CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Mbongo, you're very welcome at the table. We are privileged to have you at in front of us. Can you hear me?
MS MBONGO: Yes I can hear you Sir.
JANE NOZILILO MBONGO: (sworn states)
DR BORAINE: Mrs Mbongo you heard earlier from the Commission that 49 people were killed on the 17th of June in 1992. That was a bare statistic, just a number. What you and your neighbours and your friends and colleagues have come to tell us, is that the people who were killed are human beings. They have names, they have children, they have parents, husbands, they have wives, they have pain. I don't want you to think that because other people have told their story that your story is not important. It is important as life and death. You're going to tell us what happened. Before you do, I wonder, can you tell us the name of your husband please?
MS MBONGO: His name is Zefret Sibizi.
DR BORAINE: Could you repeat that please?
MS MBONGO: Zefret Sibizi.
DR BORAINE: Thank you very much. You were living at Slovo Park, number 21?
MS MBONGO: Yes.
DR BORAINE: Tell us what happened that night.
MS MBONGO: In 1992 in June, in the afternoon with my cousin, and I had a baby in my hand. I left for the bedroom
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to go and put the baby to sleep. I left my cousin alone, I left to put the baby to sleep in the bedroom. Suddenly I also fell asleep. I left my boss with my cousin. My boss was with us. It was my husband. He switched off the heater and he joined me to bed and he slept and he said wake up and put on your night dress and get into bed. I hadn't put on my night dress because I was putting the baby to sleep, I wasn't sleeping.
At midnight I heard the windows breaking and we woke up with sudden surprise, what's happening. Voices were saying, "Open up dogs, you dogs, open up". They were throwing stones and the stones came through the windows destructing inside the house and we suddenly woke up and we hid under the bed. He tried to go out, I told him,"don't go out, get under the bed, join us under the bed". They were throwing stones until the door opened. When the door opened, I saw a group of people just storming inside the house and they had the matches on. They came to the bedroom, my husband came out and they killed him. Before he was killed, he tried to run away from the door, through the door but when I got out from under the bed to see what's happening, I could not see people out there and I tried to shut the door. I tried to lock the door but I could not. I decided to go back under the bed again with the kids. We went down underneath the bed and my husband was outside and the people came back again, they had the paper, burning paper and they threw that paper in the bath and there were clothes in the bath and they stabbed the bed, the mattress, they kept stabbing it and they found us hiding under the bed and they said, "Come out you dogs, come out!".
When I was trying to come out, I remembered, no I had
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the child here, let me try to get my child out here, it would be poor if my child be left if I die alone. I got my child and I held her in my arms and the bath was on fire. They stabbed me, they stabbed me, and they also stabbed on my hands, they were beating me at the same time and my fingers were chopped and my head was broken and they put a spear through my child. When I looked I saw the spear right through the body of my child. I then decided to slip over the child so that they cannot put the spear through again over the child. I said to myself, "No they're going to kill my child, they rather kill me, and they did put the spear on my back and they left. They went outside. I was quiet and my child was crying because the spear went through her.
After they'd left, I saw the bath was in fire and I tried to extinguish the fire that was in the bath and I tried to take a blanket and extinguish the fire that was razing the bath as well as the clothes. I went outside whether they were still there. I discovered that they had gone and I saw my aunt and children outside. Then the other ones told me that the child had been stabbed and he had died in front of the door. He told me that Meme had left us, that he had passed away. She also told us that Nono had died already. I ran and went inside the shack, I took the baby, I put the baby behind my back, but I just couldn't because my hand had been severed but nevertheless I took the baby and I ran to another house, at my neighbour's place.
I got there, I knocked and I opened the door. I think my neighbours were also looking, they had seen what was happening. I fell inside the house with the baby. I asked them to phone my parents, to tell my parents what had
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happened. They told me that they didn't have a phone. I went to another neighbour, they took my baby and I enlisted some help from my neighbour, even those neighbours did not have a phone so they could not help me and everybody was peeping through the windows to see what was happening.
I threw up and when I was in the kitchen, at that time I was confused, I went to the bedroom and there was a little girl there, she lit the candle, looked at my child. She said my child had been stabbed.
At that moment the ambulances came and took me with the baby to the hospital. When we got there we were admitted, myself and the baby.
Up to the funeral, when I was discharged I discovered that all the people who had died had already been buried. My husband was buried in Backville.
DR BORAINE: It's very difficult to find words, they seem so cheap after the story that you have told. Can you tell us please the name of your daughter?
MS MBONGO: Her name is Victoria Mbongo.
DR BORAINE: Thank you. And how old was she when she was so brutally stabbed?
MS MBONGO: She was two years old.
MS MBONGO: What you witnessed and what you experienced is a slaughter. It was a slaughter. How long were you in hospital?
MS MBONGO: I was there for quite some time in hospital.
DR BORAINE: And you can't remember, it was at the Sebokeng hospital, all the records will be there. Now how is...(intervention).
MS MBONGO: I was at Suke(?) hospital and also I was somehow mentally disturbed from this event.
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DR BORAINE: I'm not surprised. It would make anyone disturbed, mentally and physically. How is your daughter now? Has she recovered from that terrible wound?
MS MBONGO: No she's not any better. She did attend treatment at hospital. If she watches television and sees people shooting on the television, she gets scared and wants to run away.
DR BORAINE: And you yourself were also badly injured. How are you now?
MS MBONGO: I'm not so healthy. My health condition is not excellent. When I receive a telephone call, after putting down the receiver, I can't remember who I was talking to. Even my hand is not working perfectly. I even asked one of our relatives in Newcastle to come and help us here at home.
DR BORAINE: Your husband was killed, did you get a death certificate?
MS MBONGO: Yes I did get it.
DR BORAINE: What, now we know that he was attacked, and he was killed, but did they say how he was killed, was he stabbed, was he shot? What happened, do you know?
MS MBONGO: No that is not made clear.
DR BORAINE: That's alright. Now you didn't, did you go back to Slovo Park or are you living somewhere else?
MS MBONGO: No I never went back, I'm home now.
DR BORAINE: Where is that?
MS MBONGO: It's at Boipatong.
CHAIRPERSON: Boipatong. Now are you working?
MS MBONGO: No I'm not working.
DR BORAINE: Do you have some kind of pension or do you have somebody who's helping you?
MS MBONGO: No the money I get is the money for the
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children and it's too little, there's nothing I can do with it, especially that myself and my other daughter have to attend treatment at the doctor and I cannot afford anything.
DR BORAINE: Just one last question for our own records, so that we can continue this after today is over. Your husband's name, could you give that to me please?
MS MBONGO: It's Zephras Sibisi.
DR BORAINE: Is that Z-E-P-H-R-A-S. Okay we can check that later, it's not all that serious. You must have thought many times about that night. You must have thought, who are these people? Where did they come from and why did they do this? What do you think about today when you think about that? Why do you think this happened? Who did this?
MS MBONGO: I also don't know who did this.
DR BORAINE: Thank you very much for coming. I have no more questions.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Dr Borraine. May I ask Mrs Seroke, do you have a question or two?
MRS SEROKE: This is a pathetic story and I know also that as a woman, it is too much to bear, especially you attend to your husband Zephras and I would like to know, who the cost, who carried the cost of the funeral?
MS MBONGO: The parents did carry the cost of the funeral. The ANC said it would help. Now we gave the breakdown of the funeral to the people of the ANC but they never helped us in any way. No some others were helped but I for one, I was not helped.
MRS SEROKE: I thought he was saying you can barely go on like that, and after that you can claim the cost of what I thought you were saying, that means you did claim but they never give you anything?
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MS MBONGO: No some did receive something after they claimed but I for one, I did not get anything after I claimed.
MRS SEROKE: You are also telling us the girl who was there injured is now mentally disturbed because now each time she watches television she remembers all what happened and we said yes, we will take you to the briefers, you will have to meet with the briefers so you may talk to our briefers because we try our level best that there should be some other people who could help the witness and the victim who suffered mental torture. So we will try to get you to our briefers who will be of great assistance.
CHAIRPERSON: Dr Randera.
DR RANDERA: Mrs Mbongo, I know you've told us about your one child, Victoria. Do you have any other children?
MS MBONGO: Yes I do.
DR RANDERA: How many children are there?
MS MBONGO: Two children.
DR RANDERA: With Victoria, or two other children?
MS MBONGO: It's only Victoria and Patricia.
DR RANDERA: Patricia was not there that night?
MS MBONGO: No she was not at home that day.
DR RANDERA: Mrs Mbongo, I just want to get your feelings on this issue. In the last few days and again we've heard about so much pain in these communities in the Vaal, Slovo Park, Boipatong, Sebokeng, Everton. I also said when I started this afternoon that, and you know yourself that people were charged with what happened at Boipatong and many people were sentenced. Do you feel there can be forgiveness and reconciliation in this community?
MS MBONGO: Yes.
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DR RANDERA: Thank you Mrs Mbongo.
CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Mbongo, I think Dr Borraine said it all for us. We do not have words, for how can you explain in words what's been happening and how can we, using words really comfort you. But you must know, we have listened to you, the hall has listened to you, and when the report is written of the Truth Commission, your story and the story of your husband, of little Victoria will be in that report. The Act that was written said that one of the reasons for the Act was that it must be a healing experience for the people who come to testify and I do hope that you feel some healing because we have listened to you and we've listened also to your needs. What Mrs Seroke said about going to the briefers afterwards, to ask for advice or assistance for you and for your child for guidance, psychological guidance and other guidance, please do take us up and especially, especially, thank you for what you said to Dr Randera, that in spite of everything, you do feel that reconciliation, that peace is possible in Boipatong and in our country. May the Lord give that it will, that that will be true, that will come to all of us. Thank you for sharing with us and may we pray that the Lord will be with you and your two daughters in years to come. Thank you.
