Human Rights Violation Hearings — Bisho — 1996-09-09

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  Thank you very much Mr Ngonyama.  I am going to ask my, my colleagues may be wanting to ask questions for clarification.  Doctor Boraine?

UNKNOWN: Thank you very much for the very helpful statement.  I would like to refer to your statement, well a few questions so let me refer first to page 7.  You mentioned that one kilometre from the Ciskei border the SAP and SADF ceased to accompany the march.  Did any of their leaders give you or any of your co-leaders indication as to why they broke away, and I can understand if it was crossing the border, there may have been some clash, but one kilometre from the border, was there any indication, any announcement?

UNKNOWN: Well we did not ... [indistinct]  go back to ask them the reason why they were remaining behind.

UNKNOWN: But they didn't volunteer anything?

UNKNOWN: They did not volunteer anything.

UNKNOWN: On page 8 at the very top and this refers back to some of the earlier questions we were asking of Mr Rhamaphosa.  You say it was also made clear to the peace monitors that the march would culminate in the CBD.  Did they react in any way, any of their leaders, did they try to say don't do it or did they say that's fine, did they have any reaction at all?

UNKNOWN: Well at the time when we stressed the peaceful nature of the march and the fact that the march would culminate into a people's assembly in the Bisho CBD, the peace monitors and I did stress the fact that we need to be very, very careful in as far as maintaining order and of the march itself and but we stressed the fact that we would definitely go through and get into the people's assembly at the Bisho CBD.

UNKNOWN: There has been some speculation I understand, that the gap in the fence which is obviously very critical to the whole story, that that particular gap was caused by the first march, August the 6th was it, and that it simply had not been repaired.  Have you any knowledge of this at all?

UNKNOWN: Well definitely subsequent to the march itself and when we were doing our study it was made very clear to us that that gap was flattened during that 6th August and march.

UNKNOWN: Then onto paragraph 25 on page 9, just a brief question there, but a very important one because it ties up again with the questions asked by the Reverend Bongani Finca a little earlier.  You say that it was later learned that there was a unit of soldiers hidden to the west of the gap.  Now how did you learn that?

UNKNOWN: Well this was, it came as a result of and at the reports that we received after the march itself, that definitely there were soldiers that were hidden on the other side.

UNKNOWN: A final question.  On page 10 paragraph 28, you say that for various reasons  [and I won't repeat all your words]  you conclude that this massacre was premeditated.
 Now that is a very, very serious charge as I'm sure you understand.  I want to ask you is there any possibility in your mind that another reason may have been, and remember you were there, I wasn't there so I'm trying to learn from you, but trying to understand it myself, was there a possibility that the people in charge, the people who actually gave the order to fire, rather than having a premeditated plan actually panicked rather than had a carefully ...[indistinct]  I don't know, that's one of the things we are trying to find out.  What is your view?

UNKNOWN: Well my view is that there is definitely, there was no panic at all because they had all the necessary facilities to communicate with us and warn us and to utterly stop and they could have given quite a number of reasons why they feel that we should stop, or even give whatever other kinds of warnings and use whatever other means to try and bring obstacle to us from advancing but they did not do that.  They took a decision to use extreme methods of killing the people.  That is why I say it is definitely premeditated.

UNKNOWN: Mr Ngonyama thank you very much.  If my questions sometimes appear a little clinical you will appreciate that we, this is our job, but I do want to conclude by saying that I'm very grateful that you are alive and that I sympathise with you very deeply for the horrific experience that you and so many others must have had on that fateful day.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Sebisi Klundu?

MR KLUNDU: Thank you sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Sir I'd like you to tell the Commission why, about, according to your opinion was this intention to go to the CBD, was it a way of breaking the government because you realised that there was no other way in which you could make an impact and enough of an impact to overthrow the government and also show the magistrates that you went all out to do, to go about things in a lawful peaceful manner.

MR KLUNDU: It was not our intention that whether there was and whether or not that we are going to do this.  Our intention was to communicate to all the authorities to get them on board to understand the seriousness of the situation in the area.  That was definitely the reason.  We had to inform the authorities.  That was the situation.

<UNKNOWN>: Can I just add with the permission of the Chairperson.  You say, was there another way to show that you do not agree with that government and the methods the government was using to shoot and kill.  You people had one weapon and that was your march to show the government that you did not want  ... [indistinct]  and did you have any other way besides this weapon of this march to show them?

UNKNOWN: No there was no other way especially since we had negotiated in various forms and days just before the march, a proposal was made by the churches for the holding of a referendum within a period of 21 days and that time noble proposal was never responded to positively by the South African Regime.  We had tried various means to express ourselves.
 On many occasions as I've referred to in my statement, even when people were holding meetings  ... [indistinct]  those were frustrated because they were being attacked.  There was absolutely no other, I mean this was the most peaceful way, the non-violent way of expressing ourselves, especially that we are unarmed completely.
 This method that we used tallied with the international way of expressing ourselves through non-violent means but at the same time informing the powers that be that this is the course that we are going to take.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Reverend Bongani Finca?

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you Mr Chairman.  I would like to ask Mr Ngonyama, at the time that the alliance took a decision to go to the CBD in certain ways and in that way it would defy the Court Order.  Did the allies realise at the time that Brigadier Gqozo had taken a decision that he was also not going to adhere to the conditions of the order in a sense that he would not allow the march to proceed to the stadium even though the Court Order had said that it should be allowed to proceed to the stadium.  We were already aware that there was defiance on his side on this particular issue.

UNKNOWN: Well at that time we were not aware that he wouldn't allow us to get into the stadium, especially that even  ... end of Tape 4, side A ...

CHAIRPERSON: ... [indistinct]