Human Rights Violation Hearings — Duduza — 1997-02-04

MR V MAZIBUKO: Balaclava, no, when he came to me he was not wearing a balaclava.  He came to me with Congress.  Congress is the one who actually directed them to me.  Then they came to my place to look for me.

MRS SEROKE: Are you sure that this person is Joe Mamasela?

MR V MAZIBUKO: Yes, I am positive it is Joe Mamasela.

MRS SEROKE: Now, to conclude, we have seen the struggle that COSAS has been through to try to liberate the country.  Now, we are proud that we are in a new South Africa.  Now, as members of the then COSAS, are you going to be as committed as you were during that struggle?  Are you going to be as committed in the process of reconciliation?

MR V MAZIBUKO: May I just make this clear that this process of reconciliation is what really causes us to be free to come together to be able to be a rainbow nation.  Now, that was all about freedom.  These are the results of fighting for freedom and today we are all the same, we are all equal, but the question I want to bring forth to the Commission is that somehow this may come to forgiving and forgetting.  To be honest with the Commission is that what happened to us is  hard to forgive, it is hard to forget also.  For instance, as we sitting before this Commission there are some members of us who are not here and, all of us, we are maimed in some way and we can also point out that each and every one of us has a stigma attached.  For instance, people always act, refer to us as Valley, the who without a hand and Sipho, the one who has got missing fingers.  This leaves a picture that is always painted and that will never ever disappear.  It becomes very difficult for us.
 Maybe Mamasela represented certain forces that could not be shaken or removed, but I want to point it out that Mamasela made a mistake, you see.  The masses of the people like J Bona, if probably organised they can trample on to anything, that was the mistake that he made, but honestly speaking, forgiving and forgetting is very hard for us.

MRS SEROKE: We thank you, Valley.  If you speak like that you are speaking the truth.  If we could bring Joe Mamasela to come and sit here before you, is there anything that you can say to him?

MR V MAZIBUKO: I would not like to comment about that.  I would like to leave that open because as we are sitting here, we managed to survive, we are survivors and we owe to the parents of the people that we were with, that is the
people who died, even if Mamasela can be brought to book, the damage that he did was irreparable and there is no way it can be reversed.  So, that is why I really cannot be in a position to comment, but this little that I have said, maybe, I think it covers it somehow.

MRS SEROKE: Thank you very much.  Back to the Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Russell.  Order.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you very much.  That was a very helpful account.

CHAIRPERSON: Hello, order please.

MRS SEROKE: Order please.

RUSSELL ALLY: That was a very helpful account and you have also given us a very good idea of the context, what was happening, of your motives, how you saw the struggle at the time, because those are things that we are going to have to put into the final report and that testimony has helped us to understand some of these issues.  I want to ask you very specific questions which will help us to try and complete this picture.  The first is, is James, we know that Mike was Joe Mamasela, do you have any idea as to who James was, any one of the five of you?

MR V MAZIBUKO: We do not know who James is, but we were always trying to find out together with Captain Holmes from the Investigating Units, from the office of the Attorney-General.  They were actually trying to investigate as to who James is and, to be honest, that we do get dribs and drabs of information that it could be Inkala, but we are not positive as to who actually James is.  So we are leaving this to the hands of the Investigating Office to go on further with the investigations and as Mamasela has already applied for amnesty, there is a clause of full disclosure.

RUSSELL ALLY: Just a correction, Joe Mamasela has not, has not applied for amnesty.  Joe Mamasela is a state witness.

MR V MAZIBUKO: Okay.

RUSSELL ALLY: He has not applied for amnesty.

MR V MAZIBUKO: Alright, let me leave Mamasela out of the whole issue.  All these other people he was working with, that is the Brigadiers, the Generals as well as the others who have asked for amnesty with regard to this case.  Commissioner, General van der Merwe also said that he was involved, he knew about the whole thing.  The other Colonels who are involved, Dirk Coetzee, that is in terms of the full disclosure clause, we hope that they could tell us as to who the second or the third person was.  We would like them to shed light on that, that is the person who gave them a direct contact to Congress, because they did not know him personally.  So, somebody must have given them or shed some light as to who Congress was.  They had to wipe him off.

RUSSELL ALLY: And then earlier this morning we heard the testimony about Vincent who was killed in Kwatema.  You mentioned that there were three groups.  There was the Duduza group, the Kwatema Group, was Vincent, do you know that name, was he part of the group in Kwatema?  You heard the testimony earlier this morning.

MR V MAZIBUKO: That is correct, I did hear the testimony.  Vincent was one of our members, was within our group.

RUSSELL ALLY: And he was in Kwatema?

MR V MAZIBUKO: Yes.

RUSSELL ALLY: He was with the Kwatema group.

MR V MAZIBUKO: As I have already explained, this operation was an operation that had to cover three areas.  In particular Kwatema, Duduza as well as Sakane and each area
had its own operatives and Vincent was one who was in Kwatema together with Congress.

RUSSELL ALLY: And did you ever hear from anybody who may have survived from the Kwatema side, what actually happened to Vincent?  Do you have any knowledge of how he died?

MR V MAZIBUKO: Like, when we got injured, for reasons Titus, as he has already explained, that himself and John were taken to Natalspruit Hospital as well as myself, when I got injured, I thought I had made a mistake and I ran home to try and get some transport to ferry me to the hospital.  I was not aware that I had lost my fingers.  I just hurt as if I had broken my ribs, I felt like my ribs were broken and I was having short breath and blood was oozing out of my mouth as I was running.  I discovered at a later stage that my fingers were missing and I was bleeding.  When I got home I was take to Polo Park, I thought I was the only one who was injured and when I got to Polo Park I got Humphrey as well as Baai, who is not present at the moment, that is when I realised that there is a problem.  We had been conned, we were arrested immediately and I remember one policeman who came in at the hospital and said, oh, this is the man from Zimostraat, this is correct.  Which means they were satisfied with what they did to us and the following day we received a message, we got to know through the Press as well as newspapers, which were being read by the police, that Vincent had died in the incident.

RUSSELL ALLY: And just a last question.  Just before you came to the stand we had the sister of Maki Skhosana speaking about what happened to her after this incident.  Is there any light that you can shed on this matter, on the allegations, the accusations, why Maki Skhosana was targeted.  Is there
anything you want to say on that issue?