MS SOOKA: Mr Montsisi we would like to welcome you and we are very grateful that you have made the time to come and give your evidence to the Commission. However, before you do so I would like you to stand and take the oath please.
DAN MONTSISI: (sworn states)
MS SOOKA: As is customary with the Commission we have assigned Mr Tom Manthata, a Committee member to assist you. Thank you.
MR MANTHATA: Dan just relax and we would like you to tell us, just briefly, what your school life was before June 16 1976.
MR MONTSISI: I was just a student at Skonagone High School and I used to play football, I used to debate and I used to belong to a student organisation called Suzon(?). We used to organise outings, for instance during that period and go to Welgespruit and sometimes it was just ordinary outings of young people you know, but most of those were organised by the then student organisation, Suzon.
MR MANTHATA: Could you then lead us into the change that followed that kind of peaceful life if one can call it that.
MR MONTSISI: What I would like to indicate is that the students then were like the students now, they were not much different. The only thing is that at that time you had a culture of learning and teaching. Students were students and teachers were teachers and we used to get to school at
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about 7:30. I remember quite well the last time I was late and you are standing at the gate waiting for me and I had to apologise because that time the taxis were a little bit late, but that quarter to eight instead of 7:30. So what I would like to indicate is that we were able to get to school at 8 o'clock on time and then at 4 o'clock we were able to dismiss. It was exciting during that period to be a student. We had athletics and I played in the B football squad at school and there were not really very seriously problems except now when one looks at the curriculum that students were studying at that point in time.
Now just a glimpse at the manner the education structure was like then, you had for instance in one visit that we had in Turfloop University, the students there were telling us that the Afrikaner lecturers made it very, very clear to them that there is no African child who can pass maths on the first year. So what it meant in essence is that most of these lecturers ensured that subjects like mathematics, economics and science should not be the type of subjects in which African students ventured.
There was a young fellow for instance called Terence Dube in Diepkloof. He was in Madibane High School. We used to call him Marconi. Terence manufactured a radio and he was able during parents' day to demonstrate a very small station that we actually created inside the hall, in Diepkloof Hall, there were two radios, the one that Marconi made and the other radio which was bought. The two radios were playing the same station, they were on the same station and this gives you a glimpse of the type of potential talent we had amongst students who were African in the schools at that time. But there was no way in which Terence could be
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able to pursue his career.
So the manner in which education was devised at that time, it was actually intended to relegate the African students to a slave as Mama Kuzwayo said, but unfortunately they created the "hardekop" and we were able to defeat them at a later stage.
MR MANTHATA: Okay. Let's then come to the change that came about as a result of the 1976 happenings.
MR MONTSISI: Well Tom, talking about 1976 you find a situation in which young people abandoning children's games, sacrificing their youth to take up an adult responsibility. Now we ended up in a situation in which our lives rotated around meetings and running away from police. Now we are saying that any self-respecting country which has to be proud of its own youth should not, and must not even in future, treat its youth in the manner in which the Nationalist Party government treated the young people in the seventies.
When we organised the demonstration for instance a number of meetings started quite earlier because as members then of the then existing student organisations we were aware of problems which were taking place, in one school in particular, this was Phuti Secondary School. Now what happened was the students there, obviously Afrikaans was something quite difficult and we couldn't conceive of Afrikaans being taught as a medium of instruction in the township of Soweto, because most publications and magazines are English and most people around, I mean we were more acquainted with English rather than Afrikaans. We do speak Afrikaans (...indistinct) and we do Afrikaans as a language, but now for maths for instance to be taught in the medium of SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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Afrikaans, Science and Economics and all those subjects to be taught in the medium of Afrikaans that was highly unthinkable.
So we met with, firstly it was in May 1976 at the general council of Sosem in Welgespruit. One of the issues came up about what we are going to do on the issue of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Some time in April, May 1976 the students through out, actually voiced out their concerns. Now the announcement was actually made some time in 1975 in December by the then existing Minister of Education. Now the spiral went on of this concern within the school community and also within the teachers because some of them were quite aware of the fact that they were not competent enough to teach in the medium of instruction which they actually designed to do.
A number of meetings were held. Firstly with the circuit inspector, De Beer. When De Beer was also supposed to meet with the Phuti Junior Secondary School Board it was not something like the PTC that you have now which is quite representative, it was just one of the school boards which was appointed. Nevertheless the same school board in Meadowlands refused to acknowledge and accept that their own schools and the teachers should actually teach in Afrikaans. They tried to talk to the Department and even explained to the district officials of education that there is no way in which you can introduce Afrikaans as a medium. The Department refused to listen. The circuit inspector refused to listen.
Now there was no way in which the parents and the teachers could have been able to do anything because the powers that be had actually refused, in a period of about
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five months, to negotiate and actually resolve the issue of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Treurnicht later said that where the government actually funds the government will decide the policy regarding education.
Now in a way it was a challenge to the young people of Soweto, and the young people of South Africa because he was saying you are going to take Afrikaans whether you like it or not and you are going to do it. Now subsequent to that there was a meeting that was called in DOCC, this was on the 13th of June.
On the 13th of June, it was a Sunday, we convened at the DOCC and we spoke about the same problem. Initially we had distributed pamphlets throughout the schools of Soweto, although not all schools to actually invite schools to come and talk about this problem. Now Tsietsi Mashinini was presiding and he was later chosen as the chairperson of the action committee that we formed at that meeting. The resolutions that we took was that we have got to explore the possibility of coming up with demonstrations in order to indicate and display our displeasure regarding the enforcement of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. But by then we had requested most, in particular the high schools, backed up by the secondary schools to come up, in the streets, make placards and so on, but because not all schools were represented we still had to go back on Monday and Tuesday to get to some of the schools so that everybody should be involved. I was fortunate at my school because we still had a semblance of what was remaining of the past student organisation that was operational, so we had quite a number of student activists in my school who were able to participate quite actively in informing the students in the
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vicinity where our school was situated, that is Nawane. And then the junior secondary school for instance was informed including a few other secondary schools. People like for instance Ronnie Matabata, Joseph Mutsogi, Isaac Kekane, Datlas Ramaphosa, Patrick Sebuku and Joseph Sitetsi were some of the student activists in my school with whom we were involved together in informing the students about the demonstration.
When we met finally on the 15th of June in order to inform the students about the day there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement among students because the government was reluctant to actually withdraw Afrikaans as a medium and the students were prepared that they are not going to let Afrikaans ruin their future, because already the type of education system that we were receiving left quite a lot to be desired. So on the placards, as we reported to them, firstly they had to condemn Afrikaans as a medium and secondly while they had a lot to say about the Nationalist Party leadership, Verwoerd for instance and Vorster, BJ Vorster. And then the student leadership at the same time made known their displeasure about apartheid government in general so that the placards that came on June 16 were a reflection of what the students were up against in addition to Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. The major issue as it is was Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.
Now on the 16th we met in my school immediately after the assembly. The teachers were not informed. Only a few teachers knew about this and immediately after the assembly the official prayer meeting in the morning, we took up the rostrum. So I had, together with my colleagues explained the route that we were going to take and once more
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emphasised the issue of time because we had to meet at Morris Isaacson and move down together with the Morris Isaacson students and all those were in Naledi and so on, move towards Orlando West Secondary School, that is Phuti Secondary School, because the intention also was to pledge solidarity with the students who had gone out, because the Phuti Secondary students actually began to leave and picket somewhere in April, May, that is when they started to show their displeasure. The intention was to actually support that whole initiative and fight Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, as a block. So we had to organise most of the other secondary schools and high schools for that purpose.
We moved out of our own school, Skanentwana High School, obviously when we marched we were not aware that this was a chapter actually in the history of South Africa. We had not gone out to really bring about the transformation and change that took place. We only went out into the demonstration hoping that tomorrow we will come back to our classes, sit down and begin with our lessons. That is what we thought. So we moved out of our school. We went to Junior Secondary School. The throng of students remained outside. As the leadership of the students we went inside the yard, we spoke to the principal and teachers and explained to them what was happening. They heard that for the first time but they allowed us to move together with the students.
We moved from there to Ngongunyane Secondary School in Showele. Again the same procedure was followed. The students waited outside and then we spoke to the principal, teachers, then we left. And then there was another school as well, Mapita Secondary, we did the same thing. All along SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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there was a car which was following us. It was a security car. It's a Chevrolet 1.4.
All along when we began to march, I mean the contingent was gaining its momentum and it was becoming stronger. So already while we were heading towards Morris Isaacson there was something like four to six thousand students and people in general who were on the march, because those parents were not at work, you know the unemployed and the young people who were out there in the township, actually joined the march, but nevertheless the march was peaceful. No single stone was thrown up to that moment.
When we arrived at Morris Isaacson in White City it was quite clear that the students had left, that is all the students had actually moved to Phuti. So this other contingent of students was running a little bit late. Now we moved past Morris Isaacson. On the right was the Municipality office. There was a White man standing outside. We passed and went past right up to Mafulo Park. Now at Mafulo Park we met quite a number of students who were actually coming from Orlando West. Tsietsi was actually leading them together with Murphy and some of the other student activists.
Now we were still en route to Orlando West when they were actually coming back from Orlando West after the shooting had taken place. So Tsietsi explained to the students what had actually happened.
Now if one has to comment about the condition in which those students were, you had girls for instance who were clad in gym dress but now those gyms were actually cut into two by the fence and they were just exposed, and some of them were actually bleeding. There is one particular girl
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whom I saw who had a gash on the head and all the time they had been trying to stop the blood that was flowing profusely and a number of them did not even have their shoes on. It was terrible. It was almost as if these people had come from a battlefield, not a demonstration.
Now the students we were leading, who had come from the western part of Soweto demanded from us that they also wanted to go to Orlando. We had to try to restrain them, talk to them in order to convince them that at least we could go to Morris Isaacson and sort out this problem. Fortunately we succeeded to talk to them and then we were going now back to Morris Isaacson.
Now we have two contingents of students, those who were angry who were not yet shot at, who wanted to meet the police head-on, and those who were injured, some of whom were limping, some of whom were bleeding, who were now merged together going back to Morris Isaacson.
Now on our way to Morris Isaacson we met a van, it was a green bakkie, one of these Municipality vans, it was driven by a White man. That is when violence started with our group. Mostly the girls were in the forefront. I have never seen so many stones in my life raining on a car or on a target. I don't know where most of the stones came from. In no time the bakkie had no windows. And the student girls themselves actually struggled and fought amongst each other to get hold of the White man who was inside the car. They dragged him out. They pelted him with stones, with bottles, with their shoes as they were screaming. There was a young boy who was also looking for a way through to the White man. Finally when they made space for him he produced a knife and he stabbed a number of times in the chest of the White man. SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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I turned and we went back to Morris Isaacson. I am not quite sure what happened to the White man. He was left down there.
Now we moved and as we passed the Municipal office the students remembered that there was a White man when they passed at the door of the office. Now unfortunately this was Dr Edelstein and the students went for him. They stoned him and so on and they burnt the office and they threw him inside the office, burning. I only heard later about what happened to him.
I remember four, five days later, and let me explain this very, very clearly, that when we say initially the demonstration was peaceful and the intention was peaceful we meant it. But the fact that the police actually met us head on with violence, violence broke out and throughout from Morris Isaacson after we had spoken to the students, we had students for instance from as far as Shawela, students from as far as Phiri, Mapetla, Moletsane, and students as far as Dameng, now it's a distance moving from Morris Isaacson back to their schools or back to their homes and any Municipality office and any government structure that was met along the way, it's unfortunate because any other White man who could have been found in Soweto on that particular day could not have survived the anger of the students.
So the Commission should note that when we passed the Municipal office with the White man standing outside, he was an ordinary person to us, but when we came back he was an enemy.
So four, five days later I was in my township, Diepkloof, I was no longer staying at home because the police had begun hunting for the student leaders. They
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arrived at my place on the 17th in the evening, I was no longer there. So I was together with a fellow called Raymond Carla and the patrol van was actually passing, behind the patrol van the police were actually pointing their rifles at passers by. Now when they passed me and Raymond for instance, they pointed at us and then we ducked out of their way. Then about ten metres away there were two young boys, they were coming from the direction of the shops in Zone 4, they pointed at the two young fellows. The young boys did not even see the police you know, so the police shot and one of them fell, and the other one ran away. So I asked Raymond to actually intervene and check. So I had to leave the scene very quickly because I wasn't quite sure if the police came I would be recognised or not.
Now on 2nd or 4th of August we organised a demonstration heading towards town. There had been a number of demonstrations inside the township. Now this time we wanted to organise a demonstration that would actually end in town. Along the way the police stopped us under the guise that they wanted to talk to us, they wanted to negotiate, so through their sound system they actually requested the leadership of the students to come forward. The students refused and said we are all leaders so nobody went in front. Then they were quite angry so what happened is they first started with tear gas and then later they shot.
Now there was one young student who was shot on the leg and as we struggled, running away together with him, we were a bit confused because the manner in which he was shot the triceps were no longer there, what you call the ...(indistinct). It was as though it was a dog that bit him SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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or even a shark, but I only learnt later that the bullets that were used were referred to as dum-dum bullets. It is the type of bullet that explodes when it hits a target, so it left a gaping hole at the back of his triceps. In fact there was no triceps. The bone was actually protruding. So as we fled from the scene we actually ran away with this fellow.
Now we organised a demonstration, this was in September in 1976. Kissinger came to the country from America, I don't know, to talk to Vorster, the government and so on and then as young people we felt that it was not right for Kissinger just to come in like that. Firstly we thought South Africa would be isolated for the atrocities it was perpetuating against its people, and we thought it was giving also credibility to the apartheid government. So we staged a demonstration. But in this particular demonstration we wanted students to stay inside the school premises, not to move out of the school premises, so we locked the gates, and this was the message that went throughout the schools, through the representatives of the students, lock the gates, let the students have a picket inside the school. We locked the gate in Sekamantwana but the police came. They first shot the lock open then the hippo drove through the gate, and as they were driving in they were actually shooting from the windows.
Now at the end of that activity some of the teachers were around. They got teachers and they beat them up, and then most of the students obviously got shot at. Again we had to get transport for those who were injured and get them to Baragwanath Hospital. To see blood I mean during that period, blood was something that you see most of the time. SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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Some of your own clothes could actually be soiled, your shoes, your trousers, your shirts and so on, so it was almost like as if every time we organised a demonstration, no matter how peaceful the intention, there would be blood. Gradually, I mean young people of that time got used to seeing blood, quite a number of times.
So in Baragwanath Hospital I was with my principal there, Mr Philip Tabane and we were called upon to identify some of the bodies. There were terrible wounds in most of these bodies because some were shot on the head and it was just wounds, some on the chest, and it was just wounds and some of the primary schools which had also come to pledge solidarity at my school, we found two of the children were also shot by police. There was no restraint on the side of the police in dealing with students.
In October in 1976 we attended a funeral in ...(indistinct). It was a funeral of a student called Jacky Mashobane or Malebane, I am not quite sure about the surname. He died in Turfloop. They were also organising a demonstration in support of the students in Soweto, and when the police actually attacked them they fled to their rooms and Jacky was tossed from the third floor I think, of his room, and he died when he hit the ground.
So when we arrived in the Doringkop Cemetery to bury Jacky the police came, this was the riot squad, they drove past us and they disembarked right inside the cemetery, but unsuspectingly we just marched on singing. Now they went out of their vans and deployed themselves ready to shoot, but we thought perhaps what they would do is to give us some minutes to disperse or to leave us to bury, after burying they would escort us back to make sure that perhaps we are
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not coming in there to cause problems or violence, although it was a funeral and our intention was to get one of those students buried.
So without any warning they started to shoot. I mean there were thousands of people packed inside the cemetery, but the police opened fire. There was a young girl who was standing in front of me clad in a school uniform, she was hit directly on the chest. She fell right in front of my feet, and as I looked at her she was struggling and gasping for breath. There was blood oozing from her mouth, from her ears as she was kicking. For a moment I was spellbound and when they began to shoot again I realised where I was and I turned and fled.
Most of the time when the SRC meets it becomes a forum of representative schools, because every school had its own core of leaders, now in the meetings of the SRC we began to get reports about police atrocities, but of a different nature this time. The reports that we got were of the extent that there was a helicopter that came in the evening in Doringkop and after the helicopter had left, when the community, people in the neighbourhood go to investigate they find that there are graves which were opened, but those graves had since been filled.
So what it meant in essence was that the community could not understand what was happening because most of all funerals were conducted during weekends and there would not be a funeral during the week, but you would find that the following day, after the helicopter had departed, there are quite a number of graves which had actually been filled in a very careless manner.
Now it came to our realisation that there is possibly
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a helicopter that comes in the evening to bury some students or to bury some dead corpses which the police would not wish to account for. There are students who disappeared who were neither in exile or in prison or even in their homes. We do not know what has happened to those children. If the Commission would be able to assist we can be most grateful, because that is one investigation that has got to be seen to be undertaken by the Commission.
We had a core of student activists within the SRC. We formed what we called a Shadow Committee. Now in this Shadow Committee we actually commissioned four activists, student activists, this was Paul Langa, Paul Langa by the way was not a student, he was an elderly fellow, Meffi Marobe, Titi Mtinjane and Billy Maseza. We requested them to investigate the issue of the helicopter. What they came up with is that they themselves actually went into the cemetery. They were able to mark certain graves which were opened. A day later, after the helicopter had been the graves were filled.
They did not have any equipment but that they had to organise to be able to capture the police in the act of burying bodies. What they did was also to get the watchman in the cemetery, the watchman was prepared to cooperate with this unit of activists who were given the responsibility to investigate what the helicopter is doing most of the evenings at Doringkop. The day the appointment was set with the nightwatchman so that he could be able to lead them to the areas where the helicopter usually comes to the old man was nowhere to be found. He disappeared. Nobody was able to account for that nightwatchman. As a result the investigation was aborted and we were not able to produce
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concrete proof that the police were in essence burying bodies in Doringkop.
The student activists at that time we formed what we called a suicide squad. It was very difficult for us to accept that we will continue to be fugitives, run away from our homes, get shot at, get arrested without the police tasting a little bit of their medicine. So Paul Langa was one of these underground ANC personnel. We got hold of him and we spoke to him about training us and so on and so on, well he refused to do that. He said he doesn't have permission from the ANC to do that, but however he wanted us to give him two young fellows with whom he will be able to operate. So from the Shadow Committee we were able to give him student activists with whom he would be able to operate. After the suicide squad was set up - I think I need to explain this, you have the SRC which was a Students Representative Council in Soweto, it had nothing to do with the suicide squad, and you had the mass of students who were supportive of the SRC. They also had nothing to do with the suicide squad. And you also had the executive of the SRC. It also had nothing to do with the suicide squad. The suicide squad was formed by activists within the Shadow Committee and some of those activists were given the responsibility to be part and parcel of the suicide squad. So the suicide squad in essence was consisting of something like three to four people. That was their responsibility, that every time the police shoot at the students the police should be able to taste a little bit of their own medicine. So what happened as a result was that quite a number of operations were carried out. I remember one in particular in Jabulani Police Station. Paul went along there and he
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was able to put a device and as soon as it exploded the topmost part of the police station actually collapsed and most of the police in the barracks were upstairs. Some of them died because they tried to jump into the dark you know, from the third floor, from the second floor, and from the first floor, but the police were not prepared to concede that they also had some losses. And we were able for instance to get more information about what happened there because one of the student activists was arrested and was also in that particular police station when the bomb exploded. But fortunately it was not placed in the cells but in the barracks where the police sleep. So Ronnie Matabata was able to capture, more-or-less what he heard and what he saw of the explosion that occurred that time. It was not the intention of the students, I mean at this point of time, to embark on violence, but however, you are pushed too far and you cannot go back.
When I became President of the SSRC in 1977 we also came up with a structure of the suicide squad. Paul Langa was arrested and he was sentenced in prison in Robben Island for all these SS squad activities.
The other structure that came up, there was a gentleman, he was also not a student, Oupa from Alexandra township, and there was George Twala and Yster Modimo who were also the core group of the suicide squad in 1977. Now we sent George outside again to meet with the ANC in order to negotiate on our behalf so that we would be able to get some arms. Well the ANC refused. It was understandable because at that point in time we didn't have properly trained cadres who could have been able to handle those type of things. And secondly the ANC was reluctant to give very
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lethal weapons to angry young militants who might shoot at the slightest provocation at anything that was White and moving. And moreover there were also talks within the township and our schools that certain schools within the White community should actually be attacked. It's only after some time I came to see that the ANC was right in refusing to give us arms at that particular point in time, because you are actually going to end up with a racial bloodbath in South Africa. We wouldn't have flinched to get into some of these private and government White schools and actually shoot the children. We wouldn't have flinched. We would have done it, given the weapons. The ANC was right, they refused. At a later stage we respected the decision that the ANC took regarding that matter.
I got detained on the 10th of June 1977. It was just six days before we celebrated the first anniversary of June 16. Throughout the week we have been working in order to make preparations for the anniversary. I have been meeting all along with Beyers Naude in town and Cedric Mason because we were using their facilities including the facility of their attorney, Ishmail Ayob, to try and print pamphlets and prepare them for the anniversary. And before the anniversary it was unfortunate that quite a number of us got detained. Members of the Shadow Committee, all of them were actually rounded up. This was in a house in Diepkloof, Zone 6 where we used to eat, where we used to drink and where we used to get a change of clean clothes.
MR MONTHATA: Mr Montsisi could we just hold on there and ask you a few questions. You talked about the anger of the students, more especially when they saw administrative offices, that is municipality offices, and then anything
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that verged on being a White person, how do you account for that kind of symbolism that the administrative offices symbolised the Whites and the Whites who were there symbolised apartheid and so on?
MR MONTSISI: Yes Tom first and foremost when you think of these offices for instance, those are the offices where you had to queue in order to register, in order to have a reference book or what you call a pass, and when pensioners had for instance to get their own money they also had to queue and if there was anything wrong, or if you had visitors at that time or relatives who come to visit your place from elsewhere there were municipal police who could be sent from the very same offices to actually arrest your own visitors because they don't have a permit to enter the township and a permit ...(tape ends)
....those offices were actually seen and perceived by the community as part and parcel of the extension of apartheid structures. So there was no doubt that those types of offices could not have survived the anger of the students at that point in time. And the fact that the government was also run by White people and that the majority of the people who were White were quite privileged. They could be able to vote. We Africans could not vote. They were able to enjoy life in South Africa. They had all the privileges as against the problems experienced in the African communities. So they were perceived more-or-less as part and parcel of the system of people who were actually supportive of the apartheid government.
MR MANTHATA: It appears all along here we are talking about the killing of the students by the police, what about the community, what was happening to members of the
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community?
MR MONTSISI: You see Tom there were quite a number of instances where you had ordinary people dying. I remember for instance in this funeral, in this Jacky Malebane funeral there were quite a number of neighbouring people who died there. There was an elderly lady who was doing washing on that day when we were marching and I saw this from the Press, so this lady when the police shot probably a stray bullet they say, through a stray bullet she was actually shot and she died, so she fell into the same bath in which she was doing washing. So the whole bath of washing was actually red. And these are the type of activities which we used to experience at that time.
MR MANTHATA: We know that besides those that were killed by the police and so on, we learn that there were problems in and around Dusimhlope, you know we don't know whether these were caused by the police who were after the students, can you give us a brief account of that?
MR MONTSISI: Tom what had happened was that we had gone to a meeting in Anka, the school referred to as Anka, and there's a hostel not very far away from that school, the Meadowlands Hostel, so after that meeting we were able to see that among the trees there were police together with the hostel inmates. It was shortly after a demonstration in August where we had organised a stayaway, some people went to work, some people did not go to work. Those who had gone to work when they came back they had problems in coming into the township because it was not only the youth who were angry, but even those who did not go to work were very angry and it was very unpleasant, the welcome they received when they came back from work. Now unfortunately some of them
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were the hostel inmates. One understands probably that some of them might not have known that there was a stayaway which was organised, so they got bitten as well, Tom, and unfortunately the police came in. Instead of intervening so that there must be peace within the residents, the students and the hostel inmates it was an opportunity for the police to use their hostel residents against the community. So when we sneaked towards the area where the meeting was held there was a van which was unloading bread and while it could be interpreted in a number of ways, and there were police, one standing on top of the hippo with a loudspeaker addressing the hostel inmates, they were very angry and very agitated, and every time the police spoke they shouted something like (...indistinct), you know that type of thing. It was not quite clear what the police were saying, we couldn't hear because we didn't want to go nearer. But what the police were saying essence was what the hostel inmates were in agreement with. A day later in the evening, after that meeting of the police and the hostel inmates, the community within the area of Meadowlands and next to this school called Anka in Killarney were actually attacked, and it was quite clear that this had something to do with the police. Now again unfortunately it was almost like a Black on Black violent issue because the student activists again had to come together in order to organise themselves against the hostel inmates. That is where I mean part of the suicide squad came in to actually try and deal with the problem of the hostel inmates. To that extent quite a number of petrol bombs were manufactured and there were two or three schools which we had begun to use now as factories to manufacture petrol bombs.
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MR MANTHATA: Sorry to interrupt. During this time there was the Black Parents Association formed, what role did it play in the whole confusion?
MR MONTSISI: The Black Parents Association I think played quite a significant role because as soon as the first students were shot at in Orlando West a series of meetings was held amongst parents, teachers and students, and as a result you had community leaders and teachers you know coming to work together with the communities. People like Dr Motlana, Dr Motlare and most in particular Winnie Mandela and Tom Manthata, I mean yourself when I say Tom Manthata, and Fanyana Mazibuko and Matabata for instance, all those people were able to come together to actually form a semblance of a structure that could be able to assist the students because there were quite a number of funerals which were taking place. The families could not be able to afford so the BPA was able to organise transport and even pay for the costs of the funeral. They were able to raise funding. They were also able to provide the student activists who were no longer in their homes with food and so on.
MR MANTHATA: What effect did they have on the anger of the students? And of course were they able to communicate with the White structures to try to strike the balance for peace with the students?
MR MONTSISI: Well what I still remember was that as a result of the initiatives of the BPA there was a structure which was formed with part of the people from the White community called Women for Peace. These were women who came in as mothers from the White community also, who wanted to make a contribution of some sort and to attempt to alleviate the pain of some of the mothers within the African SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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communities who had lost their children, and closer association with the BPA I think helped a great deal in order to more-or-less calm down the situation. But as time goes on we are no longer keen now on demonstrations. We wanted to resort to the types of methods which most of the type of tactics which could only be implemented in the evenings when people are asleep, so that there won't be anybody to shoot, I mean by the police. But those people were actually able to execute activities against the police.
MR MANTHATA: My last but one question will be this one of the graves being filled in overnight, were the students able to create a structure that would monitor the missing students who could have been the people dumped in those graves?
MR MONTSISI: All we did was to report all these issues, firstly to all those individuals, to Motlana and to Sis Winnie that time and to Mr Matabata and also to the BPA structure, and I cannot recall whether the structure that came later, that is the Committee of Ten whether it was able to address that problem.
MR MANTHATA: My closing question would be, I don't know whether you dealt with this in your introduction, what suggestions would you give say to the Reparation Committee for the reparation processes that could be made for some of the victims of that time, one? Two, in very brief manner what would you suggest the way forward to address the plight of the students?
MR MONTSISI: Tom firstly about the Nationalist Party government, the previous one, it's unfortunate because this new government has got to pay for the sins of apartheid. Reparation in one way or the other has to be seen to be
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accomplished by unfortunately our own government. And do not think that the Nationalist Party government has got remorse over what it did in 1976. It doesn't have any remorse and they don't even - even when they say they apologise they don't mean it, because they are not for transformation in education. They don't want any changes to take place in education. I am a member of Parliament Tom, let me remind you. Now I stand in a committee, the Education Committee, there are two bills that we passed. The first one was the National Education Policy Bill. I was just saying that the National Education Policy Act it was the type of Act that wishes to address the disparities in education. In the past for instance, when you talk of allocation of budget you had a ratio of something like 6 is to 3:2:1 which meant in essence 6 would be the allocation for the Whites and 1 the allocation for the Africans. Now this policy bill wishes to address some of those disparities and actually give the powers to the Minister Bhengu to use the financing in order to address the disparities of the past. The same Nationalist Party that is saying it is sorry for what it did in the past for the sins of apartheid is the same Nationalist Party that took us to court, they walked out of the meeting of the Standing Committee on Education. When we thought we could find each other in addressing matters of education they walked out of that meeting. They took us to court, to the Constitutional Court because we thought it would be good, it will be in the interest of South Africa for us to bring parity in education, but they still wanted to cling to the privileges of the allocation of the budget in favour of the White schools. Not to mention the fact that they actually wanted to defend to the hilt the SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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Model C schools. The Constitutional Court overruled that. That bill has been passed in Parliament also. It is an Act, the issue of education in this country is going to be addressed despite the mess in which the Nationalist Party put our own education in. The other bill Tom was the South African Qualifications Authority Bill. Now this Bill is also another attempt in order to be able to streamline the qualifications, I mean the certificates of most of the institutions. There are certain good institutions which were not recognised in the past by the Department, now the attempt is to bring those education department into the fold. And secondly the White universities they were also reluctant to be part and parcel of the South African Qualifications Authority Bill, why? Because even without this bill those universities have been able to produce very good doctors in South Africa. Chris for instance who has been performing tremendous work for the country, Chris Barnard, the heart surgeon you know, most of those doctors are recognised outside and the certificates of White South African universities are recognised outside. What they wanted to do was to keep an island of elite education within the White universities. Now you talk about our own education, our own universities for instance, the Turfloop's, the .(indistinct), and the present Vistas that they have actually established, those universities leave quite a lot to be desired. Now this saga was an attempt to bring all our universities into the same pie, now they complain about the declining standards. That the ANC government is attempting to bring the standards down. So the Nationalist Party at no stage have they actually come to accept the fact that they were wrong because they still
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defend to the hilt the privileges they enjoyed in the past.
MR MANTHATA: Thank you. I will hand you back to the Chairperson.
MS SOOKA: Dan I have just a few questions just for clarification. You mentioned I think right at the beginning of your statement that in some of the planning before June the 16th that there had been university students involved with the students as well, could you give us a bit more detail on that?
MR MONTSISI: I think the involvement of university students in this instance is such that immediately after the eruption of June 16 they actually held their own support demonstrations. They held their own pickets and they began to organise themselves. We should remember that during that time there was no SRC. Now even our own Soweto Students Representative Council it was the type of organisation that ought not to have existed. We forced the government at that time to recognise the SRC, and despite their recognition of the SRC, the SRC operated. Now even the SRC's for instance in Turfloop, in Fort Hare, in quite a number of other universities they were non-functional, but now immediately after the eruption some of the SRC activists were able to resuscitate those structures and begun to function and attempted to create liaison between themselves and the students in Soweto. So there was quite a number of areas and sectors from which support was able to come from. Even some of the students here in Wits University, because there was quite a contrast, RAU University was against their student initiatives whilst Wits University, some of the student activists there were in support of what happened in '76, I mean the pledging solidarity with the demonstration
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by students. And they were able also to organise themselves you know and come up in a symbolic way including the Black Sash and so on to say we support the students and we support the community of Soweto. Those were some of the support initiatives which we were able to .....
MS SOOKA: You talked about the fact that when you went to the ANC there was a refusal to supply students with weapons and in fact you say later on that you agreed with the restraint that was practised by them, at the time when the uprising took place was there any liberation movement involved? And can you tell us a little bit more about the kind of ideology that influenced the June 16 uprising?
MR MONTSISI: Well I must say that the period at that time the ANC was banned in 1960 together with the PAC and there was what you would call a period of lull, but now both the activists of both the ANC and the PAC continued to operate but this they did safely under the cover of Black consciousness. Not that Black consciousness did not exist in its own right, it did exist, but the understanding at that time, I don't want to delve much deeper into it, was that the Black consciousness movement was a caretaker organisation. There are political organisations. This was a community organisation. I don't want to get deeper into that. But when everything is said and done within the SRC for instance there could be, even SASM itself, as early as that, there were quite a number of tendencies within BPA as well, all these are Black consciousness organisations. Some were PAC, some were ANC, some were stalwarts of Black consciousness, but however we were able to find ...(indistinct) you know because at that time the only ideology which was not banned was the Black consciousness
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ideology. The students when they began their initiative they interacted with a number of people. Steve Biko for instance we were able to meet him quite earlier, even in the 75's, as SASM we were able to meet with him, and some of the leadership within the Black consciousness movement. And you had for instance our premier Tokyo Sexwale, these were people who were very, very active as early as those periods, in 1972 when we got involved in SASM people like Tokyo were quite senior. I mean Tom Manthata, Fanyana Mazibuko, all those were the type of sort of leadership people that we were looking forward to, Oprie Makoena and so on. Even if Winnie Mandela was banned but she was also quite active during that period. So the student initiative, when it finally got organised, it was not party political. There was no political organisation that could say we gave rise to June 16. It was an effort of ordinary young South African students you know who were just tired of this issue of do Biology, don't do Mathematics, do Agriculture, don't do Science and so on, that has been going on for a very long time. So there has been that bitterness which has been there.
Now given also the fact that the conditions within the African townships, I mean were quite appalling. I don't want to get back to the conditions also because Mamma Kuzwayo has covered them quite adequately. So given that type of set-up you were actually grooming very young activists who were quite militant and who would actually live up to any challenges ...(indistinct).
MS SOOKA: You also said at the beginning of your statement that there when the process was planned it was going to be peaceful, what was the reaction of student leaders after the SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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first bout of violence against White people?
MR MONTSISI: Well you understand that as a student as a leader you are given the responsibility to ensure that the students follow the course that we had agreed on, and that you would get other student leaders to assist, and as soon as that type of violence exploded, I mean it just became unbelievable. You are actually struck for the very first time with the reality that now this is it, there is no turning back anymore, because it is the anger of not having been listened to when you had a problem to present to the government or even to those other officials at the lower level, the districts and so on. So it took us almost all by surprise. When Tsietsi came to report to us what had happened he was quite ...(indistinct), it was not the type of Tsietsi that you know. I mean his shoulders were drooping and he looked very, very sad you know. It had taken all of us by surprise. The least that we could have expected of police intervention was that they would have come perhaps and actually requested us to disperse, shouting through a loud hailer and so on and so on. And the mood of the students when the police arrived in Orlando West, even in court when we were tried, the Sergeant Tortela actually said that the mood of the students in '76 was very jubilant. They were singing and they were dancing and they were shouting slogans. He was asked also in court whether the students were a threat to the police. He said no they were not a threat. They asked him why did you shoot. It was because he was given orders, that is why he shot.
MS SOOKA: One more question, the question of the hostels, do you think that possibly if they had been brought on board in terms of an explanation by the students that they would
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not have been able to be used by the police later on and in fact become the problem that they had become in latter years?
MR MONTSISI: The issue of the hostels I think perhaps might have to be seen in the context of this migratory labour systems which were some of the appalling apartheid laws that you had, and the Group Areas Act and so on. Because I mean elderly people were brought from different parts of the country and even from outside and they were housed in hostels like cows you know, and you wouldn't expect people to live a decent life and actually to behave decently. It would have been difficult still to actually interact properly, although in the past initially there have not been any problems whatsoever between the hostel inmates and members of the community. So probably through members of the community it could have been possible to have some type of interaction with the residents in the hostels. The only problem is that as a young person, talking to those elder people it's a question of the culture, ...(indistinct), that type of thing, who are you to tell an elder what to do and so forth. But in Soweto here, I mean because of the culture, our parents understood and they were able to supervise. Now getting to talk to a person who stays in a hostel would have been a bit too difficult.
MS SOOKA: One last question. What is your comment to the report of the Cilliers Commission that Afrikaans was not actually the issue but that it was the SRC who had been the cause of all the problems?
MR MONTSISI: Well I don't blame Cilliers because he was a judge operating within a certain framework and a certain institution. Cilliers could not have been able to come out
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and contradict his own government because at that time Cilliers was working for that government and they expected him to say the SRC is responsible. To say that Tsietsi Mashanane was Mandela's son and so on, and he did all that because he got the influence from his father. Tsietsi is not Mandela's son. Here are his parents. So one would have expected that - I am sorry I have strayed a little bit away from your question, can you just recall it please.
MS SOOKA: I think I was just asking for your comment on the sort of final report of the Cilliers Commission which investigated the 1976 riots.
MR MONTSISI: Ja. I think the Commission was not fair because at that time we were in prison. I might have been in Robben Island by the time they were actually investigating. Nobody spoke to me. The leadership of the SRC for instance they were outside. They didn't come to the community structures which were set up as a result of June 16. At that time we also took issues of the community because there was no civic organisation and there was no type of structure that would be able to attend to those type of problems. There was a committee of ten for instance, the BPA, the committee did not come to verify with those people, so in a way it was very, very biased. They actually wanted to come up with what they had perceived even before they started with the Commission, that the SRC was responsible and so on and so on. I am not quite sure if at this stage I can proceed to torture in detention which has taken place.
MS SOOKA: Hlengiwe Mkhize will deal with that part of your evidence.
MS MKHIZE: Okay can I ask you to bring the mike closer to you, it seems to me some of what you are saying is lost. Can SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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I ask you this one question that as student leaders at the time did you anticipate a violent reaction on the part of the security at all? If you did anticipate that kind of reaction what precautions did you think of taking at the time? I see here in your statement you do refer to what is regrettable to be the loss of life.
MR MONTSISI: Ja it's unfortunate because the number of lives which were lost. Like I said when we planned the demonstration in our small minds we never thought that it will be met with that type of violent confrontation by the police. And I had earlier indicated that after we had demonstrated we were supposed to go back to school the following day and the precautions that we took obviously without expecting too much was just to indicate the peaceful intention of the demonstration and the fact that we would be marching at a certain route, not taking different routes because we wouldn't be able to control the students. So there was a particular route which was fixed which every student had to follow. That way we would be able to control the students. And the display of placards for instance and so on and the fact that we passed two White people you know, there is this one that I mentioned. Another one was driving a furniture van I think or something like that, I wasn't quite sure, but it was a company van, he passed across the demonstration and he drove to the area of Mafula and so on, so there was a van which was very, very clearly belonging to one private company in town, but it was not torched, it was just left. So I think there is no way in which we can be able to explain the honest, peaceful intentions of this than to indicate that the destruction that took place later after this meeting had started, I mean actually propelled to
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actually embark on that type of violence.
MS MKHIZE: Often there is concern about crowd violence, on your part as leadership did you at any one time think about the risks, potential risks in continuing with the mobilisation of highly, of emotionally charged young people who at the time were vulnerable, not using much of their cognitive abilities?
MR MONTSISI: I understand, I mean youth will always be youth. Youth in nature they are very vibrant, very active and probably even susceptible to temptation at times. But I think with the experience that we had as student activists starting from the early 70's right up to 1976 we thought we could be able to embark on a demonstration which was going to be peaceful.
And given the fact that quite a number of students who came out and parents who came out, to us it was just proof of our ability to organise and we were very happy that the demonstration finally took place because we were not quite sure whether all the schools had actually been informed, because we thought that some of the key schools like Meadowland and Madibane High School, which were not properly informed about the demonstration, but the fact that the demonstration did take place in 1976 we felt that we were quite successful and we were able to organise a proper march.
Now the only unfortunate thing like I say is the loss of life. It becomes very difficult for instance, even up to this point in time for me to look at somebody who as a result of June 16 is condemned for life in a wheelchair. It becomes very, very difficult. But we understand that the whole intention was not to be violent, it was to be
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peaceful. We had a problem and that problem we wanted to actually, in a symbolic way, disclose it to everybody to see.
MS MKHIZE: One last question from me is that in your statement here you indicate that you were later on exposed to extreme forms of emotional and physical torture, I wonder whether, given your position now, you have given a thought to possible measures that need to be taken today to ensure that our security officers devise different modes of extracting information from people rather than the methods that you referred to here in your statement?
MR MONTSISI: Ja I was subjected to torture. I was not the only one. It was quite a number of us and I have spoken to some of the officials about that issue. I mean like I said about the detention we got detained on the 10th in 1977. They started quite early. Probably they were eager on the 13th June we were taken to Protea Police Station where the torture actually started, and the type of questions they asked obviously they wanted to know if we are working for the ANC, and they wanted Paul Langa. They arrested Paul before me, so what they wanted to do was that I must testify and say that Paul did all these things and so on and so on. At that time I didn't know Paul, I mean that's what I said to them. So they were quite angry. They asked about Winnie Mandela, whether I have been to Winnie Mandela's place. And they asked also about activities in the demonstration, where I participated. I tried to cooperate with them concerning student activities because I was a student and even those demonstrations where I did not go I said I did, those meetings where students were, where I was not even there, I said I did, simply because I did not want them to press me
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on other issues. I was not a member of the suicide squad. I knew about the suicide squad but I denied it. So well they got fed up with me and they actually began in a sense, so there was this trolley and Van Roy, those who fetched me from John Vorster Square and we drove down to Protea Police Station, and they used the rubber truncheon to beat you all over the head and it was quite difficult because I was blindfolded and I couldn't see the direction from which the truncheon was coming from, so it was quite easy for them. It went on for quite some time. And then you could also be kicked and beaten with fists, stomach and so on. And there was also one other method they used, the rifle. They used the rifle to stamp on your toes. So every time you talk what they do not agree with they use the rifle on your toes. And one method they referred to as an airplane, I didn't know what they were talking about, but I was grabbed and they swung me and they threw me right into the air but when you land, fortunately it was a wooden floor so they did that several times. All along I mean they were like laughing and so on and so on, ridicule you and so on. And they were pulling the muscles on the back to put a strain on you so they come from behind and they pull the muscles with their own hands. And so they also forced me to squat. That time I was quite weak and I didn't have much power left in me. I could have collapsed any time but they still continued, so I had to squat against the wall and a brick was placed on my hands as I squatted against the wall. I don't know what happened because I think the brick fell and it hit me on the head and when I regained consciousness they had poured water all over me. So the first person I saw looking down at me was Visser, Captain Visser from Protea Police Station. So
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all I said to him when I saw him was that "Baas they are killing me", that is what I said to him. And I never thought I would say "baas" but I did. So they explained to him that - they used very strong language, "hardegat", so they were going to continue. That time they had removed the blindfold and he left the room, and then as soon as he left I could see the people who were instrumental in the torture. Although there were something like eight policemen inside there were two others Trollip and Van Rooyen, those were the ones who were the leaders and the senior was this Lieutenant van Rooyen. So they blindfolded me again and this time they took off my pants and my underpants and they used what we referred to later as we were taken about it as a USO, an unidentified squeezing object, but probably it was a plier to actually press my testes. They did that twice or thrice and when they do that it becomes very difficult for you to scream because you like choke. When they leave you then you are able to scream. So they did that twice, thrice. I don't know what happened and again they poured water all over me. And I was taken to John Vorster and ja I was dumped there. Later I saw a doctor, a district surgeon Williamson, so he was able to treat me. He wasn't supposed to see me, it was just a mistake on the part of the police, because in the cells in John Vorster Square when they were opening the cells they opened my own cell by mistake. Those who were tortured must not be seen by the doctor because they will be ...(indistinct), so this policeman opened my door unaware and then I couldn't go on my own so I used the wall to walk towards the part of the cells was a surgery where the doctor saw us, so I crawled and so on and so on. When the security police saw me they wanted to take me back
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to the cells so I screamed, so fortunately the doctor came out and he saw me, then he said I want to see that man. So our own political activists, the students who were tortured were there to see the doctor but fortunately if he doesn't ...(indistinct) allow you. My whole body was swollen, there were stripes all over the body and so on. So the doctor was able to see me and he made a profile of a human being to indicate all areas of injury. My medical record was subsequently submitted in court so it's properly recorded. When I recovered this was some time in September they took me again. This time it was on the 10th Floor of John Vorster Square and there it was De Meyer, Sergeant de Meyer, Captain ...(tape ends)
...they didn't touch the face and Stroewig was just concentrating on the head. He didn't hit anything except the head. So he just focused on the head and so on and so forth. For the whole day he did not hit anything except the head and I think I collapsed and again I was taken to hospital. So this time they took me to the Florence Nightingale Clinic in Hillbrow. It was a White hospital so no Africans can see one of the student activist casualties, unlike if you had to take him to an African clinic, quite a number of people could have seen him. So I was smuggled into an exclusive White clinic. There they did brain scanning and well they checked me and they wanted to do a lumbar puncture. At that time I didn't understand what a lumbar puncture was so they explained that they are going to stick a needle in my spine and extract the liquid. I refused because I wasn't quite sure whether I could trust them to do that to me. I knew the spine to be quite sensitive so I refused. So the security cops came again to
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try and talk to me to do the lumbar puncture, I refused. They promised that they would take me back to prison and beat me up and bring me ...(indistinct) and so on and so on, but once I was with the doctor I was able to tell the doctor that he shouldn't, so fortunately the doctor did not do it. I recovered after some time. I was taken back to the cells. Later well we were tried I was sentenced to Robben Island and Mandela wanted a report about June 16 including Mr Sisulu there and Govan Mbeki. So together with ...(indistinct) we had liked to write a comprehensive report about the events. They also saw the truth, I mean the Cilliers Commission report and we were able in fact to get a copy of that and actually criticise it.
But having said all this that I have said, I want to say that the students at that time they had a support base and members of the community whom even up to this point in time we hold very, very dear. People for instance like Fanyana Mazibuko, Tom Manthata and Ligau Matabata, those were teachers during that period with whom we worked very, very closely. And there was Dr Abu Asfad, Dr Massari and Dr Motlana, most of the casualties, those that we did not want to take to hospital we took to them and student activists who no longer had parents, who no longer had their homes were just wandering around, whenever they are sick these are the doctors who used to attend to them. There is one other doctor whom I have actually forgotten the name but somewhere in Molapo, those were some of the kind people who used to treat us when we are ill, whether it's flu, cold or that. And you had people like Beyers Naude for instance. From Beyers we could be able to like I said print pamphlets, get vehicles and also get financial resources from him. Beyers
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was banned that time but he was amongst some of the Whites who were able to come into the township of Soweto in the evening to be with the students. I remember at one stage when we were in town and we had seen him he had to drive all the way from town to actually bring us into the township.
When I started to read the Freedom Charter very early in the 70's and so on, later in the 80's I didn't understand what the ANC meant when they said South Africa belonged to all those who live in it, both Black and White, but immediately I saw practically a White man like Beyers Naude risking his own life to come into the township I knew that there were White South Africans in South Africa who were quite prepared to lend a hand and be part of this lovely country. So it took a person like Beyers ...(intervention)
MS MKHIZE: Sorry I will have to cut you short now. From me I will just say thank you very much and I will ask the Chair to take over.
MS SOOKA: I would like to thank you for having given your evidence today. What you have certainly provided is a different perspective of what June '76 was about. We are grateful in fact that you have survived that and that you are indeed an MP today. We are also grateful for the insight that you have gleaned during those years which enable you to make policy which will transform things like the educational system in our country. Thank you very, very much.
MR MONTSISI: Thank you.
