MR LEWIN: Before we break for a tea break and while we still have the Archbishop with us. There are two unscheduled occurrences which will be very brief, but if I could please ask your indulgence for them. The first is very important and we are very pleased to see that people are here who will be taking part in that.
The second is more personal and involves the Archbishop directly, but we are very, very pleased that we have with us today people who want to make a special appeal, as I understand it. We have been hearing evidence over the last two days about what has been done in Alexandra during the last 30 years where the names of specific policemen have been mentioned, where the police themselves have had fingers pointed at them for what they were doing.
We have a very special appeal being made today by Patrick Jaca who is here to make that appeal and we would like to give him the floor first. Patrick if you could come up to the witness stand, please. Thank you. We welcome you. If you would like to just take the stand. If you press the red button in front of you, yes. You will see that that then turns it on. If you could introduce yourself and your colleague and please feel free to make your statement as short as possible, but just make it. You need to turn it on. Yes.
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MR JACA: Okay. My name is Patrick Jaca. J A C A. I am working for the Alexandra Traffic Department. My colleague here is Faith Linquati. She is a traffic officer too.
MR LEWIN: Thanks very much. You have the floor.
MR JACA: Thank you. What I would like to submit in front of the Commission or to the Commission is that being a traffic officer in Alexandra, I started in 1988. Things were just fine, but they started to change since from 1990 where black on black violence started in Alexandra. We had a problem as traffic officers to do our work there.
One of the main problems is that we had 13 officers including our Chief Traffic Officer and we had only six patrol cars. What happened is that from 1990 people were shot along Roosevelt Street and people were sniped just like that as they were passing innocently going to work or to shops, just like that. Unfortunately, we were supposed to be there as first people to come and assist them. Our patrol cars were used as ambulance services to transport the injured to the clinic. What is funny is that the police, especially from the riot unit, they were trying to discourage us from doing that and I do not know why.
Firstly we would see that if people were being shot, we would close the roads, the street at Roosevelt and Eighth Avenue so that people must not go up the hostel, use that road to First Avenue or to any indian shops there. The police would come with their Casper and tour there whilst we have closed we are there and just go in. People would go there innocently and more people would be shot.
Then one day whilst we were busy loading people who were shot there we received a call from our office. Our office received a call from Q-Base. That is the riot police ALEXANDRA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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station base. A certain Captain van Heerden phoned our office telling them that we should not pick up the people who were shot there. We should just leave them there. Then I replied through the radio to our office that they should tell the said Captain van Heerden that I am not one of his men and he has no right to give me orders to do what I am doing. So I am doing what I am prepared to do here. After that day we went to our office to try and trace Captain van Heerden. Unfortunately there was no such person at the police, at that police station.
Due to our work, a bomb was placed at our office one night and unfortunately in that office we have people who left the area which they call Beirut area who were staying in our offices there. A bomb was placed there and people spotted the bomb that night and then called the bomb squad to diffuse that bomb. Our patrol cars were attacked from our office by the people from the hostel and this made our job more difficult, but we had no choice because we had to serve our community.
In 1992 there was a special incident which happened and that amazed me that if this thing can happen in front of the police, what will be our next shade or something to hide with. What happened is that in 1992 we were called to a scene at Roosevelt and Fourth that someone was shot. I was driving the motor vehicle. I was travelling with Officer Sibiya. We went to the scene. When we arrived at the scene at Roosevelt and Fourth we were shot at. Then we stopped. We radioed our office that we cannot pass through there because we were shot. The people are shooting us from the hostel. There came a police Casper who went in front of that person. Then he went in there to try and assist
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that person. Whilst we attended to the person they started shooting. It means they were now killing that particular person. Then the police closed their vehicles so that that person or shielded that person. Then we took that particular person, put him into our patrol car. Then we took him to the clinic, but these people went on shooting. Then the police returned fire. In about two to three hours after the police started to search the hostel, but unfortunately the could not find firearms. Not even a single firearm was found on the same day. That amazed us all. Unfortunately after three or four days Battalion 21 came into that hostel at night and more firearms were found. Even the gunsmith was found at that hostel. So I am surprised what was happening and this made our job more difficult. Thanks.
MR LEWIN: Thank you very much. Do you have any special message for your colleagues, for people in positions like yourself?
MR JACA: Yes, well, the message I have is that, I mean, if you are a uniformed person, really, you have got to work wholeheartedly, serve the community, both left and right. Try to bring peace among the people where there is some feud, try and do that. I know it is very difficult whereby you have people who do not trust men in uniform, but when it comes to things like this, we had from 1990 until 1994. Really, we needed people with much courage to do what we did as traffic officers. Going out of our way, helping our people, loading injured people with our patrol cars. Even our patrol cars, today, can bear the testimony. They still have those marks of our people who were shot around who were going to work innocently.
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MR LEWIN: Thank you. Father would you like to say something?
CHAIRPERSON: Yes. We want to salute you and your colleagues for the dedication that you showed when you were at risk yourselves in the sorts of things that you were doing. We had always hoped that we would have a police force, a traffic police force, the SAP and others who would not be enemies of the people because most of the time, before 1994, our people would not have said that they regarded the police and the army as their friends as those who existed to protect them. So when you had units like your own acting in the manner in which you have just described, it stood out in stark contrast. We are very glad, I mean, that a transformation is happening in the SAPS. We can now call them our police who are increasingly becoming the kind of police we want to see in the New South Africa, dedicated. It is clear that in that police force, as we hear in the amnesty applications in the de Kock trial and so on, that there were very many, not just bad, evil elements. We hope, I mean, that they will see that our people, remarkably, do not want to revenge, most of them, they do not want to pay back. They are not filled with hatred. They are filled with sadness. They want to know many things and we hope that those in the different structures who know that they committed awful deeds, will come forward and tell South Africa the things that they did so that the wounds of the past, having been opened, will be cleansed and will then have the possibility of being healed. We need to have the truth and many of these people who carried out all these awful deeds know that it would be very difficult for us to arrive at the truth unless they come and ALEXANDRA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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they confess. When they confess, they will usually, they will certainly be forgiven and they may even get amnesty so that they do not have to face trials and that our nation can then move beyond the past and concentrate on the present and the future. Thank you very much.
MR LEWIN: Thank you very much, indeed, for coming. I did say there were two events which would take place. We are very grateful for Patrick and Faith for coming in.
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