Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1991-09-08

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: It was during the morning - about what we have done, Bester, Warrant Officer Bester came to me and said: "Boyzi, you must now know that the bottle that you used had your fingerprints.  I asked him where he got this and the ballistics ...[inaudible] has got our fingerprints but he said they would arrange something concerning the fingerprints.  I don't know whether he was lying to me or what but he did come in the morning.

ADV MEMANI: Yes, you may now proceed to next incident which is at page 5, rather paragraph 5 - the burning of the motor vehicle of Jani Mohapi.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: With respect to this incident, the command was Major Coetzee and Shaw - they had his file to get the command to deal - in respect of dealing with Mr Mohapi, for us to burn his motor vehicle or his house.  Coetzee himself tried dealing with this man.

ADV MEMANI: Tried to recruit him.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.  This man or this comrade as they were called, he refused.  This man - this gentleman was the Chairperson of the Mayo Youth Congress - MYKO.  This Mayo Youth Congress had jurisdiction as far as Ruiterswerk, Ladybrand, Brandfort, Soutpan, De Wet's Dorp, Delsville, Hertzogville and other towns falling within the borders of the Free State Province.
	It was Jani Mohapi who recruited a lot of people to join MYKO, that is why there were a lot of youth congresses within the Free State's respective towns.  Because he refused, that's what made Coetzee and Shaw to emphasize that this person must be assaulted.	
	The first assault or harassment was to go and burn his motor vehicle as a start.  With respect to this one, we were given money to buy petrol however we still had petrol,  we were given R10,00 to buy petrol.

ADV DE JAGER: And was the same procedure followed to prepare bombs and to burn the car?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: We didn't use the petrol bomb here.

ADV DE JAGER: I see.

ADV MEMANI: You may proceed Mr Motsamai.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: The command here was given to me from Colonel Coetzee and Lieutenant Shaw or Major Coetzee - myself and Mamome.  I knocked off duty and I got petrol.  Late in the afternoon he came to me in a car, he was in the company of Nelson Ngo.  I don't know where he got this man.

ADV DE JAGER: Could you kindly repeat the name?  He was in the company of?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Nelson Ngo.

CHAIRPERSON: Is he the gentleman sitting in the front row there?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: That is correct.  This gentleman I'm talking of here, Nelson Ngo - we didn't know how he was used - in what capacity as a - at the security branch police but he remained in the office.  What surprised me was the firearm that he used - 7.65 firearm.  One day he pointed the gun to Mr Tswametzi and then Mr Tswametzi ran out of his office to where we had tea and tell me: "Boyzi, there's a young man who's trying to shoot at me".  I didn't respond, I kept quite but as an adult he said: "Boyzi", as he used to refer to me, he never called me Motsamai - he said "Boyzi, I don't know what is taking place here, this man is working here, he stays in this office but let us leave it there.  This is for the officers - the White officers, let us not discuss this matter any further".  That's what he said.

ADV MEMANI: May we now go back to the instruction relating to the burning of Jani Mohapi's car?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: He came along with this boy.  I had this five litre container - we got in the car - we drove off.  My question to him was that now, how does - where does Ngo fit in here?  He said: "I went to fetch him" - that is Sergeant Mamome telling me - "because I need somebody to watch the car".  Now I asked him, we were told to go and burn the car - the motor vehicle - there are a lot of cars that pass by there.  He told me: "I brought along a motor vehicle tyre and some newspaper".
	We did go there.  From the tarred road, there's a street that joins the tarred road which can be about 400 metres long to 500 metres long.  We parked right at the top of that street.  He took off the motor vehicle tyre - I had petrol - we got papers - we went to Jani Mohapi's place.   Jani Mohapi's house is surrounded by lampposts - we didn't wear balaclavas - we didn't have gloves, hand gloves.  We were just pushing the tyre.  We left the hand gloves in the car.  It wouldn't be easy to extract fingerprints from the tyre.

MR BRINK: Mr Chairman, I'm sorry to interrupt but this is exactly the difficulty I was trying to avoid when I made the suggestion earlier that my learned friend takes his client in hand.  We need to get to the point and this is not getting to the point, with respect, it's just drawing the proceedings out interminably.

CHAIRPERSON: That is so, isn't it Mr Memani?

ADV MEMANI: You know Mr Chairman, he's sitting there, he's not even taking notes and that is why partly, he's getting bored.  The fact of the matter Mr Chairman, is that I cannot read his mind.  I don't know what next he's	going to say and in fact what he's telling us is relevant to how the vehicle was burnt.

CHAIRPERSON: Haven't you consulted with your client?  Don't you know what he's going to say?  Is that what you're telling us, that you don't know what he's going to say?

ADV MEMANI: Mr Chairman, I don't mean to be rude with you but what I'm saying is that you can't know when a person's speaking what the next words the person is going to use.  Right now he's telling how the vehicle burnt.  I don't know that he's going to ...[intervention]

CHAIRPERSON: Right now he's telling us that it's difficult to take fingerprints off a motorcar tyre, I would not have thought that was particularly relevant.

ADV MEMANI: How could I have known that he was going to say that next?

CHAIRPERSON: You could tell now that we don't want to hear all these irrelevant details, we want to hear the substantial facts as to what happened.

ADV MEMANI: But how do you blame me for the fact that he said that.

CHAIRPERSON: You have not made the slightest attempt Mr Memani, to tell your client to cut down the length of his evidence and to direct it to the relevant details.

ADV MEMANI: I did when he referred to Tswametzi, I brought him back on track.

ADV DE JAGER: Well he's off the track again, try and get him back on track please Mr Memani.

ADV MEMANI: As the Chair pleases.   Now what happened as you were burning the vehicle?  Did you ignite the paper?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: We stuffed the papers inside the tyre and we poured paraffin over the papers, then we put it underneath the car.  We sprinkled the petrol over the car.

ADV MEMANI: Yes, what ...[intervention]

ADV DE JAGER: Could I just enquire - did you pour paraffin into the tyre?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Petrol.

ADV DE JAGER: Thank you.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: I poured petrol.

ADV DE JAGER: Thank you.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: He took out the matches - I'm referring here to Sergeant Mamome - we ignited from the ...[inaudible] that I sprayed on the ground so that the fire reaches the tyre.  Once it caught fire, we ran to the place where we left Ngo in the car.

ADV MEMANI: Did you report to anyone about what had occurred in the evening?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: We reported the incident in the morning to Major Coetzee and Lieutenant Shaw, that we did burn that car and Sergeant Mamome did read to them that Ngo was present.  They kept quiet and stared at each other.

ADV MEMANI: Now the next incident is at page 147.

CHAIRPERSON: Before we go on, can you tell us when this happened?

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: Are you referring to all these incidents that I have talked about?

CHAIRPERSON: Well, start about Mohapi's.

MOHONAETSE STEPHEN MOTSAMAI: With respect to the Mohapi incident, in telling you I would say the year or the day I cannot remember them but I know it was around about '86, 1986 - the middle of 1986.