hrvtrans HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION HEARINGS 1996-06-25 WORCESTER 2 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=56166&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/worcest/ct00250.htm CASE NO: CT/00250 VICTIM: DOUGLAS ZWENI VIOLATION: SHOT BY COMRADES TESTIMONY BY: MALINGE ZWENI ADV POTGIETER MALINGE ZWENI Duly sworn states ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI Yes it is correct. ADV POTGIETER And the incident happened in Zolani township. MR ZWENI Yes at Ashton at Zolani. ADV POTGIETER And is it also correct that during his lifetime your father was a Councillor IN Zolani?MR ZWENI: Yes my father was a Councillor in Zolani in 1985, also my father is one who is involved to take a part at Ashton [indistinct] School at 1985. And [intervention] ADV POTGIETER I am just going to interrupt you - just to help us, perhaps you can try and get closer to the microphone. MR ZWENI Okay. ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI Sorry I - okay I will try to speak Xhosa. ADV POTGIETER Okay, but then you can still just sit a bit closer to the mike so that the audience can hear you and so that we can record what you are saying. MR ZWENI Okay. ADV POTGIETER Will you be able to follow me if I speak to you in English. MR ZWENI Yes you can speak with English. ADV POTGIETER And you can - you can answer in Xhosa if you want. MR ZWENI Yes if I - yes Ms Pumla Gobodo she try to translate with Xhosa. ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI Yes. ADV POTGIETER Okay, very good - very good. Now we were talking about your father and you were saying that during his lifetime he was a Councillor in Zolani. Do you want to just complete that and then you can tell us about the actual incident. MR ZWENI As time went on in the beginning of 1986, there was someone who came from Mazakene who said to me that I should tell my father the he (my father) was a sell-out, an informer and my father said, let that person come to me himself and tell me that himself. ADV POTGIETER Are you in a position to proceed. You were still saying you were concerned about the safety of your father as a result of the situation in the township. MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Are you ready to proceed as you were saying that you were concerned about the safety of your father as a result of the situation in the township? MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Okay do you want me to assist you to take us through what happened that night. MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI Koliwe went up to a place called Masakene and Koliwe found my father lying there in that place. She came back and told my mother, she said she saw my father, I then went to see if I could find him and there he was, his jacket was torn by knife thrusts and axes. There was a great scar on his face where he had been hacked with an axe. A brick had been thrown at him and it was lying next to his head. It was clear that they had just treated him mercilessly to try and overcome him. ADV POTGIETER Are you - are you able to proceed because we - I would - can I - can I ask you some questions in order to complete your evidence, are you able to carry on? MR ZWENI You can ask questions if you like. ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Now subsequently did the police arrest anybody, did they charge anybody with the - with the incident? MR ZWENI There were four people who were arrested in connection with the murder of my father in Zolani in Ashton. ADV POTGIETER And you said earlier that at one stage there was an allegation that your father was an informer, an epiempie. The people who were charged - the people who were charged with the - with the incident, do they come from any organisation - do they belong to any grouping in the township? MR ZWENI According to what I understand those people were the people who were involved in the struggle in the community. ADV POTGIETER Would it - would it be people who would be referred to as comrades? MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER How old were you at that stage when this - when this incident happened? MR ZWENI At the death of my father in 1986, I was 16 years old. ADV POTGIETER Okay is there anything else that you wish to add to your evidence before we speak to your mother? MR ZWENI No there is nothing else that I would like to add. ADV POTGIETER Are there any request that you want to make to us? MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Okay before I ask my colleagues whether they got any questions, perhaps we must just move the microphone to your mother - can you just move it to Ms Zweni. Ms Zweni good afternoon again and thank you for coming here. Can I just ask you is there anything that you wish to tell us in connection with the killing of your late husband? MS ZWENI ADV POTGIETER MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MR ZWENI We all live in one house. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA But we thought that ... MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA I think of the anxiety and fear that you as a child of 16 must have suffered about your father. MR ZWENI When I saw that from corner to corner there were meetings of old people that all gave me a feeling that I must actually try and prevent my father from coming into the situation because it would be dangerous but truly he did die on that night. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA All the efforts and all the insults that you suffered, how did you feel about that? MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Could you tell us about the funeral of your father, how did it go? MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Do you know any of the people who were actually glad at what had happened? MR ZWENI Some of them I do know because some were the same age as me then. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MR ZWENI At the moment we have no problem, we are reconciled, we are living in peace and there is not a problem with the community now. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Did you have the time to communicate with those who were the participants then? MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Is it the first time you are talking about it here today? MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Is there any desire that you have, something that you would like to say to the community or something that should be done in order to reconcile yourself with the community, something that would create a real reconciliation with the people that you live with? Is there any way that we could help to put things right between you and the people who treated you badly in your house? MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA So there is co-operation between you even though that pain is still with you? MR ZWENI Yes, there is co-operation and reconciliation between us. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Are these the things that your mother has mentioned, like putting hardboard on the windows? MR ZWENI MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Thank you very much. ADV POTGIETER MRS ZWENI My husband was a Councillor during that time. ADV POTGIETER What was the relationship between the community Councillors and the people in Zolani in April of 1986? MRS ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Were the Councillors seen as part of the Amasolomzi? MRS ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Do you want to add something Mr Zweni? MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER Just one last issue which could be of some assistance. You testified that amongst other things there was a reference book, an old passbook found close to your father, who did that book belong to, whose book was that? MR ZWENI This passbook that we are talking about was a blank passbook. I think the culprits or the murderers put it underneath my father because maybe they were trying to camouflage the information as there was also a big knife under his body. ADV POTGIETER As a family you never found out whose passbook that was? MR ZWENI ADV POTGIETER MR ZWENI I would like to ask a question. I thought maybe you as the Commissioners of the Truth of Reconciliation Commission were going to call the culprits because I never heard their names being mentioned and by coming here today I thought I was going to hear the names and to get the reason for the killing of my father from them. I thought that this was going to be disclosed. I would like to go home today knowing who the killers were. ADV POTGIETER MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MR ZWENI He was a Mayor in 1980. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA XHOSA - NO TRANSLATION MR ZWENI No, because according to the things that he said and because he had said to me that I should tell my father that he is an epiempie and my father died in that year that he told me those things, it seemed to me that he was involved. It was him that said these things about my father. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Are there other threatening things that he may have said that may have caused you to think that he had some involvement in the death of your father? MR ZWENI There were many fights and exchanging of words about what happened, seemingly he was still not happy and you still have the pain of losing your father. ADV POTGIETER Hearing adjourns. STATEMENT FROM WITNESS It was on a Friday 1986 in April when we last saw our father [Mr Douglas Ndakuthini Zweni] at home at about 8pm in the evening. The situation in Zolani township was very tense in that there were tension between the community and the Councillor. My father at the time was also one of the Councillors. So my father did not come that Friday night in April 1986. All of us at home were worried at home especially my mother. My mother [Ms Nolusapho Zweni] asked my younger sister [Kholiwe Zweni] to go and look for my father around the area. This was on a Sunday morning when she went to look for him. Within a few minutes my sister came crying and running telling us that she saw our father lying on the street between the squatter camp area called Masekani an area called Seven Steps here in Zolani. My father went out alone to the spot where my father was. When she arrived there she saw my father lying down on his back in the street. At the time I was not at home but I heard the news and went to the spot to witness this. When I arrived I saw him lying on his back, one leg was bent and one was flat while he was down. There was a big knife next to him. Also an old reference book was found underneath his body with no name or identity. A certain Mr Lenk who was a policeman from Ashton and Mr Mpiko who worked with my father at Langeberg went to pick up my father. His body was put into a police van driven by Mr Lenk. His body was taken to the mortuary. About three months before my father died a man from the neighbourhood, just next door by the name of Mr Timothy Tyalisisu said to me that I must tell my father that he is an informer. This Mr Tyalisisu was once a Mayor before but was later converted and became a political activist. So he said this while he was a political activist. When I told my father what Mr Tyalisisu said, he said, let him come to me and say that to me. Investigation were done initially by Mr Lenk because he was the first to take fingerprints and other things. Other investigations were done by other detectives, perhaps from Cape Town. Arrest subsequently were made, people arrested were: * Mr Tyalisisu * Mr Samuel Mangcola * Mr Kikise Msoki * Mr Lemi Mhlomi All of them were and are still in Zolani but Samuel is no longer here in Cape Town. They appeared in the Supreme Court in Cape Town and were given suspended sentences and had to do community work. But that came as a surprise to us to see the murders going free without imprisonment. Although my mother asked me not to say anything which might lead to other tensions there were many threats from the people at Zolani directed to us. For instance there were verbal abuses and death threats even after the death of my father. We were blacklisted in the social and political circles. We were a very isolated family in Zolani. There was also stone throwing on our roof by faceless/invisible people because when we go out to check them, they were not there. Also the relationship with our next-door neighbours were very cold but I must confess that we are in good terms with them, we have forgotten what happened in the past. RESEARCH NOTES Mr Douglas Ndakuthini Zweni 62 a community Councillor from Zolani township was found stabbed to death in a field in the morning of Saturday 26th April 1986. Mr Douglas Zweni was implicated in a number of Amasolomzi actions in Zolani. Police later raided Zolani community and arrested 81 people of whom 47 were juveniles. Four people were later charged in connection with the murder of Mr Zweni and other charges. They were acquitted on murder charges but found guilty on charges of malicious damage to property and sentenced to community service for two years. Basically, the community service they had to perform was to pick up dirt from the streets in Ashton. The four accused were: * Mr Lemi Mhlomi * Mr Timothy Thyalisisu * Mr Charles Msoki * Mr Basie Mangcola