Amnesty Hearings — Mmabatho — 1998-09-21

CHAIRPERSON: The translator is informing me that she cannot hear the applicant.  There must be another problem with the machine.  If you could just bear with us for a while while it is taken a look at.

INTERPRETER: We can proceed.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  If you could please just repeat the last question, Mr Terreblanche.

MR TERREBLANCHE: Mr Chairperson, the question asked of Mr Menyatsoe was: "Where did you go to school and what was your scholastic training, to what standard did you go"?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I schooled in Lifurudzi up to Std 9.

CHAIRPERSON: Continue please Mr Terreblanche.

MR TERREBLANCHE: I'm sorry I did not receive the answer.

TRANSLATOR: The answer was he attended his school in Lifurudzi, that is in the Zeerust area, up to Standard nine.  Did you hear that?

CHAIRPERSON: I think the answer, I'm getting an answer on channel 2, the English channel.  Perhaps we should take a short adjournment while they just sort out the question of the translation.
	Ok, we will try again.  If you could please repeat the answer to the last question, namely what schooling and what standard did the applicant achieve at school.

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I went to school up to Standard nine in Lifurudzi.

MR TERREBLANCHE: Mr Menyatsoe, you did receive a certificate for standard nine, in other words you just had one year left in order to complete your education.  After that you went to the police or what happened?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: Please repeat your question, Mr Terreblanche.

MR TERREBLANCHE: I am saying Mr Menyatsoe, when you completed your standard nine and received the certificate, which was a good educational level at that stage.  When you went to go and look for work, did you go to the police immediately or what career did you follow after that?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I went job hunting.

MR TERREBLANCHE: Let me put it to you in another way.  After you obtained your academic qualifications did you do any other work in between and what work did you do before you went to the police?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I worked in the mines.

MR TERREBLANCHE: Thank you Mr Menyatsoe, and then you decided to join the Bophuthatswana Police.  In what year did you do this?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: It was in 1991.

MR TERREBLANCHE: Thank you.  And then you were in service of the Bophuthatswana Police up and to the matter occurred.  How many years of service did you have when this incident occurred?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I served from.  I started from 1991 up until the 1994 when these occurred.

MR TERREBLANCHE: You were a fully trained member of the Bophuthatswana Police.  Can you tell us in what section you were, was it a detective, there was security, safety, the unrest unit.  In what section did you serve or receive training in the Bophuthatswana Police?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I was under the protective unit, the protection unit.  I was serving in it.

MR TERREBLANCHE: What did you have to protect, Mr Menyatsoe?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I was in the Main gate of the State President here in Mafikeng and thereafter I was transferred to Thaba N'Chu but then transferred back to Mafikeng after three years or rather two years.   In 1994 I was back to the head office where I worked in the former General Silike's house here in Bophuthatswana.

MR TERREBLANCHE: So is it correct if I say you mainly was a security official protecting very important people, the General and the President.  You had to protect the high officials of this country.  Is that correct?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: Please repeat your question Mr Terreblanche.

MR TERREBLANCHE: I am asking if it was correct that if I say that you were mainly in the protection unit.  You had to protect the State President, you went from head office to the Free State and then you were transferred back here where you protected a General.  We know that there are different sections in the police, but your task was exclusively protection and you were entrusted with the lives of the high officials of the country, the President, the Generals lives.  Is that correct?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: Yes I was protecting the President and again I was protecting the General together with all the Bophuthatswana people.

MR TERREBLANCHE: I am  very grateful for the fact that you also wanted to protect the people, but was it your task to just protect Bophuthatswana people.  But as a task as a policeman was it there to protect or to provide protection against crime and people who wanted to kill others and chaos, what was the task or what is the task of a policeman?  Can you tell us, is, probably had an oath where you put your hand up and say that you will swear that you will be loyal to an oath.  What is the first most important task of a member of the Bophuthatswana Police?  You have received your training and there they taught you what your actual task was.  You are not a soldier that going into a war, you must protect.  Now can you tell us then, what can you remember concerning the oath of loyalty that you took?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: Mr Terreblanche, it seems you do not understand me well.  If you are a policeman or in the police force you are trained as under general training and from there you are given various posts and then again you can be taken from a particular unit to a different unit.  So the policeman works anyway where he is based.

MR TERREBLANCHE: I am asking these questions for a good reason.  I am asking you specifically.  What was your task?  You have already told me that your task was that of protecting important people, that is the State President included.  When I asked you what other training you received, you did not answer the question.  I am happy if you tell me that you were exclusively tasked with protecting.  With regards to, except for all your other training, were you exclusively tasked for protecting the State President and the General?  You were a security person, is that correct?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: As I have already explained, Mr Terreblanche, I was a policeman at that time.  Any work of the police I was given I would do it.  I acted like any other police.

MR TERREBLANCHE: So you performed any tasks which was given to you by a senior.  You always performed those tasks.  Is that correct?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: May you please repeat your question.

MR TERREBLANCHE: Mr Menyatsoe, I am only asking in order to confirm what you have already said.  You said that you performed instruction or tasks, and now I am asking you, any instruction which was given to you by your seniors, did you follow that instruction to the best of your ability?  Did you listen to them when the senior person told you do this and do that?  Did you receive those orders and did you follow them strictly so you never worked outside of the instructions you got, please?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: I didn't do as I pleased.  I did whatever I did as I was trained when I joined the police and abide by all the rules that were given at the police.  I didn't do as I pleased.  I followed instructions.

MR TERREBLANCHE: So Mr Menyatsoe, who gave you as a member of the Bop Police, to go and shoot or kill injured people.  Shoot them in the back of the head while he was facing the ground.  Whose instructions were those which you followed?

ONTLAMETSE BERNSTEIN MENYATSOE: At that time there was no Commanding Officer.  That is why I said right from the onset that it was a war situation and even a Commanding Officer at that time would be fending for his life at that time, but there was no Commanding Officer around but I used my discretion as a policeman to kill your soldiers because it was a war situation.  I used my own discretion as a trained policeman that whilst on duty you have a right to use your own discretion.