Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1999-02-16

STANLEY GQIBA: Yes, that is correct.  I don't know myself to have changed in that evidence.  Yes I did say that.  I said everything you have just said.  I went as far as to say that insofar as our organisation is concerned, anybody who was alleged to have been an informer should be investigated and have the information thereabout verified, because members of the MK and others were adamant that such information had to be verified.

CHAIRPERSON: The only problem that I have with your evidence is when you are asked by Ms Thabethe on what basis you then said to Mr Radebe and Mr Mkhwanazi they must do a clean job  so that they can not be traced, and the response that came after that question was put to you.  And that's the problem.  I was only trying to draw your attention to the fact that your response creates a problem to me because you are the one who had told these young people to verify information and not to act on unverified information, yet you are the one who is saying you already knew what was going to happen to the captives, when you had not been given any facts about whether that information that they were tell you about had been verified or not.  That was the ground norm of your organisation.  You wouldn't incite a member to act on unverified information.

STANLEY GQIBA: What I said at the time, I must say that people were dying in large numbers at the time.  At the time people were dying in the township, even 'though I was at the night club I knew that we could be attacked at any time.  Many things were happening at the time, so that I knew fully well that one could not have waited for many statements and verification.  The fact that the told me that these people were Imidwembe informers, I already knew therefore that it is possible that these people were now going to be killed and I assumed that they were now following instructions, having verified the information.

CHAIRPERSON: You are assuming sir that they had verified information.  On what basis was that assumption?

STANLEY GQIBA: I knew these people as members of the organisation, card carrying members of the organisation.  I knew them to be involved in the SDU's.  I knew that they were commanders, except that I did not ask them who else were involved in that group as they were moving with these captured people.  I concluded that they were sure about the information now that they were looking for ammunition.

CHAIRPERSON: Did you ask them about whether the information they were giving you about their captives had been so verified?  And if so, what prevented you from doing so?  If they did not say we are telling you an information which has now been verified by our unit, why did you not ask if they had verified that information?  As a chairperson of an organisation that has a cornerstone rule of verifying information before acting upon it.

STANLEY GQIBA: That is what I am trying to explain, that had they found me at the office I would have asked all those questions, but at the time I was at work, busy, attending to patrons, and I did not have time for them to try and find out exactly what was happening.  It was not safe at the place because there were many people, patrons, at the night club.  We therefore could not have discussed these questions in the presence of so many people.

CHAIRPERSON: Proceed Ms Thabethe.

MS THABETHE: Mr Gqiba, you said you met with the applicants later on when the incident happened, and you asked them to convince you as to whether Elsie and Hapile were informers or not.  My question to you is, exactly what did the applicants say to you to convince you that Elsie and Hapile were informers?

STANLEY GQIBA: They emphasised that the evidence they had about the two, one of whom was killed, was that there was a time when they disappeared from the township, and during that time they were dealing with the people to whom they were informing.  They said something to that effect that they were sure that these people once disappeared from the township, during which time they were away with the people to whom they were informing.

CHAIRPERSON: Didn't you also proceed to say that they advised you that they had witnesses who could testify to the fact that indeed these persons were informers?

STANLEY GQIBA: Yes, there was evidence at the time.  Evidence ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: No, I'm not saying.  I'm saying you said to us that the applicants further advised you that they had witnesses that could be called to confirm that indeed Elsie and Hapile informed on the community.  That's what they told you, that they could call witnesses to corroborate the allegations levelled against them about them being informers and passing on information to the police.

STANLEY GQIBA: Yes, that is correct.

MS THABETHE: No further questions, Madam Chair.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MS THABETHE

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Lax do you have any questions for ...(inaudible)

MR LAX: You said that they asked you for ammunition.

STANLEY GQIBA: Yes.

MR LAX: What sort of ammunition did they ask you for?

STANLEY GQIBA: I cannot recall what kind of ammunition they requested, but yes, they wanted ammunition.

MR LAX: Did you go and check in the store room in the office whether there was ammunition there or not?

STANLEY GQIBA: There, the fact that there are ammunition in the office that was something that was not known to me.  They knew that.  Maybe they as members of the SDU's had a cache but we as leaders, no, we did not know.  There is no time where I came across ammunition at the office.

MR LAX: Mr Gqiba the effect of Mr Radebe's evidence was that you did know about that store room.  And he understood your answer to say there was no ammunition to mean that there was nothing in the store room.

STANLEY GQIBA: I think he is a little bit confused.  I think he is forgetting some of the facts.  Maybe one of them, or one of us there, or maybe their commanders knew, not myself.  I did not have that knowledge.

MR LAX: He was emphatic that you should have, that you must have known.  Be that as it may, let's turn to the question of after this event you went to them and you asked them to convince you that the people who had died were the informers.  Why did they need to convince you?  Why did you need convincing at all?

STANLEY GQIBA: I did not go to them.  I did not go to them, I only met them after a while since they had fled the township.  I had not seen them for a while and when they came back from whence they had hidden, that is when I came across them.  They actually came to us where we were, that is when I started asking all these questions.

MR LAX: Why did you ask the questions?  It's a simple question I asked first out.  Why did you want to be convinced about this?

STANLEY GQIBA: It was known that we as an organisation had to know, because we already knew.  We only knew the following day who did that and therefore it was encumbent upon us to make sure that the information was correct, to prepare ourselves in order to account to other structures in the community.  It is for that reason that I asked for verification or information to the verification of the evidence, and it transpired that one of them was in love with a policeman.

CHAIRPERSON: You are saying you wanted to be convinced about the veracity of whether the two ladies were informers or not, because you still wanted to account to other structures, even 'though you needed this convincing sometime in 1994.  You still felt you had to account to other structures.