Human Rights Violation Hearings — Uitenhage — 1996-08-27

MR SANDI: Do you mean Mr Goqo, that when you got to the police station there was a statement that was ready?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: We spoke at the police station and they wrote down and I thought that I am going to mention the child but the Captain did not include that in his writing.  He said that that was enough and that is were I stopped.

MR SANDI: In other words you mean that at the police station when they were taking your statement they did not give you a chance, sufficient time to state everything that you had seen there?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: No, I did not get enough of a chance because there were many of us.

MR SANDI: Is that the reason why you did not mention the child in your statement?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: Yes, that is why.  That is because they said that that was enough and I stopped.

MR SANDI: Mr Goqo, is that all you want to say?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: For now that is all.

MR SANDI: Thank you very much, Mr Goqo.  There are very few people who would do what you people have done to say what you had seen.  Even today if this Commission has problems investigating these things because many people saw these things, particularly in the police force but they will not come forward and say what they saw.  Thank you very much Mr Goqo, and Mr Berry.
 Are there any questions?
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MS MAYA: Thank you Sir.  Mr Berry I would prefer to direct my questions at you.  The first question, when reading through the newspaper clippings of the Kannemeyer Commission, it appears that there is a lady officer who was employed by Diaz, who came with the testimony that the ambulances that were used by you and Mr Goqo normally, were never used on this particular day,  what can you tell us about this?

MR BERRY: That is a concern that I had since yesterday, because the ambulance, and I can assure you this, the ambulance that I usually use was 660, the pride of the ambulance service at the time.  I take pride in putting this to you because one of the most important things of an ambulance man is to keep his ambulance in tip top form.  Now the reason why I say since yesterday it is a concern of mine is because even yesterday here were people I have mentioned to some of these officers here, we testify here and we name peoples names, thus implicating some people and some of them are here.  Tomorrow you people as a Commission would go and find out whether this is a lot of lies or lies that we are telling you.  That is your duty I believe, but when trying to establish the truth, how much time have the people that listened in yesterday and today and tomorrow or whenever they listened in, how much time have they got to destroy whatever you are looking for.  It is a point of concern to me.  I'm saying this because you know, I've also got the paper clip of what happened at the time and they for an example said that I used 661 which I did not use.

MS MAYA: Do you know how many ambulances the divisional council had at this time, how many ambulances?

MR BERRY: Oh, no no, that's impossible.
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MS MAYA: Was it normal procedure that when there were emergencies of this nature, some of the ambulances were not used, they were just kept there, not functioning?

MR BERRY: I'll tell you how the system works.  Let me start at the beginning.  If anything should happen here, right now, any of us would phone the ambulance service.  The first thing they would ask, is what happened, where did it happen, what is the nature of what happened, and on what you are actually feeding them, they would dispatch the amount of ambulances.  If needs be, if they haven't got that amount available there, they would pull in ambulances from other quarters.  That is how the system works.

MS MAYA: Thank you Mr Berry, that is all.

PANEL MEMBER: Thank you Chairperson.  I always thought that the story of Holanisa rang an echo from the past, now it is coming back to my mind, it's your story of dismissal that was ringing from the past.  It's not the same thing, but I can't resist making the similarity.  This Commission is about making sure that abuses of the past are not repeated so we try and make sure that when people give their testimonies nothing of this sort is repeated.

MR SANDI: You mentioned that the incident of the child always comes back to you.  It is something that remains in your memory.  I would like to hear from you, did you ever hear whose child it was, did anyone ever come forward to identify this baby as their own?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: I heard something like that happened there at the hospital.

MR SANDI: Was the child's mother employed at the hospital?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: No, I was told that the mother had gone to the hospital to look for her child, it was long after we had
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spoken about it.

MR SANDI: The child's mother.  Does anyone here know who's child that baby was. Nobody knows.  In your statement Sir, you mentioned that when you went back to wash your ambulance you saw a fire engine going towards the location what was the fire engine going to do there?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: I think it was going to wash the blood at the scene of the shooting.

MR SANDI: Was it something normal?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: It was the first time I had seen something like that in Uitenhage, but because so many people had passed away, what was going to wash the blood.

MR SANDI: That amazes me that it should happen so quickly, that the fire engines should rush to go and wash the blood and yet when peoples places were burning, the fire engines took forever to get there.
 My last question to you is going to be, in your statement you mention a Deputy Chief Heuwa who said to you that you shouldn't say anything about this incident about what you had seen, or you shouldn't say everything to the people, is there anything that you noticed, anything in particular that you thought that he was referring to you not having to speak about?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: Heuwa was saying that at approximately 7:00, before we left to go home, he called all of us and said not one of us must release any information to anyone outside, and we all agreed.

MR SANDI: In other words, this guy was trying to say that whatever you had seen, whatever you had seen that was horrible and so forth, you mustn't mention to anybody?  In other words, he was trying to protect the deeds of the South UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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African Defence Force and the police?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: That is correct.

MR SANDI: I said that lastly, so finally in your statement you mentioned a policemen who was speaking in Zulu, and this policemen said to you, look at what you are doing otherwise you are going to die like these people, can you tell us why this policeman spoke to you in this fashion?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: It was when I saw this child when I was tending to this child.  This Zulu guy said, hey you, do your work, leave that child, and I said to him, I was getting angry by then, and if I had a knife, I would have stabbed him at the time, I would of attacked him, I had replied, I said to him, listen here you, don't you have any compassion, can't you see that this is a baby.  His gun was slung over his shoulder pointing up and he brought it down and I said to him, If you think you are going to shoot you are boarding the wrong bus.

MR SANDI: In other words, you would be messing with the wrong person?

VUYISILE MICHAEL GOQO: Yes, but because by that time I was getting very angry.