TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 2

Subsection 18

Abductions followed by executions

171. Abductions of suspects were a particular feature of the East Rand SDUs. The suspects would be taken for questioning and assaulted in order to extract a confession. These appeared invariably to be followed by summary execution. Amnesty applicants often asserted that, after abduction and assault, victims would admit or ‘confess’ to being IFP members.

Targeted killings

172. Particular persons who had been identified as IFP members or supporters would be targeted for assassination. A public assassination might take place on the spot or at some later date.

173.In one incident, Mr Jerry Chimanyana Motaung [AM5594/97], an MK operative in an SDU in Vosloorus, targeted and attacked two women suspected of being IFP members and of having provided information to IFP hostel-dwellers. However, when questioned at the Johannesburg hearing on 13 October 1998, the applicant was unable to provide any evidence for his suspicions:

MR MHLABA: Did Patricia and Gladness pose any threat to the wellbeing of the political organisation which you were trying to further the objectives thereof ? MR MOTAUNG: They never had any interference in our work. MR MHLABA: Then why were they attacked Mr Motaung, can you just recap on that, because it is not very clear? MR MOTA U N G: Patricia Motshwene and Gladness Mvelase were members of the IFP, we saw them at the funeral of the IFP and we at the township were fighting against the IFP and these people of the IFP were attacking people and killing people in the township. That is when we realised that the people who w e re staying in the township, were giving information to other people in the hostel, who were members of the IFP. That is why we took a decision that these people should be killed, because they were giving out the information to the people who were staying at the hostel. These were the people who were more dangerous because they would monitor our movements and give information to those who were living at the hostel. ADV GCABASHE: Could I just ask Mr Motaung, did you have evidence that Patricia and Gladness were involved in those spying activities, that they were giving information to people at the hostel? MR MOTA U N G: We didn’t have evidence to that effect, but our understanding was that the people who were staying in the township were more dangerous than those in the hostel.

Internal clashes

174. The SDUs were vulnerable to infighting and internal clashes, both amongst themselves and with other ANC members or structures such as the ANCYL. The Tokoza SDU regarded this problem so seriously that it adopted a policy of an ‘eye for an eye’ or ‘kill and be killed’: that is, any SDU member that killed another SDU member would himself be killed.

MR SOKO: Such a policy helped us not to lose a lot of our members, especially the SDU members. We laid this rule down so that there could be some semblance of order and there should be a framework within which we worked as SDU members not to kill each other, so that people could be prevented from killing each other. (Lucky Soko, Hearing at Palm Ridge, 30 November 1998.) MR RADEBE: I explained earlier on that there was a hard and fast rule or policy, that is you had taken somebody’s life, your life should also be taken. (Patrick Mozamahlube Radebe, Hearing at Palm Ridge, 24 November 1998.)

175. The most notorious example of this type of intra-organisational conflict was the abduction and killing of nine ANCYL members by a Katlehong SDU on 7 December 1993. The victims, some of whom were 17 years old and younger, were shot, hacked and stabbed to death. Thirteen SDU members were refused amnesty for this violation [AC/1998/0013].

176. The ANC established an SDU in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, to take control of a situation in which local ANCYL members had engaged in violent and/or criminal activities. However, the SDU itself became involved in incidents of violence. Mr Zwelitsha Mkhulwa [AM0665/96] and Mr Ndithini Thyido [AM0755/96] applied for amnesty for the attempted killing of ANC member, Mr Bongani Mpisane, in 1993. A young child, Solethu Ngxumza, was accidentally shot dead in the shooting. Amnesty was refused [AC/1997/0034].

177. Members of an SDU in Philippi, also in Cape Town, were involved in the killing of senior ANC and MK member Mziwonke ‘Pro’ Jack, in Nyanga on 19 June 1991. Mr Jack’s nephew, Andile, was wounded in the attack in which three men opened fire on their vehicle at close range. This was portrayed at the time as an assassination by the security forces or their ‘surrogates’. However, the ANC came to suspect the involvement of its own members and instituted an inquiry. Mr Xola Tembinkosi Yekwani [AM7970/97] applied for amnesty for his role in the shooting. His application was refused [AC/2000/003].