DR BORAINE: A special word of welcome first of all to the Ngwenya College of Education. There are both students and teachers from that College and we are very happy to have you here. We also have Mr Craig Padayashee, Local Government and Housing MEC. Also Ms Candice Mashego Health Welfare and Gender, but also coordinator of the Local TRC Committee and who has been extremely helpful and kind to us. I would also like to welcome Mr L Chiwayo who is the MEC for Sports Recreation Arts and Culture, and later on tonight when we are so tired from the whole day you can give us some recreation. Thank you. Mr Peter Sanders who is the mayor of White River, and then finally the Deputy Speaker of the legislature Ms Cynthia Maropeng. I wonder if all of those people could just stand for one moment just so that we can recognise you and welcome you, all those names that I have stated. Thank you very much. Some of them may still be outside, please tell them I did welcome them. So let's start now. Thank you very much indeed. To those of you who have come during tea you are very welcome indeed. We have tried to say that witnesses should be heard in silence irrespective of whether you like what they say or you don't like what they say they have a right to tell their story. Now to start with I am going to call Msongelwa Amos Maseko. Please come forward. Mr Maseko may I welcome you on behalf of the Commission. Please speak up as loudly as you can so that everybody can take part. You have a very tragic story
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as well to tell about yourself and what happened to you also in 1986 and in order for the taking of the oath and to assist you in the telling of your story I will ask my colleague Jasmin Sooka to take over from me. Thank you.
MS SOOKA: Mr Maseko before you begin your story I am going to ask you to take the oath.
MSONGELWA AMOS MASEKO: (sworn states)
MS SOOKA: I would like to welcome you here and I would like you to tell us what happened on the day when you were shot.
MR MASEKO: This started with the uprisings in the Lowveld region. We were at school and we left the school premises. I have to say that the pupils from Kalipane and Stintile High Schools were arrested during those uprisings and they were arrested and sent to the cells in Kapukwene(?) Prison. On the 10th of March in 1986 we went to the Pukwene Magistrate Court where we were supposed to support the students. Kapukwene it's a very small place to accommodate all the students. Police arrived with barbed wire and they fenced the area so that the students that were inside the Kapukwene Magistrate's Court area could not leave anymore. But the students were not satisfied with this situation and they tried by all means possible to force their way through the barbed wire into the magistrate's court. The policemen started shooting. It was on the 10th of March 1986. It was the day of the Lowveld massacre.
On the 22nd, which was the following week, it was a Friday, and we were told that everybody should go to the stadium, it was going to be for the arrangements for the funerals of the Lowveld massacre victims. On that Friday we were at Kwanyamizani Stadium for the night vigil and in the NELSPRUIT HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA
morning at about 5:30 to 6:00 we were all supposed to disperse to go home so that we can prepare ourselves for the funeral proceedings which was to take place at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning the 23rd. When we went to the stadium on Friday there were buses transporting everybody who wanted to go to the night vigil.
On Saturday morning we didn't have transport and many of us decided to move from Kwanyamizani to Pienaar, we decided to walk. We left the stadium heading for Pienaar. While we were at Kwanyamizani we met three police vans, powder blue in colour. They were from the White River direction. All three vans were filled with White policemen. They were heading to the stadium and we were going from the stadium to Pienaar. They didn't give any warning, they just started shooting. They used teargas at first and there was a crossroad where they turned and that is where I also got injured because I just fell. I wasn't tripped I just fell and I realised that my shirt was full of blood. Another person came, I don't know if he was from the neighbourhood, he was driving in a private car and he took the two of us to Temba Hospital. But before he could get out of Pienaar the people said to him you aren't going to drive in Pienaar please use the alternate road.
We were then taken to Temba Hospital and I was admitted on the 23rd of March 1986. One of the pellets got into my eye but when I was admitted to the hospital other pellets were removed but the other one was right inside the pupil and Doctor Steyn was responsible for the eye ward and I spent days in the hospital from the 23rd of March until July, I can't remember when it was in July, and I was then discharged.
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MS SOOKA: Thank you for sharing your story with us. I am going to ask you a few questions just to make sure that we have got all of your story down properly. Were you yourself a member of any student organisation?
MS SOOKA: But you also got caught up in the protest that was taking place in the community.
MR MASEKO: When I arrived in that place there was just a funeral and as a youth I wanted to be present because when a person has died within the community everybody becomes involved in a way, and I wanted to attend the funeral, that's where I met the police.
MS SOOKA: Could you tell me a little bit more about the Lowveld Massacre?
MR MASEKO: There were students arrested in the uprisings and the students were supposed to be sentenced in the Kapukwene Magistrate's Court and on that day many students wanted to be present and support their fellow students at Kapukwene but Kapukwene Magistrate Court was so small it couldn't accommodate everybody and the police decided to put up barbed wire to stop the students from getting into the building in large numbers. That is when the students forced their way in and they were shot.
MS SOOKA: Do you know how many of them were shot in that incident?
MR MASEKO: I don't have an idea but I remember three of them were shot. Another one was also shot and she was totally blind and the other one died instantly and I was the third person.
MS SOOKA: When you came out of hospital did you see any lawyer? Did he bring any action against the police for you?
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MR MASEKO: At that time I didn't go to the police, I didn't go to the lawyers because I didn't have the right channel to follow so that steps could be taken.
MS SOOKA: Could you also tell me at this point in time what have been the effects on your life of the shooting?
MR MASEKO: As I was injured in this manner it is a wound that will stay with me for quite a long time. The wound will not heal. When I look at my friends with whom I grew up they are successful people in the community and I cannot carry on with life, not even with education. I wanted to be a responsible person within the community.
MS SOOKA: Were you able to complete your matric?
MR MASEKO: I was doing standard eight at the time of the incident but that year I have already said that it was the first week of July when I was released from hospital and I couldn't go back to school because it was too late and I spent the whole of 1986 at home. And then in 1987 I went back to standard eight and until I completed my matric.
MS SOOKA: How do you support yourself now?
MR MASEKO: I am working at present.
DR BORAINE: Please don't worry about the off-stage noises, that's a bird of peace so you can just let the bird fly.
MS SOOKA: Sorry Mr Maseko can you carry on.
MR MASEKO: Can you please repeat your question, I thought I had already given you an answer.
MS SOOKA: I don't think I was able to hear because I was distracted by the bird. If you could just tell us how you support yourself now.
MR MASEKO: I am employed at present.
MS SOOKA: Thank you very, very much.
MS MKHIZE: We thank you very much Sir. We have met many
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young people today and in the past days who are left injured in their lives, when you look back what is it that should be done for the youth so that they can live a normal life? We have realised that many people within our communities have these scars in their hearts.
MR MASEKO: I wish the perpetrators to appear before the Commission and they should confess and by so doing many of us will reconcile and we will have peace. I will be very glad if the many injured people can be assisted in a way by the Commission because the injuries that they sustained are permanent.
MS MKHIZE: I thank you. When you say you wish the Commission to assist them we have realised in the previous sittings of the Commission that there are many ways of assisting, there is compensation and there is the development of the community, what kind of assistance do you specifically think of?
MR MASEKO: If I have to be specific I think money compensation will be the right kind of assistance because since the 23rd of March 1986 I have been using money to go to hospitals to go and see doctors, I was paying and my parents were paying. There wasn't anybody helping me.
MR LEWIN: Mr Maseko could I ask a practical question, maybe you can help us here, you are now the third person this morning who has described being shot, is it buckshot these pellets, could you tell us what is the difference between rubber bullets, pellets and other ammunition that is used? And how does it feel to be shot by these pellets that sound very innocent but obviously have played such a big part in ruining people's lives?
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MR MASEKO: The difference between a rubber bullet and a pellet is very big. When a rubber bullet hits you you feel it, but a pellet or just these bad bullets they are very small, if it was a rubber bullet Dr Steyn would have been in a position to remove it. Because it was a pellet and it was so small and he tried to operate so that he can take the pellet out but he realised that if he could remove it he is going to do a lot of damage. He decided to leave the pellet in my body and I would die with this in my body.
DR BORAINE: Mr Maseko we are grateful to you for coming to the Commission. Not only have we heard of three people today who have been shot in the face and have been either blinded totally or have lost their sight in one eye or the other, but we have also heard about the stark difference that it has made to people's lives, how it shifted it from one direction almost entirely to another direction and has left you carrying a very heavy burden.
We have heard your request that people who have done this should also appear before the Commission and we agree. We have said over and over again that we wish it was possible for those who have done the damage on any side of the conflict to be present when people like you and others who we have heard today tell their stories. We are still hoping very much that perpetrators, who themselves are carrying a very heavy load, should still come before the Commission so that both victim and perpetrator should be healed.
You have also reminded us, as have others, of the very high cost that young people have paid in leading up towards a new South Africa with a new democracy, with new opportunities, and one of the main objectives of the
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Commission is to make sure that what happened to you and so many others like you throughout the country will not happen again. That is one of the reasons why there is a Commission. And your coming to tell your story makes it a little easier for us to try and achieve that so we work together. Thank you very much for coming. You many now go.