Human Rights Violation Hearings — Klerksdorp — 1996-09-23

MR RASMENI: Doctor, thank you very much.  What I would like to say here is that the apartheid regime led by the Nationalist Party commited gross violations of human rights against the communities in this region, formally known as Transvaal region.  This included murder, torture, shooting of the people, detention without trial, throwing people out of their houses, unfair labour practices, there are many others. I take that, the unfair labour practices, to me, falls within violation of human rights.
 The people of the Western Transvaal, the communities, Klerksdorp, Kanana, Schweizer-Reneke and many other places here, stood up to oppose this brutal system.   They organised themselves into trade unions, some organised themselves into civics.  The youth, Seiko, the youth league of the ANC and other organisations.  They called for the dismantling of the apartheid system.  The resigning of the Black local authorities, they mobilised themselves into mass actions.  You know, they engaged in mass actions, to fight the evil system of the apartheid.  In the response of the regime, many of these people were killed, some detained without trial. 
 I will now come to issues that directly affected my 
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life, my wife's and my family.  I want to start with the first experience that I had on the 21st of November 1986.  I can't forget that date. Because that date was the day by which we were supposed to celebrate the birthday, first birthday of my son, Manyana Rasmini.
 We couldn't, we couldn't even think of it.  Because what happened was that a group of vigilantes which were purportedly organised by Vaal Reefs management, attacked my house.  I was then staying in UMzamomhle.  It is a township Komplasie, a township which is there at Vaal Reefs. I was staying in House No C8.  These people were armed to their teeth with swords, assegaais and other assortments of weapons, which they displayed openly.  
 I want to refer people to incidents that we have seen you know, around the Gauteng, you know before 1994, you know, warlords marching, and in the KwaZulu/Natal, warlords marching with all those weapons. You know, our first experience to see this, it was at Vaal Reefs, an organised group of vigilantes marching, you know, in multitudes, attacking people.  The previous day before the 21st of November 1986, they had killed four shop stewards; shop stewards that belonged to the National Union of Mineworkers.  Those that I can still remember, one was by the name of Tollo and the other one was Alton.  They died the day before this attack was directed to my own house.
 Fortunately, when they came to the house, or maybe unfortunately for them, they could not find me in the house.  I was away holding a meeting with three of my comrades, Oliver Sakyinela, (indistinct), and Willie Matyana, to discuss the issue of the killing of shop stewards.
 These warlords, you know, they were called the leaders, KLERKSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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you know, that formed, the group that formed the leadership, you know, that was marching in the forefront of the whole grouping, went straight to my house.  There were about 20 of them and went into the house, found my wife with some of my family, including my brother-in-law, Jonas Nojola. They demanded my whereabouts and started searching all the rooms, under the beds and saying that they wanted me and that they wanted to kill me.
 When they could not succeed they intimidated my wife and my brother and they said they would be coming back.  Then they went to the neighbourhood to search for me.  
 At that moment, Mr Chairperson, I was coming, I was on my way coming back to the house.  Then I decided to hello to one of the neighbours, known as Yapan.  As I was there I saw my wife running away from the direction of the house.  I went outside the house to call her.  She came and I could see that she was highly terrified. She told me that I was - she told me that I must run away as this group of vigilantes were out to kill me.  At that moment another big group of people was moving up the street just in front of those houses that we were standing at.  They were all carrying these dangerous weapons, you know, and marching and singing.   Then I asked my wife to return to the house so that I can take this matter to the police.  Then I went into the street, went through this crowd of people, the vigilantes, but fortunately they could not identify who Solly Rasmeni is.  So I managed to walk through them and immediately I met Mr Oliver Sekanyele, who was also a shop steward.  He was going to see me at my place.  He was actually aware of what was taking place as we met. Because he knew some of the people amongst the group here - because that group was, you 
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know, formed from people of the Pondos, people from the Bathas and the Zulus.  They knew some of the Pondos because he is coming from Pondoland, as you know himself.  
 Then he asked them what was happening.  They explained that they were marching to kill the shop stewards.  They were actually searching for the shop stewards in the village or the township.
 Then I suggested to Mr Sekanyele that we must go to report the matter to the mine security police and we discussed that.  We decided against that, because it was clear that amongst the leadership of the group, some of them were mine security officers, like one whose name is Dhlamini, one of them was a team leader or a group supervisor in the name of Ndlovu, you know.  That was clear to us that because they passed through the mine security barracks, when coming into the village, it was clear that this was sanctioned by management.   
 So we decided to go instead to Orkney police station to go and report the matter. In fact, to lay a charge.   I must say that when we got there, the police demanded that we must actually identify or say the names of the whole group.  Then that confronted us with a difficulty, because we couldn't really know each and every person that was involved in that march or in the attack.
 So we said we don't know all the people. So they said no, they are only going to put this in their incident book and consult with the authorities.  Then we said why can't you come and stop the group from attacking the people, they have already killed some people.  They said no, they can't do that, because at this stage they are not allowed to go into the mine premises, if they are not being called by the 
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mine authorities.  So they wouldn't go to the mine. 
 We went back.  When I got back home, my house was empty, the whole family had gone. I went to my brother-in-law, Derek Buno, and then I found my wife there and the family.  
 After I joined them, we decided that we must actually move out of the village, because it was clear that we are going to be attacked. We decided to move to Kanana township in Orkney, to seek refuge at the place of Mr Zolake Jilagi.  We did so.  We stayed with Mr Zolake Jilagi for two weeks.  Mr Nunjasi Nonjola who stayed with me at home, left the house for good and he never came back again.  
 Then after we returned to my house, I spent only a few days there, then the South African security branch officers rumbled at my door with knocks.  It was early in the morning at half past one, am.  That was on the 13th of December 1986.  The officers introduced themselves as Lieut Pelser and Sgt Muller.  They told me that I was under arrest. I asked them why they came at that hour of the night or the morning, is is that they are going to kill me.  They started panicking and said they wouldn't. I demanded that they should then commit themselves in writing that they are there at that time on that date, to arrest me under the state of emergency and they would not kill me and sign the document, which they did. They handed the document to my wife.
 I was briefly kept in the Stilfontein police station until the morning.  Round about eight o'clock in the morning, one police officer came to collect me.  He put me into a van, at the back of the van, drove away.  He drove around the whole day, you know, into Kanana, into Jouberton, into various other places which I did not know, 
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because I could not see some of the places properly.  
 At about 15:00, that is three o'clock in the afternoon, he drove to the Klerksdorp police station and there he collected four other youths.  These youths were arrested from the Wolmaransstad areas.  I know, I can only remember two of them at the moment, Romeo and Isaac.  They were loaded with me into the back of the van. Then this police officer drove us to the Klerksdorp Golf Club and there he stopped and talked to two senior police officers, who were in private clothes.  One of them was Capt Viljoen. 
 They escorted the van to Stilfontein police station, where the four youths were ordered to come out and as they did, they were badly assaulted.   Their hair was pulled off.  If I can remember Romeo had dread-locks and they were actually rooted out physically.  Water was poured over their body. I was just kept in the back there to watch all this happening.  They subjected me to psychological torture.
 Then Capt Viljoen and his companion carried, you know, Capt Viljoen and his companion carried out these assaults.  They then came to me and told me that my turn was coming.  We were then taken to Klerksdorp prison and locked up there in solitary confinement without food.  
 One day Mr Pelser and Mr Muller - I understand now they are promoted to higher ranks - came to interrogate me in the prison.   They made me to stand on foot for more than two hours interrogating me.  In the main they were pressurising me to co-operate with them as the police, that is to be an informer.  I in turn demanded from them why the police did not protect me as I was the target of assassination by a group of vigilantes in Vaal Reefs, and in turn when that plot failed, they resorted to arrest me. Was that they were
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trying to force me to be their informer, their impimpi.  As they were doing their interrogation there, they would actually switch on, you know, a tape-recorder, a small tape-recorder. One would say, you know, threaten me, you know, now we shall kill you.  Then as they did that, they would switch off the tape-recorder as they were talking.
 In the end they asked me if I knew the old shafts of Stilfontein mines and that if I refused to co-operate I would end up there. They told me that I must go back to my cells, but they day I would be released, I must make it a point that I meet with them near the tower, which is near the Vaal Reefs Mine offices. If I failed, they will see to it that I am killed.  
 Subsequent to this, again a group of Black policemen - you know, the majority of this group of police officers from the South African Police security branch, the majority were the Black policemen.  Then I was told that I must go to the reception point and when I got there, I found a group of youths having assembled there, together with the four youths from Wolmaransstad.  Most of whom were from Jouberton and other places, other townships. Some of the police officers that were there were Tjitji, April Tswaidi, Mathete - nickname Zet.  They started assaulting these youths.  I had thought that a Black parent in the form of this Black policemen would have sympathy and passion for a detained young man who still has to be guided in his life, so that he becomes a future parent, who will respect human rights, who will respect human dignity.  But I must regret that these policemen, police officers inhumanly kicked and pulled off the hair from these young men. I have seen men fighting in my life, but what I saw that day was quite terrible. I do 
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not know whether all the youth returned safely to their cells, as they were taken in different directions.
 I also returned to my cell, after giving a statement to this other officer named Mathete.  Then in February 1987 I was released and I returned to my work at Vaal Reefs No 2.  But still there I experienced hell when I was released. I was inundated by telephone calls from the South African Police branch officers, demanding that I should go and meet them.  These telephone calls would be received by some of the senior personnel officers.  In spite of the fact that I would tell them that I do not want to take these calls, they would force me to come and take the calls.  
 I finally took up the whole matter with my legal adviser, in the name of Shadish Rhupa and Itvan Motala and letters were written to the high structures of the police, but they could not intervene and ultimately we took up the matter with Adv Lechai Pete.  Then it was then that these telephone calls were stopped.  
 I want to connect this repression, harassment with people with what was happening in Vaal Reefs Mines and in other mines around Klerksdorp as well. In that they would act in concert with the security police. When things suited them, they would actually act as an island or as a government, which was isolated from the Republic of South Africa, the then Republic of South Africa.
 There was this miners' strike in 1987 where about 80 leaders in the NUM offices. I was one of those leaders as well, discussing the strike.  These policemen named Lieut Pelser came in, leading a group of policemen with Casspirs and a lot of vans and we were all loaded into the van.  I must indicate that this office where we were holding a 
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meeting in, it is a NUM Office which was bombed in 1993, together with NUMSA offices which were directly opposite the NUM office.
 During the court proceedings, because the people were laying some charges against us, they confessed themselves as police, that they had planted a man who sat in the meeting together with us.  The police planting a man and giving a transmitter to the man, so that whatever is being discussed, they could hear from some distance.  You would ask yourself: why would the police interfere in the labour matters, labour issues, because the strike was merely the NUM strike, workers striking against the mine management, which was clearly a matter between mine management and not the police and not the government. But here they are sending a man to sit and get all the information. 
 Finally the charges were withdrawn against most of us, except Charles Mapeshawne and Moses Lidile, who later won their appeal cases, but after serving a long time in prison.  I want to draw another strategy that was used by the apartheid forces.  A strategy that was meant to divide the mass democratic movement. Even the leadership of the union itself.  There were these other four people that were arrested within this 80, who were never released.  Mr Chairperson, they were never released in the name that they are State witnesses. 
 So those were the dirty tricks that were used by the police.  They said - you know, I wanted to say, their wives were there knowing us, they wanted to talk to us to intervene. Their wives would even go to our lawyers, Motala, to say please, intervene, we know our husbands are not State witnesses.
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