Special Hearings — Caprivi Hearings — 1997-08-11

MR LASICH: Now, Mr Mkhize, were you ever involved in indiscriminate killings of people?

WITNESS:   There wasn't killing that I undertook on my own volition.  It would have been an objective of the organization that I was under.

MR LASICH: /And if I

MR LASICH: 1A And if I understand your evidence, you would go out on a - shall we call it a hit, after being instructed to do so.  Is that correct?

WITNESS:   That is correct.

MR LASICH: Are you able to recall about how many you - the deaths of how many people you were involved in?

WITNESS:   I don't have any clear recollection in as far as that, because there were instructions that needed that a mob should be attacked and killed and I've already explain to the Commission and I estimated about the bus attack.  I don't know how many people got killed there.  Even the bus stop attacks, I don't know how many people got killed.  Now, I would not give you an number as to how many people I have killed, but what I would like to emphasise is that there would be a purpose and it was an instruction for us to undertake that kind of operation.

MR LASICH: Now, did you not take an interest in finding out how many people were killed if a particular bus was attacked?  Surely you would have gone to the local police station to get some statistics?

WITNESS:   I never had any interest or never got an order to go and enquire as to how many people were killed.

MR LASICH: Now, you stressed, it seemed, in your evidence-in-chief, that you would do a hit, but it was a specific target.  You quote the - I think it was the Dlamini - I can't remember the name, Dlamini or Mthethwa, where you left the wife alone and you specifically hit the husband and you had no quarrel with the wife.  Is that correct?

WITNESS:   Yes, I did say that to this Commission.

MR LASICH: Now, how did you feel about indiscriminate shooting at a bus load of people?

MR WILLS: With respect, Mr Chairperson, I feel that that
 /is an unfair
1A is an unfair question, because it's prefaced with the word, "Indiscriminate", whereas the witness' answer previously was that it wasn't indiscriminate in so far as orders were received.

MR LASICH: Well, perhaps I should argue with the witness then.  The way I see it, Mr Chairman, he's firing at a bus load of people, it's indiscriminate shooting but perhaps Mr Mkhize can clarify whether he would say that's indiscriminate or not.

WITNESS:   No, it was not indiscriminate shooting, because there would be a message that we would want to carry across to the organization that we will be fighting with or a group.  Now, I wouldn't call that indiscriminate, and it was not my desire to do that, but it would have been a strategy that would have already been put into place at a meeting, and I've already explained that for such an instruction to come out to attack a bus, it was because of the attack of the rally, the Inkatha rally, and I did explain at length.  It was not indiscriminate, because that was carrying a message across to the people that we were fighting against.

MR LASICH: Now, you also said in your evidence that you wouldn't be in a position to judge who was right and who was wrong, that is the IFP or the UDF/ANC.  Are you talking about how you see it now or how you felt at the time that you were involved in these killings?

WITNESS:   At the time when I was involved, I completely and absolutely believed in the IFP policy and its ideology.  I completely believed in it at the time.

MR LASICH: Now, you must have been motivated by actions on the part of - if we can call them then, the enemy - the UDF/ANC.  Could you give the panel an idea of what sort of

MR LASICH: /acts were

MR LASICH: 1A acts were being committed by comrades?

WITNESS:   I explained to this Commission the acts that were undertaken by the UDF at length.  I don't know whether you want me to go back and repeat exactly what I had already explained.

MR LASICH: I just wanted to find out - you did mention burnings and things like that.  Did you ever witness any of these atrocities?

WITNESS:   Yes, I saw them and witnessed them.

MR LASICH: Can you give us an example of one of these things that you saw?

WITNESS:   There are quite a number of them in Hammarsdale that I've witnessed and in some various KwaZulu/Natal locations, especially in Hammarsdale.  That's where I witnessed a lot of them, and being done in the IFP area.

MR LAX: Sorry, Mr Mkhize, you've been asked to give us a specific instance of such an incident.  Please try and do that.

WITNESS:   Your Honour, there is no specific example that I have, because those are cases that implicate other people who are not present here.  I don't think it is appropriate for me to talk about such.

CHAIRPERSON: We are not asking you to mention the names of the people who carried them out.  We're just saying give us an example of an attack or a murder that you recall which took place in Hammarsdale.  You and Mr Luthuli have said that many such attacks took place.  Mr Luthuli said the other day - on Friday - that what would happen is that people's houses would be attacked and they would be burned or people would be forced to take part in consumer boycotts and they were attacked or killed if they wouldn't do that.  Just give us an example of something that you remember.

WITNESS:   My aunt's house in Hammarsdale was set alight and the kid who was in there got burnt and we could

CHAIRPERSON: /not rescue

CHAIRPERSON: 1A not rescue that kid.  We managed to rescue my aunt and others from the house, but we could not rescue the kid, and caught fire and she or he was 2 to 3 years old at the time - it was a girl - and we also caught fire because we were moving in the fire, trying to rescue everyone who was in there, especially the ladies or the women, but ultimately the kid died.

MR LASICH: Thank you, Mr Chairman.  Now, Mr Mkhize, you've mentioned a number of people such as M Z Khumalo, Prince Zulu, Mrs Mbuyazi, Captain Langeni and others as being involved in illegal activities.  I am instructed that those people deny being involved in anything unlawful.  What is your comment?

WITNESS:   I do expect that they will repudiate all of that.  First of all, these people have high profiles now and hold high superior positions in the community and now they are trying to protect their images and their positions as well.  Secondly, those are cases that we are talking about.  There is no one who would like to be arrested, and they committed all these acts privately.  The community did not know or have any knowledge as far as that was concerned.  It was quite an embarrassment and it is an embarrassment for people to get to realise that they took part such in activities, because the aims of the organizations that they are affiliated to and it is because the IFP kept claiming that it was fighting for human rights.  Now it can hear that they were not only doing that peacefully, they also had other side agendas, some things that they were doing.  Now that was contradicting with the aims of the organization.  Now they will refute all of that.  There is no way that they will admit to that.

MR LASICH: /Now, just one

MR LASICH: 1A Now, just one aspect, were you ever given an identity card known or it was called Omega Security or anything like that when you returned from the Caprivi?

WITNESS:   No.

MR LASICH: Do you know any members of the Caprivi trainees group that received such cards?

WITNESS:   No.

MR LASICH: Thank you, Mr Chairman, I have no further questions.

MR LASICH: NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR LASICH