hrvtrans HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION HEARINGS 1996-06-24 WORCESTER 1 https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=56169&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/worcest/ct00527.htm CASE NO: CT/00547 VICTIM: NATION NKOSANE BAHUME VIOLATION: SHOT DEAD BY POLICE TESTIMONY BY: MARIA BAHUME DR ORR The headphones plug into the receiver at the back and there are two buttons on either side. One with numbers on - those - that button is to choose the language which you want to hear. Number 1 is Afrikaans, Number 2 is English and Number 3 is Xhosa so you can choose the language you would like to be hearing and then there is a volume button on the other side which you can make louder or softer. The piece of apparatus which actually transmits the sound are these two black boxes up here so you need to make sure that the front of your device with the glass bubbles on it is pointing to those black boxes otherwise your reception will be very poor. Please at lunch time and teatime leave these devices on your chair, do not take them away with you. We need to recharge them so they must stay behind. Secondly for everyone who has cell phones, could you please turn them off and that includes people on the panel. If anyone here today would like to make a statement to the Truth Commission, we do have facilities for taking your statements and you should talk to one of the two gentlemen at the back of the hall, Kelvin and Sekebo and they will make an arrangement for your statement to be taken. Finally the programme has omitted to put down morning tea which will be at about 10h30, so we are not going to be sitting here all the way through till lunch time, there will be a break at 10:30. Also I am sure you have noticed this, on the last day it says Thursday the 26th of June, the last day is Wednesday, 26th June, thank you Chair. DR BORAINE We call the first witness - Maria Bahume and we invite her to come to the witness stand. DR ORR Ms Bahume, can you hear me? MS BAHUME Yes. DR ORR Would you stand to take the oath please. MARIA BAHUME Duly sworn states DR ORR Thank you, you may sit down. I am now going to ask Ms Pumla Gobodo to help you to tell your story to us. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA I greet you Ms Maria. We have started this a long time ago. We are opening wounds that were healed a long time ago. When we met as women congress you told us it was very difficult for the past two weeks. Ms Bahume will give us the whole story but I want her to give you a - I want her to tell you how the situation was in Worcester - Zwelethemba Location. There were so many policemen that people thought they were going to kill us as a whole in the Zwelethemba community. We were so afraid of that. So we will call upon Ms Maria to tell us firstly about Nation. How was he convinced and got involved in the SRC. How fully was he involved in that organisation? MS BAHUME Nation was always amongst the people who were attending meetings and I used to prevent him to do so because I was always afraid that his life would be at stake. He tried to listen to me and the meetings continued to be held. He used to go together with his colleagues and they would keep on going and this took a long time until he died. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Mama, do you still remember the portfolio he held in the Students Representative Council? MS BAHUME I would say he was holding a very high portfolio. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Can you briefly explain what happened on the day when he died. Please start when the day when he - before he went out. MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA We know we are trying to evoke feelings of pain to you. MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA If you say he was in a separate room and when you talk about ]indistinct] what do you mean - do you mean a back room. We would like you to explain so that the people have a clear picture. MS BAHUME I have a two-roomed house, it is a kitchen and a bedroom so at the backyard I built another one so that as my children as they grow up, they should occupy that one - the back rooms. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Could you please explain and state what you mean by saying there were always gunshots but nobody ever died. MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA In other words you are trying to tell us that there were always threats or any ways of showing that anything could happen. MS BAHUME Yes, that is why I was always inside because I was always afraid of my life. It was a very stressful situation. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME Yes. I informed him that there are people sometimes who die, he must always be careful. They should protect each other and they should avoid going out at night because it was usually at night when you would hear a lot of gunshots. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA If you say there were people there who were doing who [intervention] MS BAHUME No I was referring to other places it has never happened here in Worcester. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA So do you believe that the people were also afraid? MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA So it seems as though it was a very terrible situation where your life would always be threatened. MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA So in your area were you always tortured emotionally? MS BAHUME Yes, we even stopped putting lights on because we were afraid to attract the police. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA So were you always afraid to be in your place? MS BAHUME Yes, it was a threatening situation all the time. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Okay lets go back to the incident where you said Nation left the place. MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA We can understand why you are so emotional and this touches us also. It is not an easy matter to loose your son in such a manner, we know it was very painful - it was a painful experience for most of the people. MS BAHUME So I went out and met my eldest son. I informed Marshall about what I heard that somebody was shot dead and we started to panic because we knew that Nkosane never came back. And then Marshall told me that he would be coming [intervention] MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Is Marshall your son? MS BAHUME Yes, Marshall is one of my sons. I went to one of my friends and informed him of what had happened and then he confirmed - he also confirmed that and said it was a person who was estimated to be about 20 years old. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Which children are you talking about? MS BAHUME After a few minutes Marshall and Fizele and my husband they came again - Marshall was in tears. She was coming along with my husband and my in-laws. I could estimate that something terrible has happened and I also thought it was nothing else but my son who might be dead. I could think that it might have been him who had been shot the previous night. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA We know that we have evoked some pain and we can understand how - why you can be like this. We quite understand that is very difficult for a person to have forgotten everything about what happened but now if he - this you have to [indistinct] and [indistinct] what happened then it becomes such a terrible situation we quite understand. MS BAHUME The people who came to my house informed me that my son had been shot dead by the police. I just accepted that but I had a question. It was quite a long time after he died and asked why should God let me be the first one to experience such a painful situation. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME One day Miriam, was sleeping at my place. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Who is Miriam? MS BAHUME I can remember when Miriam was asked she mistakenly said she is Mildred. One of the policemen called her, she was ordered to go along with the police. When she was going out, she said to me - please phone my place inform them that I had been taken by the police. When the police learned that he was communicating telephonically with someone else they disconnected the phone and broke the wires and then they took Miriam away. Thereafter they continued coming all the time asking for Marshall. When Marshall was asked what his name was he said he would Vuyisili and he would deny that he is Marshall. And this continued for quite a long time until the day of the funeral. And we could see that some of them were high ranking officials from the police and they would come with documents - they gave us restrictions and telling us what type of funeral arrangements we should do. They stipulated the number of people who were supposed to attend the funeral, they also informed us that when the day which is - the child supposed to be buried should be a day during the week. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Could you please explain what happened as the police have given restrictions and orders about the way in which the funeral had to be conducted? Can you explain what was happening at the hall or at the place where you were holding the sermon? Could you please explain what happened when the minister went there. MS BAHUME A night before during the ritual, I was informed that there were a lot of police outside. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Do you mean the day before the funeral? MS BAHUME Yes very early in the morning every street was cordoned by the police vans. All the streets and the one which was just next to my place was also cordoned by the police. There were vans, the big hippos and the police were armed. They were pointing their guns at our range - directly at us. They used also another street so that there should be a blockade so that nobody comes to the street where there is a funeral. The others were just beyond the main road and they were just guarding the procession and how it was going to be conducted. When we got to the hall or the venue, the Minister was still holding the sermon and during that period the police came nearer. We could see that a lot of them were coming nearer the hall. We could realise that something terrible was going to happen. Whilst we were still listening to the sermon there was a hailer and there was an announcement through the hailer that we should come out of the hall. We were ordered to disperse and the minister said also we must abide by the rules because this is what the police had said and they had even stipulated the time. When one of the neighbours who was also on the other side of the room and then he also - when he came nearer he was prevented by the police to be part of the funeral. When we were taking the - the coffin was taken and put on the hearse and there were gunshots again. Some people ran away and jumped through the windows. There were stampede - others were jumping over the fences and most of the people now wanted to go back home because they were afraid that it was going to be a massacre should they followed the procession. There is another road which was corrugated and it was also the road which we were ordered to use. So we were escorted by the vans and the police to the graveyard. During this period when we reached the destination there were already people who were already loaded in the van and they were claimed to have been arrested. We were all panicking and we did the work so quickly because we were afraid that there might be something terrible again and then we rushed up back to my place. We learned that there was one child who was shot during the period when there was that stampede. Apparently this happened when they were trying to get out and it was reported that the child died. I was afraid. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA I would like you to go back to the period when Nation was shot dead. Our Investigation Unit has already made investigations and they have found out that one person was shot dead during the funeral of Nation. Can you please tell us whether there is anybody who witnesses the shooting when your son died? MS BAHUME Ntsomi is one of the witnesses. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Is Ntsomi -was Ntsomi there? MS BAHUME Yes. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Where was Nation shot? MS BAHUME It was just a few metres from my place. The first street next to my house. It is between the first street and before you can reach the second street. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Do you know the name of this street? MS BAHUME It is Njela Street MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Do you have any details as to why your son was shot dead? Because we realise that - okay we understand that he was a member of the Students Representative Council, but you could give us details maybe about the information surrounding his shooting. MS BAHUME I cannot tell, because as I said before they went away with his friends. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Did you ever go and lodge a complaint or lay a charge against anyone? MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME Yes I received a letter. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Can you explain the contents of the letter to us? MS BAHUME Yes, it said I was ordered to go to court at 9:00 MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA And then what happened? MS BAHUME I was never called in - I just stayed there. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Do you know any final decisions about the hearings? MS BAHUME I know nothing about it because I stayed outside until I left. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA I would like to inform you that we have something, because there was an inquest during that time. It is reported that there were three policemen who were found guilty about the incident - by - they were charged for shooting and using the firearms for no reason. I think we will have to get this information but there was an inquest and we have findings to that effect. Three policemen were allegedly accused for shooting your son dead. We are surprised now that you have never heard anything to that effect. MS BAHUME MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME What do you mean by that? MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME Nkosane has two children - I am looking after one of them and the other one is in King Williamstown. I am now ill and I am receiving a disability grant which is R410,00 per month. The children were also receiving some grants which is about R120,00. The problem is that this is insufficient. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA MS BAHUME Yes. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA When did you first receive this? MS BAHUME In the beginning we used to receive R520,00 and then it has been reduced to R120,00. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA How long did you get this? MS BAHUME I think we started receiving the grant in 1990. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA What was the money for? MS BAHUME What I can see is that it is very difficult because Jerry now who is my son has to take the responsibility for everything, has to give the children the school requirements and everything and Jerry now is having his own family, he is getting it very tough to maintain two families. MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Thank you very much. MS BAHUME Are we finished? MS GOBODO-MADIKIZELA Yes we are. DR BORAINE Just before we - can I ask whether there are any questions or comments from any other of the panel - Mr Potgieter? ADV POTGIETER Thank you Chairperson, I will just check, can you hear me? MS BAHUME Yes. ADV POTGIETER Thank you - I want to hear whether you got any comment. We have got a note to the effect that the house where your son was killed had approximately 25 bullet holes in the door. Do you know anything about that? MS BAHUME I never heard about it. ADV POTGIETER [indistinct] or one of the advice officers in connection with the death of your son? MS BAHUME No. ADV POTGIETER Thank you very much. DR BORAINE Ms Burton. MS BURTON Yes Ms Bahume. Please I want to ask you a little more about the night that Nkosane was killed. You said that it was near your house and you mentioned the name of the street. Do you know if he was shot in the street or in a house? MS BAHUME He was shot in the street. May I say something. Because what I heard is that the blood is still there, the blood spots were still on the street so I asked his father to go and pour some sand to cover the whole thing. MS BURTON You mentioned someone called Ntsomi who was there when he was shot, would we be able to talk to Ntsomi? MS BAHUME Yes. MS BURTON And then afterwards you yourself were taken and asked questions by the police and you said that they took some things from your house. What things did they take? MS BAHUME They took cans of gas. The other night they came there as they used to come, they open at the back house - they were - they open there, I believe that they thought that some of my children were hidden at the back and they ask about the gas cans, what are they doing about them. MS BURTON MS BAHUME No I was afraid to go there and ask for them. MS BURTON [indistinct] you have two sons Jerry and Marshall, is that right? MS BAHUME Yes, I do them - I have two. MS BURTON No other children? DR BORAINE Ms Bahume, we have listened very carefully to your story, we have taken many notes. We have also especially made a note of your own circumstances and the requests you have made to the Commission. The Commission will do everything it can to be of assistance to you. We will obviously investigate further. Thank you very much for coming and go well, thank you.