Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1996-04-17

DR BORAINE: We call Mr Robert Kohl to the witness stand please and if Mrs Cecelia Kohl would like to join him she is very welcome.  Mr and Mrs Kohl you are very very welcome.  We are grateful to you that you have taken the time to appear before this Commission.  Mr Kohl I'm assuming that you will be giving the evidence?

ROBERT KOHL: That's true.

ROBERT KOHL: (sworn states)

DR BORAINE: Mr and Mrs Kohl, you have attended a large part of the hearing and you will know that people come from very different walks of life with very different experiences. You will also know that there have been many casual almost, victims of violence in South Africa and that funerals have played a very large part in an attempt of the community to give an expression of grief and anger and commitment where they had no other opportunity.  You know too very personally, that as a result of that, very often funerals were broken up, that people were tear gassed, people were shot, and you have come with a very grim story and we are grateful to you because we know that it is painful, and Ntsiki is going to lead you to assist you to make it a little bit easier, but it's your story, and we want to hear from you, thank you.

MR SANDI: Mr Kohl, I am going to ask you questions, not
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because I am interrogating you, but just as a guide.  Also for an interaction between yourself and the panel.  The questions I am going to ask you revolve around your family and in particular, your son Bully, what sort of person he was, what he was interested in, whether he was a member of any organisation at school or in the community, then I'll go on to ask you questions about the tragic events of the day when he was shot by the police.  I understand you have no personal knowledge of what exactly happened and that Tyron Austin is the eye witness of the event that took place. 
 I'll ask you about the funeral arrangements, what sort of problems you encountered in trying to make preparations for the funeral.  Lastly I will ask you about the court case which you mentioned in your statement.  
 Now to start with, Mr Kohl, where do you work, is it correct that you work at Rhodes?

ROBERT KOHL: Yes I do work at Rhodes University.

MR SANDI: You live in Grahamstown?

ROBERT KOHL: I do live in Grahamstown.

MR SANDI: Have you always lived in Grahamstown?

ROBERT KOHL: I schooled in Graaf Reinet for two years actually, that's in '61/'62.  I did my high school education there. It's the only time that I worked out of Grahamstown actually, but all my life I stayed in Grahamstown.

MR SANDI: I suppose the person sitting next to you is Mrs Kohl, your wife?

ROBERT KOHL: That's true, yes.

MR SANDI: Bully is your eldest son?

ROBERT KOHL: Yes he is the eldest.

MR SANDI: You've got three children altogether.

ROBERT KOHL: Yes I've got three boys, Bully was the eldest,
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I've got Hein, my second eldest son and then Elgin, the youngest boy, actually.  I've got two foster children as well, a cousin of theirs, Sylvester and Nolene is the daughter, she's in matric at the moment, actually.  Bully was actually educated at Good Shepherd school, that's in Huntly street in Grahamstown, then he went to Mary Waters High School in Grahamstown, he was a year in East London at John Bissike, where he did standard eight JC certificate, then he came back to Grahamstown and he started his standard nine at Mary Waters.  He was actually a member of the Gym, the Grahamstown Youth Movement or Civic Movement, it's called and he was also a member of the Student's Representative Council of Mary Waters.

MR SANDI: You mean the SRC?

ROBERT KOHL: Yes the SRC, sorry.  He was a soccer player. He played first team for Mary Waters, and that was under the sports master Mr James Hiller at Mary Waters.

MR SANDI: How would you describe Bully.  What kind a person was Bully?  You mentioned to me that he was interested in becoming a lawyer?

ROBERT KOHL: Yes when he passed his JC, I asked him actually what he intends to do, further studies or whatever.  He said he wanted to study law and be either an attorney of an advocate and I asked him why he wanted to do law. He said, "Well the situation in South Africa is so that he, as a person studying law, could actually ...(indistinct) the apartheid system that was that time in the whole South Africa.  Especially the Group Areas, where people were removed from certain areas to another.  He mentioned that and he also mentioned that the schools actually, because I told him I had to leave Grahamstown because there were five
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white schools in Grahamstown, high schools, I had to leave Grahamstown and go to Graaf Reinet for my Matric Education. He said, when he studies law, he would have brought that up as well, actually.
 The next thing he mentioned was the separate development, where people were put into certain areas and you can't move there, you have to have a permit system if you go to from our area, the so-called coloured areas, if you go to Tandjie or the Fingo Village or Chosa, you have to have a permit to get over the sort of border line they had, actually, and then you had a permit system where you had to apply to the offices there, to get a permit if you had to see people in the other area, actually.  
 Well I told him I've got family actually staying in the Fingo Village and people staying in Tandjie location. They're part of my family and I never used to have a permit, I used to go over there and visit them, even play with the kids around there when I was younger.  That was in the early '40's and '50's, before the new system came in in 1949 or whatever.

MR SANDI: Is that the Group Areas Act.

ROBERT KOHL: The Group Areas Act, so when I was young I used to move around, but when they grew up they found the sort of system of Apartheid, prohibiting them from going from one area to the other.

MR SANDI: Now can I take you through the events of 12th May 1985.  I understand from you, on this day you were at home in the afternoon when you got the terrible news that Bully had been shot.

ROBERT KOHL: Ja the 12th of May was actually Mothers' Day and the family were gathered together, my wife and myself and
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his younger brothers and his two cousins.  So we were just sitting at home and quietly enjoying the afternoon, we knew there was a funeral going to take place in the township but we were not certain that he was going to take part and go to the funeral that afternoon. But I'm not sure of the time, between half past four and five, I got a phone call from Settlers hospital in Grahamstown, that Bully had been shot and it was Mr Tyron Austin, next to me, he was the person that actually phoned my house and told me about that.  So he couldn't say anything over the telephone to rectify this, so he said that he'll come to my place and just give me a brief report on what happened at the funeral in Chosa where the funeral was at the Lapus Stadium.  The funeral of a young boy also who used to play soccer against Mary Waters where Bully went to school and he played soccer against this guy and he actually knew him.  That's the reason he went there to pay his last tribute and his respect to the family of the guy.

MR SANDI: What was your first reaction when you received this telephone call from Tyron?