Special Hearings — Women's Hearings — 1997-07-28

CHAIRPERSON: Could I ask Mrs Kuzwao's driver, Alfred, to please go downstairs, because she's actually waiting for you at the bottom.  Gone already?  Thank you.
 We're going to have a change in the programme.  We should have taken the submissions from Fedtraw and Cals today.  However they have kindly consented to coming tomorrow.  We have been running late since early this morning, because we started late.  And we must apologise to those people who were going to be making submissions.  
 We're going to take the last witness for today, Kedeboni Dube, please, if you would come forward.
 Kedeboni, we'd like to welcome you to the Commission.  We must apologise for allowing you to wait the whole day before you could actually give your evidence.  I'm sorry that we've actually run late, but now that we do have you here, please feel free and comfortable to give your evidence in as free a manner as possible.
 We have asked Joyce Seroke to assist you with the giving of your evidence.  Joyce?

MS SEROKE: Kedeboni, will you speak Zulu or Sotho?

KEDEBONI DUBE: I will speak Zulu mix and I will mix it with Xhosa.

MS SEROKE: I will request you to stand up and take and oath and raise up your right hand.

INTERPRETER: The speaker's mike is not on.  The speaker's mike is not on.

MS SEROKE: I will repeat again, because I didn't realise that my mike was not on.

KEDEBONI DUBE: (Duly sworn, states).

MS SEROKE: Thank you.  Kedeboni, are you still living in Swanieville at the moment?  Could you actually relate to us what happened to you in Swanieville?

KEDEBONI DUBE: In Swanieville the Inkatha came.  In Swanieville the Inkatha invaded this place in Swanieville.  I cannot remember the exact date, but this was in 1992.  Inkatha invaded us and we ran to Asatville.
 And when we arrived in Asatville, I used to visit with my boyfriend in Kimberley.  When we arrived in Asatville, I requested him to go and look for my father.  I asked him to go and look for my father, if he survived and if he was still alive.  
 And if he was, if he could please go and fetch him.  And this boy came here and he said, no, your father is alive.  I went to the township at my aunt's place.  When I arrived at my aunt's place, I was just too scared.
 I went with Makgleng at my sister's place.  My aunt also came.  They were also scared of Inkatha.  They didn't want to stay where they were living, because they're scared of Inkatha. He said to me, why the comrades are looking for you.  I asked him, why are the comrades looking for me?  So I just stayed there and I didn't go back to Swanieville and I felt very concerned and worried, because I don't know why the comrades were looking for me.
 So I went to another street in Vuga, called the Kuzulu.  I sat there the whole day.  And when I got out, I met the comrades at a corner.  When I met these comrades at a corner, they went past me.  They went to the house were I had been.  They didn't know me.  They went there and came back and ran after and they took me and then they left with me and said, we're going to church.
 The church was the place where all the people who had run away from Swanieville had gone to and I stayed there.  There was a boer called Ebeke.  He comes from Motlageng township.  He said to me there were Xhosa people fighting against the Inkatha.  He said to me, you know, that Xhosa people are going to kill you. I don't want you to take to the Xhosa. They said you and your boyfriend pick-pocketed or mugged the corpses.  He said, is that the truth?  I said, no I do not know that, because when Inkatha invaded and attacked us, we ran away to Asatville. Then they said they were looking for me and my boyfriend.  
 It was around seven when he went to church.  He then said no, let us not stay here in church.  Let me go and put you in a safe place, because I know you; there's a house there at Manzinis, a shebeen.  He took me to this house, to this shebeen house.  And people had just about to leave.  He said, please just stay here, I'm coming.  And he went out with other comrade guys.
 Then he came back at around half-past-eight and he said let's go, I am taking you back to the church, I don't know what are these people going to do with you.  So we went back to the church. But he didn't take the direction towards the church.  He took a direction that was getting out of the township.  I said, but where are you taking me?  He said to me, why do you know so much?
 He had a gun with him.  So he hit me with the back of the gun.  He says, you're too knowledgable, too clever.  Because I was scared and it was at night and I didn't know where he was taking me, but I do know this guy.
 He took me to another house.  This house he took me, was a big house, but there was nobody living there.  And each and everyone pulled their own girls there and they were sitting together with their girls.  And I said to him, I'm not going to sleep here, I want to go home.
 He said, I will take you to the Xhosa people and the Xhosa are going to kill you.  And he beat me up the whole night until he raped me.  He raped me in different positions.  I tried to fight him at that stage until in the morning and he was raping me.
 I had a purse which had money, and this boy took my purse and gave me R2,00 and said, go back to your home and don't tell anyone; if you tell anyone about what I did to you, we're going to burn you and I'll burn your home as well.
 During that time my boyfriend went to look for me at home and he didn't find me.  And he realised that it was daybreak and he didn't find me, and he went to the church.  Aat the church they arrested him.  
 They caught him and said, yes, this is the one who was mugging the corpse, but the other one didn't say he was with me at night and he raped me.  My boyfriend asked me, where is Spoke, and he said, no, I don't know where she is.  He says, we have heard that comrades took her late last night.
 They had a meeting about my boyfriend and asked him why was he mugging corpses.  He said, no, I had gone to look for my father, because I had asked him to go and look for my father, but because the issue was - and because his picture was in the Sowetan, people assumed that he was involved in mugging, but - the Xhosa people during that time, that's the time when they were very angry.The Xhosa people were very angry during that time. They were attacking people and the priest realised that these guys were just looking for this guy so that they could kill him.  But the priest protected this, my boyfriend and took him away.  They took him to Plasville and he got a train and he went to Randfontein.
 At my sister's place they found me there.  I didn't tell anybody what happened to me.  This guy had pleaded with me that I shouldn't tell anybody.  It's our secret that he had raped me.  What would people say about this.  
 So I've realised that this whole thing is very painful.  They took my things.  They took my dinner set.  And when I want my property back that they had taken, they kept threatening that they're going to kill me.  
 I still see this person.  When I look at this boy, this guy, my heart is very sore, because he raped me and he wasn't arrested by the cops, and so many things that he does.  He does very strange things and there's nobody who can arrest him. 
 Now he's a criminal and he kills people.  He mugs people and when he kills people, nothing happens to him.  But I realise that he's going to do so much damage to other people.
 After that I have been suffering from syphilis since this boy raped me.

MS SEROKE: Kedeboni, during this time when this boy took you away, did you not scream and cry out as you realise that he was taking a different direction from the church?  Didn't you shout and scream?