TRC Final Report

Volume 2

Chapter 4

Subsection 14

Cases before this Commission

Killings

124 Most of the reported violations committed by the ANC in exile related to the killings of individuals by order of a military tribunal. While the ANC denied in its submissions to this Commission that there were extra-judicial or arbitrary executions of its members, it did acknowledge at the ‘recall hearing’ of 12 May 1997 that a code of conduct was put into practice only in 1985. Before this, the tribunals that sentenced people to death were ad hoc and did not allow the accused any form of legal representation.

125 Appended to the ANC’s First Submission is a list of some 900 people who died in exile (including those killed in the mutiny and those executed). Although the ANC itself concedes that the list is not entirely accurate, many deponents who came to the Commission with relatives missing in exile can be accounted for in this list.

126 Those who died of natural causes, accidents or were killed in combat are not considered by the Commission to be victims of human rights abuse. There were, however, certain cases which suggested aggravating circumstances where detainees are said to have died of ‘natural causes’. In some of these, the families of those who died contest the ANC’s version of how they died. In such cases, the deponent is given the benefit of the doubt and this Commission found the missing person to be a victim of a gross violation of human rights.

127 The ANC also submitted to the Commission a list including those MK members who died “as a result of excessively harsh treatment after committing breaches of discipline” (Confidential Appendix). All these cases are considered to be gross violations of human rights. Included in this list were twenty-two names under the heading “Agents executed on order of tribunals”.

128 Timothy Tebogo ‘Chief’ Seremane aka Kenneth Mahamba [JB0441/01GTSOW] was executed by the ANC in Angola. Seremane is listed as one of those executed in 1981 by order of the ANC’s military tribunal. Joe Seremane, his brother, is not satisfied with the ANC’s explanation for events in the camp. He believes that his brother was not “executed cleanly”. He has been told that his brother was “brutally disfigured” before being shot. In an article in Searchlight South Africa (July 1990) it is claimed that many of the young men in the ‘spy-ring’ of 1981, including Seremane (Mahamba), “were later known to have died under torture and beatings in Quatro prison camp”.

129 The ANC provided a detailed background to the circumstances in which these events occurred. They are summarised as follows.

130 In 1981, the security department arrested a group of suspected agents in 1981 and claimed to have been “shocked at the extent of infiltration” of the organisation. The exposure seems to have followed the arrest of Mr Thamsanqa W Ndunge (MK name Joel Mahlathini Gxekwa), an MK member alleged to have been dealing in marijuana at Pango Camp in Angola. Ndunge was arrested by camp commander Seremane (Kenneth Mahamba), who ordered cadres to beat him and authorised his detention in Camp 32. He was dead on arrival at Quatro.

131 The ANC said that an investigation by the regional command revealed that Mahamba was a security police agent who had been recruited in 1976 whilst residing in Montshioa Township, Mafikeng. According to the ANC, Mahamba received formal training at the Rooigrond Centre during 1976. Mahamba is alleged by the ANC to have been involved in passing “information to the enemy” which, among other things, resulted in the SADF attack on its camps in 1979. He was also accused of carrying out acts of sabotage against army property, theft and sale of army property, breaking of Land Rovers and ambulances and other offences. The ANC Security Department’s submission alleges that Mahamba became a fully-fledged member of the security police in 1976 and in that capacity passed on strategic information on ANC camps and residences to the security police, leading to the bombardment and destruction of Catengue Camp in 1979.

132 Several members of the spy network uncovered at this time were executed after their cases had been heard by a Tribunal. In this respect, the ANC acknowledged that some cadres who were arrested at the time were either falsely implicated, or had merely shown signs of ill-discipline. Many of them were later released. Apologies were tendered for wrongful arrest, and they were re-integrated into the exile community.