Special Hearings — Women's Hearings — 1997-07-29

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you Mr Maziya.  I am just going to ask you a few questions just to get clarity.  You mentioned that your mother, in fact, when you came back to the house after the hospital, that you did not find her there.  What actually did happen to your mother?

ALLI MAZIYA: My mother was still alive.  They took her to Baragwaneth Hospital where she was admitted, but what I cannot clarify, I do not know if they first took her to Katlahong Hospital or they took her straight to Baragwaneth, but what I established later on was that she was at Baragwaneth Hospital.  She was in Baragwaneth for about five days and thereafter she died, she passed away.

YASMINE SOOKA: Did you ever hear anything from the police on their investigations into this matter?

ALLI MAZIYA: No, there is nothing I heard from the police, but thereafter the police use to come to my house to search my house, but with regard to the incident that happened to me, there was no progress.  I have not heard anything up until today.

YASMINE SOOKA: You, obviously, know in your own mind who actually is responsible for the attack and it is quite clear that you do hold the PAC responsible for this.  Now, given the fact that you were trying to get all the different factions together, why do you think your house was targeted for this attack by a group with whom you were, actually, working to try and get peace in Vosloorus?

ALLI MAZIYA: As I have already indicated that Mayor was involved in this issue.  I am relating this most of the time, Mayor was trying to show that he is a member of the PAC.  When we started discussing this issue with councillors he would always try to show us that he is a member of the PAC and that we should not take him for being a person who betray a traitor.  He was saying he had a mandate from the organisation that was a member of, but another issue.  Why the police got involved was that Mayor, himself, he would not come and attack us without actually being involved in the COSAS issue and they mix up the COSAS issue with the Mayor and then PAC came as if they came to attack me, as if it was part of the whole conflict between COSAS and PACO, but PAC came there being involved with the police, because the police gun, how did the police gun get involved with the PAC people.  When did PAC give them this gun to return it to the police station.
 I think another thing that I did not relate here for and this is one of the issues that make me not to get any peace in me, because when they said I must take my statement to the Truth Commission I had some shells.  I had some shells of the guns that were used in the house, but the police had the knob, had the knob of the hand grenade that had been used to attack my house, but at the moment I do not know what happened to these shells, because the statement has been lost.  I really do not understand what eventually became of the shells.  I think the Truth Commission can follow it up and realise that the person who took my statement can tell the TRC what happened to my statement.  Why is my statement not in the data of the Truth Commission?

YASMINE SOOKA: Okay, we certainly will check that Mr Maziya.  You are, what you are actually saying is that the conflict between COSAS and the PAC also was exploited by the police at that time.

ALLI MAZIYA: I think so.

YASMINE SOOKA: Because you certainly do have questions to ask about why the police were so quickly on the scene and how a police gun could actually have been used.  We know that the conflict in Vosloorus, in fact, still continues.  Do you have any suggestions to make about how this can be resolved?

ALLI MAZIYA: I think because of how the situation is, how the situation in South Africa is and the way we got our liberation, it will be very difficult.  It will be difficult for me that I give you my views which, I think, will resolve the conflict in Vosloorus, because in Vosloorus there are different kinds of people.  Maybe you need to understand Vosloorus before you can think of any solution to the problem.  You need to understand Vosloorus, but I think Vosloorus, I remember one day Mr Mswaledi visited us and he was the first guest who came to address the ANC meeting in Vosloorus.   The first thing that he said, he said he and other members of the African National Congress have tried their utmost best to see to it that there was an organisation in Vosloorus and eventually they came to the realisation that it will be very difficult to unite the residents of Vosloorus.  It seems it is a very difficult area to achieve unity in Vosloorus.
 He was very surprised today, on the day that he gave his speech, that there was an organisation.  He was surprised what kind of an organisation eventually emerged.  They wanted ANC to record the situation in Vosloorus and give an acknowledgement to the Vosloorus people that had worked very hard to have an organisation.  I am giving this background so that you could understand that the situation of the residents of Vosloorus.  Vosloorus use to be a very small township where people knew one another, where if you did, committed any crime or any wrong thing everybody would be knowing what you had committed the following day.  
 I think these are the people who really cared about each other, but there are people who are very scared of White people here in Vosloorus.  I have got no doubt that even today there are people who still cannot believe that they have been liberated.  Well, we could make attempts of finding solutions in Vosloorus so that it could be like other townships, because today Vosloorus is united.  It has got an organisation which, I think, the residents of Vosloorus suspect this organisation and this is the organisation, I think, that if it is utilised in an effective manner, will eventually bring about stability in Vosloorus.  
 All Vosloorus residents, even the unity of the taxi people, if the civic calls these people in the meeting they all attend this meeting although even some, although some of the things, even if they are agreed upon, they are never implemented as according to discussions, but they do go to meetings, they do argue and they do eventually agree and eventually they are able to manage all those things which could cause a lot of conflicts and the dying of many people.  Therefore, I think that the civic that is there at the moment in Vosloorus could be a tool for bringing about unity and resolving the conflict and stability.  If we make use of this civic and if it could also get the support of uniting all people in an effective manner.  I think that will be the solution that I think I do have at the moment.  This might not be an adequate solution and a proper solution for other people, but my experience of this place is that this could eventually be the solution that could help the Commission.

YASMINE SOOKA: Just one last question Mr Maziya.  How have you coped after the loss of almost all your entire family after what happened?