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

DR RANDERA: Mrs Neuvhirwa, good afternoon.

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: Good afternoon.

DR RANDERA: Thank you for coming.  Can you please introduce the person who's with you.

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: In the left hand is my husband.  The, on the other, on my right is our Pastor.

DR RANDERA: Good afternoon to both of you and welcome.  To help me is it okay if I call you Gladys.

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: No, I won't mind.

DR RANDERA: Thank you Gladys.  Can you please stand to take the oath.  If you can just repeat after me.  I swear that the story I'm about to tell is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: (sworn states)

DR RANDERA: Thank you, Gladys.  Ms Seroke !

MS SEROKE: Mama Tshimbilini, you've come to tell us about what happened on the fourteen of February 1993 concerning your brother.  Could you just tell us briefly what happened on that day and why you are here to-day.

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: Thank you for being given the time.  What happened on the Monday I was at home and I ate.  Within a while I was feeling so tired and I go to sleep.  When I was asleep I wake up again and then do the cookings and when I went to sleep again, and then while I asleep I was surprised to find a policeman coming knocking and then when he knocked my husband came and they said, is this the place of Machudo Neuvhirwa and they said we want to go with you to court and  my husband refuses and said he can't go to Sibasa and then I wake up where I was asleep.  I find that policeman talking, forcing him to go with him and the policeman asked me to go with him to Sibasa and then I refused saying that I don't know Sibasa since I was here at Messina and he forced us that we must go to Sibasa and we asked him why and he said we'll hear why we are sent, called there at, in front that Sibasa.
 From there, we stopped there and we were taken to a certain house there at Sibasa and then we were given a chair and then we sat down.  While we were seated another policeman came in.  He took me to the other office where there were three policewomen.  There those policewomen asked me my full names.  I told them that I'm Gladys Neuvhirwa.  Then they said okay.  I was then taken again to another bench.   While I was seated another policeman came in and he took me to another office where there were White men.  Others were sitting even on top of the table and I was given a chair to sit.  While I was seated I was asked whether I know Machudo Neuvhirwa.  Then I said, I know him.  So they asked when he disappeared from you and then I said from Sunday, 6 o'clock and then they told us that Machudo was with someone and they went to them near a shop called camp and they said that Machudo climbed their store and I said, is it?  They said, yes.  And they said that there were people who were working for contract there.  Then when Machudo was  seeing those tractors, Machudo was disturbed and then he fell down and he died.  And they asked my if there is anything that I can answer and I told them that what I can answer is this, that Machudo climbed the shop, I'm not sure and they said they will give me the evidences.  They told me that Machudo now is dead, at half past one, in the afternoon and is dead.  So, I was so tired and I was, because he can't die without being ill and they told me that he died at half past one.  When asking those policemen whether there is something that I can say, I told them that I've got something that I want to tell them.  I, I said I, I'm asking them to give me a car to go and fetch the parents of  this Robert.  I went to the parents and then I take Jeremino Neuvhirwa and Lusino Neuvhirwa and then came back with them.  
 In arriving back on Tuesday, we were taken to another office where we were asked if we were parents of the deceased and then we said, yes and they said Machudo is dead because he climbed the shop and seeing the contractors coming next to him, he was disturbed and then he fell down and then the contractors brought him to a police station  and then my father asked to see the constructors and then the police said you will see constructors during the trials.  From now nothing is going on.  One day while to hear what was happening in the post-morten, while we were asking what was happening because the trial is going nowhere, they said we must go and investigate what's the case and send the police what's happening.  And then we refused because we thought things were not properly.  The police were so angry with me that I never thought, I thought, I even thought that this is not a police station.  While we were at home policeman, Mr Mathius Tjika came in and asked me if I have investigated the case and I asked them, is it true that I must investigate the case instead of you, the policeman?

MS SEROKE: Thank you Mama Tshimbilini.  I would like to find out, when Machudo left on the fourteenth, where did you say he was going to?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: Machudo left, saying that he's going to the men's hostel where they used to stay there.  He used to eat food at home and then  go to the nearby hostel.  When he left he was going to the hostel.

MS SEROKE: Was he working at the, at the mine there?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: No, he was no longer working, the mine was closed.

MS SEROKE: Was he politically active?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: So as a boy I cannot deny because if there were marches he used to join the other people.

MS SEROKE: He took part in the marches as a member or just somebody who was just interested?  A member of the political organization?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: I agree that he once  participated in a certain march.  That was the mine march in which he was still working there at the mine because that was a force for everyone who was in that mine.

MS SEROKE: Were you represented at the case?  Did you open a police case against his death?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: The, the case, although I was not behind that case because I was not knowing the people to contact, I find that this elder man who was here at Messina, Mr Lerhule came and take, and took the statement and he contacted Mr Sergeant Ntai and Ntai came and took me and then I went there to Pietersberg and they asks, they told us the case was already over.  The trialer had already been held.

MS SEROKE: And you say in your statement that your younger brother had internal injuries and also was bleeding on his head and, how did he sustain the internal injuries if he's supposed to have fallen from the, from the roof of the shop into which he was breaking?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: That he was injured internally, it is then that if one is dead they go for a post-mortem and they found that his kidneys were injured inside his kidneys and while I was still there at Sibasa a certain policeman who said that these police are very scared now and when other police asked why, they said because of this person they killed inside the cell.

MS SEROKE: So, the police were overheard saying that they were scared that the man had died and he was killed in a cell?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: Yes, it is because the police were talking about that because they were scared because of this person they killed inside the cell but I was not aware whether my brother's dead or not.

MS SEROKE: .Were there any witnesses who could have proved, you know, that the police actually did killed this man?

TSHIMBILINI GLADYS NEUVHIRWA: As to whether  there was a witness in the cell.

MS SEROKE: Yes.