Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

WITNESS:   As I have already said the Inkatha used to attack almost every day, but they were not successful.  Then at times they were the ones who were being attacked.  At the end of the day there were four corpses from the Inkatha side.  It became apparent that Jerome didn't have a following.  He also didn't have the power to defeat us.  Then he formed certain organisations.  One of the organisations was in Morawa House, Eden.  That is where Jerome Gabela, as well as Jerome Nxumalo from Trust Feeds, with Brian Mitchell, together with Major Deon Terblanche from Oribi, as well as David Ntombela - that is where they planned that as to how we were going to be attacked.  According to my knowledge in that meeting they came to a resolution.  There were police, special police who were brought in, and they were put at Trust Feeds to do that job.  They were placed at certain houses.  That was Gabela's place as well as Ndlovu's place, but they were not placed at Johan Nxumalo's place because his house is next to my house.  Nxumalo was afraid that we would see those people, then we would be suspicious.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... result of this that is very well publicised, that 11 people were killed in an attack on a house where there just happened to be a funeral vigil happening.

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... on a property adjacent to your property.

WITNESS:   If I can just make an estimation, maybe from here up to Woolworths.  That's how close I was with the Nxumalo place.

MR LAX: That night many houses were burnt, and we understand that your shop was burnt down as well.

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... the trial of Brian Mitchell and others that they were seen setting fire to these houses.

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: Now, you yourself have had several difficulties over the years.  You believe you've been harassed substantially by the police.  Tell us one or two of those incidents very, very briefly, because time is running out.

WITNESS:   May I please go back just a little bit.  On the night that the people died all the people that died were supposed to be my family, but because they had already run away due to having heard rumours that they were going to be attacked, then those houses were burnt, as well as the school, as well as my house, as well as the Malinga place.  Then the other people died.  Maybe when I come to myself, what I went through personally, I went through a lot during different times on different occasions.  I can say that the police harassed me.  On particular day in Durban they shot me, but they couldn't.  I was arrested.  I came out.  I was furthermore harassed here in town, Pietermaritzburg.  I was from the airport and it was at night.  I had taken Chief Maphumulo to a meeting in Contralesa, Johannesburg.  They assaulted me.  I opened up a case.  I went to the doctor.  There was absolutely nothing that came out of the case.  I was also harassed several times at Trust Feeds.  I was harassed by Jerome, as well as Johan.  There was a meeting whereby the people reached a truce, but I was the only one who was not supposed to be there.  I went there because I believed there was peace, but I had to run away because I was chased away by the station commander in his car.  That is the new station commander, Reynders.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... any of the families in Trust Feeds have brought civil actions, civic cases against the Minister of Law and Order, and that some of those cases have already been settled.  Yours is presently pending, but these are claims for damages - for all the damages that were suffered arising from these attacks.

WITNESS:   That is correct.  Many families that were harassed, and those who died, and those who were bereaved, and the survivors and the victims.  There are some who can't walk, who are crippled, as well as children.  They had civil actions.  Then in January this year the Government paid out some money to those who got injured, and the survivors, as well as the children and orphans.  But up til now my case has not been sorted out.

MR LAX: (Inaudible)  ... back to your land at Trust Feeds.  At this moment in time if you were to go back there, say later today, would it be safe for you to do that?

WITNESS:   I once went there, but I only went there because I felt I was going there at my own risk.  But I do not feel safe, I have got no surety that I am safe.

MR LAX: Would you like, you and your family, to go back and live on your piece of land in Trust Feeds?

WITNESS:   I would appreciate that, because I think there's so much land in Trust Feeds.  My land is five acres, and I would like to develop it and go back to it and stay there.

MR LAX: Just very finally, you have indicated that certainly the harassment that you've received and all these various attacks have left some psychological scars that have been quite difficult for you to deal with.

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LAX: How has it affected your family?

WITNESS:   My family has been harassed, tortured, traumatised, because my family split.  We don't stay together, we can't see each other.  We stay at different places.  We only come together when there are certain meetings in the family, funerals, weddings, and whatever cultural practices are  there.  But besides that I have been severely tortured. Even at work I was disturbed.  I can't do my work properly.  I can't render my services in the manner that I would like to.  Maybe in my family it has traumatised me, because there's a lot of expenses that I got into which I cannot meet.  Just shortly I will say even the office of revenue is also demanding tax money for the shop, as well as whatever was inside the shop, as well as in the house.  Even the rates for the place.  I have to pay all these because they say if I don't pay the rates for that place it should be expropriated.  These things traumatise me psychologically, and financially I have got problems, but most of all is that up til today, as I am sitting here in front of you, I never got any apology or anything financially.  But the Government was able to pop out thousands in Brian Mitchell's case, who had also harassed me and tortured me, but even today I haven't got a cent from the very same Government who paid the torturer.  Myself as a torturer I am holding the shorter end of the stick.  I have got certain needs that I must meet, but I cannot.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... back to the Chairperson.