| Time | Summary | |
| 10:41 | One of the most beautiful regions of our continent: KwaZulu-Natal. But why can’t the killing stop? What is the root of the conflict? Is it ideological, political, historical or cultural? Or is it mainly criminal violence? These are the questions South Africans have been asking for years now about the conflict between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal. More than 10 000 people have died in this war since the early 1980s. During the past few weeks the Truth Commission has paid special attention to KwaZulu-Natal with two amnesty hearings and a special hearing on the actions of the Caprivi group, also called the Inkatha ‘Armed Wing.’ These hearings gave some answers to the nagging questions, but most of these were flatly denied by the IFP. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki recently gave his analysis when he led the ANC submission to the Truth Commission. | Full Transcript and References |
| 11:37 | I’m quite certain that the overwhelming majority of members of the IFP has never been involved in this violence, didn’t like it; didn’t want it, in much the same way that the overwhelming majority of members of the ANC would not want this violence. There wasn’t a situation in which two members of the ANC in KwaMashu, one member of the ANC one member of Inkatha; one stands up and says I, member of the IFP, I’m in favour of a federal South Africa. And this ANC one says no, no we don’t like this federation business, I’m in favour of a unitary South Africa. They disagree and then they draw guns on each other and shoot. No such thing. Organised gangs, political, were responsible for this violence. Those assassins who participated in the massacre in Shobashobane in Christmas ‘95 I think it was, had been killing since the eighties and they were not interested in any peace agreement between the IFP and the ANC, not in the least. | Full Transcript and References |
| 13:10 | The evidence led during the hearings on the Caprivi group seems to support Mbeki’s theory. In 1986 200 IFP members were taken to the Caprivi strip in Namibia and trained by the South African Defence Force. The men were being trained to form the core of an armed wing for the IFP. When they came back to KwaZulu-Natal they became involved in hit squads and massacres. Some of them have now started telling the truth about their role in the violence in KwaZulu-Natal. | Full Transcript and References |
| 13:45 | The training was not police training; it was military training, because if it was not military training there was no need for a political commissar and in the police force, a commander. Even the weapons which they were using, it was purely military weapons. For instance mortar, where can you use mortar, RPGs, like machine guns, AK47s, hand grenades, landmines, anti-personal mines, explosives, TNT, plastic explosives? I’m mentioning now weapons of war. | Full Transcript and References |
| 14:38 | They told me there was a great need that we should fight the ANC at all costs and told me about Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi as well, that he was not happy about the fact that he was losing his members because they were being killed by the ANC and he said the time had come when we have to face the ANC head on and fight it. | Full Transcript and References |
| 15:11 | We were trained and we knew that we were trained to kill only. There wasn’t anything that we knew; our enemy, the UDF was operating in those areas we were working therefore if you happen to meet a UDF member you have to shoot. | Full Transcript and References |
| 15:38 | You have got 200 people sent for paramilitary training and you have, if you look at the Umkhonto we Sizwe certified personal register of members who are eligible to be integrated into the National Defence Force: 18, 19 maybe even 20 000 members of MK, you put these two things in balance and you must admit that this is a drop in the ocean. You’ve got 200 people up against, and I think that is something which emerged from the Lombo hearings, you’ve got MK units operating in this province, armed with sophisticated weapons, who’ve received comprehensive military training. If the KwaZulu government decided to train people to protect community leaders, traditional leaders, government installations, I think that that is hardly a concept which is difficult to understand. | Full Transcript |
| 16:47 | While the politicians accuse and counter accuse, ordinary people are dying; nowhere do they die more frequently than in the beautiful Natal midlands. This is where Robert Zuma and Mduduzi Gumbi, supporters of the IFP, wasted the lives of fourteen people in 1991. They now want amnesty from the Truth Commission. | Full Transcript |
| 17:11 | We were over 60 in number I don’t remember exactly however, we grouped into two. The others had to attack one of the homesteads nearby. // We started… we hit the door, there was a hew in the door and we used it to hack the door. The door opened and we shot at the people and we also stabbed them with their spears and … One of them died instantly next to the rondavel; that was a person who had multiple stab wounds because he was stabbed by most of the people. // We continued and we were going back. When passing Matabeng on our way back, we passed the first homestead. We found women; we didn’t do anything to them. However, on the second family we found women, we injured those women. // We were not killing women, we were killing young men. I intended to kill these ANC young members, because these were the people who were attacking us. | Full Transcript and References |
| 18:35 | The widows from both sides of the conflict count the bodies of their loved ones heaping up in the village graveyards. Virginia Lombo lost her husband and breadwinner Lolo to a bullet fired by Nhlanhla Sibisi, an ANC cadre who also wants amnesty. | Full Transcript and References |
| 18:51 | There came a time of violence and fighting and he was chose to lead the people. Really, as his wife I cannot blame him, because of the way he treated me. Oh my God, he had taken care of me, even others used to call me a Mrs. | Full Transcript |
| 19:16 | Mister Zazi Khuzwayo was another ordinary person whose life was ended by a bullet. In September 1988 he got involved in an argument with a well known IFP leader in his community. // It was on the 9th of May 1987. My husband, since he was a businessman, was at his businesses and we then left with him with visitors from Johannesburg, who left at around 5:30. After that we went to place the money at his office. After that he had to pay his staff their weekly wages. I then suddenly became depressed and went upstairs for a cup of tea; a few minutes up there, not even ten minutes passed by, I hadn’t even drunk that tea, my son and a young boy who stayed at our house entered: Pulane Mokoena and Wiseman Khuzwayo. They came in running and said my husband had been shot. | Full Transcript and References |
| 20:15 | Samuel Jamile was a well known IFP politician in the eighties. Mrs. Khuswayo believes he’s responsible for her husband’s death. // The true story is that Jamile, myself Samuel Bhikizizwe Jamile, I have never killed anybody, I’ve never instructed anybody. I was an Inkatha man and these people were my political opponents, especially Zazi Khuzwayo in that he was against me, because he felt I was his political opponent and he actually said at a police station, at the KwaThabela police station that he would allow the comrades, he would let the comrades loose and I might not live on the next ten days. Within ten days they would kill me. Reconciliation is possible, so long as people want to do to others as they would have the people do to themselves. | Full Transcript |
