hrvtrans HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, SUBMISSIONS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 1996-12-05 MOUTSE JOHANNES MONAGENG JB02254 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=55709&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/moutse/monageng.htm JOHANNES MONAGENG (sworn states) CHAIRPERSON Mr Monageng, are you employedn now? MR MONAGENG I am unemployed, I am depending on the pension. CHAIRPERSON And what is your wife doing? MR MONAGENG She is also a pensioner. CHAIRPERSON Was Mogane, your grandchild, staying with you MR MONAGENG No, he was visiting us during that Christmas vacation. He was staying with his mother and his father at Garankua. CHAIRPERSON Please relax, take your time. Are Mogane's parents still in Garankua? MR MONAGENG Yes, they are still in Garankua. CHAIRPERSON Are they present today? MR MONAGENG No. I left the certificate at home, I didn't bring it along because I was afraid it would get wet because of the rain. CHAIRPERSON I am sorry, we haven't come to that point yet. I was just asking whether his parents are here today. MR MONAGENG No, they are not here with us today. CHAIRPERSON Now please tell us what happened. MR MONAGENG People who were fighting, some of them came to look for him, then somebody came at the door and told me that there are children who are at the mortuary in Groblersdal. I took a car and went there. I found five MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA 2 MONAGENG corpses. Then I did find my grandson. Then the person responsible gave me a letter, then I came back home. When I came home the comrades said that that is our person, so we will see what to do. They took the paper, then they said we will bury him. CHAIRPERSON The comrades said that? MR MONAGENG Yes, they did. They took the paper then they said that is our corpse. CHAIRPERSON Was he at school when he was visiting you? MR MONAGENG Yes, he was attending school at Garankua. CHAIRPERSON How did it come that he was mixed with the youth where you are staying, not in Garankua? MR MONAGENG His parents have a house where we are staying. In Garankua they just go in there to work but they have a house where we are staying. CHAIRPERSON Who is staying at that house when they are at Garankua? MR MONAGENG Even now there is no person in that house. They only come during holidays. CHAIRPERSON Therefore the comrades took the corpse. You didn't know where they buried him? MR MONAGENG He was brought at home. I went even to the grave, I saw them when they were burying him. CHAIRPERSON But you didn't know who killed Mogane, did you? MR MONAGENG We heard that they were shot on the mountain, (indistinct) daughter said there were three. If this was Mogane's family I am a witness because we were two when they were shot. When this man came and said stop the boy ran and I stopped and they assaulted that little girl. She said she will come back and make a statement but I haven't seen her MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA 3 MONAGENG so far. CHAIRPERSON Was she able to identify the people responsible? MR MONAGENG Those are the people who were fighting against the Ndebele people. CHAIRPERSON Were the Ndebeles fighting the Ndebeles? MR MONAGENG It is Mbcoto in actual fact and they were fighting the Moutse people. CHAIRPERSON This girl who told you, you haven't seen her? MR MONAGENG Yes, I haven't seen her. I last saw her in the office when she told us what happened. We knew that he was shot at the mountain. It is not this mountain, it is the mountain further down. It was the two of us and then Mogane ran, then she remained behind. CHAIRPERSON The local friends of Mogane, do you know them? MR MONAGENG I would lie if I may tell who are his friends. I don't know them. CHAIRPERSON You say Mogane was schooling at Garankua or here? MR MONAGENG No, at Garankua. CHAIRPERSON But he was friends with the youth around this area. MR MONAGENG Yes, because he used to come during holidays but he wasn't staying here. He only came here during holidays. CHAIRPERSON What did Mogane's parents say after receiving the bad news, did they attend the funeral? MR MONAGENG Yes, they attended the funeral. CHAIRPERSON Didn't they take any step to go to the police to investigate? MR MONAGENG No, all of us, not even one of us went to the MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA 4 MONAGENG police. CHAIRPERSON Now was there a reason for the parents not to go to the police? MR MONAGENG No, I won't be in a position to give you an answer. CHAIRPERSON You say that they said they would bring the death certificate. Didn't you follow this matter up? MR MONAGENG I went to submit the statement for the first time and the second time I was then given this death certificate and they said to me keep it in a safe place. I have put the certificate in a safe place but I couldn't bring it with me today because I was scared of the rain that this document would get wet. CHAIRPERSON Thank you. We hope that we will get the certificate in our hands. It is very surprising why Mogane's parents didn't stand up to follow up this matter. Do you have an idea maybe they were scared to involve themselves in such issues? MR MONAGENG I do not know. I really don't know. His mother was already here and the father was supposed to come on Good Friday. He went to the station to come this way but unfortunately when he stepped out of the train he was just hit by a car and he died also. That was in 1985. CHAIRPERSON Are you referring to Mogane's father? MR MONAGENG Yes, I am talking about Mogane's father. CHAIRPERSON Was he hit by a car? MR MONAGENG Yes, he was hit by a car. He was coming to see Mogane's mother who was already here because of this incident and on his way to this area that is where he met his fate. CHAIRPERSON How old was Mogane? MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA 5 MONAGENG MR MONAGENG I won't be able to tell you. I am his uncle. CHAIRPERSON: You don't even know which standard he was doing? MR MONAGENG No, you see they were residing very far and I was just taking care of my cattle and I am not educated at all. CHAIRPERSON I thank you, I don't have questions. MS SEROKE Mr Monageng, you said Mogane was schooling at Attridgeville and he used to come to Moutse during holidays. MR MONAGENG Yes, during Christmas holidays. MS SEROKE Did he have friends? Did he belong to any political organisation? MR MONAGENG I do not know. Maybe he was involved in politics in Pretoria and he knew about politics here. I don't know. MS SEROKE I heard you saying that the comrades told you that they will take over with the funeral arrangements. Now I want to know whether he was a member of any political organisation. MR MONAGENG The youth was fighting for their country, they were taken out of their homes. The group took them out of their homes saying we are fighting for our land. Every young person was taken out of their house, boys and girls alike. They ignored us old men and women, they wouldn't say anything to us. MS SEROKE What was the situation in your village, was there unrest? MR MONAGENG We only saw police getting into peoples' houses searching. Those who had their traditional weapons they were not in their house, they were far from their houses but the police would get into their house, search MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA 6 MONAGENG everything, they would open wardrobes, they would get in every household to search and that shocked me really on that day. MS SEROKE What were people fighting for? What is it that you were against? MR MONAGENG The police were shooting us with the tear-gas and we were just fainting. Most of us survived because we just used water to wipe the tear-gas off our faces. MS SEROKE I thank you, sir. MR ALLY Tata, thank you very much for coming to speak to us. We have heard so many of these stories of people caught up in this conflict and the tragedy of this decision of incorporation where before that the testimony that we hear is that people lived together quite harmoniously. There may have been tensions and difficulties but there was very little conflict and very little violence between Moutse people, Peddie people, Ndebele people. But once this decision about incorporation was made and forced onto people the whole area erupted into violence and conflict and there were so many tragic and so many senseless deaths. Now there is very little that anyone can say to someone who has lost a loved one but maybe when one understands the background and the history maybe that can be of some assistance. It can't take away the pain but maybe can bring about some understanding and it seems that in the case of your nephew as well was one of those deaths which took place as a result of this conflict, during this conflict. You say in your statement that the witness says that it was the South African Police. When we don't have anything specific to go on other than just a general statement like that it is very difficult for investigation because one doesn't know which MOUTSE HEARING TRC/MPUMALANGA 7 MONAGENG member or which unit but we are trying to follow up on every statement to follow up on every lead but the most important thing really is for people to come forward if they believe that loved ones have been victims, suffered gross human rights violations so that when we make a report at the end of the life of the Commission to the President and through him to parliament, then that account of what happened to your family member, to your nephew can be in that report and it is then the responsibility of government to decide whether the recommendations which the commission makes, whether those recommendations will be followed through so that something can be done for those who actually lost their lives during the conflict over the last 33 years, the period covered by the Commission. So thank you for coming and sharing what must have been a difficult and painful experience. Thank you very much.