CHAIRPERSON: I will ask Mrs Selina Baloyi to come to the witness stand. We welcome you Mrs Baloyi. Are you relaxed where you are? Who is in your company?
MRS BALOYI: She is my niece.
CHAIRPERSON: We would like you to relax and if, at any stage, you feel depressed or a bit tired, take your time and drink some water to help you. I would now like to ask Professor Piet Meiring to administer an oath to you.
PROF MEIRING: Mrs Baloyi will you please stand and will you please put your right hand in the air.
SELINA MAKAO BALOYI: (Duly sworn in, states).
PROF MEIRING: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: I will now pass you to Mr Hugh Lewin to help you in your testimony.
MR LEWIN: Thank you Mr Chair. Morning Mrs Baloyi, we would like to welcome you to this hearing and to thank you for coming. Can you hear the translation clearly?
MRS BALOYI: Yes, I can hear them
MR LEWIN: Yes. We are very pleased that you have been able to come. You are going to tell us about an incident again in 1986, ten years ago, which resulted in you losing, well resulted in the bombing of your house and we would like to ask you to tell us in your own words and your own time, tell us that story. Thank you.
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MRS BALOYI: In 1986 on the 11th it was at about one o' clock when I came back from work I sat in the house. Whilst there it was time to go to sleep. Whilst I was sleeping my husband came in and said to me it seems as if the police are bombing are houses nowadays ... I saw some fire and the house was burning and I was also burning at that time. The people, my neighbours came to keep out of the fire and they took me to the hospital. When I asked who had burned my house they said it was the police because everytime we were at home they would ask me where my son is and I would say to them he is around and they said they wanted him. When I asked them why they said we know, you do not know why we want him. Then I went to sleep at the hospital.
Whilst there I was discharged. On the day I was discharged they came again, that is the police, and they said they were looking for Stanley and I said he is not here. They said the saw him, he is in the house. I was by that time still ill and this white man said to me, we saw him, you have given him a hiding place. I said to them, no, I have not, you can see I am from the hospital. They looked into the house because they said he was hiding in the house and they found him and they asked him, are you Stanley and he said, yes, I am Stanley. They asked him why are you telling the newspapers that we are the ones who bombed your house. I was still ill by that time.
We received a letter from the hospital and it informed me that I have to pay R900,00 and I could not do that because I am not the one who has burnt myself. I do not know who burnt me and we left with my husband for the hospital and when we arrived there I asked the Superintendent and I said to him, I am not able to pay this
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R900,00 because God did not cause this illness of me. I was injured by the police. That is where the Superintendent wrote me a letter and I went to the police station with my husband and we gave the police this letter from the hospital. They wrote another letter after reading the one we gave them and they asked me to send it to the Superintendent at the hospital. When I got there the Superintendent said to me you can go away and not pay anymore and that is when I went home.
MR LEWIN: Thank you Mrs Baloyi. If I could just ask one or two questions to give us a clearer idea of what, a clearer idea of what happened. This was in April 1986.
MRS BALOYI: Yes.
MR LEWIN: April, yes. Could you tell us a bit more about Stanley? How old was he at the time, your son?
MRS BALOYI: I cannot remember how old he was by then, but he was already a grown-up, that is a man.
MR LEWIN: And you have told us about how the police use to come to your house and harass you because of his activities. Could you tell us more about his activities?
MRS BALOYI: Stanley was not a thief, he was a Comrade and they did arrest him at once and send him to jail. Whilst we were still wondering why he told us that he was bailed out by the Comrades and he had been discharged. He did not tell us anything about his whereabouts.
MR LEWIN: And being a Comrade he was then a member of the ANC?
MRS BALOYI: Yes, he use to be in the company of the ANC.
MR LEWIN: Did he discuss this with you at all because in 1986 the ANC would still have been banned, would it not?
MRS BALOYI: When they had meetings we use to see through
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the clothes he wear when he went to these meetings that he was an ANC member.
MR LEWIN: Then if I could come back to the night that this horrible incident happened to you. Was he in the house at the time? Was he staying with you then or had he gone away?
MRS BALOYI: He was still staying with us. That is on the day they came to bomb our house. He did not tell us, but in our street he caught some boys and said they must look out for the police because they were coming to bomb our house and they did guard, but when the bomb was thrown at our house, when they came out of house number three, the police cars had already driven away.
MR LEWIN: Your house is number seven. Is that right?
MRS BALOYI: No, my house number is number nine.
MR LEWIN: But Stanley was at a different house that night?
MRS BALOYI: Yes, they were in house number 13. That is where they were on the lookout for the police.
MR LEWIN: So he felt that there was going to be an attack. Did he say anything to you or your husband about the possibility of the attack? Do you think that is why your husband ...
MRS BALOYI: No, he did not tell us anything. He only told the neighbours.
MR LEWIN: But do you think that is why, perhaps, your husband put up, ask to put up the blankets?
MRS BALOYI: No, he was from he use to hang out with his friends. They use to say that where a Comrade resided the police will visit. That is what the people use to say at that time.
MR LEWIN: Can you also tell us, this might be difficult because you were asleep and you woke up in flames, but you
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can tell us what the bomb was? What do you think it was? Was it, what did it look like?
MRS BALOYI: When I came from the hospital I saw a bottle at home. It had a petrol bomb inside and sand inside in and a little bit of powder.
MR LEWIN: And what I am asking is do you think it looked, was it professional? Who had made it, do you think?
MRS BALOYI: I do not know because I carry no knowledge of these explosives.
MR LEWIN: And could I ask what this did for you? You were very badly burnt which is why you were taken to hospital. If you could describe your injuries and your husband's injuries.
MRS BALOYI: Our beds were destroyed, our windows were destroyed on our clothes and I suffered burnings and my husband also suffered burnings. The smell of the petrol bomb took about four months in my nose.
MR LEWIN: And then what was the effect on your husband because he died subsequently, did he not?
MRS BALOYI: No, he did not die immediately, but after we were bombed he started being ill. We do not know whether the bombing was the cause or not.
MR LEWIN: Can you describe the illness to us please?
MRS BALOYI: His illness was only to cough from time to time, but it was not TB. They said that he had a problem of diabetes at the hospital, but after we suffered this ordeal it became worse.
MR LEWIN: Just one last question Mrs Baloyi. Could I ask you, you mention having made a statement at the Atteridgeville Police Station. What happened after that? Was there any follow-up at all, ever?
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MRS BALOYI: No, they never came to me. Since we made the statement no one has contacted us, but when I told them that I must pay R100,00 at the hospital they wrote back the letter to the Hospital Superintendent and removed this debt. That is what made me believe that is was they who caused this thing to us.
MR LEWIN: Thanks very much Mrs Baloyi, I will pass you back to the Chair. Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Any other questions?
MR MALAN: No questions.
CHAIRPERSON: Russell.
DR ALLY: Mama Baloyi, you say that the police were bombing houses.
MRS BALOYI: Yes, it is so.
DR ALLY: Was, could you just tell us a bit about that? Were there many houses being bombed during this time and how can you be sure that it was the police?
MRS BALOYI: We were three who went to the hospital and we were discharged on one day or we were admitted in one day. The bomb exploded in Moeraring Street and they went to Fendanie. At the hospital we were sleeping in the same ward and that is where we talked about these things.
DR ALLY: Now in Saulsville in this period 1985, 1986 there was a lot of political activity taking place. Was this political activity just between the police and the community or were there other aspects to this conflict? Was there conflict within the community itself, maybe, also during this time?
MRS BALOYI: I do not know because I was not moving around a lot. What I did was to live from home to work and from work I would go to Church. I did not know what was
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happening around.
DR ALLY: Thank you.
PROF MEIRING: Mrs Baloyi, may I ask a few questions about your circumstance at the moment. Your husband has died, how many children do you still have?
MRS BALOYI: I have nine children.
PROF MEIRING: And are they looking after you? Are they able to look after you or do you still have to work?
MRS BALOYI: I have to work, I cannot even wash my clothes and my shoulders are very painful at the moment. I cannot do anything for myself.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you and a last question. After the whole sad incident did you receive any compensation from anybody apart from the R100,00?
MRS BALOYI: No there is nothing I have been compensated with.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you and a last question, where is Stanley at the moment, your son?
MRS BALOYI: He is at Pelindaba.
PROF MEIRING: What does he do there?
MRS BALOYI: He does not do anything. He does not even work.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Baloyi, we thank you for having come before the Truth Commission and telling us your story. We understand the sorrow that you have been through. You and your family, we understand that even if Mr Baloyi was still sick that maybe his illness worse. What we would like to say to you is that to lose a family member, it is something hurting in ones life. We accept what you have told us. We will see, after some time, what is it that we can bring
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forward or which answers we can bring to you. We thank you and we request you to pass our greetings to those at home and Stanley must still assist us to understand fully the circumstances surrounding your story. We thank you Mrs Baloyi.
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