DR BORAINE: Chairperson I call the next witness, Michael Bolofo and ask him please to come to the witness stand. Could I begin by welcoming you and saying how pleased we are to see you and to thank you very sincerely for your willingness to come to this Commission and to tell you story. Before I ask you to be sworn in could you tell us who is with you today?
MR BOLOFO: I'm with my mum Georgina.
DR BORAINE: This is your mother? We'd like to welcome her and thank her too for coming along and being with you. It's nice to have somebody at a time like this and it's great that you brought her along and that she was able to come, thank you. Michael would you stand then to take the oath please?
MICHAEL BOLOFO: (sworn states)
Michael I'm going to try and assist you to tell your story and perhaps may want to ask you one or two questions as we proceed and then obviously some of my colleagues here may well want to ask some questions as well. Let me start by asking you, if you don't mind, how old are you now?
MR BOLOFO: I'm 27 years of age now.
DR BORAINE: And the story you are going to tell was 10 years ago?
MR BOLOFO: Yes.
DR BORAINE: So you were 17 at the time?
MR BOLOFO: I was.
MR BOLOFO: I'm glad my arithmetic actually worked. It was the 14th of June when something happened that changed your whole life. Would you like to tell us about it please in your own words?
MR BOLOFO: On 14 June 1986, it was when the State of Emergency was introduced in our location or I can say, country-wide. During that day I spent the whole afternoon with my colleagues at the football grounds, not knowing that during the evening of that day something terrific and horrific would change my life.
After having supper with the family I then decided to visit one of my team mates who stays one street from me in Alexandra Location. It was still early in the emergency time. I thought that I won't waste time at his place and be as quick as possible. I managed to arrive there and chat football topics with him and life generally but now things turned around when I was on my way back home. When I came out from his yard entering the street I saw an armoured vehicle of the soldiers, a truck and I saw another truck far behind me. Now I was walking slowly on my way back home the truck approached me so slowly that I didn't even notice it was closer to me than before. What surprised me was that when they were close I was lit up by a spotlight from the very same truck. I then started to panic asking myself what on earth I have done that has offended the soldiers?
I was at yard no 41, 12th Avenue at this stage having originally approached from yard no 35, so I was on my home to yard no 55, I then decided to turn into yard no 41 to pass on the message that came from the person whom I was from at yard no 35. Ignoring the spot light that was still concentrating on me and had just turned right to enter yard no 41 I heard the sound of a gun and suddenly found myself lying down and realised that a bullet passed through my abdomen from the right to the left sides breaking three if not four of my ribs. While I was lying helplessly down in a pool of blood which oozed from my left side where the bullet had exited, because where the bullet came through it obviously burst, so one will wonder what situation I was in when I was lying down. Where the bullet came out was opened out to such an extent that even my intestines came out. One would not even have identified the colour of my clothes because they were all red from blood by now.
While I was lying down I managed to pick up my left hand to touch my intestines which were like a balloon expanding inside my T-shirt and I heard the voices of soldiers approaching me. I spent more than then minutes lying helplessly in the pool of blood while the perpetrators were ignoring me, but I could hear they were coming in my direction. Now the only thing in my mind was that whoever arrived first is going to put a heavy boot on these ballooning intestines of mine which went through my left side, but I will like to emphasise the point and take this moment to let everyone know that God is great and God is alive and therefore I will always and for ever praise him. When the first force member reached me, his first words to his colleague were, (Ag hy's 'n klein laaitjie), this is a little one. Those were the only words I managed to hear from him.
After a while my trouser was pulled down so that my left buttock could be exposed and I found that I was receiving an injection from them, possibly a pain-killer, because I felt much better after they injected me than before. Now the time they were injecting me I thought that they were introducing a small poison and thereafter I might be thrown somewhere in the veld for the scavengers and vultures to feed on my flesh, but that was not to happen.
An ambulance arrived and the very same soldiers were busy pushing back my exposed intestines with my T-shirt which they tied around my stomach to support me. Thereafter the ambulance took me to Alex clinic from where I was immediately transferred to Hillbrow Hospital.
The following day the 15th of June I was in ward 6 at the hospital when I opened my eyes and saw my mum and dad next to me, my mum crying hysterically and my dad rubbing his eyes in disbelief. I found myself having a colostomy bag to help me to excrete bodily waste as my bowel movements were not functioning.
While I was in the hospital I one day asked my doctor what actually happened with my intestines and he said that I was lucky to be alive because where the bullet passed through my stomach it even affected my one kidney so I am basically left with a single kidney. I used this bag for a period of three months while I was hospitalised and I was given charge of it for a period of a month.
DR BORAINE: How long were you actually in hospital at that time?
MR BOLOFO: I was hospitalised from the 14th of June until round about October.
DR BORAINE: Thank you.
MR BOLOFO: Thereafter I went back to hospital for closure of a colostomy, after spending about a month at home using it.
Since then my life hasn't been constant. In 1989 I remember I was alone with my mum in the house, my father, sisters and brothers having gone to the Orange Free State and I had an operation problem which caused me to vomit the whole night. The following morning my mum hired a car to take me to hospital where I was reoperated on the very same operation that took place on the 14th of June 1986. Doctors said that I had an intestinal blockage. So all in all I had three operations in my life if I include the small operation of where the colostomy was.
The whole operation has left me with more than 50 stitches for something that I didn't do wrong. So concerning my life, I no longer enjoy life like before, I get easily tired, when rain clouds gather I sometimes vomit. It has even affected me psychologically because I sometimes get emotional and furious when I look at my stomach, thinking that I was not born looking like this, this has been done by someone's minds to disrupt my life. This horrible incident left me with those sorrows and pains, but all in all, I am hoping for the best.
DR BORAINE: Thank you very much. You've given us a very vivid description of what happened to you and I just have a few questions if you don't mind. You were still at school when this happened?
MR BOLOFO: Yes Sir.
DR BORAINE: Thank you, now Alexandra Township was occupied by the SADF from about 1984 and they were certainly patrolling in the township in 1986 when you were shot. Now you mentioned that you saw a military truck that put a spotlight on you before you were shot?
MR BOLOFO: Exactly.
DR BORAINE: Can you tell me, was there anyone else in the street where you were walking along 12th Avenue near 41, were you alone or were there other young people or anybody there?
MR BOLOFO: Someone whom I was on the way to was around the corner, whereby someone on the street who didn't notify him, I only managed to see the guys to whom I was going but because the soldiers were behind me they wouldn't even see them.
MR BOLOFO: Was anyone else shot or were you the only one there?
MR BOLOFO: Rumours have it that there were two of us but it is something that I cannot state with validity.
DR BORAINE: So as far as you know, no one apart from the people who.....(Side A of tape ends here)
..... the situation was so tense at this stage that you wouldn't even think of reporting it, being afraid of being harassed and victimised by the police, because during those times one's life was in jeopardy to an extent that safety was considered first, that is the reason why they didn't bother themselves making a claim.
DR BORAINE: You tell me you were 17, you were at school, were you involved in any political work or activities or organisations?
MR BOLOFO: I was a Youth Member by that time.
DR BORAINE: A youth member of what?
MR BOLOFO: Of the ANC.
DR BORAINE: And you were quite active in it?
MR BOLOFO: Not much but I was always taking part in each and every meeting that took place during that time.
DR BORAINE: Thank you, you were in hospital for about five months, you were extensively injured, damaged, you then were an out patient for a long time. How long did you miss school, I mean you couldn't have gone to school, how long were you out of school?
MR BOLOFO: I think for a period of about half a year.
DR BORAINE: Did you eventually go back to school?
MR BOLOFO: I did manage to go back to school until I was matriculated in 1989.
DR BORAINE: And can I ask you, what are you doing now, are you are you employed, are you studying or what is your situation.
MR BOLOFO: I am presently a part-time student at Alexandra Technical where I'm doing electrical engineering. I'm presently having my N-2 and I am employed with ESCOM.
DR BORAINE: What about your health? You talked about psychological disturbance and you've also got massive stomach operations and problems and broken ribs and so on. What's your health like now?
MR BOLOFO: It is not stable, it changes time and again. It controls me, I don't control it.
DR BORAINE: Can I ask you, you've come to tell your story and you've told it and we are grateful. What would you like to see the Commission do for you, if it was able to do anything at all, what would you really like to tell us?
MR BOLOFO: What I would the Commission to do I think is to consider not only myself, but almost everyone who has been victimised or harassed, even maybe those who were killed during those heavy times of our lives, to be considered in the sense of like approving bursaries for those people who have been victimised, making some recreation facilities and the most important I think is for the Commission to look after them.
DR BORAINE: Michael I want to thank you very much. You are a very brave young man.
MR LEWIN: Michael just two brief questions, I gather it was dark at the time, you said about 7:15 in the evening? Do you think you were shot because it was you or just because you happened to be there? Had they recognised you?
MR BOLOFO: I don't think I was shot because I happened to be there. I had a right to be there because it was still early, it was not yet a time of curfew.
MR LEWIN: And the other part of the question is, you almost imply that once they found you and then gave you then injection which turned out not to be a slow poison, that they were almost looking after you.
MR BOLOFO: While I was hospitalised a certain officer visited me. On his arrival he was so harsh that we didn't go into details. What he asked me was that he was again speaking Afrikaans. The only question he asked me was, (Was jy 'n Komraad?), are you a comrade? I kept quiet, he noted something on his file, then he left not even bothering to say goodbye.
MR LEWIN: Thank you.
DR RANDERA: Michael I just want to go back to that night of that near fatal shooting. In your statement, was it the army ambulance that took you to the Alex clinic and then subsequently to Hillbrow Hospital, or was it a Sandton Council Ambulance that took you there?
MR BOLOFO: Sir I am not certain but I think it was an ordinary ambulance.
MR MALAN: Michael I want to touch on the same subject. I'm totally confused because all the evidence we get is about very different actions about the army and the police after such incidents, but if I read you correctly, if I heard you correctly, you say that after you were shot they took off your T-shirt, tied it around your waist to cover your wound, I assume, they gave you an injection to relieve you of the pain, they assisted with the ambulance and you were taken away and cared for, and you were never harassed again. Is that correct?
MR BOLOFO: That I was never harassed again?, No no, but the question wasn't on someone who visited me in hospital, so according to my harassment the harassment focused on me while I was hospitalised.
MR MALAN: But it was never followed through?
MS SOOKA: Michael just a question, normally in cases like these, the community usually saw to it that lawyers were appointed to look into these kinds of cases. Did nobody ever take your mother to an attorney to try and claim for the injury done to you?
MR BOLOFO: No one, no one took my mother to anyone who is responsible concerning the law issues.
MS SOOKA: Did your mother herself not want to get legal advice on the fact that they'd in fact shot at you?
MR BOLOFO: Even if she had that in mind I can say maybe lack of education or lack of support was why she wasn't persuaded.
MS SOOKA: Thank you.
DR ALLY: Michael in your statement you say that plain clothes policemen came to your house in a private car, came to report and did not advise your parents to go to the police about the shooting? Is that your account of what happened?
MR BOLOFO: The statement you are saying was reported on the 15th of June, after I was hospitalised on the 14th.
DR ALLY: What I'm asking is if these plain clothes policemen, did they advise your parents not to go and make a statement?
MR BOLOFO: It is unfortunate that I did not manage to see my dad when I was coming here. He went to somewhere in the Freestate, he was meant to be back by today but earlier on in the morning he phoned us that he won't make it so my mum and I can come on our own. He is the one who spoke to those guys , the very same guys who came and reported that I had been shot the previous night.
DR ALLY: Thank you, and just one last question, your medical expenses, who paid for those medical expenses and do you have records of them?
MR BOLOFO: They paid for my medical expenses, I only paid when I underwent some check-ups, but my stay at the hospital was paid by the military.
DR ALLY: Thank you.
MS SEROKE: Michael you said when you were lying there wounded them say, He is just a little boy, but when you held on to your intestines you thought they would come and crush them, and then suddenly when they came they didn't do what you expected. Do you think they expected somebody bigger than you and they must have been sorry perhaps that,(Dit was maar net n klein laaitjie), It was just a little boy?
MR BOLOFO: That's what I thought of, and I thought that they must have looked for someone who was armed, rather someone who maybe had some kinds of weapons, but seeing that they did feel pity for me, that's what puts me in a position to be able to reconcile, because if it wasn't for their sensitivity, their sense of humour, I don't think I would be narrating this story to you today.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for coming forward and we are aware that very many became casualties in the Struggle, old and young, and we salute the young people for their part in helping to bring about the changes.
Thank you very much Mrs, we thank you very much.
