Amnesty Hearings — Boksburg — 1999-02-24

CHAIRPERSON: At the end of the car park?

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: The entrance, the first entrance, the one entrance that's facing the car park.

CHAIRPERSON: That's ...(inaudible) metres.  That same 130 ...(intervention)

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: Possibly yes.  Because it looks like the same distance.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(inaudible) 20 metres less than that 130.  I think the 130's to the main road and you've got that other little entrance.  There's just, almost the width of a road, so it's about 110.  In any event Mr Dastile, you know what a metre is?

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: I deal with metres, I'm a builder.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(inaudible) estimates round about 110.  I think we can accept that.  He doesn't have to go and point it out to us.

AZHAR CACHALIA: Sorry Mr Dastile I have serious doubts about your ability to measure, I'll just put this one question again to you.  If your shack is where the Chairperson is sitting, sorry if the shack of the IFP is where the Chairperson is sitting, did you say your shack is where the street is or at the entrance, the door entrance to the building, I just want to be quite sure about what you said, sir?

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: If you can look this direction Mr Cachalia there is this last door into this building, and there is another door which comes from outside, and if you are at that door you have that foreyard there and you have a parking park here, and you have a paving there.  That's where my shack could have been from the Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: About 40 or 50 metres I'd say.

AZHAR CACHALIA: Thank you, that is in accordance with my instructions, I'm just trying to get that correct, alright.  Were you able to hear what was happening there?

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: When they arrived they started talking and shouting at the top of their voices, especially the person who was addressing them, saying that Amakhoza, Amapondo and Amabata should leave, should get out of Zevenfontein on that very same Saturday, on the 12th.

AZHAR CACHALIA: What did you do as a result of what you had heard had happened there?  You report this to anybody?

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: On hearing this I went to my brother Dastile and informed him that these people are saying they're going to beat us up today if we don't leave because this is their place, this is their area.  From my brother I then went to Mazililele.  I relayed the same story to him.  My brother at the time came as I was talking to Mazililele and he said, "...Don't worry, that's what they always say.  Nothing will happen.  They will not just start and attack us if nothing is wrong.  They were just frightening.  There's no problem.  Don't worry."  And after that I did not go back to my shack and I hanged around the place where my brother was and resulting from that I did not hear what they continued to say.

AZHAR CACHALIA: Mr Dastile, the next incident that I want you to talk about is the one at Maloesi's shebeen.  What do you know about that?  Please tell the Committee.

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: I think it was after three o'clock, a certain lady who stayed at Maloesi's came and she was in the company of Boniswa.  And this lady was crying, saying Mpongosi and Sithole were attacking people at the shebeen.  I'm talking about another Sithole, not this one.

ADV SIGODI: Is this lady's name Sister.

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: Yes, Sister is the name.  I then asked as to what, why these people were being attacked and Sister said, "...I don't know, and they were threatening to shoot us when we left."  And I said, "...okay, I'm coming."  I was cooking at the time when they arrived.  I was staying with my brother, we didn't have a lady in the house so I was doing the cooking.  And when I switched off the stove and locked my shack, and I went to other of our leaders to inform them, I saw others going down the street headed for Maloesi's place.  Here I saw Max April as well as Caswell Tchala, and William Mazililele.  I joined these people and we went to Maloesi's place at which time I asked as to what transpired or what was happening.

AZHAR CACHALIA: Mr Dastile, this person that you mentioned, Max April, Caswell Tchala and William Mazililele, to which political party, if any, do they belong?

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: The ANC.

AZHAR CACHALIA: Please carry on.  You go there and you, you were going there you found them either there or on the way and then what happened?  Please tell us.

SINDISILE WILFORD DASTILE: When we arrived there Mpongosi and other had already left, but people were standing milling around, and I enquired as to what was happening.  Maloesi whom we found there tried to explain what had happened.  He explained that Mpongosi arrived and started asking Maloesi why he didn't want to sell liquor to IFP members, and why he was saying he was going to serve only ANC patrons.  And when Maloesi tried to explain Mpongosi did not want to listen and he forcefully took people's liquor and drank it, and he started slapping him, and started pouring this liquor over somebody's head.  That is when it became clear that people had already heard about this and they started coming down, and from Maloesi's place we headed for Magwaza's place, and along the way I came across my brother and there were now three, Maxwell Caswell and Qolile, one other ANC member.  And Max and April, I think there were seven of us, we went down to Sithole's place, and

AZHAR CACHALIA: ...(inaudible) you said that the people started coming and you went to Magwaza, you went towards Magwaza's house when you met your brother and you mentioned a number of people and then you say you went to Sithole's house.  Did you got to Magwaza's house or Sithole's house?