Human Rights Violation Hearings — Ermelo — 1997-05-22

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: I'll see, I'll be turning twenty two this year and I can only see I could be nineteen or eighteen years old.  I can't remember well.

THOMAS MANTHATA: I'm going to be a little bit personal.  How did you feel to see your father and mother being assaulted when otherwise they should be giving protection to the children ?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: I would that this has been a bad situation for me and I was so embarrassed and I didn't understand why they have to be assaulted because we were not at the lodge where Scheepers was killed and I had to believe that they conspired to come and assault us.  I believe that they also wanted to kill  us.  Unfortunately they couldn't.

THOMAS MANTHATA: They couldn't.  And as you were being carried from house to house, showing them these houses, weren't you scared that should some of the students see you, they would say you were acting as an informer ?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: No, they had their own list so I didn't have to point to them the particular houses they were looking for.  I think there were some other people who were from the Inkatha camp who showed them the houses and the directions.

THOMAS MANTHATA: At that time yourself, at school, what role were you playing amongst the students ?  Were you a student leader ?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: No.

THOMAS MANTHATA: But did you belong to student organizations ?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: I was just a member of the ANC.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you.

MR LEWIN: Doctor Randera ?

DR RANDERA: Nonhlanhla, thank you very much.  If I could just ask one, one other question because I think it's important to, for the context of what you have told us to-day.  What's the situation to-day in Wesselton ?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: It's not that good.

DR RANDERA: Would you say there's still this antagonism between ANC and IFP?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: No, it's quiet at the moment.

DR RANDERA: So that has  changed  from the time that you are telling us about ?

NONHLANHLA BLOSE: That's correct.

MR LEWIN: Okay.  I'd like to thank you very much for coming and I think that I would recommend that you find out about your brother and what he's done about making the amnesty applications.  Whether he did meet the deadline which was the tenth.  I mean, what you have told us about to-day is, was obviously a very frightening and upsetting incident for you, experience in your life.  I think that the merit and the benefit for the rest of us in your coming forward like you have to tell us about what happened, out how you were treated yourself and about what was happening in the townships at the time, is very important because it shows us the situation that we're trying to move away from.  We don't want people to be treated in this way again.  We don't want there to be these antagonisms.  We don't want the antagonism between the police and  the community.  So what you have shown us is a situation that we all want to move away from and that we hope that in the future this type of activity can be prevented.  Where people are killed in line of duty, where people are treated as you were treated.  We'd like to thank you very much for coming.  Thank you.

DR RANDERA: Chairperson, whilst we're waiting for the next person to come forward, I would indulge your time just to make one comment.  Often the Commission is accused of being very one-sided in terms of the stories that come to these hearings.  I want to use this particular story as an example because at the end of the day, what you hear at the hearings is the people who have come forward, who have volunteered to come and, and been brave enough to come and tell us what is happening.  At the same time this young police officer, Scheepers was also a victim of the gross human rights violations that took place in the political conflicts.  Remember, we are asked to look at the political conflict that took place.  We're not only looking at one side of the equation and yet for some reason people don't come forward to talk about these stories.  I know to-day that there are many police officers, for example, who are present here to-day.  That there are, there's a local press that  ispresent here to-day, that I hope that this story that I'm about, that I'm trying to put forward, is taken back into the respective communities, into the respective constituencies.  We can only complete the picture if people come forward and tell us their stories and I would appeal, and we, and in the Nationalist Party's submission, for example, they list the names of six hundred police officers who were killed in the 80's and early 90's through the conflicts, but those police - the families of those police officers have not come forward and they have as much right to come forward as any other person who's making a statement here to-day.  If those families don't want to come forward, perhaps some of those officers can actually help us with the dockets that are available, relating to these stories.  That is the only way we're going to be able to paint as complete a picture as possible in terms of the Mandate that's given to us.  Thank you Chairperson.

MR LEWIN: Thank you Doctor Randera and I'd like to endorse that.  Thank you.