Human Rights Violation Hearings — Empangeni — 1996-11-05

KHOZA MGOJO: Mama, this is a very painful and tough story.  Myself as a Christian who reads the Bible and who believes in Christianity, it reminds me of the words that I read which were uttered by a 33-year-old man, his name was Jesus, at the time that he was being tortured just before he got killed.  Jesus prophesied.  He looked at the woman and he looked at the children and when he saw a certain woman he said the woman should not cry for him but they should cry for themselves as well as their children.  When we look at the history of torture and violence or violation of human rights, we always come across women who have suffered and children who have also suffered.  This is a very painful situation.  The most disturbing part of this is that the very same policemen who were involved in killing people as well as human rights violations ia that presently they are occupying very high positions.  They're getting very high salaries and your children who were fighting for freedom, some of them died, some of them haven't even tasted this freedom that we have acquired.  Some are even not working but it is said that we are free.  We wish that the government could look into this.  I would like to ask you just a few questions because we want to straighten up certain issues.  When you started testifying you said there was a certain fight or  altercation that was taking place between the ANC and the IFP.  Where did these police come from.  Who were they fighting with or who were they fighting against and who were they helping because we were told that another part was an ANC stronghold and the other part was an IFP stronghold.  That is very clear.  Now, where do the police come from and where do they feature in the equation?  What are they all about?

WITNESS:   We do not know because they used to come in the morning as well as in the evening and they would assault us asking us as to where the guns were and we would tell them we do not know anything about guns.  And the other policeman asked me as to how am I going to protect myself if I do not have a gun.  They could not find any guns in our houses.  Because we were now divided at that time and we were told that this side was ANC and the other side was the ANC(?) and the Inkatha members were parading with their guns and they were having them in public.  Zakhele is at school.  He's doing Standard 4 and they are writing their final year exams.

KHOZA MGOJO:  You said his little finger was severed by the police.

WITNESS:   Yes, they did cut the tip of the finger.

KHOZA MGOJO:  How did they do it?

WITNESS:   They cut him and at that time he tore his hand loose so the finger was not completely severed but he bled and at that time my daughter was screaming and I think they were disturbed by the fact that she had started screaming and she saw what was happening.  I was at the hospital at that time undergoing the operation.

KHOZA MGOJO:  We thank you for having appeared here.  We shall try by all means because you say you do not know the  policemen.

WITNESS:   I don't even know a single one because I was told it was Derek and Velbang.  Velbang was in KwaMbonambi at that time.

KHOZA MGOJO: We thank you very much.  We shall make all that's in our power to try and trace these people.

PROF MAGWAZA: I made a mistake because I did not mention your requests.  I just wanted to repeat them to you so that you know that we are taking them into consideration.  You said you want to know about Vusi and Khulekane as to what happened to them.  We shall try to follow it up even though we don't have the necessary information.  With regard to Khulekane's child we shall take that request and pass it on to our State President.  With regard to your health we will try to have you get in touch with the Health Department who can actually try to help you without you paying.  We thank you very much.  Maybe what we can also do is send you to the social workers so that they can see as to what type of help they can offer you.  When you go out, you will talk to social workers.

MR LYSTER: Thank you, just a couple of last questions before you go, Mrs Mkwanyana.  One of the other policemen who you mentioned, I think, was someone by the name of Duffle.  Is that right?

WITNESS:   It was Duffle.

MR LYSTER:  Okay.  And was he with the - and Derek, yes.  Was he with the internal stability unit?

WITNESS:   When these things happened they used to come in large groups and you wouldn't know that this is a stability group, these are soldiers.  They knew themselves.

MR LYSTER:  And one other thing.  You said that at the time when this happened, when Vusi was an ANC member, you  said that he was also - by force he had to be an IFP member and that we were forced to sign up in order to protect ourselves.

WITNESS:   Vusi ran away from Inkatha to join the ANC because they were being assaulted by Inkatha.  They were saying they were Comrades during the night and they were Inkatha members during the day.  They said they were actually two-toned.  They were not real Inkatha members.  That's why they decided to escape from the Inkatha Freedom Party.  They violated them and saying they were Comrades during the night and during the day they were Inkatha members and they were card-holding members of Inkatha and I threw the cards away.

MR LYSTER:  Finally, was there any court case or inquest that was held into Zakhele's death, that you remember?  Did you go to any case?  Did you attend the court?

WITNESS:   You mean Khulekane.

MR LYSTER:  Sorry, Khulekane.

WITNESS:   I never went to open up the case because they had to come to me and tell me that as he had died what caused his death.  So I sat there waiting for them as they had promised that they would come back to me.  And now that they've said we should come up front and relate our stories, that's why I have come before this Commission because at some stage I didn't know where to go for help and the very same perpetrators were police.

MR LYSTER:  And do you have a death certificate for Khulekane?

WITNESS:   I'm not sure but there were certain documents that were given to us.  I never went to fetch the death certificate but there are some documents that I have which are at home.  I might as well check amongst those documents. Did you see his body after he had died before he was buried?   ---   We did not really open him because the people who went to fetch the bodies, we were told that the bodies were badly decomposed and we were not supposed to open up the corpses.  His private parts were injured as well as his hand.  I don't know whether they twisted his neck because he had stitches all right around his neck down to his naval.

MR LYSTER: Yes, that would have been from the post mortem.  Thank you, Mrs Mkwanyana.

KHOZA MGOJO: I just want to clarify something.  "They were Inkatha members during the day and they were Comrades during the night", what does that mean?  What was happening during the night?

WITNESS:   That is the way they tried to divide them.  They were told that they were the ANC - the whole area, that is where we were staying, in which a small area and they said this was an ANC stronghold and the other one was an Inkatha stronghold.

KHOZA MGOJO:  Your children were being accused of being Inkatha members during the day and ANC members or Comrades during the night?  What was happening during the night that made them - or that led them to being accused of being ANC members?

WITNESS:   There's nothing that was happening but the people who were chasing my sons away were members of Inkatha.  So they were actually pushing us aside and pushing us into the ANC stronghold and they were keeping their area for Inkatha and they say they were staying in a certain area where the ANC members were staying.  Therefore they should remain in that area and be ANC members and not stay in an ANC stronghold and  /come