Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-10-05

MR SMUTS: The course lasted into April.  Before proceeding on the course, he handed his R4 rifle to accused 2 for safekeeping because the trainees were not allowed to enter Ncise with their own firearms, do you remember that evidence?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes, I do.

MR SMUTS: He elected to give his rifle for safekeeping to accused 2, because he was a comrade and he was friendly with him and he discovered him to be a reliable person in the society as a teacher and as an office bearer in two organisations.
	Do you remember that evidence?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes, I do.

MR SMUTS: Was that correct?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: No, this is not correct.

MR SMUTS: Why do you say that?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: The firearm was left to me for the purposes of carrying out the missions of the ANC, not only for the safekeeping, that is not correct.
	Max knew that in his absence, I would be the one who is available to other comrades, in the cases of anything which would need his assistance as a well trained, or yes, as a well trained  MK man, who was deployed there at Flagstaff.

MR SMUTS: Do you confirm however that that was not the evidence of Mr Ntekiso at your trial?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Can you repeat your question please?

MR SMUTS: Do you confirm that Mr Ntekiso's evidence at your trial was that the weapon was left with you for safekeeping, and not for the other purposes which you have just described?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes, I confirm that.

MR SMUTS: Can I take you then to page 57 of the typed judgement, dealing further with the evidence of Mr Ntekiso and there on the left hand side there is a paragraph 5 which commences at line 19, do you have that?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Paragraph 5?

MR SMUTS: Yes, it is in brackets, 5 on the left?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Oh yes, yes.

MR SMUTS: That paragraph reads as follows:  he said that he had reported to the Regional Command of MK that accused had told him that the R4 which had been given to him by the Regional Command had been used in the attack on the Weakley's and that the Regional Command had distanced itself from the incident, because the offences were not committed by a member of MK.  Was that the evidence of Mr Ntekiso?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes, it was.

MR SMUTS: What do you say in respect of that evidence?  Is it correct that the Regional Command of MK distanced itself from your actions?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: No, I don't know that because I was not now, I cannot confirm whether Max was talking the, was telling the Court the truth or not.  I cannot - I am not certain.

MR SMUTS: You have no evidence to counter that suggestion?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: This thing, no, I cannot confirm.

MR SMUTS: When you say that you acted as you did in the interests of your organisation, which organisation do you identify as the organisation in whose interests you were acting?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: African National Congress and its allies, Communist Party, COSATU.

MR SMUTS: And is it your case that you acted to further a political struggle of the African National Congress and its allies?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes.

MR SMUTS: Against whom?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Against the counter-revolutionaries, against the enemy.

MR SMUTS: And are you prepared to identify the enemy or the counter-revolutionaries any more closely than under those banners?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: No.

MR SMUTS: As an office bearer of the African National Congress, and one whose task amongst other things was to recruit members for the African National Congress, did you seek to stay abreast of policy statements of your organisation?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: In an effort to recruit the members?

MR SMUTS: Yes, and then performing your functions as an office bearer of the African National Congress?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes, we put forward the policies of the ANC.

MR SMUTS: And how did you determine what those policies were?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: ANC is based on making the country democratically, in fact the most primary aim was to free the people of this country.  In that way, the ANC was to force an elected democratic government in this country, which would be based on non-racial principles, non-sexist principles.

MR SMUTS: Did you, during your membership and your position as an officer, an elected office bearer of the African National Congress, have regard to policy statements that were issued by the leadership and the statements issued by the ANC Department of Information and Publicity as to the position of the ANC in various spheres?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Question please, sorry?

MR SMUTS: Did you while operating as an office bearer of the African National Congress, have regard to policy statements that were issued by the leaders of the ANC and to statements issued by the ANC's Department of Information and Publicity regarding the position of the ANC?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: This operation?

CHAIRPERSON: In general?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: In general?  Yes.

MR SMUTS: Mr Chairman, we have prepared a bundle of documents which deals with the African National Congress' position on violence and if those could be distributed at this stage, it may be useful to canvass certain aspects with the witness.  May I ask that they be distributed at this stage?

CHAIRPERSON: Are they African National Congress documentation?

MR SMUTS: Mr Chairman, what we have done is we have done a summary, extracting specific statements and we have at the back, appended the document from which they are drawn.  Some of them are broader than African National Congress, like the National Peace Accord.
	The Pretoria Minute which involved the government at the time, the DF Malan Accord and so on.  But the rest are drawn from the Department of Information and Publicity statements which were drawn off the Internet.

CHAIRPERSON: You say the Department of Information?

MR SMUTS: The ANC Department of Information and Publicity.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh.

MR SMUTS: No, not the notorious government one, Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: Why I asked the question is that we are quite aware of the goings on and the tactics of certain policemen of those days.

MR SMUTS: Yes, Mr Chairman, these documents were drawn from the Internet at the Website of the African National Congress.
	Do you have a copy of the document Mr Maxhayi?

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Yes, I do.

CHAIRPERSON: Let us make that Exhibit B.

MLULAMISI MAXHAYI: Which copy?  This one?

CHAIRPERSON: Exhibit A will be the new application form 5206.

MR ZILWA: Mr Chairman, for the record, I am not sure that it will be proper or that we should agree to the handing in of this document and the cross-examination of the witness on it, without us having proper sight of it.
	I would have thought that if my learned friend for the other side, wanted to use this document, he would have given us an opportunity to go through it because the witness has to identify it.  Now all of a sudden he has to reply to questions based on this document, he has hardly seen anything about the document.  He may very well commit himself to something which is not accurate because he hasn't had time to go through it.
	Now, I suppose everybody knew that the case would be proceeding today and just like we did on our side, submitting everything we wanted to use, timeously, I would have thought the other side would have done it as well, so that nobody is caught by surprise, because right now the witness may give an answer which may very well turn out not to be accurate, because he has hardly had a chance to look at the document.
	If my learned friend proposes to base questions on this document, which have just been handed in and the witness has not had a look at it at all, it might well turn out to be quite prejudicial and indeed unfair to him.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Smuts, how many questions do you propose to, how many issues do you propose to use out of this?