Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-24

MR LEWIN: Mr Chiba, if I could ask you please to take an oath or to affirm an oath.  What I would just like you please to do is to stand.

LALOO CHIBA: (Duly sworn, states).

MR LEWIN: Thank you very much.  Our procedure in the Commission is to assign a leading Commissioner, who will help you with your testimony and I will ask Yasmin Sooka to do that now.  Thank you.

YASMINE SOOKA: Mr Chiba, I would like to welcome you and Mr Kathradu who has actually come to support you.  For youngsters like myself, at the time you were a legend in our community.  There were not many people who were involved in the African National Congress at the time, and your name was quite a legend for me when I was growing up.  So when you give your evidence today, I would like you to take your time and to feel that you use the time that is allocated to you, wisely, to stress the points which you feel need to come out of your testimony.
 I have made certain points which I would like you to stress, but I will intervene as and when I think you haven't touched on those issues.
 If you could start by telling us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your own background, and the 
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beginnings of your involvement in the African National Congress.
 Just to explain to you, when you talk you press the red button and as soon as you are finished you press the grey one and the sound will then come out from there. 
 If you could begin, please.

LALOO CHIBA: Thank you very much.  First of all I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my deep appreciation for affording me the opportunity to testify before this Commission.  Thank you very much.
 I really don't know where to start and I have only got half-an-hour.  So I suppose the amount of time that is allocated to me will only be about 15 minutes, 20 minutes or so.  But I will try to recap as much as possible.
 First of all I would like to say that I became politically involved after the arrest of Comrade Kathradu and 155 leaders of the Congress alliance.  That was in 1956.  As a result of their arrest I became increasingly involved with the work of the Transvaal Indian Congress and all the Congress alliance.  In 1959 I joined the South African Communist Party and up to today I still remain a member of that organisation. 
 Now in March 1960 - I am just going to go through a little bit of background so we put the whole thing in the proper context.  In March 1960 I think it was, after the Sharpeville massacres, the African National Congress and the PAC were actually banned.  
 As a result of the banning the African National Congress was confronted with very critical decisions.  Those decisions were the most important decisions.  All the African National Congress, in its entire history, the 
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banning meant that the African National Congress had to submit or to fight.    The African National Congress took the historical decision to continue fighting for the liberation of our people.
 The second decision it had to take flowed from the message of struggle.  Ever since its formation in 1912, the African National Congress have conducted a peaceful and non-violent struggle.  Now that it had been banned it was confronted with what to do.  Do they extend the non-violent struggle to the armed struggle.  After the intense debate within the ranks of the African National Congress, and of the Congress Alliance, the decision was taken to launch the armed struggle.
 I wish to stress that these two historic decisions on the part of the African National Congress were decisions that have led our country to where it is today. 
 After its banning the military wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto weSizwe was launched on the 16th of April 1961.  Comrade Nelson Mandela  ... (intervention).

YASMINE SOOKA: Sorry, if I could just stop you there.  You state that, you talked of December, just for clarity, is it April or December.

LALOO CHIBA: December. Oh, I said April by mistake. My apologies. It was on the 16th of December 1961 that Umkhonto weSizwe was launched and Comrade Nelson Mandela was our commander-in-chief.  I was amongst the initial group of cadres, MK cadres, who was of course involved in the subsequent campaign of sabotage.
 Now I think it is important to say something about our units.  Each sabotage unit consisted of four members, with a unit leader, and four such units constituted a platoon.
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 I think it was by mid-1960 that I was made a platoon commander, heading for such sabotage units. We were actually based in Johannesburg, and our area of operations were Vrededorp, Newtown, Fordsburg, Newclaire, Firetown.  Those were the areas of our operations.
 I also want to state that in carrying out our activities we were under very, very strict instructions.  The first instruction was that during the course of our activities, sabotage activities we had to ensure that no loss of life occurred, civilian or otherwise.  If there was a danger that there would be such a loss, our strict instructions were to suspend or postponed the planned act of sabotage.
 The second instruction that we had to adhere to strictly, was that under no circumstances were we to carry any sort of arms whatsoever.  That means when we carried out an act of sabotage and there was a danger of us being arrested, we were not even in a position to defend ourselves.
 The third instruction was that once an act of sabotage had been carried out, we were under strict instructions not to revisit that site.  So those were the three instructions that our units actually had to adhere to.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could you tell us about the kind of targets that you would select.

LALOO CHIBA: Actually there were two categories of targets.  The one category of targets was the question of power lines, telephone wires, substations, transformers, signal boxes.  Targeting this kind of targets actually meant that the normal type of services were disrupted.  But there was a second more important type of targets, and these targets
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were institutions and symbols of apartheid: pass offices, Bantu Commissioner's offices, magistrate's courts, and so on.  These were the types of targets that we actually bombed, blew up.
 From there I think I will go on to what had actually happened.  On the 17th of April 1963, five of us were arrested. Comradie Viji Vania was a unit leader and he and his unit actually planned an act of sabotage on Railway property.  Unfortunately his unit had been infiltrated by a police agent by the name of Gamat Jardien. Obviously of course he had informed his superiors about the planned act and not unknowing to Comradie Viji Vadia and his members, unit members, the place of - the site actually had been surrounded by police and they were immediately arrested.  
 As far as as Gamat Jardien was concerned, not to expose that he was a police agent, the special branch actually arranged it in such a way that he actually managed to escape.

YASMINE SOOKA: If I could just take you back a little bit.  Could you tell us who the other people were, besides yourself and Viji Vadia, who were also arrested, and if you could just clarify for me the date - was it 1962 or 1963?