Amnesty Hearings — Johannesburg — 1998-06-08

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: They were with comrade Pitso, comrade Joey, comrade Kani and comrade Jeff.

MR TLOUBATLA: Okay.  Then they arrived there, you are at the house and then what happened?

MR MALAN: Sorry, were all six of them with the four comrades in one car?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: They used two cars.

ADV BOSMAN: How did you identify them as having been part of the group that sang the intimidating songs?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: While we were busy cleaning I went out now and then because it was scary because AZAPO and UDF were fighting.  If you saw a group of people you would not rest and I identified them, I saw them, that they were in the group of people singing.

ADV BOSMAN: How big was the group that was singing?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: In 1986 during the conflicts, the youths, the school children were the most involved in the conflict, now the people who were singing were my age.

ADV BOSMAN: No but I don't mean their size I mean how many people were singing in that group, how many people were in the group?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I mentioned earlier on that there might have been 15 to 20, I'm not sure about the exact number.

ADV BOSMAN: So how did you distinguish these six people, on what did you distinguish them?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: The six suited the description of the people I saw.

ADV BOSMAN: But what were the distinguishing factors, what was special about them that you remembered these six out of twenty people?

MR MALAN: If I may just add on here, give us the description of the six people then.

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: You would normally identify a person by the kind of clothes, that helps a lot in identifying.  If a person is wearing a red jersey ...[intervention]

MR MALAN: Mr Mphoreng, I asked you a specific question please, I asked you to give us a description of these people, not on how one would normally identify people.  The question that Advocate Bosman put to you was: "How did you identify these six amongst the 15 or 20"?  Your answer was: they fitted the description of the people you saw, now we want to know why did you know that they were there?  What did you see on them, was it their faces, was it their clothes, if it's there clothes, what was the clothes, how did you know that those six were among the 15?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I have problems as to how I identified them exactly but what happened was that these boys, these six boys who were in the company of our comrades were among a group of the boys singing intimidating songs.

ADV SIGODI: I just want clarity on this aspect.  In your response you said that they fitted the description, were they described to you or did you see them, did you identify them?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Nobody identified them to me, I saw them myself.

ADV SIGODI: So when they were brought to you, did you see the people you had seen or did somebody describe them to you, because the word that was used by the interpreter was that they were described, they fitted the description.  I just want to clarify the interpretation between the word: "description" and: "identification".

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Nobody told me that it was them, I saw them myself.

CHAIRPERSON: You see, I understand you perfectly but the problem is that the confusion came because you yourself Mr Mphoreng, used to the wrong words to express yourself.  In your own language you said: "basuti description", you said so instead of simply: ...[no translation]
	I don't know why you used that word, when in fact what you meant simply that they looked like the same people who passed on earlier on.  You must be careful in using words because they can cause a unnecessary confusion.

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Yes, Judge, I agree with you, I should have used the word: "They were like those I saw in the group".

MR TLOUBATLA: Mr Mphoreng, these people were brought to you there and then can you just go on from there, what happened, where did you take them to, what did you do with them?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: They were six and we split them in two groups, three were taken to the one room and three were taken to the other room and thereafter we started with the interrogation.  I was personally involved in the interrogation.

MR TLOUBATLA: I want you to give us a detailed description of how you went about interrogating them, that is particularly yourself.  How did you go about interrogating them?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I said earlier on that I strongly suspected that these boys were members of SOSCO, now when we interrogated them I was actually confirming my suspicion.  This is how we interrogated them:  I severely assaulted them.  If I remember very well I was using hangers(?), I was using bottles, I was kicking them, I was beating them with my fists.
	During the interrogation I observed that two of these boys had UDF T-shirts on, one of the T-shirts was printed: RMC, which is Release Mandela Campaign, the other T-shirt was UDF.  As I was busy with one of them I got the information that yes, indeed they were members of SOSCO and they had been instructed that members of AZAPO are the enemies and they must be killed.

MR TLOUBATLA: Did they, during that interrogation, did they mention who gave them such instructions to assault members of AZAPO?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: One of the victims in the group that I interrogated mentioned that Masichaba - I think her surname was Luate, Masichaba was a prominent member of the UDF, now one of the boys informed me that Masichaba told them that members of AZAPO are not right, they just need to be killed.  That is the information that I got during the interrogation.

MR TLOUBATLA: Would you agree with me that because of the pressure, the assaults that you were inflicting on them, the answers might not necessarily have been correct but they had said to please you as the interrogators?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I have mentioned that there was a conflict between AZAPO and UDF, we were not fighting as individuals and that is why these members of UDF, when they got hold of AZAPO they killed him.  An example is that of Martin Mohau, they killed him just because he was a member of AZAPO and the same applies to Sipho Khomezulu.

MR MALAN: Will you please answer the question that was put to you.
	Will you repeat that question please Mr Tloubatla?

MR TLOUBATLA: Would you agree with me that because of the pressure that you had exerted on these boys, some of the answers that they gave you may not necessarily have been true but they were just simply said in order to try and appease you as the interrogators?  In other words, some sort of confession through force might not necessarily be true.  Do you agree with me on that?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: Yes, I fully agree with you.

MR TLOUBATLA: Thank you.   And then - right, you interrogated them, you assaulted them and then what happened thereafter?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I assaulted them with hangers and bottles and as I was busy one of the victims names Oscar confirmed that they were members of SOSCO and that they received an order from Masichaba Luarte that members of AZAPO were enemies.

MR TLOUBATLA: Who was with you during this interrogation of these boys?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: I was with comrade Nani Kani, I was with comrade Kabelo and Jeff was also present.

MR TLOUBATLA: It was just the three of you in the whole house all the time?

MOTLANA ATASIOS MPHORENG: It was not the three of us, I've mentioned the people who were with me in the room.  Remember we split in two groups, the three victims were in this room where I was and the other three in the other room.

MR TLOUBATLA: What I want to know is, in total - that is the people that you would regard as your comrades who were assisting you in interrogating these people, who else was there and how many people were there?