Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pollsmoor — 1996-11-26

MS BOY: When Botamani was lost, after we had got a phone call that he hadn't gotten home the previous  night and we started searching.  At the mortuary they even showed us corpses that were unknown, but he was not there. We loosing  hope is the comrades, UDF comrades that helped us.  They told us to go to the mortuary - my sister was not there.  They were talking to me,   I said I would go, because I want to find the child.  I told them that we had already gone to the mortuary and had not find anything. 
The next day they came to fetch me.  The first corpse that we saw was Botamani's.  I could not recognize him, because he was - he had been shot  in the head and his skull was broken.  His skull was torn and pushed towards the back.  I was absolutely shocked.
When I got into the office, they tried to ask me his - for his details, I could not even think properly.  I could not even remember his name.  I was too much in shock.  But the comrades helped me.  Trying to explain to this man at the mortuary that they should be patient with me.  My mind was not functioning well.  We took quite a while, but I gave them all the information that they needed. 
What I wanted to know, is what exactly had happened to him.  I thought that he had been run over by a car or a bus.  Then they told me that my nephew had been shot at NY12 in Guguletu.  We then left,   I went to fetch my sister from work.  She fainted, she had to be taken to doctors.  
The most painful time was when - in the interim before the funeral, the whole time there were police, pointing guns at our house.  Especially on the Saturday we had a night ritual.   But the comrades were wise, because the night ritual was not at our house, but elsewhere.  The police - during the day, during the night, were walking around our house.  We are going through very difficult times.  We had lost a child and the police were still oppressing us.
Even on the day - when we buried him, the UDF helped us.  They made all the funeral arrangements.  We had a good, big funeral.  We were still under surveillance.  Even when we went to the graveyard, there were Casspirs everywhere.  They said only the family should go into the graveyard.  But the comrades said they are already dead.  They died already - they are going to go in. 
It was painful, but he was buried.  What I want to say, is that the person who killed Botamani must go on trial.  He must say exactly why he did what he did.  Because even when the comrades came to me, I told them that Botamani was still a child and was not politically orientated.  He never went to meetings, he was just a child.  He just made us happy at home.  He filled us with happiness, he knew nothing about the struggle.
I though you know  even if I died, it would be better, because I was the one who was in the struggle but not the child.  This man who killed Botamani must go on trial and be sentenced.  Thank you.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Thank you very much.  We - we  are very moved by what you have just said, because what for us is a remarkable thing is, that many of the people who lost their lives at the time of this uprising and the time of the march were young people like Botamani.  You have heard testimony today of the children who were very young and had absolutely nothing to do with the struggle or with any uprisings.  Who were just being children.  Being curious children.  Being children playing and they were targeted by the police.  
It remains still for us to understand why children could be such a threat to Security Forces who had all the might  at their disposal.  It puzzled us as well and I am sure that it must puzzle you as a family - why your son and your nephew was shot in the way that he was and that he had to loose his life in such a tragic way. 
The lost to the country is great, because we know that many of the young people - were our  future, our country's future, who could contribute to the building of our nation and contributing towards our nation - and these children were mowed down in the prime of their life.
It is a great loss to our nation when the youth are targeted in the way they were during those days.  We really do thank you for coming, but before I close - I would like to hand over to the Chairperson in case any of my other colleagues would like to ask you more questions.

ADV POTGIETER: Wendy Orr.

WENDY ORR: Thank you chair.  I don't have a question - just an observation and that is - that one of my lasting memories of the hearings we've had this year at the Truth Commission will be a woman like you, mothers, wives, sisters, who have been forced into a terrible journey from police station to hospital, to mortuary and back again in a desperate search for loved ones.
And I do hope - I know there are many lessons we have to learn from people like you, and I do hope that one of them is respect for each other and the courtesy to inform people and family when their relatives are hurt or injured