Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1999-09-20

MR PANDAY: Mr Dlamini, when you all discovered the firearms, how many firearms did you take?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: He pointed out to me and I took a look at them and I took only one firearm and I stayed with that one, I left the others in that hole.

MR PANDAY: Mr Dlamini, you say you left the other firearms in the hole, did you cover the hole, or were they just left open or visible, for others to find the firearms?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: I covered the others.

MR MALAN: May I ask you, Mr Dlamini, why did you not tell Lucky that there were other weapons?  Mdo is dead.  He told you about his arms cache, why did you not tell Lucky, "Let's go and fetch these weapons.  We can fight the IFP with them, then everybody's got a firearm"?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: There was no reason yet, or incident yet that had happened that could make me tell Lucky about the firearms.

MR MALAN: Did you not say Lucky was your leader?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Yes, that is correct.

MR MALAN: Did you not say you had to take orders from Lucky?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Yes, that is correct.

MR MALAN: Now if you find a lot of firearms, don't you tell you leader?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: The situation is like this.  We used to tell him about our problems, not of our secrets concerning the weapons, because we couldn't trust one another as far as the weapons were concerned.

MR MALAN: Are you saying you didn't trust Lucky as far as weapons are concerned?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: A weapon is something that is taken very serious, to such an extent that I can show it to the other person and during my absence the person would come back and steal that firearm.

CHAIRPERSON: Are you suggesting that everything was quiet in your area, that there was no need for you to have discussed with Lucky about this arms cache, nor even disclose to the other members of your formation about your knowledge that there could be useful weapons that could be used in averting attacks, that would have come from the IFP?  Are you saying things were that peaceful, that there was no need for you to have discussed this arms cache with the leader or any member of your formation?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Mdo was still alive at the time and I did not know anything about the firearms, that was Mdo's secret only and just before his death he pointed out to me where the firearms were and he even told me not to tell just anyone because firearms are trouble and those were not South African weapons.  For those reasons, Lucky knew only the firearm that I used to be armed with and the others knew that firearm, but those that were buried, they knew nothing about it, they only knew about them afterwards, after Mdo's death, when during the attack.

ADV DE JAGER: Could we clear that up perhaps?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I'm still proceeding, I'll give you a chance Mr de Jager.  Now when you say these firearms were not of local origin, what make were they?  Are you able to shed more light on that?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Like and AK47 is not a South African make.

CHAIRPERSON: Now the firearm that you took out from the box, what make was it?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: The one that I took from the box was a small one, 9mm.

CHAIRPERSON: Now is that the firearm that you used, you attempted to use on the deceased?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Yes, that is correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr de Jager.

ADV DE JAGER: Wasn't the firearm that you attempted to use on the deceased, a home made gun which had a spring and the spring wasn't working?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: That home-made gun, I did not know a thing about it, I only saw it when the police brought it at the police station, they did not get that from me, when they got me there was no firearm.  That home-made arm with R1 bullets came with the police and I never used an R1 in my life.

ADV DE JAGER: What happened to the deceased's gun?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: It was taken by Lucky Ntshetha.

ADV DE JAGER: Did that gun have bullets?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Yes, there were two bullets inside.

ADV DE JAGER: So when your gun didn't fire, why didn't they use that gun to shoot him?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: That firearm was in Lucky Ntshetha's possession and he did not trust that firearm.

ADV DE JAGER: Was Mdo killed before or after you killed the deceased in this matter?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: This conflict started after Mdo's death, after Mdo's killing.

ADV DE JAGER: Another thing, did you know of any personal hatred between Lucky and the deceased?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: I cannot say that there was a personal grudge or something because Ntshetha regarded IFP as an enemy just like myself.  The aim was to kill that person, that's all.

ADV DE JAGER: Yes see, because in these documents of ours we find a written document and there's a signature beneath it, your signature.  Can you remember such a document?  On page 8.  The document is not in your handwriting, so I presume it's information that you might have given to a warder or somebody to write down and you've only signed the document afterwards and in that document it is stated
"Then later on we get that the deceased was not aiming to kill Lucky Ntshetha, he has a natural hatred for the deceased."
Can you remember telling anybody that?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Someone was asking me and I told that person that that was discussed after we were sentenced, that was discussed by Basil Ngwenye and he was just speculating, he was not sure.  He got that information from the other people making such utterances.

ADV DE JAGER: So afterwards, you weren't sure and Basil wasn't sure whether it was in fact a political murder or something to do with the IFP or whether it was personal between Lucky and the deceased?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Basil knew very well that the deceased was an IFP member.  He took something that was being said by the other people, people who were not from our area.

ADV DE JAGER: You yourself, what did you believe at the stage when  you had killed, or assisted in the killing of this man, what was your belief about the deceased and his political objectives?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: What I would think of at the time was very bad because they did something very bad or painful to me and even when I was arrested, they did something very bad to me.  There was no way that I could sympathise with him.

ADV DE JAGER: Right thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Panday you are still proceeding with his evidence-in-chief with regard to the offence of the unlawful possession, firearm and ammunition?  Try and show us that that is an act associated with a political objective.  Have you exhausted your evidence-in-chief?

MR PANDAY: No, Madam Chair.  Mr Dlamini, when Moses told you about the firearms that were buried, Mdo, sorry Mdo told you about the firearms that were buried, do you know why he told you where you could find these firearms, or did he have a reason for telling you where you could find these firearms?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: Mdo told me but I did not know the reason for him to tell me about these firearms, but he called me and he pointed out the firearms to me and I saw them and the following day he died.

MR PANDAY: Now after Mdo died, you went and helped yourself to the firearm.  What was the purpose of you helping yourself to the firearm?

MOSES MTU DLAMINI: The purpose, I had to give the other comrades some of the firearms, I had to give them to the comrades who - the comrades were with me when we were going to attack the IFP members.