Human Rights Violation Hearings — Zeerust — 1997-05-06

MS SEROKE: Thank you, Mr Sereko.  I will ask you two or three questions.  You are here to tell us about yourself and Jopa Ndebele who is your friend.  I want to ask you, where is Jopa Ndebele now ?

MR SEREKO: Mr Jopa Ndebele, in February he went to a place called Muldersdrift.  That is where they plant tomatoes.  His workers came home, but he didn't, we  didn't  see
him  up  to  now.   He's  not  at  home,  he  went to Muldersdrift.  I don't know where  this Muldersdrift is in the map of South Africa.

MS SEROKE: You tell us that there were people who were attacking your village and people were disappearing.  Who were, who were those people who were attacking your area to the point where you mobilised yourselves to patrol your community ?

MR SEREKO: To tell you the truth we don't know those people but in terms of a certain incident, the, one of our neighbours tried, those people tried to attack those people, but the committee members were able to help those people.  That  is the one who we took -  against, but those who were, but I hope that those people were hired, those, the time we started to patrol, we were not able to see them, because cars were  not allowed to enter the village.

MS SEROKE: When you say, those people were hired to come and attack your village, in your observation, were they working for the previous government or were they just ordinary people ?

MR SEREKO: There was someone, I'm respecting his identity, who is our neighbour and he was a member of parliament.  That's one of those people.  There are other people in our area whom they were giving a hundred rands or five hundred rands to go and do those things.  We were not able to identify those people, but I know of one person, whom I know, who is part of those group who attacked us.

MS SEROKE: When they were doing these things, what was happening in you community, which they disliked to the degree that they hired people to attack the village?

MR SEREKO: May you repeat your question ?

MS SEROKE: When  these  people  were  doing  those  things and hiring people and
other people were disappearing, in your observation those people who were doing those things,  what was their objective, what was it they didn't like in your area ?

MR SEREKO: What they did is what we didn't like.  They wanted to enrich themselves.  We were agreeing with them, but later we said we would  not let people disappear in that way.

MS SEROKE: When you say they were enriching themselves, how, how did they enrich themselves, what did they do?

MR SEREKO: They wanted to enrich themselves to take people's parts as muti to, then they would take your parts to - and go with them.

MS SEROKE: Did you see people who were, whose parts were taken or was it just a rumour, or just an allegation that those things were happening ?

MR SEREKO: We didn't see the victims of those people, but because people from, from the vine tree, we just heard from the grapevine and then one child was nearly abducted, but our parents took him from one of the shops.  It was a boy and a girl.  Whilst they were kidnapped, a girl was able to run away and went to call all people in the village and they were able to come and free the boy, because that is our example that those people were taking people's parts.

MS SEROKE: Apart from taking people's parts, was there a kind of political activity happening in, in your area ?

MR SEREKO: Yes, there was a certain political activity happening in our area, because in that year in 1989, there was an ANC organisation which used to hold meetings in my  father's  house.  It  seems  they were after ANC members and then they couldn't find
ANC members and we didn't expose our membership, because we were afraid to go to
prison or to be killed, but we were ANC underground, we were ANC members underground.  That is the first organisation which in our village.  We were given advices by African National Congress.

MS SEROKE: In 1989, ANC was not there or was not in public.  I agree with you when you say it was operating underground, but I want to understand that when you were patrolling the community, were you doing this with political objective from the ANC policy to protect the community ?

MR SEREKO: We were patrolling to protect the community, because the police were not co-operative with our work and, and I'm alone, I was doing the patrol work with political objective because I was seeing that we were losing our property and ultimately  we're going to disappear and that's how we started mobilising ourselves to patrol the community.

MS SEROKE: So the police came there and took you to the police station.  Were they Boputhatswana police ?

MR SEREKO: Yes, they were Boputhatswana police who were stationed at Motzwete village.

MS SEROKE: Who called these police to come to your village to arrest you ?

MR SEREKO: We don't have the answer of who called the police but there was this one-way system which was used by the police to communicate, but we think somebody used that to call the police.

MS SEROKE: You say these police tortured you many things.  I'd want you to explain how they tortured you.  The things which you say you cannot explain.

MR SEREKO: They  were  torturing us in many ways as I would say.  They came to me and they said, they want keys, then they pushed me to a corner and kicked me on my private parts and they mishandles my private parts.  Then I told them that I don't have the key which you are looking for.  We were made  to stand on our head down then they will take your legs and hit them aganst the wall.  I was together with my friend whose sitting next to me.  His cheek bones were broken.  They would kicked him on the cheek bones.  We had a certain Albino, then they said, do you think Albino's are not assaulted?  You will see that we can assault an Albino.  We were assaulted in different ways.  After beating us they would make us to exercise in different ways.  From there we were taken to the wall.  They would take a hosepipe, then they would put that hosepipe, they will point that hosepipe to you, then they will point it on your eyes.  We were tortured in many ways.

MS SEROKE: Is Dr Koch still available in this area ?

MR SEREKO: We don't see him anymore in the Zeerust hospital.  We don't know where he is now.  We don't have the knowledge of his whereabouts, as whether he's around or not.

MRS SEROKE: The lawyer who helped you, do you know his whereabouts ?  Do you know his address ?

MR SEREKO: Yes,  I know where he is.  He's in ... (tape ended)

MS SEROKE: Sitting next to you and give him the name of the doctor and the lawyer and again the addresses of them both.  Thank you Mr Sereko.

CHAIRPERSON: Dr Ally !

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr  Sereko,  do you know  of  people who actually disappeared, because you
speak about people disappearing from your village ?

MR SEREKO: There's no one who disappeared,  because the one who was supposed to be made to disappear was able  to be found.

RUSSELL ALLY: And  that the main reason that you started patrolling was to prevent any future disappearances.  Is that correct ?

MR SEREKO: That's true.  That's true because we were able to rescue somebody from a shop.  Somebody was supposed to be made to disappear and was helped by a car from Dinoganeng and she was a mess.  I was not able to contact myself with him, but the first one we were able to meet and I asked him some questions and told him that you are wanted to appear so as to expose those people  who were making you to disappear, but he said to me he doesn't care about those things and he's working.  He doesn't want to lose  his work.

RUSSELL ALLY: These people who were thought to be responsible for trying to abduct people, did they come from another village ?  Is that what you're saying ?