hrvtrans SUBMISSION, QUESTION AND ANSWERS, CHRIS BATEMAN 1996-11-27 GUGULETU 7 POLLSMOOR 2 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=55759&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/polls/bateman.htm ADV POTGIETER MR BATEMAN Good afternoon. ADV POTGIETER Welcome. MR BATEMAN Thank you. ADV POTGIETER Before we listen to your testimony I am going ask you to take the oath. MR BATEMAN Duly sworn states ADV POTGIETER Thank you very much, you may be seated. My colleague Glenda Wildschut will assist you in giving your testimony. MS WILDSCHUT Good afternoon Chris - Mr Bateman. You have been with us for a while now. You came to the briefing meetings we had over the weekend and it is now afternoon. Thank you very much for coming. You have handed us a written statement as well. We have been hearing the stories of the mothers of the seven young men who were killed - some of the mothers of the seven young men. We have heard the witnesses to this incident. And I wonder whether you would like to tell us your experience - what happened and what you can recall from the incident that happened 3rd of March 1986. MR BATEMAN Sure I was the Cape Times crime reporter at the time and arrived on March the 3rd arrived at the Thomas Boydell Police headquarters, for the daily 9 am crime conference. The briefing room was deserted, there was nobody there. And I concluded that either they had a quick conference or something major had happened. The latter was the case, I soon discovered, so I went out to where I discovered the incident had happened, to Guguletu, outside the Dairy Belle hostel. And there I found a cordoned off scene with a Casspir in the middle. I think the police had roped it off, whatever it was, it was a cordoned off scene and the crowd had gathered around. I am uncertain as to whether there was still bodies on the road - in the course of my reporting duties we have seen lots of bodies - I cannot remember. I seem to remember the in fact they were cleaning up the blood on the road at the time I arrived. I saw, I found Lieutenant Attie Loubser, who was the Police liaison officer at the time on the scene and went up to him and said - Attie what happened? And he said, sorry, you going to have to talk to Pretoria on this one. So I said, come on, it is a local event. And he was adamant that we would have to d to get our information from Pretoria which is partly what subsequently happened. And then I went upstairs, as I remember, and in one of the dormitories - and it was a while back, you have to forgive me for perhaps being imprecise. I think it was Cecil Mthutu who I saw first and he described the tail end of the shoot out, in which opposite the dormitory we were in, under a gum tree, police had walked up to a guy - to one of the people they had shot and had in fact fired a bullet into him. While he was per strayed on the ground. Then there was a separate incident and as I remember, this was General Sibaca who told me this - that there was a guy who either came out from the bushes or was near the bushes at another spot on the other side of the road - as I remember. And police had walked up to him, confronted him, again I was reminded about the kneeing and the belly and the kicking beforehand. I had in fact forgotten that detail. I was struck by the similarity of the versions between Bowers Mazonke who spoke about the gum tree incident and Cecil Mthutu and General Sibaca. And I remember saying to them, I spoke in Xhosa to them, or Xhosa/Zulu. I can speak first language Zulu, that this is quite a serious offense. You realize what you are saying? What you are saying has great implications and they were adamant that in fact that is what has happened. So, I went back to the office, subsequently found out that the policeman who were involved in the shooting were available and at, because we were getting nothing from Pretoria of any precision or any detail. Bishop Lavis police station - as I remember, we went to a police station, it may well have been Bishop Lavis. Where I in fact interviewed the policeman who were involved in the actual shoot out. And they gave me their version of events. The editor that night at conference, questioned me quite closely. It was Tony Heard and decided that we would run with the stories. And we ran - as I remember across the strap - the top of the front page was - man with hands in air shot gun down - words of that affect. And then the body of the paper - the lead story was in fact the version as was given by the policeman involved in the story. A couple of days later a general, not a general, he was a Major Mostert - whom I knew from my crime reporting duties came into the newsroom and put an affidavit of sorts in front of me and I think a similar one to Tony Weaver, my colleague. It said in a very sort of [indistinct] fashion - Chris, just sign this and this will be all over and it will be sorted out and I politely declined. And just a footnote would be - I was taken aback at the [indistinct] that my story caused, because I saw it as a straight reporting job and which I got both sides of the story. And I think it was the context in which it took place that turned it into something way out of proportion to the fairly simple task I have performed, and that - ja. MS WILDSCHUT Mr Bateman, we are going to have to just go back a little bit and try and get some clarity to help us - in a sense we get to reconstruct this scenario. You were actually physically in the hostel, you went up stairs - you know exactly where this hostel is. MR BATEMAN Yes, I do. MS WILDSCHUT Okay, would you mind if we showed you some aerial photographs. MR BATEMAN Not at all. MS WILDSCHUT Of the area and could you tell us from looking at these photographs whether these are the Dairy Belle hostels. MR BATEMAN Sure. MS WILDSCHUT Mr Bateman, please look at photograph 29 and 30. MR BATEMAN Okay I see them. MS WILDSCHUT Are those the Dairy Belle hostels? MR BATEMAN That is yes, at - at H in the top picture. MS WILDSCHUT Right, if I would ask you to kindly look at the map - on your right, on the board there. MR BATEMAN Okay. MS WILDSCHUT MR BATEMAN Is NY1 running diagonally from my right to my left on the picture? MS WILDSCHUT That is right, yes - yes. MR BATEMAN Okay. MS WILDSCHUT Ja. MR BATEMAN Okay - I am a little bit confused as to looking at the hostel, because the way my mind has it, is where the bushes are it should be where the hostels are. MS WILDSCHUT Yes. MR BATEMAN If I look at it - if I compare the picture - the photograph directly. MS WILDSCHUT Yes the one that - if you were to imagine that that, that picture on the board is upside down. MR BATEMAN Okay. MS WILDSCHUT MR BATEMAN Okay. MS WILDSCHUT But just imagine that - that upside...[intervention] MR BATEMAN Okay then - then in fact - the hostel would be - would be in the bottom left hand - be bottom left hand side. MS WILDSCHUT No, bottom right. MR BATEMAN Bottom left - bottom right - NY1. Okay sorry, yes - no I get it ja. I can in fact see the other building on the left, ja okay. MS WILDSCHUT Okay. MR BATEMAN Thank you I am with you. MS WILDSCHUT All right - are you able to point it out for us please. MR BATEMAN What, the hostel? MS WILDSCHUT Yes. MR BATEMAN Okay. MS WILDSCHUT That is right, thank you. Okay so if any one were to be coming down NY1 in the direction of the hostel, the person in the hostel would be able to see very clearly what is happening in that vicinity? MR BATEMAN Certainly, yes. MS WILDSCHUT MR BATEMAN Yes. MS WILDSCHUT You went into. MR BATEMAN Ja. MS WILDSCHUT Are you able to tell us whether in fact from his window - he could see the events happening in NY1? MR BATEMAN Yes, I am, it was directly above. MS WILDSCHUT So he - he was in the direct line of vision of what was happening in that area there. MR BATEMAN Yes he was. MS WILDSCHUT Okay - now thank you very much for that. So we are able now to locate where Mr General Sibaca was and where the scene was actually happening - the crime scene - as it were. We need to know, secondly - what time it was that you arrived and what time it was that the blood was being washed from the street - from the tarmac. MR BATEMAN I would have to reconstruct that. MS WILDSCHUT Yes, okay. MR BATEMAN From memory - simply going back to my belated arrival at the police crime conference - which started normally at 9. MS WILDSCHUT Right. MR BATEMAN I...[intervention] MS WILDSCHUT Take your time please. MR BATEMAN I - ja I kind of testified this before, but I have no memory of what the testimony was. MS WILDSCHUT Okay. MR BATEMAN So my best recollection would be - it would have been close to - I imagine it would have been after half past nine. MS WILDSCHUT MR BATEMAN Correct ja. MS WILDSCHUT About what time does it take to get through to Guguletu? MR BATEMAN To Gugs? MS WILDSCHUT From Cape Town. MR BATEMAN From Cape Town - 20 minutes at the outside, Probably less. MS WILDSCHUT Okay - all right. MR BATEMAN Ja. MS WILDSCHUT And if you going very fast, it could be...[intervention] MR BATEMAN It could be a considerable amount less. MS WILDSCHUT Okay - you are still looking at the pictures - is there anything that you...[intervention] MR BATEMAN I have just - ja. MS WILDSCHUT Ja - thank you very much for that. MR BATEMAN Okay. MS WILDSCHUT You - you began to tell us a little bit about the fact this incident created quite a [indistinct] there in the press circles and so on. Why do you think that you were banned from coming to the press conferences, the court team - what happened? MR BATEMAN MS WILDSCHUT CHAIRPERSON Thank you very much, any further questions - Pumla. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA And further than that, to perhaps ask you - a question that is not very related to the facts as such. That what does it take a person like yourself - the nature of our history in this country - is that of racism. And that often there is no relationship between black and white people. You were a journalist - you were writing on a story and I do not believe that, that was purely professional interest. I know that you went to the funeral and that you in fact spend a night in Gugs. And I just want you to share with us - what is it about you - about you - you are a white person - you did not only report on the story - something that happened in a black township. Your life was in danger, you went there. You spent hours there with people. What is it that drives you to relate to people at that level? And drives you to be so concerned about a tragedy that happened in a totally different area? I mean, divided totally from your own existence. Not only in terms of the geographic boundaries, but just also in terms of what apartheid things stood for? Why is it that you do share at that level? MR BATEMAN I think, the short answer is an accident of birth. I grew up in a trading store in Kwa-Zulu Natal. And my early playmates were Zulu children, and it was ja - it was something I was, I am very grateful for and that I am able to relate on a level which a lot of white South Africans are not. And just a word about the TRC was - is that - this is the first hearing I have attended and I was struck at the strength of my emotions and listening to the mothers testify. And I just have a belief that if the people in Constantia were to really listen to that, that it would add an enormous amount to the reconciliation of our country. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA And if people begin to go back and begin a new way of relating to people. At least we will be on the road to minimally working on reconciliation, thank you. MR BATEMAN Thank you. ADV POTGIETER Just one thing. CHAIRPERSON Yes Denzil. ADV POTGIETER Thank you Chairperson - about how long after you had arrived on the scene, were you interviewing these police who were involved in the incident? MR BATEMAN ADV POTGIETER And what was the impression that you formed about the version of the police and the version that you had heard from the persons that you spoke to in Guguletu. Did it strike you then that there - there was a mutually destructive element about the - these two versions? MR BATEMAN Yes it did, and it is the best way we could - could address that - was simply to carry both versions. ADV POTGIETER Thank you very much. CHAIRPERSON Thank you, we - we want to pay a very warm tribute to yourself as an individual person, but also maybe more generally [indistinct] tribute to those of your colleagues in the media - who were amongst the only people who were able to tell our story. We - we are constantly be saying to people that in - being engaged in the struggle, it was important for us to be able to tell South Africa - but especially to tell the world our story. And we are enormously grateful that there were people like yourselves who did do that and when people did hear our story, indeed - what it was about - the world supported us. And today South Africa is free and I said in one other occasion, that the media - to some extent can be looked upon as having been the midwives to the process. That it was a very great cause and we are enormously grateful to you and I see to Tony Heard - maybe stand and let us salute you as well. You were editor of this newspaper at the time and you got into trouble. We are very grateful and we salute you as well. Thank you very much. I will - I allow you to clap then and perhaps we should clap them. MEETING ADJOURNS FOR LUNCH