| Time | Summary | |
| 22:34 | The Free State goldfields, source of most of South Africa’s wealth. But the Truth Commission saw the other side of these mining communities this past week. Commissioners heard stories of the mayhem created by gangs, of the brutality committed by police and of the sadness left by the many exiles who never returned. | Full Transcript |
| 22:55 | Mining is what keeps the wheels of Welkom turning. Together with Alanridge and Virginia, it forms the second richest gold mining area in the country. The city is young and growing. It is surrounded by rural Free State towns like Brandfort, Odendaalsrus and Kroonstad, traditional farming communities. It is a working class area where the changes that have swept the rest of South Africa have barely shaken long-established ways. This week in Welkom people came to the Truth Commission to speak out the pain caused by the divisions in their part of the world. Patrick Morake and a friend were driving to Bloemfontein when his car was attacked near Brandfort by white Afrikaans speaking men wearing khaki clothes. He is convinced that the men who shot at him and his friend were ‘wit wolwe.’ | Full Transcript and References |
| 23:40 | This occurrence changed my life so drastically. I feel I have this deep hatred for a white person. When I see a white person, especially at night, I have these negative thoughts and even at work when a white person speaks to me I just look at him. I totally distrust them, because during the day they are people and in the evening they are killers. // Now when you think ever since this incident took place and you have this problem regarding your relationship with white people. Did you ever try to get any treatment or some counselling with regard to that? // No, I’ve never thought of getting any treatment because I feel that where they are, they are the ones who should be getting the treatment. | Full Transcript |
| 23:40 | Abraham and Elisa Mntuze’s ten year old son Phinda was playing in the street when he was shot by the then mayor of Maokeng, Caswell Koekoe in Kroonstad in 1986. The court later found that nobody could be held responsible for his death. // They discovered that he had been shot three times. Two times just above the heart and one just below the heart. I do not understand how a ten year old could pose a threat to an armed man. | Full Transcript and References |
| 25:17 | The Commission also heard of some of the many exiles who left the area during the 1980s. // In 1993 Umkhonto we Sizwe celebrated its 32nd anniversary. The Spear of the Nation had hit home and would soon be incorporated into a new shield, the South African National Defence Force. // ‘Soon we’ll be able to honour all our heroines and heroes in the most fitting manner, the adoption of a democratic constitution and the establishment of a government of all the people of our country.’ | Full Transcript |
| 26:05 | But there were some people at the party who felt MK should do more to honour its fallen heroes. This week the Truth Commission heard from a number of families whose loved ones died in exile. How did so many sons and daughters of Welkom end their days in places as far from home as Zambia and Angola? | Full Transcript |
| 26:10 | I think from ’83 to be exact we had a strong COSAS branch here. Most of the time, I mean most of the campaigns that were taken nationally by COSAS - the way we preferred democratic SRCs and all other campaigns that were relevant to make our conditions better in schools - were taken up very actively in this area. | Full Transcript |
| 26:49 | This school in the township of Thabong was at the heart of student mobilization. In 1986 literally hundreds of young men and women from the goldfields skipped the country. Testimonies at the TRC this week suggested the flood into exile was caused by the push of the security forces rather than by the pull of the ANC. // We are under a state of emergency, the army moved into our township and I understand that was the situation nationally. That should have been the major factor why comrades in large numbers left the country. Because they could see that if they don’t leave now, all of them, they were going to be, like some of us - because I think we were about 50 then - people who were detained. And it was good for them because they escaped the torture; they escaped the beatings that went with detention. Because it seemed security police were so convinced that we were doing this under the instructions of the ANC. | Full Transcript and References |
| 27:56 | The day when he left this place, this country, it was when my mother sent him to go and pay a phone bill. Unfortunately he never came back. | Full Transcript and References |
| 28:08 | The route out was through Lesotho. From there the UN High Commission for refugees arranged passage to Zambia where the 14 to 20 year olds were welcomed by the ANC. Once in the ANC’s transit camps these youngsters were faced with a choice: they could go to school or to the army. Most of the exiters from Thabong ended up in MK. Joyce Modikeng’s brother, Moses Gadebe was killed in a UNITA ambush in Angola. It wasn’t until 1991, once the ANC was unbanned and the exiles were coming home, that the families of those killed during the battles of the eighties were informed of their loved ones’ deaths. The fact that the families were told so late and so little has left a bitter taste. | Full Transcript |
| 28:57 | Actually I was very proud of Moses and the whole family was proud of him but now that the ANC has done this to us, especially the MK, I don’t think I’ll be proud again for that matter, because we are still hurt inside our hearts. We’ll only be proud if we can see all those bodies being exhumed from Angola and be reburied here in Welkom or elsewhere around Free State. | Full Transcript |
| 29:31 | Vuyo Charles and Ndoyisile Xhamfu grew up in Thabong township and attended the same school. After being threatened by the police the two matric pupils left the country in 1986. Ndoyisile’s parents never saw him again. // He called me and he said, mom I’m in Lesotho and I said to him what are doing in Lesotho? And he said I have no choice; the South African police said they were going to shoot me dead. | Full Transcript and References |
| 29:59 | They returned the following year as trained MK members, but their families never knew. The first they heard of it was when Janni Mohapi, now the mayor of Bloemfontein, went to them after his release from Robben Island and told them that their children had died four years earlier. // Janni Mohapi didn’t tell us the circumstances around Ndoyisile’s death. That is the reason I’m here. I want the Truth Commission to investigate this matter thoroughly. | Full Transcript |
| 30:28 | Janni Mohapi says that he was travelling with Vuyo Charles after an operation when they saw a roadblock at Brandfort. Vuyo got out of the car, but the police had seen the car slowing down and went after him. // So I presume that he blew himself up with a hand grenade, although the police were saying they shot a hand grenade in his hand. // They detained Janni for harbouring a terrorist and he was sent to Robben Island. It was alleged that Ndoyisile was killed in Mohapi’s house but he denies this. // At the time of his death I was awaiting trial in one of the prisons in Bloemfontein. As reporters recorded he was shot in a certain house where he was going to make a phone call. He got a phone call that a certain woman is calling him and then he went there and he was apparently shot by the police there. | Full Transcript |
| 31:38 | After being notified Ndoyisile’s father went to Bloemfontein where he found a file and pictures of his son at Park Road police station. // He was naked. I could see his face and I could see his forehead which had a bullet hole in it. And I looked at his whole body. It had so many bullet holes and it was apparent that he had been shot more than 200 times in the body. I ask as to how it happened that he was shot so many times, because it was sufficient for him to be shot only once in the head. And the sergeant said to me, these were not the bullets, but it was a hand grenade that he was having with him. I told them that I did not know how a hand grenade works but I believe that I could not recognize him if he was blown up by a hand grenade. | Full Transcript |
| 32:49 | The body had been buried as an unknown person but Janni traced it. The bodies of Ndoyisile and Vuyo were exhumed and reburied at the same ceremony. // I took the skull and I had a thorough look at it and I saw that these were my son’s remains because this skull had this bullet hole in it and I knew his dental formula and I looked at his mouth and I saw that these were his teeth. That’s how I could identify my son’s remains. Why wasn’t I told earlier on that my son had died so that I could take my son’s body and bury him? Why did they bury him as an unknown male? Where did they get this right? Because I was just nearby. I want the Commission to try and find out as to why his death was hidden. | Full Transcript |
| 33:52 | While many young men skipped the country during the 1980s many others stayed behind. Sipho Mutsi was one of hundreds of students from the Welkom area detained by police. But unlike most of his comrades Sipho never made it home. | Full Transcript and References |
| 34:07 | Today Sello Dithebe is the mayor of Odendaalsrus. Eleven years ago he wore chains of an altogether different kind. When he and dozens of other student activists were detained here at Odendaalsrus police station. This week Mayor Dithebe and fellow detainee Patrick Motshedi revisited the cells where they were held in May 1985. It was here that they last saw their friend and comrade, Sipho Mutsi. | Full Transcript |
| 34:37 | Sipho and I were actually seen as very close friends and from time to time the police would say to us that if we could get rid of you and Sipho then everything would settle in Kutlwanong. Actually they did not understand that it was actually part of the whole process of the revolution, and that not only the two of us were behind that process. | Full Transcript |
| 35:00 | Sipho Mutsi had been detained several times before. His mother was almost accustomed to the dead of night raids when the security police came to take her son. // They would take him and they would bring him back, but when they bring him back it would be in a terrible condition. He wouldn’t drink water, he wouldn’t eat anything that I prepare for him and he would say to me his throat is sore. After recovering he would say to me that they tortured him, asking him what does he want in South Africa. Why is he sticking his finger in the government’s ass? // Ma Mutsi says her son was smiling when the police handcuffed him and took him away that last time. | Full Transcript |
