TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 4

Subsection 22

APPLICATIONS REFUSED

254. As noted earlier, the Committee refused amnesty for forty-nine (24%) of the 204 separate incidents placed before it. Out of forty-nine incidents of armed robbery, amnesty was refused to applicants in twenty-four cases (49%). Out of twenty-eight incidents of attacks on the security forces, amnesty was refused in just two cases (7%). Out of twenty-seven farm attacks, amnesty was refused in eight cases (30%).

255. The reasons for the refusal of amnesty are as follows:

Absence of political motivation

256. Mr Stephen Vusumuzi Dolo [AM0320/96] applied for amnesty for malicious injury to property when he wrecked his cell at the Burgersdorp prison on 12 August 1992 in an apparent effort to force the authorities to allow him to join other awaiting-trial prisoners. He testified that he was suspicious of the motives of the prison authorities and believed they were keeping him separately in order to intimidate him.

257. The Amnesty Committee was not satisfied that the applicant’s actions were aimed at furthering the political struggle and objectives of APLA and the PAC; they were more probably inspired by a personal motive of improving the conditions of his incarceration whilst awaiting trial. Accordingly, Mr Dolo was refused amnesty [AM0320/96].

Failure to prove political motive

258. Mr ZW Mgandela [AM7889/97] was refused amnesty [AC2000/072] for robber y, abduction and the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition. All these offences were committed on 27 November 1993 at the premises of a shop known as ‘Pick Fit and Take’ in Port Elizabeth. Mgandela claimed that he joined the PAC in 1978 and became a member of APLA after receiving training in the Transkei in 1992. Mgandela was unable to convince the Committee that he was an APLA cadre and that the robbery was an APLA operation. The applicant had scant knowledge of the then leadership of APLA and the PAC, and did not know who the APLA Director of Operations was.

259. Mr Paballo Ernest Pumulo [AM6634/97] was refused amnesty [AC/2000/132] for the killing of 70-year-old Mr Jacobus Petrus Wa rd and 39-year-old Mrs Emmare n t i a Cornelia Ward on 21 December 1992, and for the attempted killing of 69-yearold Mrs Anna Wilhelmina Ward on the farm Emmaus in the district of Theunissen.

260. Pumulo professed to be a South African citizen, but could not produce any identity documents and later confessed that he was not in possession of any. He also testified to joining the PAC in Virginia in 1990. There was no PAC branch in Vi rginia and the only PAC members he was able to recall meeting were a certain ‘Sebande’, who recruited him, Rasta Moloto to whom he was introduced by ‘Sebande’ and Lebohang Mey and whom he met on one occasion before the incident. He had never attended a PAC meeting, could not give the motto of the PAC and could only vaguely refer to its aims and objectives.

261. Mr Page Hlalele Hlelesi [AM5020/97] was refused amnesty [AC/1998/0100] for the killing of Mrs Maria Janse van Nieuwenhuizen, an 83-year-old pensioner in Brakpan, on 6 May 1994.

262. At the time of his application, Mr Hlalele was serving a 40-year sentence for murder, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances and the possession of arms. He told the Committee that he was a PAC supporter and that he had been recruited to the organisation by a Mr Moses Mogage in 1993.

263. Hlalele said that, in January 1994, Mogage had instructed him and three others to go to Brakpan to ‘seek guns’ since the movement needed arms and ammunition. The ‘order’ was only carried out in May 1994.

264 . The Amnesty Committee found that, although the application complied with the formal requirements of the Act, it was not satisfied that the offences listed were associated with a political objective for the following reasons:

a Hlelesi’s affiliation to the PAC was not supported by his own or any other evidence. Throughout his evidence, he referred to himself as a ‘new recruit’ who had never received any training and who was going to establish ‘a lot of things’ about the PAC later.

b The offences were committed after the elections in April 1994. The applicant had not even cast his vote in the elections. He denied having known that the PAC had already suspended the armed struggle in January 1994, the year of the elections.

c The reason advanced by Hlelesi for committing these offences was ‘to achieve freedom’. However, a new political dispensation was taking shape by 4 May 1994, when the offences were committed. His reason was therefore rejected by the Committee as false.

d A considerable period of time had elapsed between the alleged instructions and his carrying them out.

265. The Committee concluded that the acts for which Hlelesi was applying for amnesty were common criminal acts committed for personal gain rather than political reasons.

266. Mr Phakamile Cishe [AM1272/96] and Mr Kwanele Msizi [AM199/96] were both refused amnesty for killing two policemen and an informer in an armed attack in Zwide township, Port Elizabeth, on 18 November 1990. Both applicants were convicted of these and other offences on 20 September 1991. They received the death sentence, later commuted to life imprisonment, for the three killings.

267. The Amnesty Committee found that the discrepancies and contradictions in the applicants’ completed application forms impacted directly on their credibility. This, in turn, impacted substantially on the questions of political objective and full disclosure, which are requirements for amnesty in terms of the Act [AC/1998/0115].