Human Rights Violation Hearings — Venda — 1996-10-04

RANGOEZI TSHIKALANGE: Well, I am thankful, well there are certain things that cannot be restored, other than being put right.  You can imagine when (indistinct) addressed Kaunda and said he didn't want to hold a meeting with him, because apartheid cannot be addressed.
 If I am ... (tape starts) ... I am going to give it to you, but I am going to write as schools go properly and eight class rooms and five pre-schools, thank you.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Well, we can then talk of reconciliation, because now it is taboo in Tsivemba, if I told somebody had sent you about the cattle which broke and went to the fields and asked for forgiveness for the cattle, do you think you can just go literally out of that place, because that is why I am saying, the guilt that happened over about 300 years, one it is unforgivable.
 If I talk to you and say you slept in midlands, zone 5 
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in that block which is in (indistinct), now that has to be corrected, but how we are going to break through all these things, because somebody built 700 000 house, who is going to buy that house which is so costly?
 I am not in particular talking about the Tsififi area, but the only way we are going to discuss these things, I am going, these people who died, the Prime Ministers and Cabinet, they do have a lot of money in that bank.  We are going to take that very same money, we are going to withdraw that money and to (indistinct) those things.  Thank you.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Tshikalange, thank you, no further questions.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr Tshikalange, thanks, I must say thank you to you because I know that there is a lot of things that you want to speak about and that you did suffer quite a lot as a result of the policies of that former apartheid Government.
 You've given us quite a lot of your files and your letters and your correspondence with the different departments and the bad way in which they treated you.  If you have any more files, we'd really appreciate you giving it to us and I want to thank you for confining yourself to 30 minute.  I know you had a lot to speak about.
 And certainly the issues that you speak about, concerning yourself and your family and what you suffered, that is very important for us to hear and you also make recommendations in your statement about the village in particular, that there is a need for compensation and you know that there is a Committee that is looking at those issues, the Reparations and Rehabilitations Committee on which Mr Manthata serves, and they have to make 
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recommendations to the President.
 I am sure Mr Manthata as well as other members of the Commission listening to what you were saying and that the consequences of the apartheid system, the policies, the harm it did, I am sure that the new Government must realise that there is a moral responsibility to look at those issues and to try and redress all those ills, all the harm, but thank you very much for being so considerate, because you know that we have got other witnesses and I know that we cannot cover 300 years in 30 minutes, but thank you for confining yourself to 30 minutes.  Thank you very much sir.

RANGOEZI TSHIKALANGE: What, something that I want to say is there has to be a committee to come and investigate on the field and the bush, if they send the committee, that's when I am going to present the documents.
 If the representative from London must carry this bag from London.