| Time | Summary | |
| 21:26 | No wonder National Party crown prince Hernus Kriel this week said the National Party should start boycotting the Truth Commission. We stay in KwaZulu-Natal, but we move on the human rights violations hearings in Empangeni this week. After almost six months of testimony before the Truth Commission most of us have become familiar with the hundreds of terrible stories of human rights violations that happened across the length and the breadth of our country. But the unfortunate truth is that more people were killed in KwaZulu-Natal in clashes between the ANC and Inkatha than directly by the state in the entire history of apartheid. | Full Transcript |
| 22:05 | Dozens and dozens and dozens of killings, no prosecutions and the one prosecution that we’ve had so far is just the foot soldiers. And they have killed. I mean, you talk about Eugene de Kock, someone like Israel Hlongwane has killed dozens of people, I mean there are dozens of Eugene de Kock’s running around this region and nobody is paying any attention to it. They’re focusing on De Kock, but De Kock is one of many. There are many other equally evil people around here and they haven’t been touched so far. | Full Transcript and References |
| 22:36 | This week’s hearings brought the brutality of the ongoing conflict in the province home. | Full Transcript |
| 22:41 | For the past few days here in KwaZulu-Natal we have heard stories of horror like almost nowhere else in the country. We’ve heard stories of civil war between the ANC and the IFP, stories of fear, of suspicion, but mostly stories of death that happened everywhere, every day, every night for more than ten years. In one of the most horrific cases ever heard by the Truth Commission a mother and a grandmother this week told of watching how her four children and two grandchildren were slaughtered by the ANC before her eyes. | Full Transcript |
| 23:16 | 1990, Umgababa. When the ANC men came to kill them, two of Mrs. Shandu’s sons had already been killed. Now they rounded up the rest of the family and herded them into their house. // When they got there they made them face the wardrobes with their hands up and they stood behind them. The one person who survived there was a young man who opened the wardrobe and got inside. They shot the first one then they stabbed him. Every time they shot one, they’d stab them. I heard their voices. No one screamed twice. Each one screamed just once. Then I’d hear the next one. And another one until they finished them all. When they were all finished only one had survived. They poured petrol over their corpses inside the house and they lighted them. The fire burned. Just when it hit the wardrobe my grandchild came out with flames on his body. Lindo and Thulile were crying, trying to get out of the fire. Lindo and Thulile were not shot; they were thrown into the flames. Mafi was the last. After ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 26:54 | And then there are the people sometimes only vaguely associated with the ANC who were killed by the IFP. Often the KwaZulu police were suspected of being involved in these killings or involved by closing their ears and their eyes to people’s cries for help. | Full Transcript and References |
| 27:14 | 1990. Ezikhawini outside Empangeni, a war zone. // It was terrible. People were dying like flies. People were dying. It was terrible. We were just sleeping in the passages, not in our beds, not at all. There was the sound of bullets all over. From six o’clock you must close the gate, close the door and you must eat your supper in the passage. You could not sit in the dining room; you could not sleep in the bedroom. We were sleeping in the passage. Just like that. // The killers of Dorcars Luthuli’s husband walked up to his surgery door one evening posing as patients. When he opened the door they shot him. // By then my little daughter Nulundi came in and just went bezerk and said, who shot my dad? What were you talking about? And she told me, look at the cartridges and I looked at that. And then I came closer, I did mouth to mouth resuscitation and try to resuscitate him. He was gasping and blood was gushing right out the back. And I could see where the bullet entered the upper ...more | Full Transcript and References |
| 28:53 | 1995, Mtubatuba, an IFP stronghold. Another warzone. An assassination attempt by the IFP and KwaZulu police on ANC leader Bheki Ntuli is unsuccessful. Then they started killing his family. Then, on the 15th of September my brother’s son was also killed, Jabulani. In fact they killed two people on the 18th. It was my mother and Jabulani my cousin. And on the 15th of September 1995 they killed my brother’s son, Jabulani and on the 15th of December same year they killed my youngest brother. So those are the things that happened to my family and in all cases there were collaboration within the systems; that is the security force, the police and so on. They were always working hand in hand. You could find the KwaZulu police raiding your house now, preparing for the IFP to attack you in the night. | Full Transcript and References |
| 30:02 | In all these cases of murder nobody has ever been found guilty. Some have not even been investigated. The killers walk around as free men. The victims still live in fear. // This is a Truth Commission; this thing is very good for reconciliation. Why they don’t go to that Truth Commission and explain what happened because there’s amnesty. Nothing is going to be done to them. They are not going to be taken to jail. We are not asking them to be jailed, we are not asking for anything. We want truth, nothing else but truth. But they’re brave up to this very hour. It’s torture, it’s torture. They must know they are torturing us. And God is not going to tolerate that. The government may tolerate it, some other people may tolerate it but God, one day he’ll say about my people, enough is enough. They must be afraid of the revenge of God. | Full Transcript |
| 31:00 | Earlier this year a policeman serving an 18 year jail sentence for killing two ANC members near Empangeni appeared before the Amnesty Committee. The relatives of these victims were not present then, but this week they told the Truth Commission the other side of the story | Full Transcript and References |
| 31:18 | Sekulu reserve near Empangeni is surrounded by plantations. The trees, like people, go through cycles of life and death; and in nature as in life death often comes before its time. On the 14th of August 1992 a group of policemen attacked the house of Michael Mthethwa. Three policemen were killed during the shoot-out that followed. Michael and his friend Simon Msweli were both injured. | Full Transcript |
| 31:51 | When I got in there I found that there was blood in the house and I thought probably my husband had been injured and have been taken to the hospital. After they had left I would go see my husband at the hospital. // Warrant Officer Hendrik Steyn admitted that he killed the men. On his way to the scene of the incident he came across the bakkie in which the injured had been taken to hospital. Steyn got into the vehicle and rerouted it to a secluded spot. The injured men were dragged from the bakkie. | Full Transcript |
| 32:42 | I then at the same distance fired at Simon Msweli. After the first shot I fired two more shots just to make sure that he was dead. I thereafter fired two shots at Michael Mthethwa, the other deceased. | Full Transcript |
| 33:03 | But Simon Msweli’s mother does not agree with Steyn’s version of the story. // I think they were assaulted until they died because we couldn’t even identify him. His eyes had been gorged out. He was never shot. He was tortured. He was violated. He was also mutilated. We could not identify him. I only identified him through his thumb; there was a certain mark on his thumb. | Full Transcript |
| 33:42 | In his amnesty application Hendrik Steyn said that Simon Msweli was the leader of a gang that was wanted for arson, murder and robbery. His mother says he was a quiet child, definitely not a criminal. He was however a member of the ANC, so was his friend. | Full Transcript |
| 34:03 | Since members of the ANC and other liberal organisations were regarded as terrorists and therefore our enemies, we were taught that we had to act against them in a very serious manner. It was them or us. I believed in the political doctrines of the IFP and I supported them. | Full Transcript |
| 34:24 | Today, four years after a caspir drove into it the Mthethwa home is still a monument to destruction. Because of continuous police harassment the family moved away and only recently returned to their house and to the grave of their husband and father. The reason for his death is still a mystery. // All I know is that the police were actually looking for Simon Msweli. But because my husband happened to be on the scene he could identify them and they had to get rid of him. It will not go down well with me if Steyn got amnesty, because I think he should talk to me first if he wants to be forgiven. I should be the one to do it. | Full Transcript |
| 35:06 | I want to see Steyn and I want to see if I’ll forgive him. | Full Transcript |
