CHAIRPERSON: Can we settle down please. Thank you for your patience. Good morning Anna Madiemi Kheswa.
MRS KHESWA: Good morning to you.
CHAIRPERSON: Who is going to testify on her behalf and several other friends, Joseph Mpotulo, Joyce, Malfred, Joseph Mosia and Godfrey Magumi. Anna are you going to speak Sotho or Zulu?
MRS KHESWA: Sotho.
CHAIRPERSON: Will you please stand up and take the oath.
ANNA MADIEMI KHESWA: (sworn states)
CHAIRPERSON: I am going to give Mr Tom Mantata the opportunity to lead you as you give your evidence.
MR MANTATA: You can continue with your evidence and tell us what happened on this particular day.
MS SEROKE: I think there is some confusion because we have changed the sequence of the witnesses. Anna Kheswa will be led by Dr Randera.
DR RANDERA: Anna good afternoon to you and a warm welcome to you. Thank you for coming today. Anna you are going to tell us about what happened on the night of the 18th of April 1993. If my memory serves me correctly that was the eve of the funeral for the late Chris Hani.
MRS KHESWA: That's correct.
DR RANDERA: Will you please tell us what happened on that night.
MRS KHESWA: I don't remember what the time was, but it was HRV/818 at/...
2
at about 8:30. We were sitting inside the house and we were watching TV. It was Chris Hani's night vigil. I was together with my three other friends as well as my two children, my two sons. As we were watching TV they told me that they wanted to go and sleep because they were tired. I took them into the bedroom to sleep. As we were still watching TV I decided to go into the main bedroom and my friend had gone to the toilet. After about a while we heard somebody forcing the door open and the door got open. Some of them had actually closed their faces, they were also wearing handgloves. They said they wanted money. They pointed me with firearms in both ears.
DR RANDERA: Anna take your time.
MRS KHESWA: They said they wanted money but I couldn't even identify them. Then I opened the drawers. I took out money. I even gave them the children's bank books. Then they started kicking me and assaulting me and I fell on the passage. From there I don't know what happened because I had fallen down by that time. Then Joyce's head was just in front of me. They also shot her in the head. They ransacked the house and they kept on shooting at that time. It looked as if they were in a hurry and I could hear that they were ransacking the place, they were opening my kist and they were taking some of the things that were in the kist. I had been shot also. And I woke up from the ground and I tried to listen as to whether they were still in the house. I tried to look around and the person who was next to me was bleeding profusely. I went into the dining room, I called everybody's name but nobody answered me.
DR RANDERA: Anna take your time. Do you want to continue or do you want to stop?
HRV/818 MRS KHESWA:/...
3
MRS KHESWA: I will carry on Sir.
DR RANDERA: Thank you Anna, you are very brave.
MRS KHESWA: I went into the bedroom where I had put my children to sleep. I called their names out but they did not reply. I took their youngest child and I held him in my arms. I just saw his nose bleeding.
At that time I went out of the house screaming, I was very confused and people streamed into the yard to come and help me. Now White policemen came and at the time they were from a house that was my neighbour and they had also killed people in that house.
Before they went out they saw President Nelson Mandela's photo which was in the bedroom and they kicked it and they tore it into pieces. Then they went out. I don't know why they came into my place because they killed my children whilst they were asleep. They also killed my friends. I was fetched by an ambulance because I was also shot and I was taken to the hospital.
DR RANDERA: Anna is there anything else you want to add?
MRS KHESWA: In my bedroom there were no possessions there was absolutely nothing except the plastic that had covered the mattress. They had opened the kist and they took everything that was in there. They even took my wristwatch whilst I was lying on the ground. I think they thought I was dead by then.
DR RANDERA: Anna again I can see how painful this is for you. I don't want to increase your pain. I just want to ask a few questions. Can you just tell us how old were your children?
MRS KHESWA: The eldest was nine and the other one was six.
DR RANDERA: And do you have any other children?
HRV/818 MRS KHESWA:/...
4
MRS KHESWA: These were the only two children I had. I do have another one which I got in 1995.
DR RANDERA: Thank you Anna. Can you, I mean you say in your statement that people also stole from your house?
MRS KHESWA: That's correct.
DR RANDERA: As painful as this question is can you tell us what you think, was it just purely a criminal attack on you, your family, your friends or was there some political motive behind this?
MRS KHESWA: I don't think it was purely a criminal thing. I think there was some motive behind. Because the sixth house from my place they also attacked in the same manner that they did at my place. And they seemed very angry about Nelson Mandela's portrait that was there and they were angry that we were watching Chris Hani's night vigil.
DR RANDERA: I know you say that the people had balaclavas and gloves on but yesterday when people were talking about something else, somebody said that they could tell the difference, could you say who these people were, even with their balaclavas? What language were they speaking in?
MRS KHESWA: I could not identify them. I just couldn't look at them because I was terrified and they didn't want us to face them. Because when they pushed me they forced my head through the opposite direction.
DR RANDERA: Thank you Anna I don't have any more questions.
PROF MEIRING: Anna only one question. You have come to the Truth Commission with your pain and it's difficult to imagine how large, how big that pain must be losing your children and your friends, what can the Truth Commission do to help you alleviate the pain?
HRV/818 MRS KHESWA:/...
5
MRS KHESWA: I think my health has deteriorated ever since this incident took place. I am very sickly. I don't know what is wrong with me. I was weighing 87 at that time but I've lost weight tremendously. And even in that house that I'm staying there are so many bullet holes that reminds me of the incident. When I go to the kitchen there are bullet holes as well as in the bathroom and I don't like staying there it's a bad reminder. Even my children, there was no tombstone that was laid for them ever since they were buried.
DR RANDERA: Thank you Professor Meiring.
MR MANTATA: I am sorry I might be repeating some questions as I was not in yesterday. The following day how many people would have been killed by this group of people with balaclavas?
MRS KHESWA: I couldn't get the clear number but when I read the paper I heard that 19 people died on that day.
MR MANTATA: And did the community bury them as a group or had families to do the burial on their own severally?
MRS KHESWA: What do you mean the nation or the community?
MR MANTATA: I mean the people of Sebokeng or the people around your street where six families were involved being killed by the same group seemingly because of the same pattern of approach or of entry into every house.
MRS KHESWA: Yes.
MR MANTATA: And was this group ever known?
MRS KHESWA: I'm not certain about that because I went to court several times. There were certain identification parades. I went with Kalp as well as Havenga. We were also looking as to whether we could not get my possessions and we were supposed to go to Kwamadala Hostel but I was scared.
HRV/818 We/...
6
We went around trying to search. We got a photo and they showed me the photo, they asked me whether I knew the person who was in the photo. Then they told me that it was Hunter Ndlovu and he had been arrested.
MR MANTATA: Having realised that there were, these police had White police and so on, did you still have confidence in the police?
MRS KHESWA: These were not White police only, there was also a Sergeant a Black Sergeant who was there.
MR MANTATA: Yes, now that they were all the police my question is did you continue having faith in those police?
MRS KHESWA: I never went further with the case because I was being thrown from pillar to post. I even went to Brixton but the matter wasn't taken any further.
MR MANTATA: You talk about your personal and individual efforts to get whatever you could like going to Kwamadala Hostel, do you perhaps know what other families did similar to your efforts?
MRS KHESWA: Some of them, we accompanied each other and some of them got their belongings back. But I was scared to go there.
MR MANTATA: What stories did they tell you about Kwamadala when they came back?
MRS KHESWA: They said there was a lot of disorder, there were children as well as males and females, everybody seemed to be staying together. That is the correct that is the stories I heard but I never went there.
MR MANTATA: So how far did the collective efforts go - when did you end your collective efforts or search or efforts to find out who these people were?
MRS KHESWA: We stopped when we were coming from Brixton. HRV/818 It/...
7
It was in 1993 but I don't remember the month. We were from the identification parade.
MR MANTATA: But finally did the people in that area, that is whether there be six houses and so on, did they ever decide what to do as a group to stop this kind of activity in future?
MRS KHESWA: No.
MR MANTATA: And did the ANC branch offer to do anything for the protection of the people in that area?
MRS KHESWA: No there was no help.
MR MANTATA: Presently what gives that community a sense of peace and rest amongst yourselves?
MRS KHESWA: I don't know because I don't see any peace whatsoever.
MR MANTATA: Thank you Anna.
DR RANDERA: Sorry Anna one last question. You said you were also shot, can you tell us where you were shot and what were your injuries?
MRS KHESWA: Two bullets went through one side out the other side.
DR RANDERA: In your leg?
MRS KHESWA: That is correct.
DR RANDERA: Anna thank you for coming to share - sorry Ms Seroke you want to add something.
MS SEROKE: You said the house at which you are staying presently still reminds you of that horrible day because it's got those bullet holes that are a reminder to you of what happened to you in the past, what are your expectations from the Commission that you should not have this horrible reminder, do you want to go out of this house?
MRS KHESWA: I don't know what the Commission would
HRV/818 resolve/...
8
resolve. I cannot forget that horrible day. When you look at these they remind you of what happened to you, even my studio couch when I lift it there are holes underneath.
MS SEROKE: We shall pass the recommendation to the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee. I thank you very much.
MRS KHESWA: Can I ask a question?
DR RANDERA: Yes you may.
MRS KHESWA: Even the people who died inside my house are people who have families, they left families and the other one had come because she was working, she was actually from Thaba Nchu. She also has children. She left her children when she died.
DR RANDERA: Anna thank you for sharing that with us. Anna we have listened to your pain, to your anger, and to your suffering still. To have lost two children within one night, and when we look back on that part of our history we can all say why. It seems so senseless. And I am going to ask our people from the Reparation Committee because your pain is still so obvious and we need to be able to give you some help now. So hopefully our briefers today will speak to you after this as well and something can be done to start that healing process.
You so rightly said that 19 people died on that night, on the eve of Chris Hani's funeral when the nation was mourning already. And many people have said that if there was a moment in our history where our country was going to burn that was the moment that it was going to happen. And yet the discipline of our people came through. The resilience of our people came through. But again we ask ourselves what manner of people are these that when we were
HRV/818 mourning/...
9
mourning already that they go and compound our pain and suffering by making many other people mourn too. And I think we need to reflect and ask ourselves that question and certainly those people who were responsible for that need to clearly ask themselves that question. I thank you for coming.
