Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-21

MR MBAMBO: I still remember that Ginam ...[indistinct] prayed to your ancestors to afford him the opportunity to kill you.   After praying we stayed there hoping that you would come out so that we could shoot you because it was now in the evening.  We waited there until sunrise the following day and we decided to leave.  We went back to the station and Zwele went to the office, the IFP office.
	We did not know where you stayed then and we could not locate you and that is why the IFP plotted your arrest at the time when Mrs Mbuaze's house was attacked.  At time Bebe Biela and Mrs Mbuaze orchestrated a plan that Zazi should write a statement to give to the police about the attack Mrs Mbuaze's place and state that he personally saw you attack Mrs Mbuaze's household.  That was the only way that would make it possible for you to be removed.  They knew that you were the strongest ANC member because you had also been fired from Enseleni.
	The statement that was written ended up with you being investigated and it became clear that we were not able to locate you because you came back to J2 but we could not see you.  Those are the attempts that we made.  That's the one attempt for example that I was involved in.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mbambo, do you know anything about the burning down of Mr Msome's house and the burning of his motor vehicle that he referred to?

MR MBAMBO: No, I know nothing about that.

MR MSOME: I would also like to ask another question.  According to Mr Mbambo's knowledge, how much was the cooperation between them and the SAP, because at the time when I was arrested for the Mbuaze case the people who brought the warrant of arrest to arrest me were not the ZP but the detectives who were white, stationed at Empangeni.  One of them was Sergeant Masser.  These are the people who took me to eSikhawini.  I just want to know, according to yourself, how much was the cooperation between the police of KwaZulu and the SAP?
	Secondly, is it that - my arrest at the time, does it not involve your attempt to kill me because I was not called to the case to Court, I was only summoned to Court when a lawyer came and indicated that these people arrested me without any communication with you and you were not at the police station at the time.  And therefore my appearance before the Court was delayed so that you could come back.  
	And that happened exactly as I was told, that I was not going to be called among those who were going to Court and this led me to making a lot of noise.  Did you thereafter attempt to kill me?

MR MBAMBO: ...[No English translation]
	Secondly, our communication and collaboration with the SAP was such that it was confined to the Special Branch of the SAP, not other units.  Only the Special Branch came to Mrs Mbuaze and we would discuss the ANC.

MR MSOME: ...[No English translation] That my arrest on that day was not the first one?

MR MBAMBO: Yes, I do.

MR MSOME: Can you tell this Committee and the public of other instances?

MR MBAMBO: The other instances that I knew of was the time that you were found in possession of weapons and ammunition and IFP membership cards.

MR MSOME: I am speaking of a plot when my house and vehicle were burnt down.  Instead of arresting the perpetrators I am the one who was arrested and it was alleged that I had weapons and guns on me but I am the one who ended up being arrested.  I am asking if you have any knowledge if that was still a plot to remove me?

MR MBAMBO: I have no knowledge of that.

MR MSOME: Chairperson, I will return the Mbuaze case, whether it was one of the tricks because Ginam has indicated that they had skills of infiltrating their enemy.  Maybe my arrest was one of their tricks that would have cause a division amongst us as ANC leaders.  I say this because you wouldn't as an ordinary member of the public go and attack another person's house.
	I can also say that this has caused some divisions amongst the ANC, I was not longer regarded as I was before within the ANC.  It has caused problems for me.

MR MBAMBO: I know that what happened at Mrs Mbuaze's house was not intended to cause divisions between yourself and the ANC because we knew that what you were doing at the time was for the ANC.  We knew that the people who had attacked Mrs Mbuaze's house were ANC members because Mrs Mbuaze was an enemy to the ANC but we did not know who the specific people were.
	And because we had been looking for Bongani Msome and had been unsuccessful in getting him and because you Bongani, had been seen around with the boys, travelling in a white kombi when they attacked people it could be that you had knowledge about the attack on Mrs Mbuaze's house.  We should just say that you were indeed seen at the scene and Zazi volunteered that he will write the statement.  We in fact assumed that the ANC had attacked Mrs Mbuaze's house, we were not sure.

MR MSOME: Would I be wrong to say that people who attacked Mbuaze's house were IFP members?

MR MBAMBO: That information is incorrect, it was not the IFP.

MR MSOME: But you say that you are not certain that it is the ANC that had attacked Mrs Mbuaze's house and her house was in J2 and we knew that the ANC could not set foot, it was an IFP area.   Then I wonder how the ANC could go to Mrs Mbuaze's house whilst people like you guarded the house at the time.

MR MBAMBO: If this indeed was a plot by the IFP so that you could be arrested, I would have known about it and maybe I could have been part of the group who would attack Mrs Mbuaze's house so that we could allege that it was you.  So I knew it was definitely not the IFP that attacked Mrs Mbuaze's house but a group of unknown persons.

MR MSOME: Let me go back to the issue of my house being burnt.   In Mr Mkhize's testimony he said that amongst these five police stations the hit squad that had operated amongst this station was yours and it was headed by Mr Nagam Mkhize.  I want to know, how does it happen that if something had happened or occurred at Ntsalene and the person you worked with from Ntsalene was Joyful Mtetwa, did Joyful Mtetwa not tell you that he indeed was involved in the attack on my house?   Because on one occasion 11 houses were burnt in Ntsalene and the police were present amongst the group of people that attacked those houses.

MR MBAMBO: But Joyful Mtetwa has never told me about this.  There was a group of IFP youths who worked under Joyful Mtetwa which did not have anything to do with us.  It could be that it is indeed those youths who attacked your house but Joyful never told us about it.

MR MSOME: What you are saying is that it could happen that Joyful had his own hit squad which he commanded from Ntsalene?  As you said in your testimony that you received certain guns and weapons from Joyful, so it could happen that there was another hit squad commanded by Joyful?

MR MBAMBO: Yes, that is so.

MR MSOME: Thank you Chairperson.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MSOME

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Msome.  Mr Wills, do you have any re-examination?

MR WILLS: Yes, thank you Chairperson.
	Mr Mbambo, just to go back to the incident of the policeman who committed suicide, was his name Constable Madondo?

MR MBAMBO: Yes, that's correct.  We used to call him 4 x 4.

MR WILLS: The issue of your motor vehicles, you bought the VW Jetta for R4 000, is that correct?

MR MBAMBO: That is correct.

MR WILLS: And that the BMW you bought was for an amount of R38 000, is that correct?

MR MBAMBO: That is correct.

MR WILLS: And you paid for this by a deposit which you'd saved up, or just explain to us how you paid for it?

MR MBAMBO: I paid a deposit and then I thereafter paid instalments, monthly instalments.

MR WILLS: And was this through a financial institution?

MR MBAMBO: Yes.