Amnesty Hearings — Thohoyandou — 1999-07-12

CHAIRPERSON: He assumed the leadership when the real headman was gone.

MR NDOU: Yes, that is so.  You can proceed.

CHAIRPERSON: How did he do that?  What did he do to indicate or to demonstrate that he had assumed this position on this pedestal?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Sometimes we used to, whenever there is something that the Committee have to hear, there is the second man to the headman, he is called Jonas Radsidau, he is the one the headman used to assign if there is some sort of duties to be one in the headman's kraal, so when we used to hear that voice of the second man of the headman, the other day we heard the deceased's voice calling instructions to the whole village, the voice chanting around, "who has ever heard about those boys coming from nowhere and chanting, are these the boys from this area, when we expect the boys from this area to be far away from these activities".  So that's how we come to realise that okay, he was about to take the helm of the country, so we have to give him room and go to the mountain to hold our meetings.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, carry one.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes, that day of the meeting on the mountain, we started about half past four.  We were comprised mainly of males and females, there were boys and girls, numbering at about 200 to 300.  I remember I was the one who was having the meeting at the time.  So when we were busy with the meeting, all of a sudden we hear stones being thrown at us and at that time it was round about 6, 7, 8 in the evening.

MR NDOU: Where did the stones come from?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: No one was having the idea at the time.  We were surprised and we thought maybe it was some of our comrades, they were just trying to scare us, until we realised that the stone throwing was coming from different angles.  So at that time mostly the girls were shouting, "hey, they want to kill us, who might be throwing us with the stones"  They were surprised.  So we boys, we stood up, we made some sort of a defence unit, we made a sort of a kraal and put the girls inside and the boys were outside the crawl so that if the stones were coming they had to hit us, not the girls.  But the stone throwing didn't stop.  It is then that we realised that we are in danger.  If we stay here one of us will have to be carried down the mountain or we will leave some sort of a corpse.

MR NDOU: Who was throwing the stones?  Let's just try and move forward.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: At that time we were not aware who was throwing the stones.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you find out eventually who threw the stones?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes, I'm coming to that.

CHAIRPERSON: Well let's get to that then, that's what your attorney is asking you.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Okay.  So when we got down the mountain, we were running.  We were running to safety because the mountain was nearest to the village, so whenever we crossed the wire dividing the village from the mountain, we landed in the village.  So it's then that we realised that there was the deceased and he was not alone, he was with his sons and he's got four sons, if I'm not mistaken.  So when we get down from the mountain we found that he had already assaulted most of the girls and they were shouting his name,  Edward, you are hurting us, Edward you are hurting us, so it is then that we realised that it is the deceased who was ambushing us with his sons and they were using slings.  Those stones were being thrown from slings, not from just hands.

ADV DE JAGER: So he and his four sons attacked 200 - 300 people.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes.  Then we ran away because it was in the night.  There was no time of protecting yourself because you were not having any idea where you are on the mountain because we were afraid of getting hurt, that's why we tried to run away from them.

CHAIRPERSON: When you got down to the bottom of the mountain into the village, how far from the fence did you see these 5 people?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Not even 10 kilometres from there.

CHAIRPERSON: 10 kilometres?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Millimetres, maybe 100 millimetres from the fence.

MR NDOU: Metres or millimetres?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Metres, I mean.  I'm sorry.

ADV DE JAGER: Now is it 10 or is it 100 or what?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: 20 meters, 30 metres from the mountain.

CHAIRPERSON: Before we get into cross-examination, let us just establish approximately how far?

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know a soccer field?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: A soccer field?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the size of a soccer field, it's about 100 metres.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: It's from one goal post to the centre.

CHAIRPERSON: So that's 50?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you satisfied that's the distance now?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Now, could you see them?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes, we could see and hear their voices.

CHAIRPERSON: No, I'm asking could you see them?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Not exactly.

CHAIRPERSON: So how did you know it's them?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: We the boys, we were at the back.  What we heard is the voices from the girls who were shouting,  Edward you are hurting us and they were also calling the names of the boys who were beating them at the time.

CHAIRPERSON: Now you mentioned in your evidence that they had used slings to throw these stones.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you see any of these slings?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes, of course.

CHAIRPERSON: How did you see it?

CHAIRPERSON: I saw, when I was coming down the mountain, there was another, there was one of the sons, he was chasing one of the girls and she was shouting his name.  The sling was hanging through his trouser's loop and then on the other hand he was carrying a sjambok, which he was using to sjambok the lady that was running away.

CHAIRPERSON: Now I want to ask you something.  Did you see the son?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: I saw one of them, I didn't see all of them.

CHAIRPERSON: What was his name?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Ndanganeni Mahvunga.

CHAIRPERSON: So you could clearly see him?

PROF RALUSHAI: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: In that dark?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: It was not dark at 7 at summertime.

CHAIRPERSON: You were able also to see the sling and the sjambok?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: Yes, I saw the sling, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Just spell the name of that son please.

MR NDOU: Let's use Eric, Eric Mahvunga.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: N - D - A - N - G - A - N - E - N - I

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, carry on.

MR NDOU: You can proceed.  There you were seeing Edward's son Eric carrying a sling and chasing one of the girls with a sjambok and then what happened?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: From that time we were all down the mountain at that time, so we were starting to inquire from those who were next, I mean, it was not that dark for the people to be asleep at that time.  The people were not asleep, so whenever we get down the mountain we met those people from their homes who were afraid of what is going on in the mountain because they heard children's voices crying, the girls shouting, "hey we are dying, hey we are being hurt" and the likes, those were the people who were waiting for us when we got down the mountain.

MR NDOU: Yes proceed.

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: So from there we started to gather information as to what was going on exactly.  Then we realised that the deceased and his sons, when they were ambushing us, they went past those families we were inquiring from, they're the ones who came to realise this is the one who was ambushing the kids in the mountain.  Then the people gave us enough information to pin down the deceased and his sons with the assault.

MR NDOU: How did you pin them down?

ROGER KACHERO RAMASITSI: They are the ones who told us it is the deceased and his sons.  As I indicated earlier on, that I have seen one Eric Mahvunga, the deceased's son.

MR NDOU: Yes.