Human Rights Violation Hearings — Johannesburg — 1996-05-03

DR BORAINE: Chairperson I call the next witness, Michael Bolofo and ask him please to come to the witness stand. Could I begin by welcoming you and saying how pleased we are to see you and to thank you very sincerely for your willingness to come to this Commission and to tell you story. Before I ask you to be sworn in could you tell us who is with you today?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: I'm with my mum Georgina.

DR BORAINE: This is your mother?  We'd like to welcome her and thank her too for coming along and being with you.  It's nice to have somebody at a time like this and it's great that you brought her along and that she was able to come, thank you. Michael would you stand then to take the oath please?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: (sworn states)
Michael I'm going to try and assist you to tell your story and perhaps may want to ask you one or two questions as we proceed and then obviously some of my colleagues here may well want to ask some questions as well.  Let me start by asking you, if you don't mind, how old are you now?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: I'm 27 years of age now.

DR BORAINE: And the story you are going to tell was 10 years ago?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: Yes.

DR BORAINE: So you were 17 at the time?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: I was.

MICHAEL BOLOFO: I'm glad my arithmetic actually worked.  It was the 14th of June when something happened that changed your whole life.  Would you like to tell us about it please in your own words?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: On 14 June 1986, it was when the State of Emergency was introduced in our location or I can say, country-wide. During that day I spent the whole afternoon with my colleagues at the football grounds, not knowing that during the evening of that day something terrific and horrific would change my life.
 After having supper with the family I then decided to visit one of my team mates who stays one street from me in Alexandra Location.  It was still early in the emergency time.  I thought that I won't waste time at his place and be as quick as possible.  I managed to arrive there and chat football topics with him and life generally but now things turned around when I was on my way back home.  When I came out from his yard entering the street I saw an armoured vehicle of the soldiers, a truck and I saw another truck far behind me. Now I was walking slowly on my way back home the truck approached me so slowly that I didn't even notice it was closer to me than before. What surprised me was that when they were close I was lit up by a spotlight from the very same truck. I then started to panic asking myself what on earth I have done that has offended the soldiers? 
 I was at yard no 41, 12th Avenue at this stage having originally approached from yard no 35, so I was on my home to yard no 55, I then decided to turn into yard no 41 to pass on the message that came from the person whom I was from at yard no 35.  Ignoring the spot light that was still concentrating on me and had just turned right to enter yard no 41 I heard the sound of a gun and suddenly found myself lying down and realised that a bullet passed through my abdomen from the right to the left sides breaking three if not four of my ribs.  While I was lying helplessly down in a pool of blood which oozed from my left side where the bullet had exited, because where the bullet came through it obviously burst, so one will wonder what situation I was in when I was lying down.  Where the bullet came out was opened out to such an extent that even my intestines came out. One would not even have identified the colour of my clothes because they were all red from blood by now.
 While I was lying down I managed to pick up my left hand to touch my intestines which were like a balloon expanding inside my T-shirt and I heard the voices of soldiers approaching me. I spent more than then minutes lying helplessly in the pool of blood while the perpetrators were ignoring me, but I could hear they were coming in my direction.  Now the only thing in my mind was that whoever arrived first is going to put a heavy boot on these ballooning intestines of mine which went through my left side, but I will like to emphasise the point and take this moment to let everyone know that God is great and God is alive and therefore I will always and for ever praise him. When the first force member reached me, his first words to his colleague were, (Ag hy's 'n klein laaitjie), this is a little one. Those were the only words I managed to hear from him.
 After a while my trouser was pulled down so that my left buttock could be exposed and I found that I was receiving an injection from them, possibly a pain-killer, because I felt much better after they injected me than before. Now the time they were injecting me I thought that they were introducing a small poison and thereafter I might be thrown somewhere in the veld for the scavengers and vultures to feed on my flesh, but that was not to happen. 
 An ambulance arrived and the very same soldiers were busy pushing back my exposed intestines with my T-shirt which they tied around my stomach to support me.  Thereafter the ambulance took me to Alex clinic from where I was immediately transferred to Hillbrow Hospital.  
 The following day the 15th of June I was in ward 6 at the hospital when I opened my eyes and saw my mum and dad next to me, my mum crying hysterically and my dad rubbing his eyes in disbelief. I found myself having a colostomy bag to help me to excrete bodily waste as my bowel movements were not functioning.  
 While I was in the hospital I one day asked my doctor what actually happened with my intestines and he said that I was lucky to be alive because where the bullet passed through my stomach it even affected my one kidney so I am basically left with a single kidney. I used this bag for a period of three months while I was hospitalised and I was given charge of it for a period of a month.

DR BORAINE: How long were you actually in hospital at that time?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: I was hospitalised from the 14th of June until round about October.

DR BORAINE: Thank you.

MICHAEL BOLOFO: Thereafter I went back to hospital for closure of a colostomy, after spending about a month at home using it.
 Since then my life hasn't been constant. In 1989 I remember I was alone with my mum in the house, my father, sisters and brothers having gone to the Orange Free State and I had an operation problem which caused me to vomit the whole night.  The following morning my mum hired a car to take me to hospital where I was reoperated on the very same operation that took place on the 14th of June 1986. Doctors said that I had an intestinal blockage. So all in all I had three operations in my life if I include the small operation of where the colostomy was. 
 The whole operation has left me with more than 50 stitches for something that I didn't do wrong. So concerning my life, I no longer enjoy life like before, I get easily tired, when rain clouds gather I sometimes vomit. It has even affected me psychologically because I sometimes get emotional and furious when I look at my stomach, thinking that I was not born looking like this, this has been done by someone's minds to disrupt my life. This horrible incident left me with those sorrows and pains, but all in all, I am hoping for the best.

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much.  You've given us a very vivid description of what happened to you and I just have a few questions if you don't mind.  You were still at school when this happened?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: Yes Sir.

DR BORAINE: Thank you, now Alexandra Township was occupied by the SADF from about 1984 and they were certainly patrolling in the township in 1986 when you were shot.  Now you mentioned that you saw a military truck that put a spotlight on you before you were shot?

MICHAEL BOLOFO: Exactly.