANDLA SIQAZA: Yes, and I am also the one who saw what happened.

MARY BURTON: And then immediately afterwards, there were several other attacks and other people died.  It was really a terrible time in KTC.

MANDLA SIQAZA: Yes, I agree that, those were very difficult times.

MARY BURTON: And then when you moved away, did things begin to improve for you and your family?

MANDLA SIQAZA: Yes, they improved a lot.

MARY BURTON: We are very pleased to hear you say that it is possible for you now to live at peace.  Are you working now?

MANDLA SIQAZA: No, I am not working.

MARY BURTON: Thank you.

DR BORAINE: Just one more question here.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: You can take - you explained how, what happened to your father.  I imagine the pain that you went through as a family when you had to bury your father early in the morning, because it is like in the dark, because there were no people to support you. When you look back, at that time, the time of your father's funeral, what thoughts do you think you are still carrying in your mind up to today?