Amnesty Hearings — East London — 1998-04-02

UNKNOWN: I am the wife Mr Rasavi who was employed at Fort Hare.
	I really have to ask for the patience of the Commission, I'm no lawyer, I'm no advocate.  I have to get myself into this before I can say what I want to say and ask what I want to ask so please bear with me.  I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity first
and foremost because it's the first time in these four years that ...[intervention]

MR LAX: We understand that it's difficult for you.  If you just need a few minutes to compose yourself, that's okay.

UNKNOWN: It's the first time in four years that families  actually have been acknowledged to exist.  Where the legal trial was concerned it was through grapevines and rumours that we found out.  This is the first time that we actually have been, become an intity in this entire process and I'd really like to recommend to the Commission that they advise strongly to the other side of the law that this becomes a normal procedure, that the families involved be kept up to date.  I want to say this, I have to say this because for four years you know, it's been four long years.
	I am not sitting here as somebody who sits with vengence or who looks out for revenge or who wants to see you know, my own sight of what I would consider justice.  I'm not here to sit like that.  I am here because I am stunned and I am filled with questions.  I am incapable of understanding why and I don't just sit here as wife but I sit here as somebody whose husband was a dear of another one of the three who were killed.  	Mr Anvari was a dearest friend of my husband and therefore he was my fried.  Mr Bashandiki who got killed, ...[indistinct] Bashandiki was another very, very dear fried.  We were not just co-relionists, we were dear, dear friends.  I stit here stunned because I didn't just lose one person, I lost three, thee close people.
	They meant more to the entire community than just being three people.  They were members who led the community, who were asked, many women alike, the entire community, that they should be part of that institution that would guide that community.  So they were not just three men who were there at the wrong place at the wrong time.
	They were three men - I would like really him to know that who had lots of integrity, who had lots of integrity, who lived in Africa because they loved Africa and they loved the African people.   And they came here to try and instill in all these people that same love for each other.  I'd really like you to know that, I think you must know that.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Rasavi, I don't want to stop you at this stage but perhaps I could explain the purpose of the proceedings.  At the moment the applicant is giving evidence and the purpose, if you have any questions you want to put to him, we will give you unlimited opportunity thereafter the two applicants have given evidence, for you to tell us exactly what the facts are as you know them.   You will be able to come and do that but I think rather at the moment let's finish with this man so if you know what happened and you disagree with any of the things he said, you can ask him about them certainly.

UNKNOWN: I wasn't there when it happened.  I was at the trial and I have my own qustions.  I hear the Truth and Reconciliation Committee is based on truth, amnesty is based on truth.  I hear opposites, I hear contradictions, I heard contradictions in the trial and I'm hearing contradictions left right and centre.  As long as these questions, to me in my mind, are not answered then that part as far as I'm concerned the truth has not been established.  I don't know if I have anything to say, whether I consider the truth has been told but as long as that exists then there is a question within my mind.
	He  says that he was just following orders.  Whenever a question is asked then he says "I was just following orders", well for me that is not just good enough.  I would like him to tell me today, not as an accused but today as a human being, I would like him to tell me you know, in all that time when all these terrible things were happening within South Africa, does he know of any other place within the entire South Africa where a command was given for a unit to go to a black residential area and there kill people who had absolutely no connection whatsoever with any political connotation?  Does he know of any other incident within South Africa that such an order had been given?

CHAIRPERSON: Do you hear and understand the questions?

DUMISANI NCAMAZANA: Yes, I hear the questions.

CHAIRPERSON: Can you answer it?

DUMISANI NCAMAZANA: The question is difficult to answer because many other things that happened to black people, that happened to black people I did not know except those things I heard about, especially during the TRC process that concerned black people who during a vigil, police came in and shot at them and killed them.  It was women and children and that happened in Durban.

UNKNOWN: I am aware that incidents like that happened, I am aware.  I'm talking about white people.  Don't get me wrong, really, really, please don't get me wrong.  I myseld don't see colour, I really do not see colour and these men also didn't see colour.
	What I'd like to know is, do you know of an incident where there white or where white people were ordered to be killed within any black residential area within the entire South Africa who were not there either to earn a living or who were not there to have a jolly good time but who were just there?  Do you know of any incident within a black residential area where such an incident was ordered to take place?
	I don't know of any.  I know of places of word where whites were gone and killed, I know of places like the Highgate Hotel and that's not in a black area but I mean within the residential area.  There is not one, I promise you there is not one. 
	My question to you is this, doesn't it strike you as enormously strange that such a small church should have been selected whithin the heart of a black residential are at that time, that time where there was so much struggle going on, so much fear in the hearts of all the people?  Doesn't it strike you as strange that three white men that were willing to go into the heart of such a black area, not for political means, not to gain money but purely to help the people there, doesn't it strike you now as strange that you should have been sent to kill those people who were actually uplifting your people?   Isn't that strange?  Doesn't that raise a question in your mind?

DUMISANI NCAMAZANA: It is long and I cannot understand it, can it please be repeated?

CHAIRPERSON: The question as I understand it was, do you know of any instance where a group people were ordered to kill white people in a black residential area, where those people were there to help the residents?

DUMISANI NCAMAZANA: I do not remember me hearing about that, I cannot lie.

CHAIRPERSON: And the second part of the question was that if you agree that you don't know of any instance, doesn't it strike you now as odd that you should have been ordered to go to a small church in a black residential area to kill white people?

DUMISANI NCAMAZANA: About that explanation just now given, what is the question?

CHAIRPERSON: Don't you now consider that there was something odd about the instructions given that you should got to a church in a black residential area, a small church there, and kill three white people?

MR LAX: Not just three ordinary white people but three white people who were committed to helping your community, that's the thrust of the issue?

DUMISANI NCAMAZANA: This question is difficult to answer because today I understand that what happened was not good or nice to the victims and to the families of the victims.  That is the reason why I am here today to ask for amnesty for those acts.