Human Rights Violation Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-06-10

CHAIRPERSON: Our next witness is Mr Melfort Yamile.  Could Mr Melfort Yamile please come to the stand?  We will ask Mr Ntsebeza to swear you in and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela will be your facilitator, thank you.

MELFORT YAMILE: (sworn states)

MR NTSEBEZA: The witness has been sworn in Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Dumisa, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela?

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you Glenda.

MELFORT YAMILE: Thank you, that is the only language I can speak clearly.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: We will just make here and there.  Mr Ntsebeza has some things to do.  As he is the co-ordinator of the investigators, we would like to give him respect.  We would like to be brief as much as we can.  If you can be as brief as possible and tell us where were you staying during this incidents?

MELFORT YAMILE: I was staying in the Nyanga Bush near Crossroads, near the Portland Cement and Nyanga station where Mr Toyse is staying and Mr (indistinct).

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: You clan name?

MELFORT YAMILE: Amakaqi.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Oh, Jambasi?  Thank you Jambasi.  Will you please tell us about your position, what role were you playing in Nyanga Bush?

MELFORT YAMILE: The position I was playing, I was the leader of the Nyanga Bush.  The role that has started in 1981 when we were in Nyanga Bush when the zones were robbed in 1979, so we were taken out of the places, so we tried to stay in the Nyanga Bush and built our houses.
 While we were staying there, we were arrested and detained and deported to Transkei, we then came back again.  That is how the White men attacked us on January, on Tuesday the 25th, 26th.  I was one of the people who was shot on my left side.
 The bullets were on my right side.  We stayed there and we decided to stay forcibly.  We were only given three months and then after three months in September, we had to fight and held meetings after the three months.
 They were only given three months in our passes.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: They were endorsed wasn't it so?

MELFORT YAMILE: Yes, something like that.  And then afterwards we used to hold meetings in Crossroads with Mr Hoza who were in Nyanga Extension who left in 1985 to Site C.
 In 1985 to be brief, we were called by the Chief Commissioner in Cape Town where he was Chief Commissioner, Mr Tim Bezuidenhout.  When he called us there the Nyanga Bush area, he called the group from Nyanga Bush, he said my Committee must go outside and then we were outside, he said I must left behind, he said the Minister Gerrit Viljoen asked him to chase them to Site C because there is a lot of money in the government.
 I said if it is going to be like that, I must tell the people that are going to be chased, because I won't take the bribery, you must rather give the bribery to them.  They said okay, don't be stupid. Go and think about this.
 And they went out and told the others.  While they say you must go out, they asked me to stay behind in order to bribe me.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: So I want this to be clear, Mr Bezuidenhout asked you in so much to bribe you so that you leave the Nyanga Bush to Site C because there is  a lot of money so that you can have something and earn something accept them.

MELFORT YAMILE: As long as we are going to take them away from Nyanga Bush, yes that is it.  Because we didn't want to go there, because they promised us before that we are going to be taken to Khayelitsha and Mr Ngxobongwana - we went to investigate the Khayelitsha, we saw the houses, they were matchboxes and we said, no we denied the offer, we won't be going there.
 We said we won't be going there and they opened Site C.  Mr Ngxobongwana was arrested during that time, early 1985 while all these things were happening, he was arrested.  I've seen that we are going to differ in our opinions in 1985, we went to visit him as we thought he was our brother.
 We went to a meeting in Crossroads by Nongwe that was called by Nongwe, and when we arrived there, it was KTC, Nyanga Bush, Portland Cement, Nyanga Extension and Site C, Hoza's area and Crossroads.  There were six areas.
 The message was Toyse and Memani, which is Tabo Memani in the area they are leaving, they are training old and young people so they have arrested them.  That was Nongwe who gave that statement.
 My colleague was a secretary then.  I said to this people Mr Nongwe are you the head of this area, headmaster?   We must make negotiations with Nongwe not you.  And the house agreed with me people like (indistinct) and KTC agreed with me.
 Toyse was also locked up there and Tabo Memani said he must come and then they were released and then they came so we talked to them.  Along the discussion we - someone said we can see there is something that should be eliminated.  There should be some elimination here, there is something to be eliminated and then we had a meeting at KTC.  At that meeting at KTC I raised this issue, that there is something, some root to be eliminated.
 What are we going to do about this?  And we should look at this seriously, that was 1985.  And thereafter we were not happy at Nyanga Bush.  Policemen were harassing us, we don't know how they knew the boundaries of camps, but they would surround it.
 That was difficult to get there, they said they were looking for weapons and they wouldn't find any and eventually they gave up.  Then we gave over to the ladies.
 We asked the ladies to go and ask these Whites what they were looking for.  So we found these policemen there.  The policemen were standing back to back and you can't go out if you are a man.  If you were a man, you couldn't go out.
 This happened in 1985, it was a Friday, the 19th of November.  The policemen came in the morning, very early, they surrounded the whole area, aiming guns and there was this helicopter flying over the area and the others were searching.
 And we were running away because they could recognise because they knew us, because we had been arrested for quite a number of times.  And we used to run and that process I met Mr Mlangeni, Lennox Mlangeni, they shot him.
 He was with another one, (indistinct), he is now at Hermanus.  They killed Mlangeni that time, it was Friday.  Well, the next week we buried him because it was almost towards month end.  Then we came back, close thereafter about between March/February we were called to a meeting at Crossroads.
 No the meeting was at Site C, this meeting, where it was reported, it was decided that we should go and fetch Gobingca's household belongings and that's where we divided, the (indistinct) started.
 Then there was Nyanga Bush, Portland, Site C and then we had differences of opinion.   We could see that there was no harmony any more.
 Because they said at Crossroads there is a lot of youth there so we must go and fetch.  Each question we asked, they said it was irrelevant.  So we said to our people, don't go there.  So then we saw them going down Lansdowne Road.
 There were some caspers accompanying them.  (Indistinct) came to my place and I told him, I said be careful this is what is happening.  And so he went, he was driving a bakkie.  He came back at night.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: I don't want to interrupt you Jambasi, I just want briefly, just be very brief.  Just go back you once said it was clear that the fight had started, you had some self defence units, was that true?

MELFORT YAMILE: Yes, inside.  The people that we called, we called them home guards.   We called them home guards.  Those people were people who were amongst us, or some of us whose responsibility was to watch over the night and to link up with other people at night.

MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Were you in charge of those people?

MELFORT YAMILE: No, I was in charge of the whole community.  The leader of the whole community.