Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1999-04-28

MR KINCAID: Jimmy, the charge sheet alleged that Mrs Morilia was shot and injured and that from her home various items were stolen, were robbed and when one looks at the list of items taken from her home it appears as though you were successful in getting a .22 pistol and some ammunition, but other than those two items various other items of a normal common household nature were taken as well.  There was a radio taken, there was a gas primus, there were sweets, there was cash, there was a bottle of cane and six sheets, a pair of gloves, a knife, an ice bucket, there was soup, there was mince, there was jelly, there were sweets.  Now those items, Jimmy, are not in any way of a nature akin to weapons or arms, can you explain, do you know who took those other items from Mrs Morilia?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I don't know about these other items,   I don't remember anybody taking such items.  What I can remember is that we took the weapons and the bullets.

MR KINCAID: Speaking for yourself, Jimmy, are you able to tell the Committee that you didn't take anything which wasn't an arm or a weapon?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR KINCAID: Now who shot Mrs Morilia?  The judge found that she was injured, she had been shot at, do you know who shot her?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: She was shot by me.

MR KINCAID: With what did you shoot her, Jimmy?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I shot her by the first weapon that we found in Mr Cobus' house.

MR KINCAID: Mr Hansel's house.

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Mr Hansel's house.

MR KINCAID: It was a shotgun?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes.

MR KINCAID: Jimmy, why did you shoot Mrs Morilia, why did you shoot her?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: The reason for shooting her is because we were in her yard and I saw somebody in the window and I went to the front door.  When I arrived there this person was opening the door and the dogs came out and they came towards me, so I tried to shoot these dogs and then the bullet hit to the door.  That's how she was shot.

MR KINCAID: So you were aiming in the general direction of the door, is that what your testimony is?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR KINCAID: That is from where the dogs had come?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, the dogs were coming out of the door, she was opening the door for the dogs to go out.

MR KINCAID: Did you shoot at Mrs Morilia and did you attack Mrs Morilia for any reasons that were motivated by ill-will or spite or malice?  Was there any personal reason why you wanted to shoot this old lady?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, I didn't know her and this farm was quite far from where I was staying.

MR KINCAID: Once again, Jimmy, the purpose of attacking Mrs Morilia, was it to arm yourselves, to collect firearms, to arm yourselves?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR KINCAID: Shortly after the Morilia incident, Jimmy, you and your fellow applicants were arrested, do you know whether the youth of Stutterheim, the township youth of Stutterheim continued to attack the farmers and to intimidate them and frighten them from their lands, to rob them of their weapons, do you know whether those attacks continued, Jimmy?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, we did hear about such incidents when we were arrested, but because they were scared of being arrested, they stopped because some people were arrested and we would meet them in court and they would then be released.  They were then scared, they didn't do that.

MR KINCAID: All these attacks, Jimmy, you've testified several times now that they were there so that you could have arms with which to defend yourselves against the Security Police.  Did you out of any of these attacks, Jimmy, derive any personal economic benefit from these attacks on the various victims?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, there was nothing else except the weapons and the military uniform, there was nothing else except those.

MR KINCAID: And can you say whether the weapons that you recovered from, that you took from the farmers, whether those weapons were in fact used in the struggle against the Security Force?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, they were used because the security people were afraid of going to the township.

MR KINCAID: Was there ever a report-back to any meeting, any gathering?  After the various attacks on the farms, did you ever go back to a meeting or a gathering in the township and say: "This is what we've done, this is what we've achieved, here are the weapons"?  Was there any such formal feedback or report-back?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: No, there was no such meeting because we would get weapons and leave them when we were having a roadblock, so those weapons were scattered around the youth that was taking part in what was happening at the time.  After that we then got arrested, after the Kei Road incident.

MR KINCAID: Jimmy, you've made a statement to a TRC Investigator, Mr Jabu, in July of last year, do you recall the occasion when you made that statement to him?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, I do recall.

MR KINCAID: And it wasn't made under oath, and that statement is essentially the same statement that you have repeated in an affidavit deposed to on the 20th of April of this year.  I wish to refer you to paragraph 6 of your affidavit, Jimmy, and for the purpose of the record I wish you to confirm, if you're able, that what I'm about to read now is your personal sentiment.
"To Mrs Morilia, to Mrs Clackers, to the memory of Mr Cobus and those of his family who are alive, to the memory of Mr Hansel and his surviving family, to Mr Pretorius, his family and to Joe Senti and his family, I say sorry, sorry for the infliction of these injustices and sorrow on your lives."
Is that the apology you've made to the victims, of these various incidents we've canvassed in your testimony, Jimmy?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR KINCAID: Mr Chairperson, that is the applicant's evidence in chief.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Kincaid.  Mr Clarke?

MR CLARKE: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
	Mr Nokawu - may I call you Jimmy?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes.

MR CLARKE: What education, what formal education do you have, standard what?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I'm still studying inside prison, I'm doing standard 10.

MR CLARKE: Sorry, I believe my speaker's on the blink.
	Educated to standard 10?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, I'm still doing standard 10.

MR CLARKE: Okay.  Are you doing standard 10 in prison?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: Yes, that is correct.

MR CLARKE: And before you were imprisoned, what level of education did you reach?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I was doing standard three.

MR CLARKE: I see.  And in what year did you leave school?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: In 1980.

MR CLARKE: So you had approximately eight or nine years in civil society between when you left school and when these incidents occurred?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is correct.

MR CLARKE: And in that time you formed opinions about what is wrong and what is right in civil life?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is correct.

MR CLARKE: And understandably the political regime of the day was clearly something that was wrong and needed to be put right?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is correct.

MR CLARKE: What were your attitudes about the wrongs and rights of thefts and robberies?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I didn't think about those things.

MR CLARKE: You didn't regard theft and robbery as something as being necessarily wrong or evil?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: I took those as things that were not right, that were wrong.

MR CLARKE: Now you testified that you associated yourself with the youth league of the ANC and the movement of the day, which was the UDM, that is in 1989, is that correct?

NZUNZIMA JIMMY NOKAWUSANA: That is correct.

MR CLARKE: Did you and your fellow comrades meet regularly and discuss and strategise?