Human Rights Violation Hearings — Moutse — 1996-12-02

EPHRAIM MOGALE: I think they love me most.  They think I am a communist and they can realise that a communist is a friendly person and I have got a good relationship with the Christians and many friends of mine are Christians, if I have to tell you and I believe that my people will support me because we were all together in this struggle and they will listen to me as I have listened to them.  We will carry on and build this new friendship.  It has been proven that the communists are normal human beings like us.  It was a tendency to threaten people and say to them the communists are very bad people.  Govan Mbeki is a very faithful person.  He showed the whole world that communism has to be given a new way.  Communists are not people burning churches.  Thank you very much.

THOMAS MANTHATA: I want to thank you Mr Mogale.  I do not have further questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Order please.  I nearly followed you.  I nearly left the Church and followed you with your communism. We want to thank you.  Alright, okay. Wynand.

MR MALAN: Mr Mogale, in evidence you said the comrades knew who was wrong and who was right.  MK was here, but they had a different role.  They were not involved in the burning at that time.  Can you expand a little on the role of MK in KwaNdebele at the time?

EPHRAIM MOGALE: As an underground man of the ANC I had a link with ANC offices in Lusaka.  If there was anything going on here I was in a position to investigate and report.  According to the activities of the MK underground structures, I knew everything.  Let me give you an example.  I went to the police station and I investigated about
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activities at Kwamshlanga and I made it clear that burning of people's houses was not a MK activity.  We know that people at Moutse left peacefully and they said they were the indroves.  They said they have grown up and they were going out to join the MK in Angola.  I had a good link with the trained MK's and those who were not trained at all.  Now, this issue of burning houses.  I want to dispute it.  You know, burning a house, you do not have to be trained. You just have to have matches in your hand and burn the house.  So the people who burnt the houses were just angry people.  They were really not MK members.  Thank you

MR MALAN: No, I am not suggesting at all that MK was responsible for the burning.  I want to know.  Could you talk a little, Dr Ally referred to this in his first question about the presence of MK.  Now you said you were involved in MK and you were here.  Were there other members of MK, were you deployed for information tasks, was there any specific role and what was it and, perhaps, what was the strength of MK on the ground in KwaNdebele at the time?

EPHRAIM MOGALE: Let us understand that the MCW, Military Combat Work, had a wing which was responsible for teaching you what you should know and nothing more.  You were supposed to know your task.  I only heard from the headquarters that there was a MK here, but the instruction from outside was to build structures and if there was anyone in danger and I recognised that there was something wrong, I would intervene, but as long as the underground movement was carrying on without problems I would not intervene with their work.  I would carry on organising structures and recruiting the members for the MK to leave the country and train.  I was not throwing bombs, I want to tell you, I was
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a planner.  I was in a position to plan, but I was not able to throw bombs.  I am a politician and I use to encourage people and I cannot say I did not have a hand in the fighting.  I am not perceiving myself as a hero, you know, I am not excluding myself in the heated war that we had in South Africa.  This is not heroism, but what I want to say is let us, please, not go back to that kind of a situation.  Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: I want to thank you for your contribution to our struggle.  Especially the struggle in your area.  I want to thank you very much that you were so courageous to bring the people together and I hope that the leaders are listening to you as you are making the suggestion to unite the people by organising a unity festival and maybe they should support it so that there can be unity among the people who were separated by apartheid.  Thank you very much for your contribution and we hope that you will continue your good work of helping to discipline our young people.  Showing them that with discipline you can achieve a great deal more than if you have a chaotic situation.
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