Human Rights Violation Hearings — Messina — 1997-04-08

DR RANDERA: May I please call Samson Kodibona.  Samson, good afternoon.

SAMSON M KODIBONA: Good afternoon.

DR RANDERA: Thank you for coming.  Samson you are taking us back to 1978 and 1984.  Before I hand over the Doctor Ally who's going to be helping you with your statement, can I ask you to please stand to take the oath.

MS SEROKE: Will you repeat after me.  The story I'm about to tell is the truth and nothing else but the truth, so help me God.

SAMSON M KODIBONA: (sworn states)

DR RANDERA: Dr Ally !

RUSSELL ALLY: Samson thank you for coming and welcome.  You're gonna speak about your experiences which relate to, to being tortured because of the political views you held and, and you political activities and you're gonna describe two incidents as the Chairperson said, in '78 the first and then again in 1984.  So I'm going to ask you to go through what actually happened to you and to focus specifically on the kind of torture that you were subjected to.

SAMSON M KODIBONA: It was in 1978.  I met with three men.   From their looks they were travelling on a van which was a police car.  It looked like they were CID's.  It was in the morning when I met them.  I used to train in the morning.  When I met them they stopped and I just continued running and I running towards, I ran towards their direction.  When I reached them, they didn't talk much.  They grabbed me and then they took me out of the way just a distance from, from the road.  They started torturing me, asked me questions.  They were asking me about people like Peter Nchabaling, Nelson Diyali, Mr Inkadimeng, Mr Pokanuka, Mr Parlo.  I would say that I told them that I didn't know the people they were asking me about.  From there they tortured me, hitting me and they interrogated me.  They took me and they put a net over my head  and they put me back into the van.  Then I travelled with them but I couldn't see exactly as to where we were going.  When we arrived at this place, I still had the net on my head.  They again questioned me as to whether I knew the people they asked me about.  They asked me how do I know them.
      I didn't exactly know these people.  I stayed there for the whole day until late in the afternoon and then they took off the net and I could now see or recognize the place I was in.  It was a place in Stierpoort.  Again they put the net over my head and they throw me into the van and they drove me back from where I came and they left me at the scene where they found me.  Where they found me, it was a main road from Skukune towards the Skukune Magistrate Offices.  I will say it's a place calls Pathlamanole.  
 I went back home.  When I arrived back home and I reported the matter my front teeth were broken.  Some of them have just cracked.  At the time I told my parents.  My  parents took this issue as a general issue.  Normally, that normally happens that young boys go around and provoke other people.  This worried me a lot.  I continued schooling.  At school we used to discuss things like uprisings, the 1966 riots and other political activities which happened during the early 50's.  It was not just a place where there were riots and boycotts.  It was calm.  We're just school children and we are attending school properly and there there wasn't any, any other problem.  Normally when it comes to politics only a few individuals were involved and I would say this worried me a lot.  After a stage where I came to believe that police were not good people and they're not people of good manners and I stayed with my cousin, two cousins and we used to hand around together.  They used to guide me.  They said, and they guarded me that we have to continue studying and they have to go behind me in trying to guide me as to how to go around life.  However they could see that I wasn't spiritually well.  From there I couldn't  in my life trust a policeman and especially the old government which I could say was undemocratic and that continued with myself hating the system until I was grown up and I was motivated by teachers whom I've told, to whom I've told my story.   
 Early 1984 I grew up with this spirit, this political spirit.  I was a kind of person who like provoking the old government or the regime.  Actually I'm saying that I wasn't the kind of person who liked to provoke them.  I couldn't understand why they started around harassing me.  It was until 1985, I was working at the air force, a base force.  This was the South African Defence Force days and the police which we call them Sadaf, meaning SADF.  I worked with a man by the name of Mr Ferguson who was my Lieutenant.  This man was a kind of man who didn't like African people.  They usually called me terrorist.  That became my name.  They never called me by my real name.  They usually referred to me as a terrorist.  Up until the stage where, while we were working under such conditions.  In 1984, we had to quarrel because they called me a terrorist and I had to tell them that I am not a terrorist, I am Samson Kodibona but they continued calling me a terrorist.  
 They have to move me to another place where I had to work for, at 24 Squadron.  This the kind of an air force base where all those types of planes normally land and even they, they continued calling me a terrorist and I wasn't free as I was going around doing my job.  Normally there will be people who come around and watch me while doing the job.   They also had the spirit that they have to remove me from where they were working because they regarded me as a terrorist.  In 1985, February on the seventh, I was called to the office.  They gave me a letter and I had to take this letter to an office and when I arrived they have it was sealed and they have to open it.  I was in the company of my brother.  He was also working in the library at the very same place.  They didn't tell me anything after reading the letter.   They have to tell me that I have to go because I am a terrorist.  They, after clapping, they clapped me and told me that I had to leave the place because I am a terrorist.  From there they told me to come and collect my money the following week.  
 I went to collect the money at the end of the month.  It was just some few rands and I took the money and went to Pretoria.  As I was there I wasn't free because I was being monitored.  My movements were monitored and I have to leave Pretoria and go back home.  That was 1985.  Even there I wasn't free at home because some people were following me.  The criminal investigating officers were around trying to trace my whereabouts and my involvements.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you, Samson. You, you've given us quite a comprehensive statement and you've also given us quite a detailed account now so I'm not gonna ask you too many questions but one thing which is still not clear is why, why were they so interested  in you?  You don't, you, you mention that they asked you about certain well know political figures like Peter Nchabalengo, we know, actually who died in a police cell during interrogation and detention.  In fact that was one of the cases that we heard when were in, in Pietersberg but why you?  What, were you an activist?  Did you belong to organizations ?  That doesn't come out very clearly.