DECISION
The applicants applied for amnesty in respect of the killing of a person who at the time of his death was not clearly identified. The death occurred on the farm Leeuspoor near the Josini (or Pongolapoort dam) during the 1980.
Johan van Zyl ("van Zyl") testified that at the time of the incident he was a Lieutenant and the branch commander of the South African Police’s ("SAP") security branch ("SB") at Ladysmith. He received a telephone call from the then Colonel S.J. Visser ("Visser") who at that stage was the branch commander of the SB at Soweto, requesting him to come to Johannesburg for a sensitive operation. He met Visser at his house who told him that he had instructions to eliminate a black man who was a trained MK member but who had become a turncoat and acted as an informer to the SB in Soweto.
According to Visser the Soweto SB had obtained information that this man was acting as a double agent and was indeed giving information to the ANC. Visser indicated to him that this instruction had come from his superiors at Head Office in Pretoria. It later transpired that the instruction came from Brigadier Piet Goosen who at the time was the SAP’s head of intelligence. Van Zyl, after discussion, suggested that the elimination could be carried out in an area which he regarded as isolated and thus safe for such an operation and where the body could be destroyed by explosives. Van Zyl thereafter called Sergeant D.S. Gold ("Gold"), a member of the SB in Pietermaritzburg, who was an explosives expert. He instructed him to meet him the next morning near Pongola and to bring explosives with him.
Van Zyl and Visser thereupon went to fetch the deceased at Klerkskraal between Ventersdorp and Klerksdorp where he was being detained. Van Zyl couldn’t remember whether the deceased was picked up at a private house or at a police station. The deceased wasn’t handcuffed and appeared to be at ease. The relationship appeared to be one of a handler and agent. It was around sunset and they drove through the night to Pongola where they arrived round about 4.00 in the morning and met Gold. From there they travelled to the Josini SB where they met Warrant Officer G.S. Schoon ("Schoon").
Van Zyl testified that he had contacted Schoon earlier but couldn’t remember whether it was the previous day or earlier that morning. They discussed the elimination of the deceased with Schoon and it was agreed that the corpse would be taken by boat to an island in the Josini dam where it would be destroyed by the use of explosives. Schoon went to fetch a boat, while van Zyl, Gold and the deceased proceeded to a empty farm house on the farm Leeuspoor which the security police used to use during their border operations in Northern KwaZulu Natal. Warrant Officer D.S. Carr ("Carr"), commander of the SB at Mbazwana, to the south of Josini had in the meantime been summoned by Schoon to meet van Zyl and Gold at the farm house on Leeuspoor. Visser waited close to the dam for Schoon to return with the boat.
At the farm house van Zyl handed a hand machine carbine to Carr who kneeled near the deceased who at that time was lying under a tree in front of the house apparently asleep. He shot at the deceased but apparently missed and the deceased jumped up and charged in van Zyl’s direction. Van Zyl, thereupon shot him with his service pistol. He can’t remember whether he fired once or twice but the deceased fell and it transpired that he was fatally shot in the head. Gold had walked to his car immediately before the shooting and didn’t witness the actual shooting.
Van Zyl further testified that they then wrapped the corpse in a tarpaulin and put it into the back of Carr’s landrover. Carr drove it down to the dam about 200 – 300 meters from the house where Visser and Schoon were waiting with the boat. Before leaving the scene, Van Zyl and Gold, covered the blood stains with sand and then joined the others at the boat. The corpse was loaded into the boat and taken to an island in the middle of the dam. Van Zyl and Gold put explosives onto the body and Gold detonated it. The explosion destroyed the body. Van Zyl thought there might have been a second smaller explosion to dispose of small remnants but he wasn’t sure. Gold testified that there was only one explosion.
Van Zyl further testified that at that stage during the political conflict he considered it a warranted and necessary operation to protect the interests of the state and the identity of people working with the security forces. He had no other motive than the political considerations mentioned, and confirmed that he acted under orders.
The applicant further stated under cross-examination that the deceased and he himself were very tired after travelling through the night, that the deceased might have fallen asleep but denied that he had been drugged. He further testified that Visser informed him that the deceased was known as Scorpio. He didn’t know the name or identity of the deceased. The objective of disposing of the body was to cover up a politically motivated crime.
Van Zyl concluded his evidence by saying: "But in hindsight it is easy to be clever now. Mr Chairman, saying it, with respect from my side. At that time this was the position that stared us in the face and that is the way we reasoned at that time. I’m not trying to justify this action. I’ve never tried to justify our actions. I’m just trying to explain what the conditions were and how we thought and how our minds worked at that time. They might have been totally wrong, and in hindsight, they have been wrong. And those are the facts".
Schoon confirmed the evidence of van Zyl as far as it referred to him. He added that after discussing the matter he suggested that they should dispose of the body on the island. He further testified that he gave evidence in a hearing under section 29 of Act 34 of 1995 where the name Scorpio was used and that in preparing his application he was advised by his legal representative that the deceased could probably be MK Scorpio. He cannot remember whether he had heard the name before and cannot even remember whether he in fact saw the deceased before was killed. Soon after meeting Visser and van Zyl he was requested to go and fetch the boat to be used for the disposal of the body. That was after he suggested to them that the body should be taken to the island and mentioned that he had a boat which could be used. He further testified that he can’t say whether the person killed was Mr Oupa Ronald Madondo, Scorpio or whoever because he didn’t know him or Madondo at all.
Gold withdrew his application for amnesty insofar as it related to the attempted kidnapping of an ANC operative in Swaziland on the Maputo/Manzini road between 1979 and 1982 and the illegal crossing of the RSA/Swaziland border during the period mentioned. These incidents were referred to in paragraphs 4.3 and 4.4 of the affidavit annexed to his amnesty application.
He testified that as a security policeman he was operating against the ANC and its communist influence and felt that it was the right thing to do. He never knew the identity of the deceased and cannot say whether it was Mr Madondo or not. His recollection is that the incident took place on 1 April 1980. He confirmed van Zyl’s evidence except that his recollection is that they met at Mbazwana. He conceded that in retrospect and after hearing his co-applicants, this seems illogical. He recalled that he had been told that the deceased was a SB agent who had sold out and had become an ANC member or something along those lines. He further testified that the deceased appeared to be sedated because when he first saw him he was sleeping and he was asleep most of the time. There are however no material differences between his version and those of the other applicants. He confirmed that his motivation was purely political.
Visser testified and confirmed that during 1980 he was divisional commander of the SB at Soweto. He referred to the volatile political situation in the country at that time. He testified about an MK member known as Scorpio who had been arrested in the Western Transvaal while coming from Angola. This person became an agent of the SB after detention in terms of the then security laws. His handler was Martin van Rooyen, then a member of the SB at Soweto.
In the beginning he supplied valuable information. Van Rooyen later became suspicious and after monitoring him, established that he was a double agent. Visser further testified that the only name he remembered this person by was Scorpio. Because he considered him to be dangerous, he detained him at Klerkskraal police station and immediately reported to Brigadier Goosen, furnishing him with all the available information. Goosen also considered him to be dangerous because as an agent he would be aware of the movements of members of the security police and if is knowledge was transferred to the ANC it could have endangered the lives of those members and jeopardise the whole intelligence system that had been built. It also transpired that he had knowledge of an intended attack on a liberation movement camp in Angola and that the Cubans had been warned to evacuate the camp because of the imminent attack. After considering the matter Goosen instructed Visser to eliminate the deceased. He further stated that upon fetching Scorpio from Klerkskraal he told him that the problems concerning him had been cleared up but that he wouldn’t be used in Soweto anymore but on another front.
His further evidence is in accordance with what van Zyl testified to. He confirmed that the motive behind the killing was purely political and considered the operation to be in the interests of the State and the SB as representatives of the State.
Visser was convinced that Scorpio was not the person known as Oupa Madondo because the latter, from reports he had read, was not a trained MK soldier from Angola but an activist involved in the Black Power Movement. It was put to him that according to some of the documents annexed and used in the Section 29 hearing there might have been another person known as Oupa Ronald Madondo who was a trained MK soldier and he conceded that that might have been the position. The latter person disappeared according to the family in 1979 and was never seen again.
Disre Carr, at the time of the hearing, was in hospital and could not give oral evidence. By agreement between all interested parties he later filed an affidavit. All interested parties received copies of the affidavit and agreed that seeing that this version corresponds with what the others have already testified to in the public hearing it would not be necessary to incur the costs of a further hearing.
Ms Thokozile Mavis Madondo gave evidence and stated that she was the sister of Oupa Ronald Madondo. She identified him as being the person whose photographs appear on pages 99, 140 and 141 of the bundle of documents which included the applications. It must be mentioned that none of the applicants were able to confirm or deny that these photographs were photographs of the person they killed 20 years ago. She testified that her brother was, according to a report they received on making enquiries at the Protea Police Station in Soweto arrested on the Potchefstroom/Roodepoort Road during 1979.
She was told that they found his car abandoned on the Potchefstroom Road and that he had run from the car towards Kliptown and that the police were not able to arrest him. She never saw him again but after hearing the evidence she is convinced that it was her brother that had been killed. She further stated that a person known to be van Rooyen of the SB used to visit their house and to harass them. In this regard it must be borne in mind that Visser testified that the members of his staff in Soweto were not aware of the fact that he and the applicants killed the person known to him as Scorpio. Although it might be speculation it therefore would not have been improbable that van Rooyen as handler would have made enquiries at his agent’s home and family as to whether they have seen him or not.
The Committee considered all the evidence and the submissions made on behalf of the applicants and the family of Oupa Ronald Madondo. On the evidence before us we cannot conclude that the person referred to as Scorpio who was killed and whose corpse had been destroyed was in fact the same Oupa Ronald Madondo whose family appeared before us. On the other hand it can also not be concluded that it was not the same person. This fact, however, does not alter the fact that on the evidence before us a person was murdered and his corpse thereafter destroyed.
In view of the conclusion arrived at, the Committee does not find it necessary to deal with any contradictions between statements made by Ms Madondo and her oral evidence before us. The Committee is fully aware of the fact that all the parties who testified at the hearing had to deal with facts relating to an incident which happened 20 years ago.
The Committee is satisfied that all the applications are formally in order as required in terms of Section 20(1)(a) of Act 34 of 1995, and that all the applicants had to the best of their ability made full disclosure of all the relevant facts.
The Committee often in hearing of this nature has to struggle with the question as to why people committed such horrendous acts as testified to in this instance. It may be appropriate to make reference to their own explanations. Gold, at the end of his evidence, requested to say a few words to the family of Madondo who, as pointed out, might have been the person killed. He proceeded:
"I must say that I don’t want to bore you with long speeches about why we did what we did or why I was doing the work I was doing, but over a long time we were conditioned to the stage where we could actually do things like this, perhaps.
You must remember that from a very, very early age I was exposed to the violence that was happening in the country. I can remember at the age of eight, looking out of my bedroom window in Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg and seeing the community hall of Sobantu Village burning during unrest and that was the first indication to me that we had a problem here.
And then throughout the years for instance, the propaganda that we were exposed to, but no propaganda could ever teach me that black people were bad, or no propaganda could teach me not to respect and love the nursemaid I had who first taught me Zulu or uBantu or whatever you’d like to call it. I realised there was something seriously wrong, but the savage nature of the symptoms of the Nationalist Government, the savage nature of the symptoms, there were so many of them. I can recall things like the Bashe Bridge murders, I can recall things like the Langa riots, I can recall the Cato Manor riots, I can recall the nun, Dr Mary Quinlan who was killed during township unrests and the mob eating her body which they cooked on her burning car. Stuff like that left a lasting impression on me and I wanted to fight this. I realised that black people weren’t being treated right, but nothing could condone the savagery of those symptoms.
Anyway, to cut it short, if the deceased is who we think he is, then we were fighting on opposing sides, we were fighting a war that was caused by ideologies and fanned by politicians. I think I was about four months old when the Nationalist Government came to power, I had nothing to do with the formulation of their policies, but I had a lot to do with the symptoms of that rule and as I say, we fought on different sides. And it has occurred to me as I’ve indicated that it’s the sister of the deceased who is facing me now and it’s just occurred to me that it could be my mother, my sister, my children sitting there now, because what happened to the deceased could quite easily have happened to me. I was involved in a lot of covert operations both inside and outside. Nothing, nothing like this I can tell you, but was often in the company of people, being all alone by myself, often in the company of people who thought I was one of them and had they discovered that I was not one of them, it would be my mother sitting there now, Sisi, you understand that.
So I empathise with the family of the deceased, I would be very heartless if I did not do so. And for the pain that you have had to suffer, I apologise … (Zulu), Sisi, I apologise."
It remains to be decided whether the applicants meet the requirements of Section 20(1) of Act 34 of 1995 as to whether "the act, omission or offence to which the application relates is an act associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past in accordance with the provisions of sub section (2) and (3)."
The Committee is satisfied that the offences were committed in the course of the conflicts of the past and that all the applicant fall within the provisions of Section 20(2)(b)(f) and (g).
The Committee, after considering the guidelines set out in Section 20(3) is further satisfied that the offences committed were associated with a political objective.
In the result amnesty is GRANTED to all the applicants in respect of the following offences:
The murder of a person known as Scorpio (and whose real name might have been Oupa Ronald Madondo) during 1980 on the farm Leeuspoort at Candover in the Ngotje district near the Josini (Pongola) dam and any other offence or delict, including desecration of the corpse, directly linked to the said killing and the disposal of the body.
Although the committee on the evidence could not make a finding that the person killed was indeed Oupa Ronald Madondo, it is in any event clear that the said Madondo referred to by the family disappeared in circumstances related to the conflicts of the past. The committee is of opinion that the next of kin of the said Madondo should be considered to be victims in terms of Act 34 of 1995 and therefore refer the matter to the Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation in terms of section 22 of Act 34 of 1995.
SIGNED AT CAPE TOWN ON THIS THE _______ DAY OF ____________ 2000.
___________________ C. DE JAGER (AJ)
___________________ADV. N. SANDI
___________________MR I. LAX
