Special Hearings — Children's Hearings — 1997-06-12

DR RANDERA: George, if you don't mind, I am going to actually stop you at that stage.  We've all got your submission.  Most of the rest of the submission is related to other people who were caught up in the SDU's and what happened to them.  I wonder if you want to actually sum up and conclude your document?
 If you would read your last paragraph?

MR MALAN: Sorry George, with the permission of the Chair and Dr Randera, if you would just read out to us before we enter into discussion, the last paragraph at the bottom of page 7 which is an assessment I think you made.

GEORGE NDLOZI: It may be argued in conclusion that far from being a bunch of undisciplined comrades or the lost generation, SDU's were in many ways the backbone of defence in Katorus.  If it were not for them, many of us would not be sitting here today.
 It is clear even from this brief submission that youth involved in SDU activities, have suffered a loss that can never be replaced, their childhood.

DR RANDERA: Chairperson, from my part I think George's submission speaks for itself.  I have not other questions, perhaps the others do.

MS MKHIZE: Maybe while other Commissioners are figuring out questions George, can I just ask you something linking it with what we raised as a concern when we had political parties appearing before us.
 In our minds, maybe let me speak for myself, in my mind I still think many things went wrong in the operations of the SDU's mainly because although the aim was to protect communities as you are saying against the Security Forces, the mere fact that you were highly politicised formation, you failed to be impartial.
 The group failed to be impartial and tended to be a danger to people who were not of the same political persuasion, that is just my naive and provocative, maybe, interpretation of the whole thing.

GEORGE NDLOZI: Yes, if I may answer on that.  A lot of things happened in that area and for the community to decide at the end of the day that they have to carry up arms, it took them something like, at least, three years and as it is mentioned in the submission that earlier the SDU's never had weapons, they had to depend on criminals and some of the people took advantage of the situation.
 And they ended up operating out of their personal gain.  That is why at the end of the day, the community decided that we needed money and we need to donate money to get firearms in which we will be having control over those firearms.
 So if one can look at how the situation went wrong, we also have to consider the early stage of the SDU's that the criminals were also taken into a place, because there was no other option and they were the only people who had firearms.

MS MKHIZE: Just one last question.  Were people's courts somehow associated with the SDU's.  Let me put this differently, were people's courts one of the machineries that was developed by the SDU's?

GEORGE NDLOZI: Prior to the SDU's there were street committees in which street committees it was the only structure which can discuss problems affecting the community.
 And in most cases members of the Self Defence Unit were allowed to come to those meetings, but not to have a say.  Parents will have to decide in the street committee meetings on how do we operate in certain other areas, I know that in other areas there were people's courts in which certain decisions were taken and were given to the SDU members to accomplish.
 And if I might answer your question in short, I would say people's court were not associated with SDU's.  SDU's had to operate and in most cases SDU's were operating around the township in which they had to wait for an attack and many of them were actually attacked by the Security Officers, Security Police, if I may say so.

MS MKHIZE: Any questions?  Wynand Malan?

MR MALAN: Could I just follow up on this question.  Did I understand your answer correctly that you say the street committees functioned as people's courts, but in some cases SDU's were in a sense executioners, that they had to carry out the finding of the people's court, was that your response to the Chairperson?

GEORGE NDLOZI: No, not really.  I was saying that the street committees was the body which used to discuss problems around the township and if I might go back a little bit, about a brief background of the street committees and the SDU's.
 The street committees is the only structure that decided that we need to have something to defend ourselves after numerous attacks had happened in that area.
 And what happened is that they had to make sure that they also have powers onto the SDU's, but it didn't happen in that fashion, because the SDU's had their own central command in which Commanders from different sections can meet and discuss the problems that affected the Self Defence Units.
 That is why I am saying the executions that came, it was not because it was discussed by the street committees that now you need to go and kill someone else, it was not in that fashion.
 What used to happen in most cases, at the period when the SDU's had their weapons, they actually never used to have other people from other different political parties around the township, by that time most of them had left and what they had to wait for, as I am saying, for the police to attack them or for the IFP to attack them.
 So the executions were not discussed within the parameters of the street committees.  Street committees used to discuss domestic issues which at the end of the day we will ask the SDU's to sort of assist them one way or the other.

MR MALAN: Would the understanding be incorrect that the SDU's also on occasion took initiative, in other words went out after individuals in the township, as a kind of  reprisal or preemptive strikes in the sense of defence?

GEORGE NDLOZI: I could say yes, in a sense that at some stage they never used to get an order to do something, because things happened whilst you were still at home.  You would be sitting at home eating, and then you could hear fire and now you - one thing that would come to your mind will be, now there is war going on and then you will take your AK47 under the table and go and approach.
 So you see, it made it difficult for you to first go to consult your Commander and say can I get an order to go and protect, so it only happens you know, sometimes when they had to sort of plan an operation.  I think if you go through the submission there is a place where I mention a Small, a guy by the name of Small, who was very short.   He was very short and you cannot actually suspect and those kinds of people were the people who were used to go and survey the area.   You know they would go there as if they are playing a football or something like that and then you will never notice because they are small.
 And those kinds of people were the people who used to go there and survey the area and come back with information whether an attack can be launched or not.
 So in a sense I would say that in most cases things used to happen at random, without expecting them to happen at that stage.

MR MALAN: The last question, the present state of mind whereabouts, do you detect a kind of different coping with the past amongst members of SDU's than the rest of the community or would they be more or less experiencing the same trauma, coping problems?