MEMBER OF PANEL: Honourable Chairperson, I would like to call Nancy Xatula to the stand.
CHAIRPERSON: Unfortunately she is not here. We will call Dugar Maqekeza to the stand, please.
There has been a request here that Dumisani Mafo would like to be a co-witness here with Maqekeza. Please come forward. Before Mr Maqekeze takes the oath I would like to say something.
In the struggle that took so long to change this country so that it can be governed with justice and peace, lots of people participated in this. Some lost their lives, some lost their friends, some lost their loved ones. You are now here before us today because you are also one of those people who were involved in the struggle for our liberation.
The Commission is very happy when people come forward, it also assures people that it will give them a sympathetic ear and an ear that will help them to get that reparation that they need.
We also want to give you the assurance that we will also give you a sympathetic ear to the needs that you want to place before the Commission. I am now going to ask you to take the oath, both of you.
DUGARD ZWELEDINGE MAQEKEZA: (Duly sworn, states).
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DUMISANI MAFO: (Duly sworn, states).
CHAIRPERSON: Pumpla Gobodo?
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you, Mr Chairperson. As the Chairperson has said before, our aim is to investigate the truth as it was. He said one of the truths that we are supposed to investigate is that the institutions, the tertiary institutions, what is the role that they played. As we are going to start with Dugard's story, we think of the ways that the South African Government is also implicated in these investigations and these testimonies. I also want to add that one of the things we want to investigate about, is that how far through and where does it start and it ends, the involvement of the tertiary institutions. We all know the history of this country, especially in this one, in the Transkei. We were given the so-called independence because we suspected this whole thing of this independence, and Mr Matanzima was replaced by George Mantanzima, he was also replaced by Stella Sigcau. She was also replaced by Bantu Holomisa.
. We have heard now today that that one is also supposed to be replaced. Now this is also going to give us clarity on which period exactly did this government - we also want to find out now the period, who all these people were, the people who were trying to take over this government, especially who are these people that were trying to involve the South African Government.
I welcome both of you. I also want to talk about, tell you that Dugard is going to talk about his brother Attwell Mazizi Maqekeza who died in Lesotho, who was shot by unknown people.
Dugard here is here to talk about violation of human rights. I would like Dugard to please tell us why are you
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here today.
MR MAQEKEZA: I was arrested by the Transkeian security police in March 1988, at the beginning of March. I was at work at that time. I was working as a secretary at the Works and Energy. That was the first time they arrested me. They used to arrest me several times, just before, ask me a couple of questions and then they would release me again. But on this particular day they took me to Norwood prison. There is another house that they used to use, it looks like it was their branch, where they used to work.
When we got there, they put me in a small room. Not long after I had been there, about five policemen arrived. I would like to say that they were led by Sgt Shota. Sgt Shota was the leader of the security police at the time.
They said where is your brother, your older brother. I said I did not know. I said no, I don't know anything about him. They said oh, you are still lying, you are going to tell the truth.
So that time they said to me get your clothes off. So I only took off my jacket and I put it aside. They said take off your clothes. So I hesitantly took off my shirt. They slapped me in my face. They punched me as well. They kicked me. I was wondering what is going on now. Now this went on for a long time. In fact, they took all my clothes, all except my underpants. These assaults went on. They would beat me up and they would ask me questions and beat me up. Eventually I told them really that I don't know anything about him, which was true.
Now this happened in the morning, around ten. Now around two in the afternoon, they started to change things. They took the table, they put it in the middle of the room. UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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Then I was made to lie on my stomach on the table. Two held me on both sides of my hands and some held down my waist. Then my head was a little bit hanging over the table. They had this canvass bag which had water in it. When I looked at it, it wasn't full, it was only half full. They took my head right into this bag and then they tied the bag. At the time I was trying to struggle to get out. I don't know how many minutes that was and then they took this bag off my head.
Firstly you must realise that I couldn't even breathe, I couldn't speak. It was very confusing in there. They would ask me - during this whole time they are beating you up. Then after 10 minutes, according to them, if you are not telling them the truth that they want, they will take you back again to that half/full bag of water. They said we want these people on television, you are going to tell us where they are. This went on, I think three times, putting me in this canvass bag. Eventually they released me.
They took me and locked me up in the central prison here in Umtata, where I stayed for 90 days. That is now three months. After that three months I was released. They didn't do anything to me after that.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Now you were only taken because your older brother, you didn't know where he was? You personally, didn't do anything.
MR MAQEKEZA: No, not exactly. What they wanted to know was where was my older brother. They just wanted me to show them, to take them to where my brother was. They said that they were distributing pamphlets and guns.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Now in your statement you said you were also burnt by cigarette stubs in your body. Can you
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tell us how that happened?
MR MAQEKEZA: No, really, that is not much. Being burnt by a cigarette is not, doesn't really make any impact. What really made an impact was the fact that I was put in this bag, which was full of water.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you. So while your head was in this water, this is when you realised that your life was in danger now. When you
MR MAQEKEZA: When you get out of this water you tell yourself, this is really the end of your life. This was really terrible. It was horrible. I don't have words for it.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: I can understand that. I just wanted to find out what else was done to you, besides being suffocated?
MR MAQEKEZA: No, there was nothing else, other than just assault and things like suffocating in that water. Nothing else.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Dugard, please tell us again, how your elder brother, how he met his death. How do you know about this whole process? Before Mr Mafo can start with his story. Tell us about the police who tortured you, were these policemen trying also to search for you?
MR MAQEKEZA: It is the police that were looking for him. They were looking very hard for him. They used to say it is very difficult to get him. This is something they just used to talk amongst themselves. They were talking to themselves in another room when I was in another room. It was obvious that they were looking for him, not really for me.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: What race were these policemen? You just said that they were from the Transkei? Were they White UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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policemen or were they Black policemen?
MR MAQEKEZA: These were Black policemen. Some were from East London, though I don't know their names.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Some were White while you were still in custody?
MR MAQEKEZA: Yes. Some White policemen also arrived.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Where were you at this time?
MR MAQEKEZA: At this time I was at Umtata central prison. Sometimes I would be taken into the ward where the interrogation happened.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: So the White ones from East London were the ones who used to come and assault you. Coming back to Atwell's story, how did Attwell die?
MR MAQEKEZA: Attwell is my elder brother. I was the one directly after him. Now in 1988, March, I received a telephone call whilst I was at work. The caller said he was Gozo Madli. He said he was calling from Lesotho. He said to me your elder brother has been shot, as we speak, he is in hospital. I said what happened, why was he shot. So he said they were walking, it was himself, William Ngomo, Tandefeki Radebi, son of Dr Malega who was a student at the time.
They were from Roma to Mafekeng. Before they went to Mafekeng, soldiers' vehicles approached them and they stopped them on the road. They said to them they must lean against the car. So they did. Then they searched them. Confiscated whatever they had with them. After that they asked identify yourselves. So they did. They said we are only students here at Roma. So they said show us your student identity cards. So the other two apparently they didn't have their student cards. So now my brother started
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to negotiate that no, we are students. He tried to say no, we are students, but we don't have our student cards here with us, because we didn't think that we will meet you and you will be asking for our student cards. So they said we have orders to shoot you. The others said why, why are you going to kill us. They said because you are member of the ANC, you must not deny this, we know this. After that they started to shoot.
Now the story goes on like this. My brother and Willie Ngoma, they escaped from this truck and they left. When my brother was trying to escape, they shot him on his knees, both of them. Then Radebe was left on the spot. William Ngoma escaped to the university, where he met some of the ANC members. Then he told them the story about what had happened. He told them he met these men who said they have orders to shoot us. And Philo - that is how my brother used to be called - has been shot, but we don't know where he is. Later, after some investigations, it was found that when after he was shot, he slept there, he spent the whole night there on the spot. Now in the morning some of the people from the village picked him up. They could see that he was injured, but the was unconcious. They took him to the hospital. When they got there, he got some treatment and then he came to. Then he told them the story of how it happened. At that time he was under the Lesotho policemen guard.
While he was still under guard, in the second week while he was still in hospital, he was not being treated. He was only given pain-killers. They were not preparations, like doctors usually do to treat a bullet wound. On the second week he was removed from the ward that he was in and
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he was put under a certain window. So he asked why are you shifting me. So they said no, this is the best place for you. They just gave him a flimsy excuse. So he used to complain to the sisters and doctors but they all ignored it. On a certain day, it was very early in the morning, around seven, apparently a certain man arrived at that window and shot him and finished him. That was the end of him.
Then again I received another call. Somebody told me that your brother now is dead. But now we didn't know what to do. We tried to call the head office of the ANC because at this stage we didn't know what to do. The whole family had a meeting and we decided now to go and fetch the body and we did. We came and we buried the body in November.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Now your brother, when he was shifted next to this window, was this the hospital that did this?
MR MAQEKEZA: I think yes, it was the hospital people that did this, because it is the doctors who ignored this whole isolation. That is my own conclusion, because it looked as if it was the hospital officials who did this.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Can you still remember if your brother, on which days your brother was in hospital? Do you have any records of this or even the name of the hospital, for that matter?
MR MAQEKEZA: No, I can't remember the days when he spent in the hospital. The name of the hospital was the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Maseru.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: You think that the hospital didn't help that your brother should get back to good health? Instead it looked like the hospital itself encouraged his illness. Is that how you feel?
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MR MAQEKEZA: I strongly feel that the officials of the hospital didn't care for my brother. Even after they have been asked to take care of him, instead what they did was just to give him lots of pain-killers. But they didn't treat his bullet wounds. Apparently there are people who came in, who interrogated him, while he was still in hospital. But it is said that he didn't say anything to them. He just looked at them. They kept on several times, asking questions; asked him what is he doing here, but he never answered.
At the time the Lesotho police were there guarding him. This continued for two weeks. Then on the second week he was shot and yet he was under police guard. Now this makes me suspicious because it looks like the officials of the hospital didn't take good care of him.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Gonig back a little. The reason why he went to Lesotho, how did he get to Lesotho and what was the aim of going to Lesotho?
MR MAQEKEZA: His aims of going to Lesotho were known by the one next to me, because they were the two who went to Lesotho together.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Can Dumisani please take the microphone so that he can now start from there. We would like to have a picture, a full picture so that we can have clarity on how the late brother died.
MR MAFO: In 1980 we were from Fort Hare University. At the time we were under the influence of the ANC and in October of the same year we went into exile. We were four young men. It was myself and Kulba Khaya. We went to Lesotho and just other countries. In short we got military training and then we came back again. That is now when we came to 1988, that is how he got that unfortunate incident. I just wanted UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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to give you that short summary.
MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA: Thank you very much. I would also ask - I am now going to hand over to the Chairperson. So that the other Commissioners can ask questions if they have any. Thank you very much.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Could you please tell us more about Mbilo. Before he went to Lesotho, the time he was there in 1988, isn't that the time when Lesotho was under military government?
MR MAQEKEZA: Yes, it is correct, Commissioner.
MEMBER OF PANEL: The soldiers who took over the government?
MR MAQEKEZA: Yes, it is correct, Commissioner. I think Dumisani here will bear witness to this.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Isn't it so that at the time when Leabua Jonathan, there was harmony between the ANC and the Lesotho government and then that changed when the military forces came into power.
MR MAFO: Yes, Mr Commissioner, that is right. During Leabua's rule, even though they didn't seem like they don't know what is going on, but things were quite bitter when the military came into power.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Isn't it true that Lesotho soldiers were co-operating fully and very clearly with the boers? Especially the security forces of South Africa.
MR MAFO: I would say that very clearly, without any hesitation that that is correct.
MEMBER OF PANEL: And the enemies to the boers ... (END OF TAPE 2 - SIDE A).
MR MAFO: When the military government took over in Lesotho, at the beginning of 1986, there was a document with a list of names, that these people must take a plane and go to Lusaka. UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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ne of the names was his name, that is one of the reasons why he now was being looked after. I was also told that I must leave Lesotho.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Before that happened, do you know Dugard? MR MAFO: The Whites usually say that he has more lives than a cat.
MEMBER OF PANEL: There is something else here in the Transkei that was being talked about. It shocked the whole country, especially about Mbilo, when he was attacked at Willowvale. Do you know anything about that?
MR MAFO: Yes, I had knowledge about this.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Could you please elaborate on this attack?
MR MAFO: It is said on a certain day the Transkeian police, together with the South African Defence force, and certain members of the South African police and dogs, I mean dogs with four legs now.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Not the dogs that we usually sing about?
MR MAFO: No, not those dogs. They went to Umvili Nogono, the one known as KK. They went to him at Willowvale in Mr Jafta's shop.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Is Mr Jafta the one who is sitting here with the white jacket? Could you please, Mr Jafta, stand up?
MR MAFO: That's him exactly. It is said now these men came very early in the morning, around five o'clock in the morning. They knocked in the big house where the old man was asleep. When he opened the door, when he looked out, there are so many policemen, they were all armed. He asked what is going on, what is the problem. They said we are looking for your son, Boy, and Umvili Nogono, the one called KK, where are they? Show us. The other one said yes, Boy is here,
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but I don't know where Umvili Nogono is here I know he usually comes here with Boy, but I don't know if he is here today. So he led them. They went into the house that they were sleeping in. He pointed at them, he said here is his house that they usually sleep in. Then Mr Jafta said that is when now the bullets started to be shot. KK got out. H was running. He went into the garden. The garden is situated right at the back of the houses and there was long grass in that garden. Apparently that was the beginning of the battle which lasted for 36 hours between Umvili Nongono, known as KK and these policemen and their soldiers from South Africa and from the Transkei.
I don't know the gentleman next to me, if he has anything to say about this. I don't know.
MEMBER OF PANEL: No, it is all right, leave him alone. We just want to know more about Umvilo. How did Umvilo get to Lesotho and how did he meet KK?
MR MAFO: The story goes like this. I won't go into much detail. He has already mentioned all the things that I was going to say. When we got to Lesotho it was apparent that we were supposed to meet in Lesotho, and this happened on the 27th of January, if I can remember this well, in 1987. That is how we went to Lesotho. Up to March in 1988.
MEMBER OF PANEL: Thank you, Mr Chairperson.
CHAIRPERSON: Ntsiki Sandi?
ADV SANDI: I will direct my question to Mr Maqekeza. My question is a part. You were arrested in 1987. You said you were detained in 1987 by the Transkeian police and you were locked up, interrogated. Amongst them were the South African, the Republic of South African Police. They were from East London. Now what I want to know from you is, as
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you have said that you have also been assaulted during the interrogation, did the East London police, did they also assault you?
MR MAQEKEZA: No, these White men didn't do anything. They were just asking me nicely, please tell the truth.
ADV SANDI: Now if I remember well, at the time the Transkei had already had its independence from the Republic of South Africa. Didn't that make you wonder to find out now that when you have been arrested by the police of the Republic of Transkei but yet there would also be policemen from the Republic of another country, the Republic of South Africa, also trying to investigate from you. Didn't that make you wonder?
MR MAQEKEZA: Oh, yes, I wondered quite a lot, but I didn't have a chance to ask questions about that.
ADV SANDI: Seeing that you know very well that the aim of the Commission is to get a clear picture, and a full picture, of what really happened during that time; what I want to find out from you is, was this something that was usual and common, that if a person has been arrested and things like this were being investigated, was it now common to have policemen from the Republic of South Africa?
MR MAQEKEZA: Some of my inmates used to say that yes, policemen from the Republic of South Africa used to come and ask them questions.
ADV SANDI: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Tiny Maya?
MS MAYA: Thank you, Reverend. Like Yusu, I am going to direct this to you. Could you please tell us more - you said when Umbikaya was in hospital, was on guard by the Lesotho policemen, is that so?
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MR MAFO: Yes, that is correct. When somebody, by the time somebody opened the window, there were police still guardin him. Is that correct?
MR MAFO: Let me explain this as follows, exactly as it happened. They changed this bed right in the evening. There was another person who used to sleep next to the window, but these beds were now swopped. He had now asked why are you swopping the beds. But even the policemen who were guarding him didn't take care of that. When this all happened, the guards were looking on. They simply ignored it. This is how this happened. So obviously they all collaborated on this, they just pretended that they don't see this. Because the person shot beyond the curtain and he knew that he was not going to miss him.
MS MAYA: Was there any investigation done, even from Lesotho or here at home about his death?
MR MAFO: The investigation that happened was an attempted murder on the person who he swopped the beds with. They were not investigating about the death of this man.
MS MAYA: Was that the end of it?
MR MAFO: I think there was another lawyer from South Africa that tried to investigate.
MS MAYA: What happened to that lawyer?
MR MAFO: We did put forward the case to Mr Mulava, he is still alive. But when we tried to ask more about the developments of the case he said no, he couldn't get any co-operation from the Lesotho authorities and that's how the case ended up.
MS MAYA: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Dugard and Dumisani, we thank you as a Commission for the evidence that you have put forward. We
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also hope that the investigation unit, the one that you are in, Dugard, will take steps to investigate. I also want to say something to Dumisani Mafo. We have great hope that the policemen in the Eastern Cape Province is going to change from other provinces. When we are in PE the MEC for Safety and Security in the Eastern Cape, came to the Commission to make his statement. According about the violation of his human rights by the police. Today we have a permanent secretary serving in the same department of the safety and security, also here today, to make evidence to this Commission, dealing with the violation of human rights. I think we are lucky, because in other places people usually cry out that the people who are the violators of the human rights are the high officials in the safety and security. But today, the top managers of the police are the victims of human rights violations. Now that gives us hope that the police in this province will be free from human rights violations.
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