Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-02-17

MR RICHARD: And what else did he tell you about the committee?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: Is that related to my amnesty application or amnesty at all?

MR RICHARD: It's related and relevant to what you knew about the deceased and his activities.

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: In that case, please repeat your question.

MR RICHARD: What, in 1986 when you were arrested, did you get informed about what the Detainees Parents Support Committee did? - a lawyer came to see you.

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: Yes.  The attorney did not tell me the activities of the committee, but what happened is my parents during my time of detention went to them.  As to how they got to know about them may have well been from other activities or activists.

MR RICHARD: Now  you were arrested in 1986, were you aware that during that year the deceased was also arrested?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I don't quite understand your question.

MR RICHARD: You say that during 1986 you were arrested, is that correct?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: Yes, that is correct.

MR RICHARD: My next question is, were you aware that during 1986, the deceased was also arrested and detained?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: What I know is that he also once got arrested in 1986.

MR RICHARD: Now were you aware that during the course of that arrest and detention he claimed to be assaulted and indeed tortured by security personnel?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: That was usual practise to all the detainees by the police.

MR RICHARD: Did that happen to you?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: Yes.

MR RICHARD: How did they torture you?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I don't remember quite exactly the things they did to me, but there was a time when I lost my consciousness.  I don't know what happened.  I regained my consciousness late in the afternoon, so I will not know exactly what they went on and did to me during that period.

MR RICHARD: Now what did your interrogators want of you while they were abusing you, torturing you?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: These question you are posing to me, I am having a problem with them.  I really wonder if there is any correlation between such questioning and my amnesty application.

MR RICHARD: If your legal representative wanted to object to the questions, I believe he would do so.

CHAIRPERSON: Well what is the relevance of how he was tortured in 1986? ...(indistinct)

MR RICHARD: What I'm building up to, document(sic), is that the deceased was known to the witness, he was reportedly arrested and detained for a period of three months during 1986, between the periods of June to November, during that torture he was pressured to become an informer, that's the deceased, and I would like to establish that this witness knew of those facts.

ADV SANDI: Ja, but the difficulty I have there, Mr Richard, is it in dispute really that the deceased was beaten up and tortured by the police?

MR RICHARD: I'll shorten it by asking a direct question.
	When you met the deceased, were you aware that he had been tortured and that during those periods of torture the pressure that had been applied on him was to turn against the struggle and become an informer?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: That I don't know.

MR RICHARD: Was that also quite a normal Security Police custom in those days, that if they arrested and detained persons they tried to turn them against their organisations?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: That does not at all warrant the fact that that happened to Sicelo.

CHAIRPERSON: Did it normally happen, was it common to hear that they did this?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: Maybe those who experienced that can be in a better position to explain thus far, but I'm not.

MR RICHARD: You were tortured you say and you lost consciousness, did they try and do that to you?

MR KOOPEDI: Chairperson, my learned friend is going back to this matter of the witness having been arrested and tortured, I object to that line of questioning because I don't see its relevance to this matter and I had not taken the liberty of objecting to my learned friend's questioning because I thought he would know how to ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: I understand what he's trying to make, the point is he is trying to suggest that everybody who went through the hands of the Security Police in those days was subjected to this form of brutality and this attempt to turn them.

MR KOOPEDI: I believe if he wants to make that point he shouldn't use the witness to make that point.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct)

INTERPRETER: The speaker's microphone.

CHAIRPERSON: ...(indistinct) witness went through their hands, he may well have been subjected to the same treatment.

MR KOOPEDI: Chairperson, in any event the witness has answered this question.

MR RICHARD: Yes.  I don't believe the witness has answered the question whether there was an attempt to turn him as well during his torture.

CHAIRPERSON: Well I understood he said it wasn't, didn't he?  Well put it to him as a direct question.

MR RICHARD: While you were being tortured, did your interrogators make any attempt to turn you against your organisation?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: No, they did not.

MR RICHARD: But nonetheless as you said, if I understand you correctly and please correct me if I'm wrong, the interrogators for the State at the time did that to other people, you knew that?

CHAIRPERSON: I think that was me rather than him, he said you'd better ask those other people.

MR RICHARD: Well, Mr Makhubu, were you aware of any other people at that time, '98/'87, who had been subjected to torture and while being tortured had been pressurised to turn against your organisation?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I have no experience relating to that. I've never had anyone relating that to me.

MR RICHARD: Now again I need clarity, you were aware that this had happened to the deceased?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I did explain that I know nothing.

MR RICHARD: But you knew that in 1986 he had been detained?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I did say that I knew that.

MR RICHARD: What you're now saying is that you do not know what happened to him while in detention.  Didn't he ever report to you?  What's you answer, did he report it to you?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: But I've already said.  How many times must I say?

MR RICHARD: Is that - I'm asking the question, don't you want to answer the question?  Did he report it to  you, yes or no? - simple question.

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I explained that he did not report it to me.

CHAIRPERSON: Would he have any reason to report to  you in 1986?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: He wouldn't have had any reason to relate that to me or report that to me.

MR RICHARD: ...(indistinct) then we go on to '87, October 1987, by which time I understand you had already visited the Dhlomo family.  Were you aware of him being arrested in that month?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I don't quite understand.

MR RICHARD: As at October 1987, is it not correct that by that stage you had visited the Dhlomo household?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I am not sure as to how to answer this question.

MR RICHARD: Well I can't help you.  Did you by October 1987 visit the Dhlomo household?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: I don't remember visiting.

CHAIRPERSON: I think there's a little confusion here.  A short while ago you told us you had visited the Dhlomo household and you'd stayed there overnight.

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: There's nothing different I have said.  For me to have answered that I did spend a night there is because you had asked me if I spent a night there or not and I said yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.  And the question is now, had you done this before October 1987?

CLIVE MHLAULI MAKHUBU: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: It's a simple question.

MR KOOPEDI: The way the question was interpreted to the witness it appeared as if the question is: "Did you sleep there during October 87?"