Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 1998-04-17

MR MKHIZE: In politics you don't just kill people sir, you kill them on one hand, for instance there will be other strategies that you use as here in eSikhawini we would name roads with such names such as Bambata.  Those would be strategies that would be used in certain areas.  We would attack and then indicate that this road was now ours and changed it's name.  The people knew about this, they saw it happening.  You don't just attack and kill them, you attack them and maybe distribute pamphlets that will turn them against the other or indicate that the war is going on.  We would distribute these bus stops, at public areas so that when they see these pamphlets, after having hearing gunshots, they will recognise that there is indeed trouble and therefore they will join the winning side, they will realise that one side was losing, that is a political strategy.  Political analysts themselves can explain this strategy as I have put it, it is a strategy that is being used or that is used in politics.  	I am trying to explain that attacks were not just the end, what we wanted was support and destroy those people who we perceived as strong in the enemy camp and thereafter the politicians would mobilise and call meetings and gatherings.  A person who did now attend meetings will realise that he or she would also be attacked.  He wouldn't do this voluntarily but because he knew that if he didn't attend he would also be the next - what I'm trying to say is that the strategy of mobilising would have followed later, the politicians would have done this and the people would have been told.
ADV. MOTATA: It would appear from the evidence you have given us this far that when you were deployed in eSikhawini you appeared to be a trustworthy who would be placed in command wouldn't that be so?

MR MKHIZE: That is correct.
ADV. MOTATA: And when you got to eSikhawini you realised that there were other Caprivians who were trained specifically to eliminate your opponents, isn't that so?

MR MKHIZE: That is correct.
ADV. MOTATA: And you elected not to use these Caprivians at all but hand picked people you wanted?

MR MKHIZE: That is correct.
ADV. MOTATA: And such people you even, I suppose, advised the higher hierarchy about them?

MR MKHIZE: That is correct.
ADV. MOTATA: Wouldn't you say with the position you had and the trustworthiness you had from the higher hierarchy, you could make suggestions of other strategies of mobilisation for instance not bloodshed, for instance?

MR MKHIZE: Chairperson, I've already indicated that the situation was such that we could not have started with political strategies because if we did that we would not have succeeded.  But I too, as a person who could do my own calculations, realised that the situation wanted bloodshed first and later divert people to the correct direction.
	Secondly, I would like to refer to the point that I opted to recruit other people and leave Caprivians behind or out.
You see, for example, if I were fighting you and your wife would be suspected of being in love with me and who would you trust if you trusted your wife before but you would never again divulge your secrets to your wife because you now have suspicions that she is in love with me while I'm your enemy and for example if your wife was drinking alcohol and you would realise that your secrets are no longer safe because people could now easily know because your wife had now become weak and therefore I am trying to say, look at this whole thing from the point of reality. 
	Let us look at it dramatically as to how it exactly happened.  Let us not theorise about this.  I explained before the Commission here that these boys were now drinking with girls and they were drinking and had become troublesome at work.  We would for example take Umpanza, a drive with him in a van so that he could sober up after having been drinking.  That is another Caprivian - I don't know how I could have used such a person in the kind of sensitivities and operations that we were engaged in.  I am therefore trying to say, look at this from the point of view of how it exactly happened, do not theorise about it.
ADV. MOTATA: If we look at reality that we even have the background furnished by yourself about the training you received in Caprivi.  Part of it was even propaganda.

MR MKHIZE: That is correct.
ADV. MOTATA: When they tell you and you know in yourself that South Africa was occupied not only by the whites and when they said the ANC wanted to take over the country, didn't it in your mind say to you "but how can I be an executionist of my own people?" and more so if we look at the composition of KwaZulu Natal where it is predominantly Zulu.  It would be your own people.  Didn't you have trust in your own people in other words?

MR MKHIZE: You know politics can force a person to kill his own brother.  The kind of politics under which we lived was such that you are a comrade and your brother is an Inkatha.  You are the one who should take the lead in killing your brother and I can even quote here at Hammersdale they killed their fathers, their biological fathers, that is a known fact and for example I'm referring to Hammersdale people, they killed their own biological fathers because they were proving to their comrades how loyal they were and how convicted they are.
	IFP people did the same thing.  They were trying to prove their loyalty, they killed their fathers and therefore the question of patriotism and nationalism is far fetched when you're looking at this whole situation.
	For example, if you look at the faction fights I can tell you that this is how the Amazulu operated.  A person would for example go and kill another person of his own tribe on the other side of the street knowing that there is a relative on the other side but a person would move there to kill.
ADV. MOTATA: In other words Mr Mkhize you firstly listened to the evidence given by Mr Dalukolu Luthuli in Durban that the IFP from inception was leaning towards the African National Congress - you recall him saying that because you were present?

MR MKHIZE: Please you repeat the question?
ADV. MOTATA: That when Inkatha Freedom Party was formed it was regarded as an ANC wing internally, you recall him giving that evidence?

MR MKHIZE: Yes I still recall that.
ADV. MOTATA: And he said during the meetings which they had with the SADF, he became suspicious that now "this was entirely for the Boers" to quote him, that Inkatha was no longer furthering for instance some of the aims of the African National Congress, do you recall that?

MR MKHIZE: Yes.
ADV. MOTATA: Now when you were saying we can even throw a party, kill your own brother, the propaganda which you were given at Caprivi during your training, was it saying now - "we want these Boers to continue to rule us and ANC out" which meant ANC are your brothers, their blood brothers, that they shouldn't rule this country but the Boers should continue to do so?