Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-25

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Gqabi, I will ask you to stand.  We are thankful that you are with us.  I will ask you to take an oath.

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: (Duly sworn, states).

CHAIRPERSON: I thank you.  Mr Govender, I will ask you to take the oath as well.

SHADRACK GOVENDER: (Duly sworn, states).

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  I will ask Hugh Lewin to assist you in leading your evidence.

MR LEWIN: Thank you, Madam Chair.  Madam Gqabi, will you be speaking in English or Sotho?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Xhosa.

MR LEWIN: Xhosa.

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: It is Xhosa.

MR LEWIN: Okay, fine.  We would like to welcome you here.  You weren't here on Tuesday, when one of the witnesses who had been part of the 1976 uprising in Soweto talked in fact about your husband, after he had come back from Robben Island and as they said, I think the other person they mentioned was Elliot Shlubangu, but they talked about the old men, which I am sure your husband wouldn't have been very happy about, but it was a compliment, I think of the young participant in that uprising.
 I think that if you could rather than just telling us 
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immediately about his assassination in Harare, if you could just very briefly give us the background of his time, which took him to Robben Island, which brought him back to Soweto and then if you could explain how you got to Zimbabwe.  Thank you very much.

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: He was an ANC activist.  He was very involved with politics.  Then in 1963 he was arrested with a group of other people who were leaving the country and they were brought back here, and they were sentenced to two years imprisonment.
 From there, after two years, there were further charges, and he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. So in all he spent 12 years on Robben Island.
 Then in 1975 he was released and he was brought back home.  Then we were with him just for a year and then the following year, 1976, December he was arrested again.  During that time he spent about 15 months in Pretoria, in jail and then he was charged. I don't know what the charge was.  But later on he was released.  That trial was known as the Pretoria Trial. He was released after that and then afterwards he decided - I don't know if he decided, whether the ANC decided that he should leave the country, but then he left the country. I didn't even know that he had left until he phoned me, he said he had left the country, he was in Botswana.
 During the time he was in Robben Island, my children never saw him because they were still very young when he was arrested.  Children under 16 years were not allowed on Robben Island.  So they never knew their father.  When he came back we thought that we could lead a normal life.  But then there he was arrested again, before the children got to SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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know him.  
 Then later on the children also had to leave and I also had to leave for Botswana, where I found him. Then whilst he was in Botswana, it became quite clear that his life was not safe there.  So the Botswana government decided that he should leave Botswana.  So he left.  First he went to Lusaka and then the ANC asked him to go to Zimbabwe and open the ANC office there, because Zimbabwe had just got its independence then and we didn't have an ANC office there.  So he was there running the office with two other comrades, together with this other comrade who is next to me.  
 Then in 1981 on the 31st of July he was assassinated. I didn't know anything about it, until on the 1st of August I was listening to the news, I was driving and I opened the BBC news, and that is when I heard that the ANC representative in Harare, Joe Gqabi had been assassinated.  It was very shocking to me because I mean, I had no knowledge about the whole thing until I heard it on the news.
 Then I drove to a friend's place, a Mrs Gqangqa and we phoned, I asked her to phone Harare and find out if it is true.  And sure and indeed it was true.

MR LEWIN: Were you yourself then living in - you had stayed on living in Botswana?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Pardon?

MR LEWIN: You had stayed on, living in Botswana?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Yes, I remained behind until it was ready for me to go and join him.

MR LEWIN: And then, did you got Zimbabwe?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Yes, the ANC arranged for me to go to Zimbabwe to the funeral, and that's where we went.  But we didn't
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actually go to the house where he had been assassinated, because the government thought it was not safe.  So we were taken to a hotel, Amigos Hotel and that's where the whole funeral was organised.

MR LEWIN: And as I remember it, he was given a State funeral really, wasn't he?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Yes, the Zimbabwean Government was very helpful indeed, because they arranged the State funeral for him and even the President of Zimbabwe was there.  He spoke at that funeral.  A lot of other government Ministers were there.

MR LEWIN: Did the Zimbabwe Government do anything at that stage about trying to find out how he had been assassinated, who was responsible?  Did they speak to you at all about that?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: No, nobody spoke to me about anything, but after the funeral I went back to Botswana. I just heard that they were doing investigations, but I haven't heard anything since then, who actually killed him, I don't know, I would like to know.

MR LEWIN: You heard nothing official?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Nothing, no follow-up. I don't know, the Zimbabwean Government didn't tell me anything, neither did the ANC.  So I don't know.

MR LEWIN: Because there were similar attacks which followed after 1981. For instance, there was the bomb attack in Bulawayo, there was also the bomb attack in Harare where Jeremy Brickl was nearly killed.  He particularly has done quite a lot of work in trying to follow-up and trace the links.  Did you yourself have any doubt that your husband or your husband's killing was linked to South Africa?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: No, I didn't have any doubts.  Because I mean,
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they had been after him for a long time.  That's why he had to leave Botswana in the first place.  Even before he was assassinated, there had been other attempts whilst he was still - before the final attack, before the final assassination, there was a bomb which was attached under his car, but it was discovered before it blew him up.

MR LEWIN: Was that in Harare still?

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Yes, in Harare.

MR LEWIN: Perhaps Shadrack Govender could explain, because he was in Harare and we could come back t you, Mrs Gqabi.  Thank you.

NOMAZOTSHWA GQABI: Yes.