DR RANDERA: Mr Seakgoa, good afternoon and a warm welcome to you. It has been a long day. Thank you for being so patient. Prof Meiring, who is sitting at the table there is going to be helping you in telling your story. Before I hand over to him, will you please stand to take the oath.
MADIBO SHADRACK SEAKGOA: (Duly sworn, states).
DR RANDERA: Thank you.
PROF MEIRING: Mr Seakgoa, thank you for coming today and thank you for telling your story to us. Before I ask you to tell us about the year 1990 when many things happened to you, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself. I made a little calculation, it seems that you are 26 years of age. Is that correct?
MR SEAKGOA: Yes, I am 26 years old.
PROF MEIRING: Are you married and do you have children?
MR SEAKGOA: I am not married but I have one child.
PROF MEIRING: How old is the child?
MR SEAKGOA: He is seven years old.
PROF MEIRING: And now, reading through your testimony it seems to me that the year 1990 was a very difficult year for you. Three incidents happened in that year and you want to tell us about that, about a letter that you and a colleague wrote, about a very difficult meeting you had and then about the disturbances at the school. Please tell us about those
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incidents, starting with the letter that was written to City Press.
MR SEAKGOA: I want to start firstly with three years before in 1986, at Mqwasi, we were detained innocently. We hadn't done anything. We were tortured. That was the birth of my political consciousness. I started to have courage to lead people to follow political events and the processes which were happening, especially the Namibian war and the struggle for independence in Namiba. I used to follow that. That influenced me greatly.
In 1987 I was with my friend Kotzville, we were doing Std 7 together. We used to talk about politics and the route (indistinct) and compared ourselves as well (indistinct) more than the other.
In 1988 we met with other people, who had the same interests as we had. We went that way until 1989, December, with Sobile. Then we said that the city councillors were failing in the giving of services to the community. Then we wrote a letter to City Press, in January 1990. After the letter was published, the schools reopened the following week. (Speaker's mike not on) ....
... they won't stop the harassment against us. Indeed, the harassment didn't stop. We continued receiving messages that are under surveillance. Then we resolved as friends and as people who were becoming conscious of the development in our beloved South Africa, that we need to form a mouthpiece of the youth in Tswelelang for the entire Wolmaransstad. We used to hold our meetings during odd hours, one o'clock in the morning, where selected people in whom we had confidence, would attend and be briefed.
We had Comrade Dijavu Xubasa who was attending school
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at Wits University by then, who used to come with information to us.
On the 27th of April when the then Tswelelang Youth Congress was launched, I happened to have been elected as president of the congress. Then the intimidation, harassment started to accelerate or increase from the side of the police. It was apparent that all my movements were monitored and my schedules were made known to whoever happened to have followed my movements and activities.
At the same time that we were organising this Tswelelang Youth Congress we were also fighting a fierce battle against the intransigence of the management council of Gatelepele High School was I was attending. I was also one of the student leaders. At one point when the students had very serious grievances, we held a meeting where a delegation of eight people was elected to meet the principal on the following day.
I also need to make mention of the fact that the then principal Mrs Sotsaka had on several occasions refused to meet the delegations of the students or to answer whatever memoranda or ultimatums we sent to her. She had then decided to meet us the following day.
The following day we went to school, the eight of us, Comrade Koge, Comrade (indistinct), Comrade Pequalang, Magtire and the others whom I have forgotten.
On our arrival the principal was busy teaching the matriculants at the library and we were waiting anxiously to meet with her. The students resolved that they are going to take her by force from the library. They went to the trees and picked stick where they are going to hit the principal and the matriculants with.
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As leaders of the students we went there and we talked to them and ultimately the principal went out. We went to the principal's office. On our arrival we found the police inside the principal's office. The station commander then was a certain Mr De Villiers who was part of the meeting. We deliberated for a long time and in the middle of our discussions Mr De Villiers, he was a lieutenant by then, just stood up and said gentlemen, you are under arrest. The principal stood and laughed. We just stared at her and followed the police to their vans. They shot two tear-gas canisters into the van and closed the doors so that we could suffocate.
We were taken to the police station where we were interrogated by a certain Detective-Sgt Van den Bergh. We were arrested at exactly 25 minutes past ten in the morning, and we waited until three o'clock, around three o'clock - I am not exact there - where we were transferred to Hartebeesfontein - I don't know as to whether it is a police station or an army concentration camp or a prison. The maximum security that was exercised there was something like a Nazi concentration camp.
DR RANDERA: Order, please!
MR SEAKGOA: We were being watched around the clock. At one point when it was during the days when the AWB raided the camps and stole arms from the Army bases. At one point in the middle of the night we were woken by flashlights in the cells, and when you wake up you find a big bearded guy with khaki-clad and AWB badges on the shoulders. Photographs of us were taken there. We couldn't identify those people who were intimidating us, we were afraid of our death.
Young as we were we vowed that even if we die, our
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struggle will still or our deaths will not be in vain, and our deaths will accelerate the liberation of many in South Africa.
I also need to make mention of a certain Det-Sgt Callingan. At that time when we were detained, I was unfortunate to have suffered from gonorrhoea which is a sexually transmitted disease. For two weeks in detention I was refused medical treatment. Even visits from my family members. I pleaded with the then station commander, Sgt Potgieter of Hartebeesfontein, but to no avail. Until such time that a certain lawyer from the Lawyers for Human Rights, Mr Atimi Ichbal Motala paid us a visit. We complained to him. At least I was sent to a certain Dr Meyer who had his surgery at Hartebeesfontein.
I never received any injection or anything, I was given tablets and had to go to my cell. I returned there and unfortunately the disease that I was suffering from, was being attended to some degree. I was recovering.
This Det-Sgt Calligan came to me and offered me a sum of R200,00 so that I could write down the names of all my leaders. He bought me a packet of cigarettes and biltong and he gave me 24 hours to write two pages of all the leaders that I know, who had given me instructions as to what to do, what to organise and what not.
He came the following day and he found a blank page. He found his packet of cigarettes and his biltong. He told me why did you not eat it - he asked me why did I not eat that biltong and I bluntly told him that I suspect maybe that it has been poisoned and being in prison is an advantage in stopping smoking.
He gave me the pen and I started writing the names:
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Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Joe Slovo ... (Laughter). All the people that I know are famous. Under the name of Joe Slovo, I underlined that, and that was the great mistake that I did. I was made to squat on the floor and kicked on my private parts by Sgt Calligan.
Thereafter I was told to report the following morning to the charge office so that I can supply him with a fresh list of all the names of the leaders that I knew. Again, I gave him the very same names of my national leaders, the leaders of the democratic revolution. Again, I was viciously tortured. My pleas went on deaf ears. Family visits were not permitted. Even our attorney visited us only once. We couldn't buy ourselves food. We were given rations that were of poor nutritious value. To this point I still suffer from some of the repercussions of the treatment that I received.
At one point a certain Mr Tsitse, whose rank I don't know, he was also in the security branch, hit me repeatedly with my head on the wall. I fainted and I woke up in a pool of blood. Until today I have a serious problem of nervous tension. I was hospitalised about three times in the past three years. I am saying all the expenses that I have incurred because of the gross human violations that I encountered, need to be looked into and my future medications or whatever implications that I may be involved in, because of what I went through for the justified struggle against a minority regime, be looked seriously into by government.
PROF MEIRING: Mr Seakgoa, thank you very much for your testimony. You brought many things to our attention and put many different issues on the table. Before we talk about
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your own personal circumstances at the moment, can I briefly ask you on circumstances in the wider community at that stage.
You said earlier in your testimony that 1990 was a difficult year, that many fierce battles were fought in the community. What was it about? Why was there so much tension in your community in that year?
MR SEAKGOA: In the earlier statement made by Miss Puleng Dithejane, she mentioned that there were vigilante groups involved in the whole defence of the councillors and in the assistance of the police. I am going to add by saying that there were people who were made known to us by the very system that we are working for. For instance, when in 1990, I should think it was in November, when we were going to write - I was going to write a History examination by then. There was a certain council employee who was ordered to go and cut the water supply to Tswelelang because there was a rent boycott. As the youth of Tswelelang and as the cutting edge of our liberation struggle, we resolved to go, to confront him and take the key from him and go and open the water supply. It was unfortunate that an hour before I went for the History exam, the very same council employee drew a weapon and shot a (indistinct) comrade, by the surname of Lanks, at point blank. I can get testimony to that, I am a witness.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you. I wanted to - I made a note about that. Do you know whether the family of that young man has approached the TRC? Will they give a testimony on his death?
MR SEAKGOA: I was in contact with them, about a week or two ago, where they mentioned that they have witnesses who are
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prepared to come forward. There are only minor arrangements to be made, but they are prepared to make their statement.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you. The second issue that you opened was the difficulty at the schools and the problems that you had with a specific school mistress, Mrs Sochaka who was t he headmistress of the school. What was the trouble about at the school, why were their grievances amongst the students?
MR SEAKGOA: To start with, we said we want a democratically elected SRC at the school, with its own constitution. But the principal came with a constitution that was drawn by the DET, and we rejected that. So she didn't want to accept our own constitution and push this one on us. We said a big no to that.
That was just the beginning. In the follow-up to that we resolved that each class mentions its grievances. We compiled it as a student body and presented them to the principal. But not even one answer came forth from the principal.
PROF MEIRING: So you were feeling very discouraged by what happened at the schools. There is a third thing I just want to put on the table. You said at the end of your testimony that when you were taken to Hartebeesfontein, you said that it sometimes happened that AWB members presented themselves at the camp or at the institution. Do you think, were they invited by the police, were they in collusion with the police, how did it happen that AWB people came where you were at a police station?
MR SEAKGOA: I should think that if a security person stands at that door, and he lets a terrorist in, deliberately, it therfore means that he is in the know that this terrorist
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must come in. So I therefore say they were invited by the police.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you. I just want to add one question and then I will hand you over to others. I can imagine that they want to ask you a few things. Just a little bit about your own personal circumstances at the moment. You say that you suffer from bad health, that you still have nervous problems. Are you able to work at the moment, and are you employed?
MR SEAKGOA: I should say I am doing a very strenuous kind of a job. I am employed at the constituency office in Wolmaransstad as a field worker. I am the regional secretary of the ANC in Tswelelang region. I am the chairperson of the regional task team of the ANC Youth League in Tswelelang region. I am the chairperson of the steering committee of the RDP in Wolmaransstad.
PROF MEIRING: Thank you very much. I must say you do have many things on your plate, but thank you, Chairman, I am finished.
CHAIRPERSON: Order, please! I think you should probably tell us what you don't do, I mean ... (Laughter). Yasmin?
MS SOOKA: In your statement you say that you were tortured by three policemen. Do you want to tell us what form the torture took?
MR SEAKGOA: At one point I was asked as to whether, do I like books and then I said yes, and it is a fact that I am a number one supporter of books. So a certain policeman whose name I don't know, just came forth and say come in the ring and be my guest and I will be Frank Bruno, and he started hitting me. I couldn't fight back because he had a
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gun in his possession. I was hit, punched, slapped, beaten with a sjambok and at one point threatened with a knife.
MS SOOKA: You also mention in your statement that you have been hospitalised three times and that you suffer from nervous tension. You say that that emanates from your treatment. Now can you tell me why you were hospitalised on each occasion, and a little more about the nervous tension.
MR SEAKGOA: The first time was when I was doing matric. To start with, after being released from detention, I developed the system where I would suffer from something like cramps. The muscles here at the back of my neck, will start pulling down and my neck will be like this. When I was doing matric in 1993 I just lost consciousness. Something pulled my head backwards and I lost consciousness. The following day I went to the doctor and I was given tablets, injection and whatever. A month later whilst I was asleep, it was something between five o'clock and six o'clock in the morning, I just felt the tension here. I became warm and the muscle becomes tight and I lost consciousness for the second time. Secondly, I was with something that I need to call people and the following day I was hospitalised for five days. For the third time, it was another time, last year, when during the heydays, in the run-up to the elections we used to work around the clock and every time when I work under pressure, the muscles will start pulling down again. I say it is specifically because my head has been banged repeatedly on the wall. I started experiencing those symptoms and signs after my release from prison.
MS SOOKA: How long were you in detention?
MR SEAKGOA: I was detained for 29 days.
MR SEAKGOA: In all your evidence, what clearly comes
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through is that you consider the activities that you took part in as being legitimate and part in fact, of supporting a just war. Do you accept that if you saw it that way, that you would then become a target for the police and whatever security structure was in place at the time?
MR SEAKGOA: Yes, I accept that, but being a target does not justify that you will have to be subjected to those inhuman treatment.
MS SOOKA: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera?
DR RANDERA: Madibo, I just want to come back to what you said earlier on about vigilante groups being in existence in Tswelelang at the time. You still maintain that that was there?
MR SEAKGOA: Yes.
DR RANDERA: Puleng, who spoke earlier on, also talked about the police actually giving guns to the vigilante groupings. Do you want to add anything to that?
MR SEAKGOA: Yes, I can say in addition to that, all the councillors were armed to their teeth, for that matter, by the police. They had bodyguards. At one point I had happened to have passed in front of the house of one councillor. From the trees in front of the lawn, there jumped three people who were guarding that councillor and they were not members of the police service. They were ordinary residents in Tswelelang, but they were armed, and we know as a matter of fact, they do not work, they do not have the licence for the guns. If they don't get them from the police where should they get them?
DR RANDERA: Were you present on the night that Kebogile was killed?
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MR SEAKGOA: Yes, I was present.
DR RANDERA: Can you throw some more light on what happened?
MR SEAKGOA: After the shop of Rev Lingwane was torched, as the leadership we planned to picket in front of the house of Mr Sotsake, whose wife was the principal. Mr Sotsake had just been promoted to the inspector of schools. Our picket was to be peaceful, or more peaceful, if that is the proper word. But before we could reach Mr Sotsake's house, Mr Sotsake's house is the second from the corner. When we turned the corner, something just ran. When everyone started shooting, ran amok, and you could just think of your own safety. Kebogile was shot and was killed and a certain young man by the surname of Mdoboke was also killed amidst of all that. A number of comrades were injured in that.
DR RANDERA: So it was too dark to identify anybody. Is that what you are saying?
MR SEAKGOA: I wouldn't say it was too hard, it depends on ... (intervention).
DR RANDERA: Sorry, too dark.
MR SEAKGOA: Too dark?
DR RANDERA: Yes. It was night-time when this happened.
MR SEAKGOA: It was night-time but fortunately Tswelelang is blessed with a number of high-mast lamps and it is visible even during the night. (Laughter). So I won't say it was too dark to identify everybody. If we were too frightened, yes, we wouldn't identify, we couldn't identify somebody, but it depends on our degrees of fright by then ... (END OF TAPE - SIDE A).
SIDE B
MR SEAKGOA: ... or who involved in shooting.
DR RANDERA: No, who were involved in shooting and killing
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people.
MR SEAKGOA: I wouldn't say that, because if someone shoots at you, you don't look at him, you run away. (Laughter).
CHAIRPERSON: Order, please! Yes, Yasmin Sooka?
MS SOOKA: I have, I think two more questions. The one is were you involved in the planning of the march on Rev Lingwane's shop?
MR SEAKGOA: As a president of the Youth Congress by then, I had to be briefed about whatever activity that was to be carried out, and yes, I was involved.
MS SOOKA: Did you know that the end result of that march was going to be the setting alight of the shop?
MR SEAKGOA: Setting the shop alight was not part of the programme, and as disciplined members of the most glorious organisation in the continent, we were and are still disciplined and adhere to our codes of conduct. Like I earlier mentioned, there were vigilanes and provocateurs who used to exploit the situation. I won't say any comrade took part in that. Those people who were planted in our midst took part in the torching of that shop.
MS SOOKA: You also mentioned earlier on that one of the councillors ordered the cutting off of the water supply to the township. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, please.
MR SEAKGOA: I never said a councillor ordered, the council itself resolved and then a council employee was ordered to cut the water supply. That was after we had resolved to boycott the payment of service fees. Because number one, is that the council was failing to deliver as duty-bound, because when you are elected in your position you are duty-bound. So secondly, we had requested them peacefully to
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resign, because they were incapable and inefficient. In response to that we said we are not going to pay until you resign. They resolved to cut the water supply as their weapon.
MS SOOKA: What did that actually cause in the township?
MR SEAKGOA: I would say that caused a very pathetic situation, because people had to move from point A to the Indian centre and ask for a 20 litre of water. If you do not have your own means of transport, it means you have to hire someone's car to go and fetch water for you and at the end of the day those fellow Indian comrades who were supplying us with water, have a burden of paying a bill of water.
MS SOOKA: For how long was the water supply cut?
MR SEAKGOA: I can't say exactly, but it was something between a month and three months.
MS SOOKA: How did it finally resolve itself?
MR SEAKGOA: We resolved that all the residents of Tswelelang will have to pay an amount of R10,00 to the office of the Civic Association. The Civic Association will then go straight to the Water Board and pay for the supply of water. That money is not going to the town council, it is going straight to the Water Board, we are not paying for those services, we are paying for water only.
MS SOOKA: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, Madibo. You are very impressive and we keep having to acknowledge the contribution that young people have made towards the changes that have happened in our land. We know that those changes have not come easily, they have a price tag attaching to them. We hope so very much that people will keep remembering the price that was paid for this freedom so that KLERKSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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people do not devalue it and they do not subvert it, but we want to say thank you and when we say thank you to you, we say thank you to all the other young people who have made a positive contribution to bringing about this new South Africa. Thank you.
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