Special Hearings — Children's Hearings — 1997-05-22

CHAIRPERSON: Would Vuyani Edward Mbewu please come up to the stage.  Vuyani, can you hear the translation coming through the headphones?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: Yes, I can hear.

CHAIRPERSON: Welcome to you, it is now afternoon, so I say good afternoon.  Thank you for coming here today.  Mrs Burton is going to administer the oath and then Glenda Wildschut will lead your evidence.

MARY BURTON: Vuyani Mbewu, will you stand to take the oath please.  Please raise your right hand.

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: (Duly sworn in, states).

MARY BURTON: Thank you.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Vuyani, hello.  Are you comfortable?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: Yes, very.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Alright.  Vuyani, you will be telling us about what happened to you in September 1985.  Would you go ahead and tell us what happened on that day, but before you tell about the incident, could you tell us how old you were when the incident happened?  How old were you at the time?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: I was 14 years old in 1985.  I am now 25 years old.  In 1985 on the second of September, a Monday.  It was, I think it was the start of a strike where the schools were having boycott actions and I was at Lezuko School in NY4 and I was living in NY21 at number six.  School came out very early on that day.  By 11 o' clock we had all gone home and we went back to the location.  I got home, undressed and went back to the street to my friends.  There was a group of us that liked to get together in NY4.  NY4 is close to Mannenberg.  It is near the railway lines and near the, next to the railway line you have J F Jooste Hospital and you find Mannenberg Road and Mannenberg.
 What was happening there is that the coloureds in that area had been attacking delivery trucks.  We were standing on the other side of the road at NY4.  It was an open field at the time.  There are houses that are built there now facing the old houses in Guguletu.  There was an open field there and we were watching what was happening in Mannenberg.  Police were up and down in caspar's and in police vans and shooting and chasing the people in Mannenberg.  What then happened is that because it was very hot on that day I moved back across the road and sat in front of a yard which had, which was fenced off with vibacrete and there was a tree there so I sat in the shade of that tree between two friends of mine I grew up with and they were seated on either stand of me and I was standing under this tree.  Most of the others were playing on the field, others were watching what was happening on the other side.  
 A caspar then came from Mannenberg Road to the road which was leading into Jooste Hospital and they used the gate at the hospital at the time and that was next to the railway line which is now situated near the road.  When you leave Jooste Hospital and cross the railway line to NY4 you move uphill, because Jooste is at the bottom and the railway line is on a slightly higher level and then the location on the other side.  This caspar came and stopped at the gate.  When it stopped at the gate it went back after hardly five minutes.  I saw it approaching so when I was seated where I was I did not see it and then I saw it coming again down the road.  
 The people were playing on the field across the road and those that were watching saw it stopping.  In fact, they just saw the top and they saw it going back.  While we were sitting there those of us who were on the other side of the road in front of this yard saw those who were on the field playing and watching come running back and some were bleeding, crying, screaming and there were even gunshots that could be heard.  When I got up from there I was getting ready to run away.  The two that were next to me had already run away and everyone was ahead of me already.  Something penetrated my eye and thinking it was probably a leaf from the tree that had fallen into my eye, because things were falling from the tree as well.  It was these pellets that they had been shooting us with.
 Thinking that it was a leaf I did not what, exactly what was happening, I just heard the gunshots and saw these people running away.  Something penetrated my eye and I wiped my eye thinking that it was something that had fallen just, it disturbed my eye and when I moved my hand it was blood and I had actually affected my other eye as well.  When the caspar approached, the people that were in it, its occupants were no longer in the caspar.  I think that some of them must have been crawling on their stomachs so that people could not see them.  When they got to us they did not say a word they just started shooting.  I was the last one to run into NY18, because I could not see that well anymore.
 I ran into another yard there in NY4.  When I got into that yard I had to run away again, because the dogs wanted to bite me and they were, I had to run back in the direction of these policemen.  I then ran around the house of the Ngeto family in this other road and I was in front of them.  I was not running any longer, I was staggering and I got onto the corner of NY18 and another road and I sat there.  I was then taken to hospital where I was admitted for two weeks.  That is all I have to say for now.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Vuyani, can I just ask you a few questions just so that we can understand your story a bit better.  You were in hospital, at Conradie Hospital for two weeks.  Was there anything wrong with your eye?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: Yes, there was.  The pellet shot had penetrated my eye and I did not know then whether I could see or not, because they had covered my eye with cotton-wool and I was kept in hospital for two days.  Then fed things appropriate to someone that was going to be operated saying that they were waiting for my parents, because my parents had gone down to the Transkei to visit and my parents came during those few days that they were going to operate on me.  They spoke to them and accepted that they were going to operate on me and when they referred to me I refused to accept it.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: So the doctors were not, did not operate on your eye to try and fix it?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: No, the operation was never performed.  I thought they were going to try and remove the pellet and it was apparent that they were going to be unable to do that without damaging my eye and that it was going to be better for them to take it out and replace it with whatever they were going to replace it with.  I was asked to be shown what my eye was like, because I had not seen it yet and I saw that it was bad, but rather than having an eye similar to the one that I have got now put in.  There was, both were not going to work, they were going to be dysfunctional so I saw no point in having my own eye removed and having another one put in.  That was why I refused.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Can you see through that eye now, Vuyani?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: No, it is blind.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: So you only see through one eye?

VUYANI EDWARD MBEWU: Yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: What you said in your written statement to us is that you tried to lodge a claim.  Can you tell us about that?