10 October 2001

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From anonymous

Below is the in-camera transcript of the hearing of the South African
Truth and Reconciliation Commission into gross violations of Human
Rights in detention camps run by the African National
Congress/Communist Party.

Gabriel Mthembu (nom du guerre Sizwe Mkonto) currently Director of
Surveillance in the South African National Intelligence Agency (NIA)
was responsible for acts of torture according to several victims.
More concerned with doing deals with Nigerian businessmen and soccer
boss Kaiser Motaung, his standing in the eyes of President Thabo 
Mbeki is said to have waned. The Director is to co-ordinate and 
manage NIA and National Co-ordinating Committtee (NICOC) tasks for 
surveillance on targets both South African and foreign, both criminal 
and the democratic opposition to the ANC/SACP. Most of the shadowing 
of USA and British diplomats in the executive capital, Pretoria/Tshwane, 
is done by Mtembu's local squad of 45 members. 

Mthembu has been wooed by the Canadian RCMP in its drive to forge
close links with NIA.

Pleading 'selective amnesia' after a road accident (he holds a fierce
reputation for leaving late-night parties at hight speed in his
luxury car) in which he is said to have suffered brain damage, he is
incapable of making a defence of short comings of the surveillance
section during his tenure.

Most of the commissioners in the transcript are sympathetic to the
ANC/SACP to which Mthembu belongs.



Cover Page I

[British date/time nomenclature]
[verbatim] 	

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION SECTION 29 INQUIRY
DATE: 03.04.98
HELD AT: JOHANNESBURG
NAME: MTUNZI GABRIEL MTHEMBU

CHAIRPERSON: Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is a Section 29
inquiry. It is an in camera hearing and is an investigative inquiry
in which we are seeking to gather information about issues that were
indicated in the invitation that was extended to the witness today.
I'm very pleased that you have come and we have to express our
appreciation that even though the notice was short and you had to
deal with voluminous documentation from us, you were however willing
and able to accept our invitation as indicated. This was intended to
be a panel of three commissioners with Mr Khoisan leading the
questions. However Ms Jasmin Sooka who was meant to have come from
the government office took ill this morning and has not been able to
come. Mrs Burton is with us here but she also will be with us for a
while and will have to be excused because there is an engagement in
the office that she has to go to and then she will come back as soon
as that engagement has been discharged.

I have a sense that at half past eleven we will have a short break
for tea and and one we will adjourn for lunch and if needs be we will
then continue from there on. I take it that Mr Kupedi, you are
representing Mr Thembu.

MR KUPEDI: That is correct Mr Chairman.

CHAIRPERSON: If you could then formerly place yourself on record.

MR KUPEDI: My name is Brian Kupedi and I appear here on behalf of Mr
Mthembu.

CHAIRPERSON: Do you have any opening remarks that you want to make at
this stage?

MR KUPEDI: Well save to say that we have prepared some sort of a
written response to the questions which were on the invitation. We
would want to perhaps hand this in; what one would like to know is
should we read through it first or do we hand it in so that when we
read it the commissioners follow where we are?

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much, it assists us to follow and it
facilitates in that the process if we have a copy of the documents as
and when they are being read into the record. So if you could let us
have the copies.

MR KUPEDI: May I apologise Mr Commissioner in that we only have one
copy prepared for you, we did not make sufficient copies. If it is
possible we would request your assistance in making three copies, in
fact two copies for yourselves as we have one here.

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CHAIRPERSON: I am sure that can be arranged. Miss Donna can you see
to it that we have sufficient copies for..? Just for the sake of
completeness, your panel then now constitutes Mrs Mary Burton to the
left who is a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee, myself
Ntsebeza who chairs these proceedings and also a member of the Human
Rights Violations Committee. Mr Zinzela Khoisan is an investigator in
the Cape Town office and will be leading the process on behalf of
this process on behalf of this subcommittee of the Commission.

Maybe to save time let us swear the witness in or let him take an
oath of affirmation, whatever he believes in and I will ask Mrs
Burton then to administer that ceremony.

MTUNZI GABRIEL MTHEMBU: (sworn states)

MRS BURTON: Chairperson may I then ask your forgiveness and that of
Mr Mthembu to be excused for a short while, I will return as soon as
my other commitments allow me to, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Your'e excused Mrs Burton.

Do you have the statement in front of you Mr Mthembu which you..?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes I do Commissioner.

CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead then and read it in the interests of time.

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you. To begin with I should like to thank the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission for me to appear before it. I have
attempted to provide a concise background picture of the ANC camp
Quatro that is, but there may be questions of clarifications arising
from my presentation and I'm willing to answer any further questions
related to the relevant issues.

On a practical not I should begin by pointing out that in the initial
invitation extended to myself by way of a letter, I'm referred to as
a national commissar. The actual positions occupied by me within the
ANC/MK ranks in Angola were those of camp commander, deputy regional
head of security and intelligence and national head of security and
intelligence in Tanzania. It appears that some of the questions have
been formulated for the person occupying the post of national
commissar and therefore related to matters beyond the realm of my
jurisdiction. I have therefore only answered those questions so far
as they relate to my role during the period under review.

My background:

I was born on the 2nd of June 1916 in Soweto and joined the ANC in
Swaziland in 1976 in the wake of the Soweto uprisings. I received my
first military training in Angola over a period of five months before
moving on to a formal training from Cuban specialists, at Nova Gateng
in Northern Angola. In 1978 I was transferred to Quebashe and then to
the then German Democratic Republic where I was trained in urban
guerilla warfare for six months.

Page 3	

On returning to Angola I was deployed as an instructor in Fazenda,
the Northern part of Angola. After a couple of months I was sent back
to the GDR for specialised training in security intelligence. On my
return I was deployed as a recording officer at Quebashe until the
end of 1979. After this I was appointed camp commander of Camp 32. I
was camp commander at Quatro from 1979 to 1982.

1982 I went to the Soviet Union for further training. Upon my return
from the Soviet Union in 1984 I worked in Luanda as deputy head of
the intelligence and security department for the region. In 1986 I
was transferred to Tanzania where I was the overall head of the
Department of Intelligence and Security for the region for two years.
In 1988 I went around the world with the cultural ensemble of the ANC
called Amandhla. After a six months tour I returned to Tanzania and
assumed my former responsibilities. Subsequent to that I went to
England to study.

At first I enrolled as a student in advanced levels and subsequently
I did a BA Hons degree.

In 1991 I left England to return to South Africa. In that same year I
went to work for the ANC at Shell House as the national
administrative secretary for counter intelligence until the
amalgamation of the old apartheid intelligence units. I'm currently
employed by the National Agency.

Now in reference to the questions I'm specifically now going to
respond to question 2 which refers to the setting up of detention
facilities in Angola particularly Quatro, the structure of those
facilities, the procedures and the standing orders issued to the
administration and the command.

When I left South Africa to join the ANC's military wing I did so
with the aim of receiving military training so as to return to South
Africa and fight against the system of apartheid. I never had any
particular interest in intelligence work but as a soldier was
prepared to be deployed wherever the movement deemed it necessary and
in relation to the setting up of these detention structures I must
point out that the ANC did not always have detention facilities like
Camp 32. It was only in the wake of the watershed of June 1976 at the
time when the ANC was receiving an exodus of students of new recruits
when many problems had arisen, problems of a security nature for
instance like the bombardment of the camp where we trained which was
housing about 500 to 700 people.

I must point out that the precision with which that camp was
bombarded gave an indication that the information of the assailants
was so precise that it could only have been coming from people who
were within the camp itself. Added to that the poisoning of MK
soldiers was yet another indicator that there had to be a need to
cleanse the ranks of Mkhonto weSizwe. Whilst we were training some
there were individuals who randomly shot at comrades and against
Cuban specialists and when investigations were mounted, it emerged
that some of these

Page 4 	
people were actually in the employ of the racist apartheid regime.

CHAIRPERSON: Perhaps can't we adopt a procedure in terms of which you
should read what you have drafted into the record and then thereafter
you can expand when questions are put on each and every issue? Let's
just read what you have, although it's not prepared in the form of an
affidavit, at least it's a structure or a framework in which we can
begin to ...(indistinct) the issue that you are going to be dealing
with?

So you had gone as far the ANC did not always have detention or
holding facilities at Camp 32. Then you can read from there on until
the end and then thereafter we will put questions to you.

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you very much Commissioner. I shall proceed.

The ANC did not always have detention or holding facilities at Camp
32. It was only set up after the watershed of June 1976. At this time
the ANC received the mass exodus of new recruits. Though many of the
new arrivals were known to each other, the ANC did not have a
sufficiently developed network within the country to cross check
information they provided. A contributing factor was a difficult
situation in which the ANC had to operate in certain front line
states as an underground outfit with few resources. In many incidents
the movement had to rely on the bona fides of the new recruits.

Because of this some apartheid agents used these opportunities to
slip through the security net to infiltrate the organisation. The

period following 1976 was an extremely dangerous one for the ANC; the
movement became the target for acts of sabotage, random shootings,
poisoning of its soldiers, attempted assassination of its leaders. It
was in the context of this period that a detention camp was set up as
a place to hold enemy agents. This was necessary both for their own
safety and for the safety of MK cadres. The policy of the movement
was that these detention camps were initially started as
rehabilitation centres.

The structure of the detention camp specifically Quatro or Camp 32:

The camp commander was under the command of the commander. His deputy
was the camp commissar. The rest of the administration consisted of
the chief of staff, chief of logistics, chief of ordinance, the chief
recording officer. The staff consisted of the staff commander and
staff commissar, the communication officer, the medical orderly,
drivers and recording officers. The next layer of administration was
a platoon of guards led by a platoon commander and the platoon
commissar. This platoon was divided into sections each with its
section commander and commissar.

Procedure and the standing orders issued to the administration and
camp command.

Page 5
 	
The purpose of the camp was a rehabilitation centre. The only people
detained in Quatro were suspected, confessed or proven enemy agents.
The camp leadership was required to provide maximum security for
detainees and the instruction was that nobody should be allowed to
escape. The standing order was that no excessive force or torture
should be tolerated regarding the treatment of detainees. On arrival
detainees would be put in isolation cells until their cases had been
cleared, processed that is. They would be issued with uniforms
different from other people in the camp. Those in isolation were
exempted from participating in any camp activities. The only people
with whom they would have contact with would be their interrogators.
As soon as the investigation had been completed they would be
integrated with other inmates in communal cells. Each communal cell
had a commander and a commissar who saw to the discipline and general
welfare of cell mates.

Being deployed in the camp for guard duty did not mean that the cadre
concerned was cut off from all other opportunities but there was a
general perception that once deployed in this capacity, one's chances
of ever taking on other duties in the movement were very slim. Cadres
tended to regard the inmates as being the cause of their being what
they saw as grounded and this resentment contributed directly to
certain cases of abuse of prisoners. The situation was not made
easier given the fact that some of the inmates would taunt the
guards. One of the most insults was that the guards, fearing to go to
the front areas and tackle the forces of the regime, had pleaded to
be deployed at the rehabilitation centre where life was relatively
easy and less dangerous. This infuriated the guards.

Contrary to the perception created by the deliberate disinformation,
prisoners often got better food than the guards.

This was because it was envisaged that those who already
irretrievably lost in serving the regime's cause could in future be
used in prisoner exchange programs, thereby freeing some of our
captured combatants.

When there was a food crises, this policy also aggravated the
relations between guards and inmates. The inmates followed a program
which included political education, manual chores and during leisure
times, sport or reading.

Question 3 - The interrogation of detainees.

Camp 32 was a holding area for suspected, confessed or proven agents.
These inmates were brought from different ANC camps in Angola,
Tanzania, the front-line states and even from within South Africa
itself. Because it had already been established that these inmates
were serving in the apartheid state prior to their arrival at Camp
32, the need for their interrogation was very minimal and as such
this procedure was rarely necessary. The instances where
interrogation might become necessary included:

	when a detain was implicated in a new case that he or she
had confessed to prior to their being sent to Camp 32, when

Page 6 	

new information was gathered inside the country that implicated a
detainee in another case, when new information was gathered by our
own internal camp intelligence networks.

Question 4 - Authorisation for use of force.

Political persuasion was the principal method used to establish
information. There was a standing order that force should not be used
to extract information from detainees. We were instructed that
because the detainees were black South Africans they were part of the
oppressed masses and therefore should be seen as cases for
rehabilitation rather than punishment. However there were instances
when force was used. When we were told by the national director the
late Comrade Mzwai Piliso, that we had to extract information using
whatever means it takes from certain suspects, these suspects were
believed to be harbouring crucial information that could result in
the death or arrest of comrades as well as the exposure of arms
caches during double agents and other operational strategies.
Therefore the possible use of force was seen as a preventative
measure under the circumstances.

When rehabilitated detainees were released and promoted to the status
of an armed guard, in some instances they then abused this position
to free and arm other detainees and then escaped. If we recaptured
these prisoners they were beaten up and in some instances when some
Angolan women were raped by an ANC cadres, the guilty party was
beaten before being sentenced to death by the tribunal.

Question 5 - Mechanism for control of excesses and abuse.

The main mechanism for control was that the camp was guided by the
standing order that force should not be used against detainees. If
guards were found guilty of defying this order and used force against
detainees, they were disciplined and punished accordingly.

Question 6 - Guidelines and procedure in respect of judicial
proceedings, particularly the Tribunal.

This did not fall under my jurisdiction.

Question 7 - Authorisation and minimum conditions for executions.

This too did not fall under my jurisdiction.

Question 8 - Information and further particulars relating to the
deaths of Timothy Case Remani, Boyithumo Lebalof, Philip Mangena,
Josehp Mokwena, Gabrial Moshwewu. These were senior and trusted ANC
cadres who in certain instances held important posts in the movement.
It was with deep shock that they were exposed as apartheid enemy
agents and implicated in a spy network that was groomed by the South
African police for a long term penetration of the ANC. They were
implicated in acts of poisoning, sabotage, the deaths of other
cadres; they were in certain instances instructed to act as agent
provocateurs and also passed on crucial intelligence to the apartheid
government which in one case led to the aerial bombardment of an ANC
camp

Page 7 	

in 1979. They were subsequently sentenced to death by the Tribunal.

The last question - The alleged torture of Gordon Mushwewu and
William Mashodana. These two men fell under the same spy network as
above.

Thanks Commissioner, that is my submission. CHAIRPERSON: Mr Khoisan.

MR KHOISAN: Thank you very much Mr Mthembu. Just a couple of points
here just so that I can gain clarity. You informed us that you were
in the second, in the third paragraph under the heading Background,
you informed us that in 1978 1 was at Quebashe and then you went to
the German Democratic where you were trained in guerilla warfare for
six months. On returning to Angola I was employed as an instructor in
Fazenda, Northern Angola. After a couple of months I was sent back to
the GDR for specialised training in security intelligence and from
there you were deployed as a recording officer at Quebashe. Is that
correct?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes sir.

MR KHOISAN: Okay, and then you were subsequently redeployed as the
camp commander at Camp 32 also known as Quatro.

MR MTHEMBU: Yes sir.

MR KHOISAN: Now at the time that you went to the German Democratic
Republic as it was known then, was it the view, and I'm talking about
your second trip there, that when you received specialised training
in security intelligence, did you have a sense that you were going to
be - just one second - alright no ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: He was trying to establish the credentials of one of the
researchers. From this distance we couldn't see who he was.

MR KHOISAN: I'm sorry I had to clear that, this is a confidential
inquiry and only people who are members of the Commission are allowed
to be here and of course Ms Chere has been doing a lot of the work in
this respect.

Nevertheless, so the time that you went to the GDR for the second
time and received training in specialised intelligence, was it the
view, did you have the understanding that you were being trained to
take on a specific roll within the Security Department particularly
in respect of Camp 32, or is that something that emerged only
afterwards?

MR MTHEMBU: Thanks, at the time when I was sent for specialised
training in the GDR, it was not necessarily in preparation for my
subsequent appointment as a camp commander at 32, it was purely as I
view it now, it was purely part of the plans of the leadership at the
time because I was sent with some people who were very senior in the
movement for that particular course. It was part of a process of
creating a very strong specialised intelligence and counter
intelligence capability.

Page 8 	

MR KHOISAN: And of course you've gone over a couple of incidents but
prior to being deployed to Camp 32, to quatro, you were after your
training you were deployed as a recording officer at Quebashe and
that was towards the end of 1979. What was the situation that you
detected inside because we've been given to understand that there
were problems at that time in Quebashe and there have been
indications that there have been some kind of security problems; what
was your view of the situation after returning to Quebashe?

MR MTHEMBU: Thanks, I do think that there were problems at about that
time because upon finishing our training in 1977 or thereabouts in
Nova Gatenga which was in the South of Angola we were transferred to
Quebashe and some of the people that ought to have transferred with
ourselves actually defied both the camp and the national leadership.
There was a group of about 14 people who did not want to transfer but
subsequently those people who were brought to Quebashe, the type of
problems that existed at the time related amongst others, to people
going out of the camp, or rather sneaking out of the camp to engage
in elicit transactions, exchanging whatever possessions were in the
camp for dagga. We also had people stealing bananas which were not
our own but to those of peasants. We also had problems - for instance
I recall there was an instance of somebody that died and I think that
person died as a result of negligence on the part of the commander at
the time. The commander unilaterally placed land mines within, not
land mines, grenades, within what you would call the yard of the
camp. As part of the administration one would have expected that we
were going to be informed about that. We were not informed and I
think in one instance when people were either playing around or
training or whatever, somebody actually ignited the grenades and
somebody by the name of Lloyd Gansi died. So it was the commander as
I could analyse the situation who did this thing and did so not as a
result of a consultation with the entire administration. But besides
that there were indications of quite a number of problems. He would
abuse, he would take transport from the camp, go out and drink
alcohol outside, He would come back and it was not expected that the
commander could just go out and visit camps and consult with some
girls and what have you. But this was the impression I gained, that
the commander was abusive of the powers that he had at the time.

There were also threats of bombardment, it was after the other camp
had been bombarded so there was a state of alert.

Basically I'm saying there were problems that needed to be ironed
out. There was also an element of anxiety because most of us were
itching, even having finished or completed our training, we either
had to be taken abroad for specialised training or sent home for
operations. So there was that element of restlessness if I may refer
to it as such. Thank you. 

MR KHOISAN: What year was this?

Page 9 	

MR MTHEMBU: This was after we had finished the training in Gatenga,
this was around '78 building up to '79 thereabouts.

MR KHOISAN: Now were all these problems you were indicating after 
the so-called September Episode?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes sir. September was in September 1977 when we were
still being trained by Cubans in the south of Angola.

MR KHOISAN: Can you give an indication of what it was? General
Masondo did mention some features of it.

MR MTHEMBU: Of what, of the poisoning incident? 

MR KHOISAN: Why it was called Black September? 

MR MTHEMBU: I think that episode is referred to as Black September 
because of the tragedy that it brought about. I was there myself. 
We were about a group of 500 people who had been from training, 
we came back from training, I think it was late afternoon. As usual 
we formed up as units and companies were a detachment. We formed 
up in queues, we went to dish along the kitchens, we had our food, 
I think we were having fish, rice and some powdered egg which was 
more or less a staple type of food. We ate, there was nothing wrong 
but it was no time that almost each and everyone, every other third 
person was complaining of some stomach disturbance. As others were 
complaining of that, others were vomiting, others were having 
diarrhoea. It was such a very painful experience, I mean I don't 
have words to describe the agony that one had to go through as a 
result of those pains, it was literally cutting, the pains, the 
intestines; so agonizing was the pains that you were not even shy 
to relieve yourself in front of everybody, women were not shy, 
men were not shy, seniority did not matter, it was a very very 
painful incident and I must point out that in my assessment, had 
it not been for the intervention of the Cuban specialists, the 
soldiers that were there, the Cuba officers, I have no doubt in 
my mind that most of us could have died actually. Now happily the 
Cubans, because they were instructors were eating separately from 
ourselves. So I think in the course of poisoning of the food that 
was served to us subsequently, they survived and they took some 
of us, they went to Benguela Town, they brought in some specialists 
from Benguela who administered treatment to most of us. We did not 
recover immediately. This persisted until the early hours of the 
morning but the following day some people were still bed ridden 
and briefly I should say that's what happened actually.

MR KHOISAN: Did anybody die from this incident or was it because of
the intervention of these Cuban doctors that people didn't die?

MR MTHEMBU: I don't recall, no definitely, nobody died as a result of
that poisoning but I want to vouch that if it was not for the
intervention of the Cubans with the medication that they gave us, I
do think that perhaps not one person could have survived that
incident except those that did not consume the food that we ate which
was poisoned. Thank you Commissioner Mr Khoisan.

Page 10 	

MR KHOISAN: Would I be correct to assume that a lot of the people,
and I'm still on the issue of Quebashe, by the way who was the
commander at the time that Lloyd Gansebu died as a result of
negligence, who was in command of that camp at that time who placed
those land mines around there.

MR MTHEMBU: Grenades, it was Kenneth Mahamba.

MR KHOISAN: Kenneth Mahamba and this is the same person that is one
of the subjects under discussion here today, the one Timothy Kase
Seremane.

MR MTHEMBU: Yes.

MR KHOISAN: Okay I just want to be clear. Now would I be correct to
assume that because a lot of the people who had recently undergone
training from the 1976 period, that it would generally be accepted
that the camp was full of young people, both at cadre and at command
level?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes in the main, you had instances of people who were not
necessarily students but who took advantage of the openings that
arose in the wake of the June 16 uprisings, but predominantly, though
not exclusively most people who were there were young people, young
people in their 20's, others less than 20, others approaching 40, and
then there would be very few at all people who were above say 50 or
what have you, so I do think that you are correct in that
observation.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now in terms of the counter intelligence structure
that existed, first in Nova Gateng and then being brought down to
Quebashe, how developed in your view would this have been and what
level of training did the intelligence structures, intelligence
forces at camp level have?

MR MTHEMBU: Well essentially when we addressed matters of counter
intelligence in the context of people in the camp, new recruits,
people to be sent to the front, I should like to say with the second
training we received in GDR, the standards were extremely high. You
will recall that the Germans are renowned for being very good in this
craft, so we got essentially training that equipped us first of all
with a thorough screening of new recruits. It equipped us with skills
of establishing the potentialities of different people because it was
also part of our work once we were interviewing people to categorise
them to make a break-down in terms of their capabilities either for
further specialised training of for infiltration back into the
country. So I would say in the main we were also trained in skills of
protection, establishing underground networks, the gathering of
intelligence and all those things, those are processes that we
undertook actually to do and hence it did help a great deal to
uncover lots of people who hitherto were thought were good comrades,
genuine comrades, committed in the struggle, were in fact people at
the service of the apartheid regime, so I should say that the
standards were high for the challenges and demands of the time.

Page 11 	

MR KHOISAN: Okay and Mr Mthembu, so the situation is that when you
were still at Quebashe and even earlier in Nova Gatenga from your own
experience, because there were those things leading to Quatro, what
was the experience in respect of dealing with suspected persons
before the establishment of Quatro, and what was the minimum
threshold for somebody to be dealt with according to security
procedures?

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you, essentially what used to happen before the
creation of Quatro, there would be visits from time to time by
leaders, especially the late Mzondile Piliso. He would often brief
people at the camp about the situation inside the country, the
situation in the front line states, the possibilities of going inside
the country. In some instances he would brief us about operations
that were conducted by members of Mkhonto weSizwe, that would be
infiltrated inside the country, then they would give a chance for
comrades or soldiers to ask questions, people would generally ask
questions. What tended to be included in his address whenever he
visited the camp was the issue of enemy agents. He would address this
question and he would address it politically by saying that the
nature of the situation that existed within South Africa was such
that some people were actually compelled to do certain things that
they would ordinarily not want to do. He would refer for instance to
people who would be arrested either for criminal type of activities,
who would then be compelled with a threat of long term imprisonment,
to actually agree to work for the state as spies and be infiltrated
into the ranks of the ANC. It was around this period also that the
then foreign minister of South Africa announced or was placed on
record as having said that out of every 10 that go outside to join
the liberation movement, in particular the ANC, five would be their
own people.

That was brought to our attention but in relation to suspects, in
fact I must point out that from time to time when Mzondile Piliso
visited the camps to speak about these issues, he would move people.
Some people would out of their own accord approach members of
intelligence and say that actually they'd actually not divulged all
that they wanted to divulge in relation to their backgrounds and what
have you, and invariably people would then say, I was arrested for
this particular thing and what have you, and Sgt So-and-so said I
must come and work against the ANC for them and what have you, so you
would have those cases and you would have those cases more often than
not where people would confess to have - because it emerged that
people were agreeing not so much because they were committed to the
cause of apartheid, but because they wanted to liberate themselves
from the conditions under which they found themselves at the time.

Of course at the same time then there would be other people who'd be
suspected, not so much because they of their own accord approached
the members of their security department

Page 12 	

but invariably because of their behaviour. They would be people who
would unwittingly demonstrate a level of understanding in terms of
military equipment that could only be associated with somebody who
might have received a very specialised type of training. Some them,
for instance, the precision with which they would manipulate
artillery weapons, the calculations involved and what have you,
however good they may be in mathematics, you don't readily understand
some of these things unless after a certain period of time, so there
would be an indication one way and another.

Then others would make slips, they would slip in terms of their
communication. I must point out that there were also covert
structures within the comrades themselves, people who would gather
because when we used to sit and chat informally you tended to speak
about each others backgrounds and then people would say certain
things are not said in their biographies, and then the discrepancy
would emerge. Subsequently people would then be called for
interviews, confronted as it were with the information that emerged
not from their original stories. Some of them would confess, others
would resist to confess. In some instances others were detected for
instance drawing up the entire camp indicating positions of camps and
what have you, you would obviously then conclude that this person was
- there would have been no reason why a person does that except with
an intention of conveying that particular type of information to
somebody else, so those too would be registered definite suspects.

You also had people who would stop at nothing to discredit some
members of the leadership. They would often speak about other people
having a nice time staying in London whilst we are suffering here,
suffering from malaria, being killed by land mines, being ambushed by
UNITA and what have you. It was true we were exposed to very very
testing conditions, it was extremely difficult. In the main that
particular type of difficulties with regards to those that were
committed to the struggle, it actually served to sustain one's
commitment, it would make you stronger because at the end of the day
you would ask yourself why am I suffering this much and would ascribe
the blame, not so much to the leaders of the ANC, to the system
itself within the country. So those that went out of their way
actually to try and ascribe their difficult conditions to leaders
would invariably be suspected also of pursuing certain agendas within
the movement itself and some of them were obviously regarded as
suspects.

But also you had as part of the screening process, people would also
be asked if they knew of any enemy agents whilst they were in the
country within their localities and what have you, and people would
say, yes so-and-so who stays third house from my place is an enemy
agent because the system would always go there, do this and do that
and what have you. So those people

Page 13 	

with names such as those would be systematically recorded so that
when people like those would come they would be asked about their
activities.

Others would easily claim to have been leaders of some organisations
or general organisations that were resisting against apartheid, they
would easily claim to have been leaders there, to have played this
particular role and what have you, so when you actually check with
genuine members who belonged there, not one person but a number of
persons, you then discover that these people were telling lies and as
investigators we then had to find out the motive as to why they were
telling lies. We would then invite them for interviews, find out why
they were telling lies.

Some of them would confess and actually say, I don't even know that
organisation, I was told to actually say this is where I belong, this
is the role I played.

And then you would have cases of people who would be arrested,
charged under 13 sections of the laws of apartheid. We generally knew
that if you were charged under a particular law, say Section 29, the
ultimate result would be this and that and that and that. So some
people would actually be released mysteriously whereas in fact they
normally be charged under very serious type of sections in terms of
the apartheid laws of the time. So those cases too we would persue.
Others would claim to have escaped from prisons in very mysterious
circumstances, their colleagues are left behind and what have you, so
you try and figure out, how did they escape and ultimately you would
find that some of them, their actual escape was stage-managed because
the particular person would have agreed to work for the system and
therefore to come and infiltrate the ranks of the liberation
movement.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now just in terms of that, I think what I'm trying
to get is, when you found somebody and it was determined according to
your criterion that this person was operating under dual purposes,
you know having - maybe presenting a front of being part of the
movement and on the other hand freelancing or working for another
organisation like the apartheid regime, the former government, what
did you do with those people before the establishment of Quatro?

MR MTHEMBU: Before the establishment of Quatro, it became apparent to
us that there were people who voluntarily confessed to have been sent
by the regime to infiltrate the ranks. All those people without
exception, those that confessed of their own accord were not punished
in any way. There were other people who were kept in Angolan prisons
who were discovered it would appear even before we were there and
they would be locked up in prisons; I'm speaking not of not more than
five persons here, I know of about three, unfortunately I cannot
recollect their names, but generally there was no lock-up, there was
no holding area and people would generally be mingling, interacting
with everybody else. It would be known only to the recording officers
or the

Page 14

members of the Department of Intelligence Security that somebody has
confessed but in terms of the other members they would not be known.

MR KHOISAN: Was there occasion where somebody would be for instance
taken to detention in an Angolan Prison or an Angolan detention
centre or handed over to the Angolan authorities for safe keeping,
etc etc.

MR MTHEMBU: I think there were instances like that, there were cases
where people were locked up in the prison who were members of the
ANC.

MR KHOISAN: Do you have any knowledge of that? Because I see from
before you went there, before you went to Camp 32, you were deployed
as a recording officer..

MR MTHEMBU: Yes.

MR KHOISAN: ..and we understand the recording officer would be in the
graph of the, if I just look at the graph of the intelligence
structure, the structure goes down from a National Regional
Directorate, when you get off of that you get Recording, Screening,
Interrogating and Security Guys. Okay that's the way that particular
thing would have worked. So as a recording officer before you went to
Quatro, did you have any occasion to be a part of, or to record a
matter or a case or deal with a person who was suspected where they
ended up in an Angolan Prison before Quatro was established?

MR MTHEMBU: No, definitely not, I know of cases but which were not
personally handled by myself. These were cases of people who were
discovered or were locked up even before were formally introduced to
those things. I don't recall any instance where somebody as a result
of being suspected to be an enemy agent was taken during my period of
tenure either as a recording officer or as a camp commander of 32,
taken to an Angolan prison; I don't recall, I guess there would have
been instances where Angolans themselves were affected, either
somebody raping an Angolan woman, shooting their children or what
have you, but not purely cases of security that were purely South
African, I can't recall instance like that.

MR KHOISAN: Okay so you don't know, I'm just trying to establish
whether what level of understanding you have about the five or six or
seven things which predicated the establishment of Quatro, you see,
were you given to understand that before you were made the camp
commander of Camp 32, that the Angolan government was having problems
helping South African Detainees, was that ever put to you and
discussed with you.

MR MTHEMBU: It subsequently got put to myself.

MR KHOISAN: By whom?

MR MTHEMBU: By the leaders, I think Mzondile Piliso or Andrew
Masondo. There from time to time discussions between our leaders as
they would be visiting Angola and the Angolan government and I know
for a long time we had people who were locked up in Angolan prisons.
I think at a certain stage the

Page 15 	

Angolans felt that we should deal with our own cases but also on the
part of the ANC there was beginning to emerge an anxiety that some of
these people could unduly release information about the ANC or about
South Africa which ordinarily would have been better, if it was the
ANC only that was privy to that information.

But for instance I know part of the reasons that contributed or
rather informed the creation of Quatro subsequently, I got to learn
this where a group of people were actually deserting from Fazenda,
they tried to dessert to some offices, they explained those offices
as UN offices and what have you, but given that these people had
already been exposed to some of the secrets, the camp outlay, the
secrets where the anti-aircraft guns were deployed, the numbers of
people, the actual identities of people, it was felt that since they
want to escape, you can't keep them with everybody else, there must
be a holding area. That might have contributed to many other reasons
that informed the creation of Camp 32.

MR KHOISAN: Okay and now when you were a recording officer at the
time and given the fact that you were not the commander of the camp,
but you were a recording officer, but you were part of the security
and may I must take by extension also the intelligence structure of
the ANC, inside a camp like Quebashe, how many people at that time
before you got deployed to Camp 32, would you say were on the list of
people who were suspected or people who already had been processed,
or people who had cases pending, or people who in one way or another
had fallen foul of the movement or its structures or principals?

MR MTHEMBU: We had a very significant number of people who were
strongly suspected to be in the payroll of the apartheid system. This
is inclusive of those who confessed voluntarily because even those,
some of those were using this as a trick to actually persue their
goals. I cannot state the exact numbers because I cannot recollect
the exact numbers but we had a sizeable proportion of people who were
suspected or who were confessed and proven enemy agents.

MR KHOISAN: And what kind of situation did this create, because if
you had a sizeable number, how many people did you have in the camp
then in Quebashe for instance?

MR MTHEMBU: A couple of hundred I think.

MR KHOISAN: So a few hundred, so if you had a few hundred and you had
say 50% of the people in that camp who were in this category of
people unprocessed, suspected, common criminal or just anarchist or
what somebody who was just out of line, and then you had this other
50%, what relationship would that grouping of people have with the
security apparatus of the ANC in the camps?

MR MTHEMBU: There would be the relationship because of the numbers,
because of the influence of some of these people that would be
regarded as suspects or confirmed enemy agents, the relationship was
not particularly great given that the security

Page 16 	

department were seen as enforcers of discipline and some of these
people who were not necessarily disciplined, they would break the
rules and invariably security would be called upon to put them to
order. So I would not say security and that particular category of
people were the best of friends, I couldn't possibly say that.

MR KHOISAN: So in terms of the relationship of forces that you're
telling me, is that you know security was having an ungovernable
situation or close to an ungovernable situation, is that what you're
suggesting? Because obviously I'm trying to understand, if we have
such a large number of people in a camp, you don't have detention
facility set up, you have a large number of people in the camp,
you're trying to prosecute a struggle at the same time, you
constantly, you have Nova Gatenga, you have this poisoning incident
and you have people on high alert, but you also have these people and
their relationship to the other people who are not suspected, and the
way I understand some of these people and they have a way with other
people, so then do you think the security department at times felt
under pressure from not only these elements but also the camp.

MR MTHEMBU: I think that observation is correct. Actually in a sense
without any attempt at trying to justify the setting up of 32, I do
think that if at a certain stage we did not take people to lock them
up at 32, we could have experienced a situation similar to the one we
experienced in 1984 of mutiny, the killing en masse of comrades, so
in a sense I should say these people were very active and we're
beginning to reach levels of ungovernability and we must recall that
we are speaking about people who were armed here and there had been
cases of random shootings within Quebashe itself at that time. I
recall the case of Moses Rosifate who was from Orlando and it had
subsequently emerged that he was a police officer, leave alone an
agent within the ANC but he did not make it know to the ANC that he
was a policeman. He killed himself. Before doing this he literally
spread fire with an intention of killing other comrades. Now happily
in the tents that we created, these were tents that would not be
erected on an ordinary surface, you would first start by digging what
you call a dwelling and then the tent would just serve as a roofing
but we would actually living in the dwellings themselves or what you
would call a trench to use a conventional term. If it was not for the
fact that they got to hear the first bullets and the instinctive
reaction as a soldier when you hear a sound of a gun is to take
cover, there would have been lots of people who were killed by
himself.

So it then underpinned the necessity that we needed to keep some of
those that were registered as dangerous or unreliable in a place
safer than the camp itself because then their continued existence
within the camp itself threatened the lives of the other comrades and
we were also not sure of how other soldiers would react if it became
known to them that so and so was actually an

Page 17 	

agent done this back home and what have you. So there was a need to
separate genuine members who were committed and those that were
tainted in way or the other.

MR KHOISAN: Yes but there's also another part of this Mr Mthembu and
I want to put it to you also that given the fact that you had that
kind of relationship of forces whereby you had an uncontrollable
situation, which you say I'm putting it conservatively at 50% but you
say there were a large number of people and because we cannot
numerate that now, we cannot go through a list of people, we will
just say a large number of people and you have the security
departments and then you have the other members. Could it also be
true that in a situation like that the security department could
become introverted, could become a structure which, because of the
nature of the situation in which it engages began to relate to
itself?

MR MTHEMBU: Began to?

MR KHOISAN: Began to relate to itself.

MR MTHEMBU: I think I cannot rule that out in absolute terms, but we
were within a military type of situation, you had to guard very
jealously against particular things that you do and things that you
are not supposed to do. There might have been a temptation for some
people to become a law unto themselves but under the circumstances,
the consequences of doing certain things that are wrong or that tend
to violate, established and standing orders, you could not guarantee
that you would be sentenced to a firing squad, so there would have
been caution on the part people, however much they might have been
tempted to become a law unto themselves. But even besides that were
required from time to time to submit reports, monthly reports to the
leadership, first to the regional command, and the regional command
would in turn take those reports to Lusaka, to the national
leadership, or some of the leaders who would visit the camps from
time to time, would then get some of these reports in Luanda itself.

I'm saying basically there were no shortages of people who were sent
by the regime but I don't want to be construed as saying at any given
stage, the number of enemy agents was necessarily more than the
number of genuine members of the liberation movement.

MR KHOISAN: No what I'm trying to establish here is given the fact
that the security department was the only people inside the camp who
knew the real relationship of forces inside the camp, the other
members inside the camp had no idea of this relationship of forces,
could that have created a situation where the security department
could develop paranoid complexes for instance? Could develop where a
situation could have been created where that could have acted as a
springboard for excesses on the part of the security department?

MR MTHEMBU: Oh I think I understand the question now.

First of all in a camp like 32, in a camp like Quebashe, the

Page 18 	

person overall in charge was a commander and he was not a member of
the security department. That was the most senior person. The
commissar was second in terms of the hierarchy, not also a member of
the security department. The chief of staff was a senior member,
number 3 in terms of seniority in the camp, was equally not a member
of the security department, so orders that had to be obeyed in terms
of routine camp life, were those of the commander, the commissar and
the chief of staff because it was an ordinary type of a camp. So
there are very little chances if at all that security could have
become, given that structure, a law unto itself at the expense of the
officer in charge in which case it was the camp commander deputised
by the camp commissar and the chief of staff. I don't think that
situation could have arisen in a normal camp type of establishment.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now what I'm trying to get to here is the situation
Mr Mthembu where there were three commissions of inquiry, not only
into the mutiny in 1984, disturbances at Quatro, the situation in
Quatro itself, abuses, excesses etc, but for instance where the
security department and it's modus operandi and it's culture, this
particular question is a situation where you are under siege as you
pointed us to, you were at Nova Gatenga, you had the poisoning, you
had the statement by Pik Botha where he said, half of your membership
is on our payroll, you had a situation whereby you had this case of
Moses Rasefati and these shootings and also certain things that you
detected. In my view what I'm trying to establish from you, is
whether this in the early stages before the beginnings of Quatro,
created a situation whereby the security department developed a
mechanism where it became insulated from the - I understand what
you're saying about the camp commander and the camp commissar, but
the security department also could have received and instruction to
do collection on the camp commander because the security department
over and above everything else had to report to the higher security
structures. I for instance problems were detected with the camp
commander or the commissar, the security department would do
collection on that camp commander, I mean so the camp commander
wasn't necessarily the be all and end all of control for the security
department.

What I'm saying is that could it have been at that stage that the
security department, because of the situation, the relationship of
forces, developed mechanisms which later on became distorted?

MR MTHEMBU: It's a very complex type of a situation, it is true that
as much as the commander, commissar and chief of staff were senior
officers in relation to the security, security on matters of security
would be allowed be allowed to investigate them. If you are asking
about possibilities of excesses and abuse and what have you, I would
say there were instances where people tended to abuse their power, we
were not a monolithic or a homogeneous type of unit, we had varying
degrees of political

Page 19 	

understanding, relations with people at camps. Other people literally
interpreted being a member of security like being a member of the
police in the South African situation at the time where you are a
power unto yourselves. We had instances such as those and whenever
those were brought to our attention we would speak with the people
who tended to violate the regulations. Depending on the gravity of
the violation we would also punish people for having transgressed
certain types of procedures.

I don't know if I understood the question clearly as to
...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe let me try and see if I also understand the
question because it was put in a very lengthy way. Now but I will ask
my own questions, then we'll relate it to that. Are you in a position
to say that when once there was this war psychosis generated by what
was happening, poisoning of people, bombardment of the camps,
provocation by certain people who were designated enemy agents, is it
possible that when once this became the predominant fear in the
camps, that in spite of the formal structures that made the camp
commander, the commissar and whoever else, the recognised authority,
the security establishment in fact assumed a position of absolute
importance and control. It had reached a stage where in spite of the
formalised structure de facto, the security establishment became the
law because they were able to say, look you may well be in charge
here, but we are the people who have to secure the lives of everybody
here and we are therefore charged with a far more important duty of
garnering intelligence and acting on that intelligence for the
security of the camp.

MR MTHEMBU: Thanks I understand that question very clearly and must
point out that because of the seriousness or the importance of the
work of security and also depending on the strength of character of
any person who was a commander at the time, there always would have
been an interaction or a relationship that would put a security
officer, especially one in charge overall, in a position where you
would think on certain issues, he's more senior than the commander,
there would have been such instances, in fact there were such
instances.

MR KHOISAN: You see that is why, and thanks very Mr Chairman for
putting it that way because what I'm trying to get to and in fact
maybe I can refer you now to a document that you have in front of you
which is this Stewart Commission Report of 1984 and there's an area,
two areas I want to draw to your attention. One is an area which is
Grievances against the Security Department and it's Point 13 1
believe, do you have it there - Page 11 and 12.

If I can just draw your attention to Point 13. Point 13.a,c,d and e.
But let's deal with point a because 13.a deals and we will come back
when we come to the conclusion, but in Point 13.a just to read it
into the record,

Page 20 	

Point 13, Grievances against the Security Department.

a. Interviews carried out by the Commission in all our camps reflect
one unanimous response, that the security department carried out
tasks which were not supposed to be theirs, the task of disciplining
offenders,

How do you respond to that, do you think that is a situation that
could have obtained? That's why I put the relationship of the
commissar, the commander and the security department.

MR MTHEMBU: I think I agree fully with the finding but I think I also
understand why a situation like that arose. I don't know if you want
to permit me to proceed to try and explain my understanding of it.

MR KHOISAN: Please go ahead Mr Mthembu.

MR MTHEMBU: Without any attempt at trying to justify this, I do think
that there had been instances, several in fact where cases of
discipline would unwarrentedly be dealt with by members of the
security department. This arose because there was beginning to emerge
on the part of the security department members at the time, that some
people were sent to create havoc, some people were sent to ensure
that there was no discipline, that there was anarchy, and that people
were no longer going to be sufficiently prepared to be committed and
disciplined in a manner that would ensure that they conduct
successful operations within the country. So a failure on the part of
members of the security to distinguish clearly between cases which
were of disciplinary nature and those that were of a security nature,
but manifesting themselves in acts of ill discipline actually for
this particular type of situation arising. It was wrong then as now,
I think for us to conclude that every case of indiscipline
necessarily had to be dealt with ourselves, there were those that had
to be dealt with in terms of the established camp standards and
regulations and what have you, but the failure on our part to
distinguish between those that were pure disciplinary cases and those
of a security nature accounted for the arising or for the existence
of this, but that is true.

MR KHOISAN: And in cases where the security department would overstep
its bounds, given the fact that you would maybe make the assumption
that somebody for instance smoking dagga in this camp or interfering
with situations of one of the women comrades, wasn't doing it just to
be delinquent, but was doing it because they wanted to create an
atmosphere which would damage the morale of the camp, I'm thinking
that you, because you say sometimes a problem manifested itself one
way but your interpretation of that particular problem, that
particular case, you said no this is a security problem, this person
is really acting like an agent, he is not acting like a comrade who
is frustrated or smoking dagga and messing around,

Okay but I'm saying in cases where you, where the security department
overstepped it's bounds what was the process of

Page 21 	

review, what were the mechanisms that were established and where the
security department could be brought to account?

MR MTHEMBU: I think, in fact I know that even our ranks were not that
pure. We also had people who committed acts of indiscipline, very
very serious cases of indiscipline, we had comrades who abused their
positions. To be a member of the security and intelligence department
put you in a certain area, it afforded you with certain powers; so
other people did take advantage of this, either in abusing power so
that they can get hold of women, so that they can get certain favours
from certain people. Other's even beat up other comrades because they
were members of security. We've had those cases. There were cases
that were dealt with in terms of individuals involved but others ran
away with murder, honestly, others escaped, they were not punished,
so we did not have a watertight system of dealing with those people
but there were those who were denied promotion, others were removed
from security and were marginalised and went back to the ranks of
comrades, but others managed in some ways that are not clearly
discernable, but they managed to succeed to escape with that.

It's a situation that is self blackmailing. Dealing with somebody who
is dealing with security, you always think twice to what extent would
they do something that I don't know anything about in terms of
dealing with them? We were also faced with dealing with those
situations but it would be wrong really to think that the security
department in as much most of its members were drawn from those that
were thought to be disciplined, committed, reliable people, but there
were mistakes that were made.

We also actually discovered that some of the people who were members
of the security department were in fact enemy agents; we had those
instances. So in an equal vain you would also imagine that if we had
general cases of indiscipline amongst ordinary soldiers we also had
them within. I mean security people were not people different from
other people except that they had to behave in a particular way in so
far as their duties were concerned, they were expected to have been
people who had been behaving very well in terms of during training,
either the contributions that they made at home, their commitment
there, the discipline, ability to catch up with lessons and what have
you, when you're sent abroad how you behave yourself, because you
were in very difficult circumstances if you were not thoroughly
disciplined.

I mean we were deprived of so many things. We spent years without
getting involved with women for instance and those that were not
sufficiently disciplined could easily have raped other women if they
were exposed to circumstances where there would be women. Those that
particularly liked alcohol would have drank themselves like fish if
they were exposed to those circumstances, so it was conditions of -
they were extreme, it's

Page 22 	

difficult to explain the conditions that we were exposed to but they
were completely in a word I would say inhuman because of deprivation.
Essential things were not readily accessible to ourselves, it was at
a later stage when we began eating normal food and what have you, but
it was difficult; I mean eating rice and beans every day and powdered
egg and all those things, you just drink water, there's nothing else
you can drink, no soft drinks, nothing, there's nothing that - you
see camp life is routine, you do this now, we do this - it's a
monotonous type of life and to come out of such conditions being
normal, you really have to be made of a special fibre so I do think
that most of us invariably most of us were affected then and some of
us are still affected.

MR KHOISAN: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Now you mentioned something here which has become
something of a legend when one describes the people in security when
you said even a person who was a leader, when they had to deal with
people in security you had to think twice.

What was it that they had gripped people with this sort of feeling of
insecurity when they dealt with people in security?

MR MTHEMBU: No I shouldn't think that that type of a description was
singular in terms of that situation at the time, I think it's human
nature the way I understand it, basically we are dealing with people
who might be having knowledge of your background without you knowing
it and once you know that these are the people who might be having
something that I don't want anybody to know, it in terms of the
relationship, it happens everywhere, it puts you at a different type
of level with that particular person because everywhere else
security, intelligence and are not particular capabilities because by
nature they are intrusive and very nosy in terms of getting into the
affairs of others. I think it's only beginning to change with the
particular laws that we have now for the intelligence services but
the general picture that people always had of security, of
intelligence people, it is that of James Bond's people who spy on
others, place cameras there and what have you, so you don't generally
relate in the same way as you would relate to another ordinary
person. It was not a situation that was unique to the particular
situation.

MR KHOISAN: Yes, Mr Mthembu, the James Bond scenario, James Bond, Mr
Chairman, James Bond, but in terms of the report that was carried
with the Stewart Commission, they say in point C, the grievances
against the Security Department, 'The harsh measures of enforcing
discipline within the camp by some security department comrades have
dangerously made it a notorious and infamous department in the camps
and perhaps the whole movement and you've put it to us, but Point d
says, 'the complainant and onlookers who gave evidence say that the
security department have tortured and killed a lot of our comrades,
and if they kill us who is going to fight inside the country?'

Page 23 	

Now point c and d, do you agree that there were harsh measures of
enforcing discipline and pre-Quatro, can you give us some idea of
what were these methods, what were some of these methods they were
using?

MR MTHEMBU: I actually do think that there were harsh methods that
were used but I don't want to give an impression that this was rife,
it used to happen, I mean what you hear said here are in certain
instances very true reflections of what transpired. If for instance
somebody's locked up in a very dark or bungalow or something, there
is not enough air conditioning coming in, there are no windows arid
whatever, that is very harsh, it is very inhuman. I don't agree with
that, perhaps I don't agree with it now in retrospect but at the time
I could see no other alternative, not that I condoned it at the time.
We also had instances of people being put within containers. Well
given the temperatures of Angola it is extremely harsh to put
somebody within a container and close it because there is not enough
ventilation that comes in and out. The type of punishments would also
comprise of say a person being made to dig a trench, in some
instances that was correct if the trench would ultimately serve the
purpose of being a defensive technique for the camp itself, but in
instances where you make somebody to dig a trench and then once
they've finished doing that then make them to throw in a cigarette
stump and close the trench, I do think that psychologically, that's
got a negative type of an impact and there have been records of such
types of punishments. I'm trying to recall - then other people would
be made for instance to do physical exercises. In the main I would
say this was okay but if it was regulated in terms of proper times
because if you do it beyond a certain point, then it was not human
enough.

So there were instances where very harsh methods were used, I do
think that those are regrettable and they should not have been
employed in the first place.

MR KHOISAN: So no let's go directly to Quatro which is what the I
guess the main subject of today's discussion is. I'd like to point
you to a document that you have in front of you, it's an appendix to
the ANC's policy statement to the TRC and it's an annexure and it's
page 41 and it's called Quatro, I don't know if you have it in front
of you.

MR MTHEMBU: Yes thank you.

MR KHOISAN: Now at the time that you went to Quatro Mr Mthembu and
you were deployed there as the person in charge of Quatro, in your
view would it be that that particular mind set that we discussed now,
including the issues related to the intimate knowledge of the
security department had about the real relationship of forces on the
ground in Angola, also the situation of some of the shall I say the
culture of the Security Department, but the time that Quatro was set
up and you were deployed there as the commander - would assume that
you would have been quite young, nineteen, twenty and so in a sense
number one you

Page 24 	

received a heightened level of training and you've, on your side
you've gone through a particular process, but now the other people
around you who constituted shall I say the staff of Quatro,

do you think, would it be fair to say that people when Quatro was set
up, or maybe you can tell me directly, what was the view of the staff
of Quatro when they were transferred there in relationship to the
persons who you would be dealing with? How did they view setting up
this facility and also the persons who now would be physically
incarcerated as such or interned as detainees at that place?

MR MTHEMBU: Well to begin with I must point out, I think there has
been some slight and unintended type of distortions. I did work in
Quatro but for some time I worked in Quatro in my ordinary capacity
of a recording officer. I was not like appointed in Quebashe and went
to Quatro as a fully fledged camp commander, I worked for some time
with other recording officers within Quatro for some time as an
ordinary recording officer, then once the whole complex had been
finished in terms of construction, after some time, I was appointed
formally.

In terms of the relationship between the staff and the inmates is
that what you are asking?

MR KHOISAN: Yes, just on a point, I was going on your own statement,
you said you became the camp commander of Quatro from 1979 to 1982
and I'm talking about the period of your watch, the time that you
were in command. So you can proceed.

MR MTHEMBU: If I understand you to be asking how the staff felt
during my tenure in relation to the inmates, well to begin with I
should say, being appointed a member of the security and intelligence
department, being recruited into those ranks was in a sense an
honourable position - not for myself - I'm saying for everybody else
because what it amounted to it amounted to the fact that you are
trusted, you are reliable, your bona fides are not questionable, you
easily could, whereas an ordinary person could not guarantee that at
one stage or another they might be working in Lusaka, Tanzania,
London or some other areas, as a member of security it means it
opened vistas along that direction.

When we earlier joined it did not occur to us that there would
possibly be spies and what have you which - we generally knew about
spies and what have you, but unto yourself you just told yourself
that look here, everybody who is here is a genuine member coming to
train wishing to go back to South Africa. It is not until the
incidents that I've enumerated that actually begin to make people
aware that hey there is something, not only do they exist but they
are actually active within our ranks and in a way in destructive
manners.

So people were - I would say their attitude towards the establishment
of Quatro and people being appointed to go and work there, people
took positively to that, maybe at first because of the excitement of
being associated with the Department of Intelligence and Security but
after some time it occurred to

Page 25 	

people that it might actually mean that they are grounded and
forever, they might not find an opportunity of being sent to the
front. Most of us were itching to come to the front. So I mean others
would request they be sent to the front, others would tell us that
staying in Quatro would drive them mad. So we had a practice of
taking people from time to time to include them within groups that
went for training abroad, either in GDR, the Soviet Union,
Yugoslavia, wherever. We would take two at a time either for
specialised training or for political studies and what have you as a
way of dealing with the monotonous nature of staying in one and the
same place. That's what we used to do but I shouldn't say people were
having a negative attitude in relation to being employed at Quatro.

MR KHOISAN: Do you think that people were, do you think that at that
point people were properly briefed, that people were clear about what
the situation would have been because let me just draw your attention
and maybe have you respond to something. On point 6 of this, on page
42, 'Problems', and I want you to expand on this for us, because Camp
32 was a sudden, almost knee-jerk reaction to the enemy onslaught
which threatened the very existence of the organisation, it was not
properly planned, it became a makeshift camp. Is that the view that
this thing was not properly planned that it was just sort of catch as
catch can in this place.

MR MTHEMBU: Retrospectively yes that's true.

MR KHOISAN: So in that particular situation, wouldn't that mean that
in terms of how you were going to operate in Quatro, was everybody
fully briefed that you were going to have 400 prisoners, this is the
regulation, this is the way you're going to go about it, this that
and the other thing?

MR MTHEMBU: No definitely if that is what you have in mind, that was
not, there was no way anybody could have known how many prisoners of
inmates we would have at Quatro, because some of them were brought as
far as Botswana itself, as far as within South Africa itself, as far
as Tanzania, as far as Zambia and what have you. There was no proper
or structured planning in terms of Quatro. It would seem that an
awareness emerged from some quarters it was a policy matter the
question of creating Quatro, it could not have been dealt with at a
camp commander level, it could only have been informed by reports
that were placed before the leadership, the regional command to
create a facility, a holding facility but there was no - for instance
when I went there, I first worked as an ordinary recording officer
with other recording officers, it's us actually who contributed
towards establishing proper norm structures of running the camp and
all those things, procedures and what have you. So it was not like
somebody had planned for it and determined that it will have how
many, so many soldiers, so many officers, this commander and that
commander and what, there was no planning of that particular nature
as far as I'm concerned.

Page 26 	

MR KHOISAN: So do you think that that could have contributed to the
problems with the result in respect of the treatment of the
detainees?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes, partly yes.

MR KHOISAN: And whose fault is that in your view. I don't want to get
on to apportioning blame but I want to be clear about accountability.

MR MTHEMBU: I don't know if there are wrong things that transpired
within Quatro when I was in charge, I can only have myself to blame
and want to take the responsibility for that, but on matters that
were beyond my jurisdiction, it's difficult to point out a finger; I
would say maybe the leaders ought to have planned beforehand for
that.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now let's look at point 9 Mr Mthembu, 'Abuses'. The
document says in Point 9, abuses. Inmates were not only abused by the
general conditions in which they were kept, but also by actual acts
of ill treatment meted out against them, forms of ill treatment
reported to the Commission by complainants were these:

Lengthy isolation in solitary confinement,		regular
beatings under the feet or elsewhere with guava sticks or
coffee tree sticks, napalm being rubbed with or rolled on
hairy beans of a plant which caused itching;

Pompa - blowing up ones' cheeks and pumping them so that a guard
would slap you;

Pawpaw - etc etc,

Beirut - flogging while naked lying face down; Helicopter being tied
hand and foot and suspended on a pole or log like a pig on a spit;
chopping wood for hours on end; and red ants being introduced into
ones clothes etc etc;

and then the final one is third degree interrogation - non stop
interrogation for two days or more.

Do you agree that these things occurred in Quatro?

MR MTHEMBU: If I'm being asked if abuses occurred in Quatro, yes 
I would agree that there were instances of abuse.

MR KHOISAN: And in terms ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: He's asking specifically, there's the record by Stewart
here specifying the manner in which abuses took place and I think
he's simply wanting to know if you agree with the Stewart Commission
as far as they categorise manners of abuse?

MR MTHEMBU: I think I agree.

MR KHOISAN: Now you know I have to ask you this Mr Mthembu because
it's the next logical question since if this took place on your watch
from 1979 to 1982, if these things were occurring to people who were
under detention in an ANC facility, what did you do when you got to
know about this?

MR MTHEMBU: I actually have agreed, but I'm happy now you give me an
opportunity to qualify my agreement to the question.

It emerged to myself subsequently that there were people who were
treated very badly within Quatro. In instances where we got

Page 27 
	
to know about such violations, we either strongly reprimanded the
officers who were involved, punished them, demoted them or deprived
them of any prospect of being promoted in future. What I want to say
in relation to this is that people were generally not allowed to beat
up other people; it was a standing order in Quatro. There would be
instances where a person would be punished as an inmate because they
had transgressed certain established rules in terms of their
interaction with the guards.

For instance if a person would be clapped or be made to Pompa that
came to our notice but it was not like it was a mundane practice, and
established by the routine of the camp to have these things done. For
instance the fetching of wood is something that we would have done
ourselves if that place was not a detention facility because you had
to fetch wood in order to cook for yourselves, you had to fetch water
in order to cook for yourselves. Now under the circumstances the
inmates were made to go and draw water and whilst drawing water
because of fear that they might escape they had to be guarded by
soldiers and that I do not want to interpret as a form of punishment.

The same is true in relating to the chopping of wood. If it was done
for hours on end, maybe the reason was to ensure that we do not want
to take the risk to have people almost daily outside of camp because
there were risks involved in doing that, there were risks of being
ambushed. First of all ourselves by UNITA or FNLA forces, there were
risks involved that the inmates themselves could possibly escape,
disarm somebody and escape.

So apart from sanitary considerations of taking them for either
toiletry or this or that outside of their cells, it was not something
that was encouraged to take them outside of their cells, not because
of wanting to keep them in solitary confinement, it was risky. There
could not have been any guarantee when we are going to be attacked,
by whom we're going to be attacked, how wer'e going to be attacked,
and under the circumstances it was difficult. It's one thing to
defend yourself in a camp, militarily speaking, it's another to try
and defend yourself whilst you are guarding somebody else, so we had
to minimise the question of going out.

The question of red ants introduced into clothing and whatever, that
was never brought to my attention, but I also find it difficult to
figure out how would somebody go an pick up ants and put them in the
clothes. I do think that in as much as there had been instances of
abuse and excess there is a tendency here of exaggerating those. Some
of the things happened, some of the things I don't want to accept
them as having occurred, but in instances like I've pointed out where
people were punished rather unfairly, undeservedly and that was
brought to the attention of the administration, we did take
corrective measures.

I think I have in a sense addressed - but there were also instances
where people were frustrated, people were angry and

Page 28 	

this is by now way a combination of what actually transpired, but
people stayed there for years and what have you and they thought the
reason for their stay was because of these people who they generally
took or interpreted as spies and there were instances when people,
you generally know what their attitude was of comrades both inside
the country and outside the country to people who were labelled as
spies. That were even more vicious methods that were used inside the
country, I'm not trying to say instances of abuse were better, I'm
not trying to compare these because the pain is difficult to compare,
it's difficult to quantify, some of these things are very bad and
regrettable but let us also be cautioned against the element of
exaggerating; I think some people are taking this beyond the top.

MR KHOISAN: Okay I just want to say that the reason why I asked the
first question about how people were prepared and briefed for Quatro,
is because the conclusion under Section 3 of the Motsanyani
Commission Report, 3.3 says,

'The personnel at Quatro was not adequately trained and supervised
and did not have the maturity or experience to deal with person
accused of being enemy agents. There was a break-down in
communication between Mbokodo and the Officer of Justice which
resulted in the continued improper detention of persons without
trial',

and then 3.4,

'As a result of insufficient resources, unclear authority and
faltering resilience, the Officer of Justice was not effective in
administering the code of conduct in such a way as to protect the
human rights of persons detained.'

Now in respect of those two, especially Point 3.3 of the Motsanyani
Commission Report of 1993, this is the last in a series of
commissions, they're in a sense reviewing Stewart, Skohia and coming
up, and this is actually like a recusor to the Truth Commission, or
shall I say the progenitor, one of the progenitors of the Truth
Commission, the Motsanyani Commission Report because I think they
also started floating the idea that there should be a Truth
Commission. But, and I'm not trying to - I'm just trying to say that
this is in the record. Now how would you relate what is said there in
Point 3.3 to for instance the case of Gordon Moshwewu who claims that
he was tortured in Quatro?

MR MTHEMBU: 3.3? 

MR KHOISAN: Yes.

MR MTHEMBU: Point 3.3 says the personnel at Quatro were not
adequately supervised and did not have maturity of experience to deal
with persons accused of ...(intervention)

_MR KHOISAN: Okay, I'm trying to say that here you have somebody
that's accused of being, somebody who's at Quatro, detained at
Quatro, that means that you're under suspicion of being an enemy
agent, is that correct?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes.

Page 29 	

MR KHOISAN: Or for other reasons.

Now this person Gordon Moshwewu, was he under suspicion of being an
enemy agent? Was he a confirmed enemy agent at that time in your
view?

MR MTHEMBU: I will answer that question but before I do so I would
like to give a background about Gordon Moshwewu specifically.

MR KHOISAN: Go ahead.

MR MTHEMBU: Gordon Moshwewu, we were trained together with him in
1976 and what have you, he was a very delightful type of a person, I
think mainly because of his capabilities in soccer and what have you.
He was also very vocal, he had a sense of humour and all those
things. He showed also a very easy way of understanding things,
politically he was very sound and what have you. When we then
ultimately, first of all we were trained together in Benguella, then
transferred to Gatenga, them Quebashe, right up to a point where he
was appointed the camp commissar. He was popularly known as Granite
because he was a very good football player. He was camp commissar and
in one way or the other the appointments of people to such positions
is often proceeded by a consultation with the Security Department.
There was nothing wrong we held against him as Gordon Moshwewu; in
fact at a personal level I was very close to him, very friendly and
he was even closer to someone to somebody who was head of security at
the time in Luanda called Sticks.

So what I'm trying to say by giving you that background is that
nobody suddenly woke up and decided Gordon Moshwewu should be locked
up. After the spy network was broken quite a number of people
implicated Gordon Moshwewu as an agent, not one person. You will
realise that it was a very hard decision to arrive at having somebody
at that level, I couldn't as a camp commander go to the next camp
where he was commissar and say you have been implicated, come we are
locking you up. A matter such as that had to be reported at a level
superior to ours. We reported the issue to the regional command and
subsequently it was reported to our leadership. Masondo at the time
around town in Angola, they were told about this thing.

I have pointed out that up until then there was nothing specifically
about Gordon Moshwewu if anything actually he was trusted, he
occupied a very senior position within the ANC. So he got implicated
in the process of other agents providing their confessions and if I'm
not mistaken including by his own brother. Reference could be made to
documents if the movement still has them, the number of people that
actually revealed him as being in the employ of the South African
racist regime.

Decisions such as these are not arrived at very easily, it's a very
difficult. Apart from the implications that it has for an individual
it also has implications for us as a security department, the extent
of penetration, it begins to worry you. It's not something that you
lightheartedly decide that no we're going

Page 30 	

to lock up so-and-so. There was overwhelming incriminating
information and evidence against Gordon Moshwewu and it was on that
understanding, on the strength of such information and evidence that
he was locked up at 32. He might have been beaten in the process of
investigation when people were trying to get him to confess given the
overwhelming nature of evidence against him, he might have been
beaten up.

I have been speaking to Gordon as recent as last week. He phoned me
in my office, he was trying to get me to assist him. I spoke to him
when I went to ANC conference in Mafekeng, he wanted assistance from
me too. There is an apparent contradiction between Gordon seems to be
saying either in newspapers or to the TRC and how really begins to
relate to people. I cannot rule out in absolute terms that officers
who might have investigated him, interrogated him, clapped him,
kicked him and what have you, but if you look at him today and you
try and bring to mind the extent to which he was tortured, he would
be beyond recognition, he probably would have died. So there is no
consistency, it looks like there's an element of taking things over
the top himself to say he was beaten up. He does also make reference
to people that were beaten up beyond recognition who he could only
recognise by their voices and what have you.

Maybe it's an element of anger, I understand it but I don't think
that if faced with problems we should then begin to tell lies because
there is going to be a point where we cannot explain some of the lies
we tell. That's what I can say.

MR KHOISAN: Now did you want to ask a question Commissioner Burton?
Okay now, the issue with regard to Gordon Moshwewu is that he claims
that at the time that he was being detained at Quatro, he also
happened to see anther detainee at that time known by his name in the
movement as Kenneth Mahamba and for the purpose of this particular
hearing and in respect of this proceeding as Timothy K Seremane. Now
he says at the time that he saw him in Quatro under detention, that
this man had been beaten beyond recognition. Now we have spoken to
another person who came and dealt with some of these matters but I'd
like to have your meaning, your view on what happened.

Did you know that Kenneth Mahamba, Timothy K Seremane was beaten at
the time that he was under detention in Quatro?

MR MTHEMBU: I think he was beaten.

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe also in relation to Seremane now that you are
talking about it, maybe you want to give us your own understanding,
his background, what he was in the same way as you have done with
Moshwewu.

MR MTHEMBU: Is there a chance I could proceed to the loo if only
briefly, I'm literally dying for a wee.

CHAIRPERSON: There will be a five minute walking or stretching break.
I was trying to stretch it to lunch time but I understand. Let's take
the five minute break now so that we can come back.

Page 31 	

SHORT RECESS

ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mthembu you are reminded that you are under oath. Mr
Khoisan.

MR KHOISAN: When we broke for tea and the short stretching of legs
you were busy telling us about, we were on the case of Mr Seremane
and you were giving us some background in respect of that, and maybe
you'd like to continue Mr Mthembu.

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you. Yes when I was posted to Camp 13 Quebashe, it
was around '78, I had just returned from training, GDR. I worked
under Mahamad who was camp commander and the camp commander was Cher.

CHAIRPERSON: I didn't get to know, who was the camp commander?

MR MTHEMBU: Cher Ogara, January Masilena, he's an MEC in Mpumalanga
now. There was no problem in as far as our work was concerned, we
continued with our work, we did have some slight problems here and
there on procedural matters where he would not at times take kindly
to shall I say our autonomy and what have you but these were not very
serious problems given that he was on good terms with the person who
was our head at the time, Joseph Vuke who got killed in Luanda, he
was crushed by a car and the car ran away, so he also died under very
mysterious circumstances. We continued working up until there was
this actual break-through in terms of the spy network that was within
the movement. The names of people were revealed.

Foremost amongst these was the name of Mahamba who belonged to a spy
network that had managed to successfully penetrate our ranks.

They then cited Thabo Mavuso as their commander, as the overall in
charge of the networks that were within the ANC. At this time Thabo
Mavuso had already joined the enemy because he got deployed inside
the country immediately when we had finished or even before we had
finished training in Gatenga, he took a lot of arms, weapons and
handed them over to the racist apartheid regime officers. So
subsequently the matter was reported to senior people like Masondo
and I want to believe that it was also conveyed to Lusaka.

I must point out that it was not an automatic reaction that whenever
somebody would be implicated as an enemy agent we would then set out
to go and detain those people. It came to our attention at certain
stages in the course of dealing with the cases of agents that others
were implicated, falsely implicating others to be enemy agents. So we
needed to satisfy ourselves before we took a person to get them
locked up at 32. This was particularly the case when it came to
people who occupied senior positions like Mahamba was occupying as
that of a camp commander.

Besides this could not be a matter that was decided by ourselves at
the level at which we were serving because I was more or less

Page 32 	

the same level as he, that of camp commander, so there had to be some
intervention from a much senior level.

Masondo was involved the day when Mahamba got detained, he was
invited to come to Camp 32 and when he was at 32 I got instructions I
must have him detained. As the commander I disarmed him, I said he
must submit his pistol. He submitted his pistol, we ensured that he
was locked and then immediately thereafter as a prisoner he was then
invited in front of the commissar, I was involved there. The
commissar explained to him, Mr Masondo, that he was being detained
and you have been detained because of certain information that has
come to the attention of the movement. He explained that it was not
an easy decision for the movement to detain somebody like him because
of the position that he was occupying but however the overwhelming
nature of the information that was being given about him, that he was
an enemy agent was not only from one person, it was from a number of
persons and well he reacted like he was stunned, he was shocked and
that he was genuine and what have you.

But subsequently as interrogations were conducted with him he ended
up confessing that he was in fact at one stage recruited and given
training and sent outside and then he was asked as to what missions
he had performed for the regime. He then cited a number of missions
that he had performed. He cited cars that he would break in, guns
that he had stolen, the fact that he would take a car, go out of the
camp, not on missions but on his personal pursuit and go and drink,
all those things.

So he ultimately confessed that he was actually an agent of the
enemy. But I must say it was not easy for him because I think he was
aware of the consequences and because of the position in which he was
serving, it appears to me that he might have known that some people
who are discovered to have committed very serious acts against the
liberation movement in service of the system were punished and
sentenced to capital punishment by the tribunal. So it was not easy,
he did not readily confess and I think in the process of
investigation of trying to get him to admit the truth, he was beaten.

Of interest is that ultimately during his confession he also revealed
others who coincided precisely with the others that have been
revealed by confessed agents, so that too convinced one beyond doubt
that how could he have known about those people and so we concluded,
and I mean I still conclude now that he was in the service of the
racist regime. There are so many issues that one could say about
Mahamba but they kept that in the documents; but I'm just trying to
communicate to you the main highlights of his story and that is what
I can say about Mahamba.

There would be instances where alone one would try and figure out the
pros and cons of a given case and say maybe yes and maybe not and
what have you but this was not the case in relation in to Mahamba. 1.
because of the number of people that

Page 33 	

revealed him as an enemy agent, people who were not related, people
who did not necessarily know each other except by names, nom de
guerres that were used in camps, people who actually gave details
that he so-and-so he was involved in this and whatever. He was also
involved and implicated in the poisoning, in the sketching out of
camps, in the theft of guns. He knew quite a number of Angolans in a
manner that was not necessarily

understandable, not Angolans who were within the locality, but
Angolans who were based in Luanda.

Now he was based in the North of Luanda, we are speaking about 300 or
400km from Luanda which was the capitol. He knew them, he knew where
they worked and what have you. I must point out that that was a shock
to us, but subsequently we proved that there were people that were
connected with the system in South Africa who were Angolans, some of
the people who escaped, escaped with the help and the assistance of
Angolans. That's briefly what I can say about Mahamba, I could
probably say more but suffice it to give an indication that I would
be ready to answer concrete questions that you ask in relation to
him. 

CHAIRPERSON: Were you personally involved in any assault on this
person?

MR MTHEMBU: I was involved in his interrogation, I could have clapped
him, I don't want to dispute that, but Mahamba, the impression given
by Granite, Gordon Mushwewu, that he was beaten beyond recognition is
not true.

CHAIRPERSON: I think we really need to treat this one in a manner
that is to get this thing beyond us, get it over with. You see we
have Mushwewu and we have of course his family relying on what
they've heard and what they believe and what they suspect and I think
the purpose of this exercise is to, for whatever reason, eventually
to get this chapter closed.

We did ask Jeremiah Masondo and he gave his replies in the manner in
which he did. There is a belief in certainly Mr Joe Seremane and you
are aware of what he has said when he came before the HRV that you in
fact were the principal agent of his brother's treatment and
interrogation. Now we obviously need to be able to say, from what you
say, that we are satisfied and we can't be satisfied beyond doubt if
all you are going to be saying is that may have clapped him; I mean
you know, in fact a question I was going to ask, how long did this
interrogation take place, who were the people involved, maybe you
want to tell us about that? So far the only person who seems to have
been put in the centre of things is yourself, either because Gordon
Mushwewu says so or because you were camp commander.

So if you don't mind, if you could try and remember because maybe
also for you is something that you want to forget as quickly as
possible because whilst you think of what was happening during the
process of interrogation, you also simultaneously think of the things
that he confessed to and the

Page 34 	

consequences of what happened as a result of the things that he was
involved in as an enemy agent. But I think we need to explore also
this aspect in the same way and detail as we were exploring the
things that he did and the consequences of what he did in his role as
a perceived enemy agent.

MR MTHEMBU: Okay. Well to begin with, I want to say there was no way
Gordon Mushwewu could have known who dealt with Mahamba because each
time a person would be dealt with in the interrogation they would be
isolated and it would only be the presence of investigating officers
and the particular person being investigated. How he comes to that
conclusion is not very clear to myself.

In the process whilst you were talking I was then reminded that
actually what sustained our belief and suspicions even more on
Mahamba, apart from the facts that I've enumerated, there was
somebody who escaped by the name of Escom Mololeka, his real name was
Steven Tobi Joycee; he was originally from Namibia.

I'm not very sure how he came to South Africa, but he came to South
Africa none the less. He was highly trained according to his own
confession, had been involved in military skirmishes along the South
African regime, both in Namibia and I think in some instances here at
home. That particular person was at one stage being investigated,
interviewed by ourselves. From time to time we would call some of
them, interview, find out if they want to say something and whatever.

At this particular stage we were dealing with that case and I was
involved. Suddenly communication was received at the camp that I as a
camp commander had to report to Luanda, one of the leaders had called
us to brief us on certain matters related to the front, the late
Moses Mabida. Whilst I was still in Luanda I got called to a
communications centre and told that somebody by the name of Escom
Maluleka had ran away from the camp. I subsequently sent information
straight to my deputy, Morris Siabelo who was the camp commissar, who
got killed when South Africa raided Lesotho. I told him that he must
be personally involved to ensure that he tries and gets back that
chap, back to the camp; they recapture him and they bring him back to
the camp.

I then wound up whatever I was doing in Luanda and requested that I
be released to go back to the camp and see how I could assist in
attempts to recapture the escaped prisoner. Even before I arrived at
the camp it emerged that Escom got recaptured because he had run away
and it was after a day or two, he was starving now, he reached out to
some of the members of the antiaircraft people who were positioned at
Sekekuz(?) and what have you defending the camps with antiaircraft
guns. They were not normally posted in the camp proper but outside of
the camp further afield. So this particular sentry was nearer our
camp and this chap, because of hunger tried to reach out to the other
comrades to request them to give them something to eat.

Page 35 	

Now they knew that he had been in Quebashe, he was not necessarily
part of the security department, possibly he was an inmate. They then
reported the matter to their own camp.

Mahamba brought this chap back on his own, it was just Mahamba and
this captured escapee. He was bleeding profusely, he had been beaten
severely. At first this didn't arise any suspicion amongst ourselves,
we were just saying maybe he was beaten up by those comrades, so
subsequently when we sat with the escapee or recaptured, he told us
the actual reasons why he was being beaten up and the reason why he
had escaped.

Of all the people that we would normally have suspected of intentions
to escape and what have you, we did not at all suspect this
particular person, he was a well-behaved inmate and all those things.
So when we sat down with him he explained that the reason why he had
escaped was because at the time when we sat with him before I went to
Luanda he was beginning to reach a breaking-point. He wanted to
confess but the issues that he wanted to divulge to us were so
serious that he feared for his life and he could only see sanctuary
in running away to try and either get back to Namibia, Zaire or
subsequently South Africa itself.

Well the first advantage we have is that we were having a moral high
ground because he had violated the rules, so he was scared but also
that he was beginning to crack and he had already indicated to us
that he was holding information that was very important and very
crucial. Our interpretation instinctively meant that he knew the
bigger fishes. It turned out that when he then confessed, he actually
knew people who were strategically placed within the movement, within
the army, who were working for the South African racist regime. He
made that confession.

Included amongst those were Mahamba himself and he explained that the
reason why he knew Mahamba, they knew each other, they had spoken
that Mahamba was going to try and get him out in one way and another,
I think through escaping and whatever and that he was at the point of
breaking and Mahamba was literally threatening him. He therefore had
to show that he was so serious about the issue and he beat him up,
and he told him that if you do talk and reveal those things, I was
going to deal with you, this was just a rehearsal, if I may use that
term.

That chap divulged to us very far-reaching, extremely profound type
of, the extent of penetration, the positions of certain people who
were agents of apartheid within the movement itself, some of the
people we did not even suspect, it could never occur even in our
wildest dreams. I then compiled the information in my own writing, I
made him to write whatever he was writing, if only for the purposes
of ensuring that there was consistency. He wrote all those things,
very bulky things, the home structure, who was involved, how they
were handled, other countries involved and all those things.

So serious were those revelations that when I arrived at Headquarters
in Luanda, I had problems myself revealing some of

Page 36 	

those things. I then said to my chief, Mr Msondi, the police had
given me instruction to pursue certain investigations and he said,
upon completing those investigations I should proceed to Luanda to
report directly to him. The chief at the time didn't have a problem;
if anything he actually facilitated my going to Luanda.

He told me that if I did not meet Msondi, the police or if for one
reason or other he would be outside of the country, I should meet
Kashias Make, he was also a prominent leader, he got assassinated in
Swaziland, and failing which I should then take the matters straight
to the President, whatever matters I was taking with myself to
Lusaka. The President at that time was Oliver Tambo.

I went to Lusaka. Fortunately I did meet Comrade Mzwai, I sat for
hours on end reading to him the confession of Escom Maluleka. He was
shocked, on certain instances he would nod his head in approval
confirming his own suspicions that he had been holding for years or
whatever regarding certain people.

Prominent in the names that were revealed were those of Mahamba,
Thabo Mavuso and others, there were many others that were revealed
which were reported to the ANC. So that too indicated to us, because
this chap was now openly confessing to us everything and he told us
about each and every character that was involved. Most of whom are
under the category of names that we have given here.

We had certain information that came out as a result of that, Mahamba
was subsequently again met, he would be interviewed or interrogated
by in the main, very senior people; if it was not myself it would be
my deputy or chief of staff or one of the chiefs of different offices
whether medical or whatever, but senior officers.

CHAIRPERSON: Who were those? MR MTHEMBU: Sorry?

CHAIRPERSON: Who were those, who was the chief of staff, who was the
senior medical person, who was the deputy?

MR MTHEMBU: My deputy was, I was camp commander, my deputy was Morris
Sabelo, his real name is Lulamile Dantile and my chief of staff was
George Zulu or Sam Mnisi who has been invited also today. And then
there were other officers also who joined us, there was Joseph Vupe,
he was senior, even much senior to ourselves, there was Captain
Lindswi, he was deputy regional head at the time, they would also be
involved. I mean people of a senior level within the intelligence
took interest because here was a senior person being locked on the
grounds that he was working for the system, so they took interest in
that particular case.

MR KHOISAN: Mr Mthembu, just while we're on that, in 1987 when Mr
Mzwai Piliso finally consented to appear before the Skweiyiya
Commission, he admitted and you probably have under Section N,
Context Justification and Explanation, there is a part there on page
21, that's page 20 that's the sub heading and on

Page 37 	

page 21 the penultimate paragraph and the final paragraph of the
Skweiyiya Commission report of page 21, where he says, Mr Piliso
stated that there were complaints of abuse which came to his
attention form time to time. He claimed that he took steps to rectify
the situation, however Mr Piliso candidly admitted his personal
participation in hitting of suspects in 1981. Now Mr Seremane was
detained at Quatro in 1981, did Mr Piliso participate in either his
interrogation or anything that occurred to his interrogation?

MR MTHEMBU: I know there were cases that Mr Mzwai was personally
involved in, extremely senior cases, serious cases and if I try to
reflect on which serious cases were involved at the time I cannot
help but recall to mind for instance the case of Mahamba, I think he
was involved.

MR KHOISAN: You see while I'm on the Skweiyiya Report, there's and
area that I think that I want to deal with, it's an area under
section K on page 18. It deals with forced confessions.

Now the view that we've been getting as we go through the reports and
we are relying on, it is my view that these are before I ask this
question, let me ask you, would you consider that the Stewart
Commission and the Skweiyiya Commission which are essentially,
according to my view internal commissions of the ANC, that they are
commissions that were constituted by comrades in good standing, whose
bona fides are without question?

MR MTHEMBU: To an extent that they were very senior people who did
not have a direct vested interest on matters that we were dealing
with at the Department of Intelligence, I think yes they were having
and integrity.

MR KHOISAN: Okay, and so these commissions essentially involve what
few liberation movements actually do, taking a deep introspective
view of your organisation while you are prosecuting a struggle. So
would you accept that what they came up with can be accepted as
something that, with the process of collecting information and
integrity.

MR MTHEMBU: In the main I would agree that what they did and their
findings was very helpful to the movement, however I may guarantee,
they're human beings and nobody's infallible, they make mistakes also
as persons. They might have committed a mistake or two but in the
main I think by way of rectifying certain mistakes that had been
committed by the movement, it assisted a great deal in terms of
alleviating the recurrence of such things.

MR KHOISAN: You see what concerns me here and what I want to draw
your attention to is not so much the subject, there are statements
herby, for instance Mr Hani where he seems to be horrified by what
happened at Quatro, but I want to draw your attention to the
penultimate paragraph, just before treatment of mutineers and I will
read it into the record.

Page 38 	

'The Commission also heard evidence of Mr James Stewart who chaired
certain tribunals set up to deal with alleged offences. He
corroborated the evidence presented by certain former detainees that
force was used to extract confessions. He advised that many cases
were dismissed but by reason of the fact that the confessions were
not voluntary. He told us of a case that had come before him due to
confession in the use of code names. The detainee had confessed to
murdering himself'.

Now I would say that that's an indication that you have a productive
security apparatus which is able to elicit information from people,
but people could also say now if a situation like that could have
obtained, how is it, can one take that by extension and say that some
of the confessions that the Security Department obtained, for
instance in respect of Mahamba and other people, could have been
confessions made under duress which weren't well checked.

MR MTHEMBU: We had a problem with that ourselves. We knew that if
pressure is applied, if force is applied, it is only human that at a
certain stage somebody might actually fail to resist certain pressure
being applied upon them to admit certain things. We were very
cautious of that, we were very mindful of it. We therefore did not
rely on the usage of force. It was only in extreme circumstances like
I've pointed out in my statement, that we would resort to any measure
of pressure to elicit a confession from a person because people
differ in terms of the extent to which they can resist but ultimately
a person would be compelled in one way or the other to admit certain
wrong things, even against themselves because of a way of trying to
escape from pressure. So we did not believe in the usage of pressure
as a means of obtaining a confession from a subject; we did not.

We already have heard instances where a person would revoke whatever
confessions they previously have made and say I had to do this
because I was under pressure. We were told that were not supposed to
use it and we also tried to ensure that it does not occur. However in
instances where we were told that this particular person, there are
indications that he holds information that is crucial to the extreme,
if he does not want to talk voluntarily, just scare him a little bit.
We had no option except to do that and we also saw it as a most
logical way.

There were instances where lives have lives had to be saved. I mean
what we're discussing now is under a relatively peaceful type of an
atmosphere, but we are speaking about real things. There were people
and there was not shortage of these people who actually were in the
service of the regime and for those people to be paid they had to do
their work and for us to defend the movement we had to do our work.
We avoided punishing people, beating people up and what have you
because we knew they would tell us lies, it was not lies we were
interested in, it was the truth we were interested in, and so we

Page 39 	

were very cautious about that but there were extreme circumstances
where we literally had to scare off somebody; it paid in some
instances, in some instances it didn't because it would result in
people revoking their confessions.

MR KHOISAN: In the case of Mahamba, are you reasonably certain that
from what you know - and I'm not asking you

to account for something which is above your station at that time -
are you reasonably certain that the allegations against him, which as
you've pointed out were serious, of a very serious nature, that it
had to be handled by higher authorities in angola, are you reasonably
certain that that information was verified and cross-checked enough
to warrant the next step which would have been the process to which
he ended up going to be executed by the tribunal? From what you - and
I'm not asking you from what you don't know - from what you know from
dealing with the person. Are you reasonably certain?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes thank you. In fact if there is any case, I did
indicate earlier on that on certain occasion you would reflect on the
cases that you have been dealing with both in terms of specific cases
and in general. Even if we did not manage to get a confession from
Mahamba, we had reached a stage when we believed very strongly, then
as now, that he was actually an enemy agent. 1. because the number of
people that revealed him as an enemy agent were so many, it was more
than one person, it was more than two persons, it was more than three
persons, people who were not necessarily connected or were not
knowing one another. Somebody might have been withdrawn from
Tanzania, somebody might have been withdrawn from Lusaka, ultimately
when they confess they would make mention of the name Mahamba.

In his confession also or in information that was gathered about him
there are people that he claims to have worked with within the
country itself. It might be checked if for the purposes of further
sustaining the belief that he was an agent. Those people exist. The
type of revelations that were issued, the things that he had been
involved in himself, I don't have a case where I feel more strongly
like that of Mahamba, he was actually an enemy agent.

MR KHOISAN: Now from the time that he was under detention, and given
the fact that at first when he was under detention he was not under
detention because of a confirmed suspicion of being an enemy agent,
from our information, from what we've received when other people have
testified here, first he was brought in because there were some
irregularities, cars .. reports had gone through, people didn't
believe it, but from the time that he was detained at Quatro to the
time that he went to the wall for execution, how much time elapsed?

MR MTHEMBU: I don't know, in fact it's not entirely true that when he
was detained at Quatro, he was detained because he had been very
seriously implicated by more than one person that he

Page 40 	

was an enemy agent. The instances of breaking of cars and what have
you, did not necessarily lead to his arrest, they were not. If there
were other cases that contributed actually, it was the case of Doma
Mahlatini, when he instructed that that chap should be beaten and the
chap was beaten so severely that it appeared to me that only his
corpse was being sent to 32, because by the time he arrived at 32 he
was dead, cold.

Now that is not the only person, there was the chap who died, his
death could have been avoided, very young, very capable within the
camp itself, Lloyd Ganzi because he detonated grenades about which we
didn't know a thing, only he knew about those things. Now such things
were not typical behaviour of someone who was genuine and what have
you, they were associated with people who were involved - I mean they
had been people who smoked dagga. There were comrades who smoked
dagga and they were punished seriously but I cannot recall an
instance of person who was beaten and beaten to death because of
having smoked dagga, but Mahamba actually ordered that, that he
should be beaten. I was not there to say he must be beaten to death.
There is no case that I feel more strongly about than that of
Mahamba.

CHAIRPERSON: Maybe let's take the lunch adjournment now and there are
indications that I made to Mr Khoisan whilst we deal with this
Mahamba thing, that she's going to talk to Brian about, so that we
should get it out of the way. You are aware that there have been
replies that have been given by the ANC about his recruitment, the
nature of his recruitment, Sgt A Mafekeng and what have you, and we
would like to incorporate those as part of this interview here, so
that if there are matters within your personal knowledge, then it is
matters that we should deal with here. But let's take the lunch
adjournment now.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
ON RESUMPTION

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Mthembu you are reminded that you are still under
oath.

MR KHOISAN: Okay thank you Mr Mthembu. Now at the break and I just
want to get it clearly, you told us, it was your evidence that if
there was one person that you were very clear about in respect of his
detention and subsequent execution by the military tribunal as being
a person in the employ of the security establishment of the former
apartheid government, it is the person of Timothy K Seremane, also
known as Mr Mahamba, Kenneth Mahamba. Now you were in the process of
elaborating when you were stopped by the Chairman.

There was also a question put to you in respect of the period that he
was detained to the time that he actually was executed, we were
trying to enquire as to how much time had elapsed, mostly to
determine the period of his incarceration, maybe you can provide some
of those details.

Page 41

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you, I actually have had occasion before break to
elaborate as to the reasons why I felt that comparatively speaking,
the case of Mahamba, there was more information against him,
overwhelming information against him coming from different people,
much more than any other of those that we had to deal with in my
tenure. I've elaborated on the type of activities he was involved in,
the actual persons, two people I cited who lost their lives by and
large due to his negligence. The type of sabotage he was involved in,
I cited the cars, but as to the period that he was detained for, I'm
not able to state that in no uncertain terms that problems that - I
don't recall the period because it was not, essentially what used to
happen then, we would investigate a person and then record the
results of the investigation, write reports, submit these reports to
our immediate superiors who would in turn submit them to the
headquarters who would in turn submit them to the headquarters.
Tribunals would be set up when cases would be reviewed, that was a
matter beyond us and it was not us who determined. If there was any
influence by ourselves, maybe it was formed by the number of reports
that we forwarded to headquarters or the gravity of the cases that we
were reporting about, or the fact that perhaps we needed certain
decisions on certain cases in order that the numbers of the people
detained at any given point should, within controllable be within
controllable proportions.

MR KHOISAN: Now in terms of the reports that you submitted, I just
want to know and I wouldn't be clear about this myself, so maybe it
will be good for us to have it in terms of the reports that were sent
through to your immediate superiors and from then passed on through
the channels to the competent structures. Did you have
recommendations attached to these reports in respect of what should
occur with the subject of the investigation?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes we gathered facts together, recorded facts and
expressed our views and recommendations which were in no way final.
They were liable to approval or disapproval by the leadership, so we
were not necessarily investigators, judges and executioners at the
same time. I had to be dealt with by different structures at
different levels.

MR KHOISAN: So in respect of Mr Mahamba or Mr Seremane, did you make
a recommendation that he be liquidated?

MR MTHEMBU: The strength of the things that he was alleged to have
done as I have enumerated with the possibility that I've not
necessarily covered all of them, would of themselves have recommended
or suggested a particular decision, but it was clear to us that there
were certain cases for instance of serious crimes committed against
the people or the liberation movement, invariably cases of that
nature would be answered by capital punishment except when the case
had its own merits that necessitated he should be treated
differently.

MR KHOISAN:		So you did make a recommendation that ... (intervention)


Page 42 
	
MR MTHEMBU: We would have.

MR KHOISAN: Okay, now in terms of, and I know that you've indicated
in your statement, that the tribunal is somewhere above your head and
so I won't want to ask you about something that was above your head,
but I just want to get some technical questions square. In terms of
the procedure involved with the tribunal, do you know the reports
that you submitted, do you know the channel that the reports went
through until the final point of the tribunal or the review board?

MR MTHEMBU: I can only answer that question in a very general sense.
At the camp level we would compile reports, forward them to
whomsoever was in charge at the regional level. The region would in
turn compile this, amend it when it was necessary, add whatever was
necessary to add, and convey it to headquarters to the national
directorate, ultimately to the national director who was Mzonde
Mupiliso. He was at the same time as being head of NED, Department of
Intelligence and Security, also a member of the National Executive
Committee, so it would be the National Executive Committee that would
determine when a tribunal should be set up and who should comprise it
and what have you. I really cannot answer competently because clearly
these were issues that were far beyond my province.

MR KHOISAN: And in terms of the tribunal, did you ever have occasion
to be called for a discussion in respect of Mr Seremane's case?

MR KHOISAN: In general what used to happen in the process of cases
being reviewed or presented to the tribunal, documents would be sent,
prepared to the tribunal, if they there were questions where clarity
was sought, variously either I would be called, my deputy or any
given investigating officer who was dealing with the matter, but they
would be prepared in such a way that expected questions would be
answered but still people would be called. I don't particularly
recall any instance where I was called in on the Mahamba case because
I think it was rather loaded. His report was loaded to such a point
that as I see it, it might not have been particularly difficult for a
tribunal or review committee to arrive at whatever decision it
arrived at.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now during the break we had an opportunity to share
some information in our possession with yourself and with your legal
counsel. It concerns the allegations in respect of Timothy K
Seremane, particularly the, what we find would have been the ANC's
report on this man and I believe you have it with you, it's with a
set of annexures which starts on an account of Timothy Chief Seremane
and it would be one of those documents attached. But it basically
looks at, it begins with: 'Kenneth Mahamba was sentenced to death by
an ANC Tribunal and executed in 1982 together with other fellow enemy
agents', and it goes through his history, his recruitment by the
Security Branch, employment basis for recruitment training plus
medicine

Page 43 	

training, final briefing, missions carried out and the comment; and
the source for this document is the confession statements from Angola
1981 and 1982 and the author is Not in Angola 1981 and 1982.

I think that answers the first question that we tried to put on which
is apparently the - he was kept in detention from 1981 until 1982 when
he was executed, but now this information that is in here, did you
have any way of verifying that information.

And then I'm trying to, we trying to establish, we know that the ANC
was at war, you were in camps, it was an informal situation, you do
not have the same resources as an established government as such, we
understand that. We also want to find out in terms of the threshold
of beyond reasonable doubt for capital punishment whether there was
any kind of verification in terms of this man's recruitment by the
Security Branch, did you deal with a Sergeant Mathebula or did you
find somebody who could very that Sgt Mathebula of the Security
Branch in Mafekeng, had recruited him to the Security Branch?

JUDGE NGOEPE In so far as that question is concerned, I was going to
propose that it should be answered by people whose province it was to
even within the country itself, it was not my jurisdiction, my
activities were confined to Angola and if there was any particular
investigation that had to be extended to within the borders of the
country, Head Quarters decide on that, therefore I want to believe
there was a verification of that information on the part of
Headquarters or the Review Committee before it arrived at the
decision that it arrived at, but that was definitely beyond my
province.

MR KHOISAN: So if I follow the graph of the structure in exile and I
guess the area of which we are dealing now, is that you would be
referring to internal units operations, NRD, NRD, into the same kind
of screening and recording, interrogating, that kind of facility. So
what you're saying is that there was an intelligence structure inside
the country that would verify, establish the veracity of statements
obtained in exile. Did you have contact with that or can you give us
and indication of who the competent authority inside the country
would have been who would have had charge of that province?

MR MTHEMBU: No I was not personally in touch with - I know that we
did have our underground structures within the country, intelligence
and security structures, I also know that from time to time
Headquarters would instruct people on specific things, who for
purposes of reconnaissance so that military operations could be
conducted and also for the benefit of establishing the veracity of
certain cases in so far as investigations are concerned, but that was
done from Lusaka, Lusaka was the headquarters and we were a region
also falling under Lusaka but not having any direct link or
communication with structures inside the country.

MR KHOISAN: So then the next question Mr Mthembu would be, who would
have been the liaison in Lusaka?

Page 44 	

MR MTHEMBU: Headquarters, meaning the headquarters of the Department
of Intelligence and Security of which Mzondile Piliso was the head. I
don't know who, if at all they did very that information they sent
inside the country, what the feedback was, I am not very sure about
that. Besides on the strength of the principle of need to know, there
was no way he could have revealed to me who that particular person
was without risking security procedures and the code of conduct for
security and intelligence, he didn't have anything to do with my
ability to persue my job so I was not privy, I was not entitled to
knowing who that particular person or persons were.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now in terms of the fact that the document that we
have here from the ANC, it says that under the area, 'Our Comments,
the subject was the camp commander of Camp 13, Quebashe Camp, the
time he was discovered to be an enemy agent he was implicated by many
self-confessed agents to have been a leader commander of the 1981 spy
network at the camp, the subject ordered the beating of a comrade who
sustained injuries and later died. This strengthened our suspicions
and as a result he was locked up'.

Now that spy network, you don't only have one person, but maybe we
can discuss the other people in respect of whom you have been called
to answer questions. Boyiflomo Lebalo, Edward Malope, Philip Mangena,
Joseph Muketse Mokuna and Gabriel Pake Moshwewu. The way I read your
evidence before us today and please confirm it for me, that they were
also suspected to be members of the spy network.

MR MTHEMBU: Suspected, no I wouldn't say so, they were revealed as
members of that spy network.

MR KHOISAN: And would it be your evidence that in respect of these
other people you had crossed the same kind of threshold as you had
crossed in respect of Timothy Seremane?

MR MTHEMBU: Could you amplify the question?

MR KHOISAN: Yes, in terms of, you have put it before us that the weight
of the evidence against Seremane was such that the recommendation of
a capital punishment would flow necessarily as a logical extent of
that information, now I'm saying could the same be true for the other
people that you have been called to provide us with some answers on
except the two persons that are still with us today but the others,
the other five?

MR MTHEMBU: The issue of the final judgement passed on to these
people was an issue that I personally did not deal with, what I dealt
with was a collection, putting together of all facts that have been
set in respect of the individuals and submit it to the channels to
whom I had to report. But what decision they were going to arrive at
was really not something that I would possibly have had a role to
play in. So if it was deemed by them that I ran the form of a
tribunal or the review committee that there had to be - a particular
type of punishment had to be meted

Page 45 	

out against them that was the decision of the tribunal and not that
of my own.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now on the case of Seremane, you cannot state with
any kind of degree of certainty that the information obtained in the
camps in Angola was actually verified inside the country, if I
understand you correctly.

MR MTHEMBU: I'm saying I cannot vouch 100% that that was done, but it
was routine also to confirm and verify information from within the
country.

MR KHOISAN: And that would have been done in Lusaka?

MR MTHEMBU: That would have been done by headquarters.. MR KHOISAN:
Okay ...(intervention)

MR MTHEMBU: ..except to say it was relayed that people had been
poisoned in overwhelming numbers, those people easily could have
died, it's also true that those people died as a result of the
negligent behaviour of Kenneth Mahamba, that cars were broken, that
guns were stolen; those were very very truthful things for which
there had to be answers. On its own that information was rather
overwhelming against the people who it was alleged were responsible
for those activities.

MR KHOISAN: In terms of the document that I gave you during lunch, is
there anything that you have to say in respect of that document, are
there any comments that you may have to make, just so that by way of
clearing the ground, you know giving this thing an airing, that you
can add or answer in terms of what has been stated in that document?

MR MTHEMBU: In terms of that document itself, well the first glaring
thing about it is that the brother Joe Seremane seems to be convinced
beyond any shadow of doubt that what Gordon Moshwewu alleges is in
fact true. Now its of interest to me, what in fact makes him or that
sustains him in his belief that this person was beaten beyond
recognition as Moshwewu alleges? To an extent that Moshwewu was
himself detained, one can not rule it out possibly that he still is
bitter about that and then would definitely say anything to find a
way of settling scores, either against some persons or maybe the
organisation at large. So I do think that it's rather selfish, I
understand the concerned, but for instance I had a brother in the
struggle in the struggle, there was no way I could vouch for them
100% that they were not spies because I was not with them all the
time. You know he's saying this with overwhelming conviction which I
think is baseless because he's basing his arguments on what Gordon
Mushwewu is saying and Gordon Moshwewu's objectivity might be stained
by the fact that he himself was locked up because he was alleged to
be an enemy agent.

That's the first thing I'm going to say against and in relation to
that statement. I don't know what other - and then there is reference
to NET, I think NET is another acronym for the Department of, it is
an acronym for the Department of Intelligence and Security, he seems
to be enquiring about who

Page 46 	

NET is as if he understands NET to be a person, it's not a person, we
are speaking about the Department.

CHAIRPERSON: There's the section where he talks because the other
things are the ones which related to Rooigrond and those areas you
said are the competence of people who were doing investigations
inside the country. Now unless of course there are things that are
within your knowledge as far as that is concerned.

I think looking at Roman figure 6 on page 3 where he says Mission
Carried Out in ANC by Subject, who is JD, JD's Girlfriend in C? Of
course the problem we have here is we don't know in what context his
response was given. Would JD be Joe Davidson?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes.
MR KHOISAN: Okay could you elaborate on that.

MR MTHEMBU: In fact I wanted to place it on record that I have been,
or rather I am being informed by the advisor here that a document
containing the details that would answer the questions raised by Joe
Seremane have actually been given to yourselves.

CHAIRPERSON: That may well be, I am sure it is so.

MR MTHEMBU: Will it suffice for me to refer you to that document
given that I don't know some of the details of the issues like
Rooigrond for instance, I never had to investigate that because it
was an issue that was within... the names of persons that he trained
with are given in that document.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that will be sufficient. I understand Mr Khoisan
is aware of the context in which the explanation is given and I think
the record should show that to the extent that it may be necessary
for us to write a report that seeks to reply or answer some of the
questions put by Mr Seremane the brother, then we will extrapolate
them from the papers that were submitted to us by the African
National Congress.

MR KHOISAN: But just on the question of an area which may or may not
be in your area of competence, or jurisdiction at that time, the
person of Thabo Vuso referred to in this letter as TM I believe, what
can you tell us about the person Thabo Mavuso, and then maybe you can
take the time to speak about Vuse Mayikiso, Simon Mohale, Hose
Philipino and do you have that on page 2 of the document that you
referred to.

Contacts Subject Had Outside the Country.

Thabo Mavuso. The subject was to report to Thabo since he was already
the chief as far as enemy operations in the ANC camps were concerned.
Now what can you give us about Thabo Mavuso, who was he, did you have
any engagement with him, did you ever investigate this person and did
this ever feature in any of your reports vis a vis Mr Seremane?

MR MTHEMBU: Thank you. Thabo Mavuso, I know him, I have never had to
deal with him personally or in my capacity as a member of the
Intelligence. What I know of him is that he was

Page 47 	

amongst the people who were taken for missions inside the country. At
about the time to conclude our first training by the Cubans in Angola
he was sent to Funda, the transit camp before people were sent inside
the country, it's near Luanda and he, I think, ultimately landed in
Botswana. In Botswana uninstructed he got to know where the DLB's
were, where most of our guns were hidden inside the country. He went
straight to the regime and divulged those things. Now from what
emerged subsequent to that is that he was actually a mole from the
onset, he was right from the country infiltrated into the ANC, then
he managed to do his job.

Lots of people who confessed to belong under the same category
implicate him, not only as having been involved with them in the spy
ring but as actually having been in charge of that entire ring.
That's briefly what I can say about - we got to know that he was
inside the country and at the time when our people were sent inside
the country to deal with enemy agents, he was amongst the people who
had to undergo plastic surgery to change his identity. I don't know
what ultimately happened to him but I think he's still inside the
country but he lives maybe in an underground fashion. That's all I
can say about him. He was a very active askari if I may say so.

MR KHOISAN: But now this particular report says that he was to report
to Thabo Mavuso but in your, from what I get from what you are saying
Mr Mthembu, you don't look at this Thabo Mavuso specifically as one
of the liaison points for the regime security establishment with
Seremane. That's not something that I hear and maybe I've heard it
wrong.

MR MTHEMBU: Yes, I do think that you heard me wrongly. What we are
saying here, we are trying to describe a hierarchical relationship
between Mavuso and the other people involved, that in terms of
seniority, they ultimately had to report to him, not that every
activity necessarily that they were doing even when he was not there
but that he was in charge of the network, that's basically what we
are trying to say.

MR KHOISAN: Yes, what I was actually trying to find out was whether you
had ascertained that particular information.

MR MTHEMBU: Well given that it was said by different people who've
belonged under the spy ring, I actually not only ascertained but was
convinced that he was in charge. 

MR KHOISAN: So on - just bear with me a minute. 

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Burton.

MRS BURTON: Thank you chairperson, the question that Mr Khoisan has
been posing to you largely stem from our investigations work. I would
like to put questions which really come from my side of the work,
that of the Human Rights Violations Committee and the testimonies
that have been given to us and one of the things that I would like to
ask you is whether there is a way of discovering the bodies of the
people who were executed because it is a request that many people put
to us that

Page 48 	

they wish to retrieve the remains of their family members and
although it's probably out of our competence to do that kind of
exhumation, it might be that it would be one of the recommendations
we would want to make afterwards. Do you know whether that
information is available?

MR MTHEMBU: No I don't actually, I don't even know how that could be
achieved, I was not particularly involved in that particular area of
work.

MRS BURTON: Thank you and then just to come back to the question of
statements made under duress. We take it away from the particular one
of Mr Seremane where you say that you were convinced by all sorts of
other evidence as well, but I think it is generally recognised in
international human rights law that statements made under duress can
not be considered as a confession and now, when you look back on
those times, understanding all the constraints and so on, but in the
first place, whether you would recognise that it is always a
possibility that mistakes are made when that is the basis on which a
conviction is founded, and secondly again in terms of the work that
we have to do and the recommendations we have to make, it is
unfortunately not likely to be the last time that a liberation
movement in any other part of the world might be in opposition to
what it sees as an unjust government and one would want to be able to
lay down the kind 9f codes of behaviour that would be appropriate in
those circumstances. Would you agree that perhaps it would be better
to have some representation for the person who is being charged and
also to avoid statements under duress.

MR MTHEMBU: Well to begin with in terms of statements made under
duress I did earlier on indicate that we were also mindful of getting
confessions, by extracting confessions under duress because of the
unreliability of statements made under such conditions. Now in terms
of Kenneth Mahamba, what he ultimately had to say had been said by so
many other people so that it was not only - to an extent it was said
by him, it was a confession because this is what a confession amounts
to, but in terms of the facts that have been said by different people
unknown to each other, more or less one and the same thing, in terms
of representation I should say when representatives of the leadership
used to come to review or pass judgement over cases, they were not
coming to side with us, would also be confronted in the same way that
we are grilled now for certain things that happened, also be
confronted to justify whatever steps we arrived at, so those people
who were actually in a sense impartial in relation to whatever was
presented there, whenever people made retractions in terms of their
confessions, they would do so in front of the leadership and that
particular leadership in the form of review committees was so
impartial that it would sometimes accept those things.

So representation was, but perhaps not in the conventional sense of
our understanding like having a lawyer and what have

Page 49 	

you, under the circumstances it was group of people specially
selected to come and supervise the whole proceedings.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Khoisan.

MR KHOISAN: Okay I think that for all intents and purposes we've
spent a lot of time on Mr Seremane and I think we will have to
proceed and look at what we have obtained thus far and rely on.
You've helped us a lot in respect of that but in terms of the other
people ...(intervention)

CHAIRPERSON: May I just ask one question, Mr Mthembu, with regards to
the remains, is the difficulty that you have no personal knowledge of
where the graves were of people who eventually became executed, or is
it that - I'm just trying to find if it is possible to liaise with a
structure within the ANC, were we're compelled to seek to do an
exhumation in Angola as a person was then given a number of years,
what would be the chances of a. establishing where the graves are and
b. particularly establishing whose grave belongs to whom?

MR MTHEMBU: I can say in relation to graves of comrades that died,
records of these were kept and there is a structure within the ANC
that recorded when people died, how they died, when they were buried,
what their grave numbers were and what have you, but in relation to
people who would die under extreme circumstances, I really cannot
account for theirs, I do not know, I would rather you take up the
issue with the ANC with a view of trying to find a record was kept of
those.

MR KUOENTA(?): Excuse me, Commissioner Chair, may I address you on
this after this sitting on that question in view of a letter you have
written to the TRD re: ...(indistinct)?

CHAIRPERSON: Very well Mr Kupenta(?) Mr Khoisan.

MR KHOISAN: Thank you Mr Chair. Now let's look at the issue of, we've
done with the Seremane matter. I'd like to proceed to just the other
thing and because we also have these other matters that we have, that
we have to give some accounting of them. Edward Malope, I think his
travelling name is Joseph Mashodana; can you give us any information
as to what happened with this person, have you ever interacted with
him and if so, how and under what conditions did you face his demise?

MR MTHEMBU: I don't think, I don't remember, I actually don't
recollect, I actually don't think I know this person.

MR KHOISAN: You have no know knowledge of this person, Joseph
Mashehane?

MR MTHEMBU: No.

MR KHOISAN: Edward Malope? Okay do you know anything about this
person, Philip Mangena, it is a ...(indistinct)

MR MTHEMBU: Yes I do.

MR KHOISAN: Can you help us with that?

MR MTHEMBU: Drake Chilwane, I'm not sure but I think he comes
originally from Pretoria, he was part of the people that tried to
escape I think from Fazenda to try and desert, actually tried to
desert. He was subsequently locked up. From

Page 50
 	
information that came at a later stage it would seem that he left the
country together with a colouredish person called Paul Chaba. I was
in the same platoon when we trained with Paul. He was a very
brilliant, capable and a very cool person, delightful type of a
person. He ultimately got sent to the Soviet Union for studies. In
the Soviet Union I think he killed himself and that he left a note
confessing that he had been an agent and that both himself and Drake
had been sent to infiltrate the ANC.

MR KHOISAN: Did you happen to witness this person while he was in
detention or did you have anything to do with, I'm talking about
Drake Chilwane, did you have anything to do with his detention, did
you monitor him, did you process any report in respect of this
person?

MR MTHEMBU: I would have, given that he was detained during a period
of my tenure as a commander there, whatever reports were compiled on
him. One thing I know for a fact is that he too was implicated as an
agent after from the note left by Paul Chaba which added to the whole
thing. Whatever reports were compiled on him were subsequently
forwarded to my senior structures.

MR KHOISAN: Okay did you at any time work with a person by the name
of Mountain Kapadise Jeropiet; the fellow called Mountain who was a
senior officer in the ANC's Security and Intelligence Department?

MR MTHEMBU: Yes I did work with Mountain but it is not true that he
was a senior officer in the intelligence of the ANC structures. When
I was commander at 32 he was I think a staff commissar, he was not
even in the administration. After he left apparently he rose to a
point where I think he eventually became a camp commissar if I'm not
mistaken, but it's not true that he was a senior member of the
intelligence or senior member of - I did work with him, he was
working as a commissar at 32.

MR KHOISAN: Okay is it true that this person Philip Mangena or as you
know him by his travelling name Drake Chilwane, had decided together
with two other colleagues, Edwom Nsole to resign from the ANC and
that they had gone to Ruwanda?

MR MTHEMBU: No actually seems to echo what I was saying earlier on. I
think that is true, they did not try to resign, I don't think that
was the right term. Under the circumstances issues of resignation
were like a foreign concept within the context of the army. I think
they were trying to desert and they were locked up for attempted
desertion and then it emerged subsequently that some of them had
actually been having something to do with the apartheid forces.

MR KHOISAN: Is it true that this person Philip Mangena was actually 
one of the first detainees at Quatro?

MR MTHEMBU: I should think that is true.

MR KHOISAN: So you have some idea because that happened very early 
on in your watch?

Page 51 	

MR MTHEMBU: Yes I think he was amongst the first group to come in
there because the first group to come in there was the group of
people who tried to desert the movement, they were turned away before
they joined the UN in Luanda, I think they were arrested by the
security or either they were blocked on their way to Luanda and were
locked up at 32.

MR KHOISAN: Okay did ever receive any sanction in respect of abuses
visited on this person, Drake Chilwane?

MR MTHEMBU: I am not particularly aware of anybody receiving a
sanction to abuse another or an inmate except in instances that I've
described earlier on, but not as applicable necessarily to Drake
Chilwane.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now in terms of this person Mountain, because it
doesn't only appear in one communique, his name appears in many of
the Commissions that reviewed the camps and reviewed the activities
of the security department. Could it have happened in your view that
this person could have abused the prisoner?

MR MTHEMBU: What I should like to say is that when I was commander of
Camp 32, I was a little bit far from the mundane activities of our
guards and certain officers who served at a lower level than myself,
and as a consequence I could not possibly vouch that this particular
thing happened or that particular thing did not happen.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now according to the information he was detained in
Quatro in 1979, this man was only executed by tribunal in 1982. Do
you have anything to share in terms of the reporting processes, the
cross-checking, because I mean in a case like Seremane it was within
one year from detention, you already had collected some information
but in terms of this person he seems to have been detained for over a
period that's within a three year time span and then he was executed
by the tribunal. Is there anything that you gathered about his case,
about Drake Chilwane or Philip Mangena's case, that during his period
of detention that could indicate to us, that could give us a sense
pretty much like you sketched the Seremane matter, of what kind of
weight was pushing behind the call for his execution.

MR MTHEMBU: Well really I want to say from time to time I realise
there's a temptation of believing that I knew about the tribunal.
Matters dealing with the tribunal were not known to myself. The
tribunal did not report to me. Some of the decisions that the
tribunal took, it could be that they took some of those decisions not
only on the basis of the information ourselves as the region I of
Angola, it might well be that some of the decisions they took were on
the strength of information acquired elsewhere, other than in Angola
itself.

So I cannot say just because Seremane's case took this particular
period of time before it was finalised, necessarily that of Chilwane
had to follow the same pattern. Both cases would

Page 52
 	
have been dealt with strictly in terms of their own merits or
demerits.

MR KHOISAN: No I'm trying to find out, as the commander of the camp,
to some degree - you were running a detention facility, and you had to
have some kind of an idea of the profile of the people who were under
your care and in military terms under your direct command. I'm trying
to establish whether you had any kind of sense of his political or
security profile, and if so what was the disposition, do you know who
handled the investigation into the matter? Do you know if senior
people were involved in respect of Mr Philip Mangena or also known as
Drake Chilwane?

MR MTHEMBU: No I want to say of all the cases that fell under this
category, there was the involvement of officers much senior to
myself, even leaders, because the decision that was taken on them had
to be taken at a certain level and not at the level at which I was
serving, but in general I knew cases then as they were still under my
jurisdiction but you will recall that this - we are speaking about a
period twenty years or so ago, I cannot have all those details
because I thought recording the details of whatever was collected at
the time would serve precisely this purpose, so whatever is required
of a person, reference would then be made to documents about them as
individuals and as a group, and we did keep records of that.

MR KHOISAN: Okay but do you remember when he was finally released
from the facility to go and face his demise at the tribunal?

MR MTHEMBU: No.

MR KHOISAN: You don't, you have no information. MR MTHEMBU: No.

MR KHOISAN: And there's nobody that you can point to specifically 
who may have handled that case?

MR MTHEMBU: No I don't recall specifically. 

MR KHOISAN: Okay.

MR MTHEMBU: It might have, it could have been my deputy Morris
Yabelo.

MR KHOISAN: And do you remember if Mzwai Piliso or Mr Masondo, Gen
Masondo had anything to do with this particular matter?

MR MTHEMBU: I think he had something to do with these cases but with
this broad group, he was very active when it came to this particular
group, he was very involved in what he did.

But the person who was ultimately in charge was Mzwai, not Masondo.
General Masondo was involved to an extent that he was a commissar, he
had to ensure that these people are treated fairly, that established
procedures in the main are followed by ourselves and that amongst
other things we do not let these people escape, we do not use force
against these people. Broadly speaking a welfare type of a role, he
had to play that role and of

Page 53 	

course ensuring that we also were having good political grounding in
terms of the positions that we occupied.

MR KHOISAN: What can you tell us in respect of Pake Gabriel Moshwewu,
which I guess will be Gordon Moshwewu's brother, what can you tell us
about the circumstances around his detention or his demise?

MR MTHEMBU: In my submission I've actually grouped these people
together deliberately because most of them including in particular,
Gabriel Pake Moshwewu also fell under that category.

He's one of those who's name emerged as belonging to the spy network,
he also I think was then fetched from Lusaka to Luanda and then put
to 32. He ultimately confessed himself and implicated a number of
other people. This particular process was like self-verifying, self
confirming as it relates to this particular spy network because each
time we dealt with this particular individual he would more or less
tell you about people that you would have been told about by a person
who would have confessed before. The last one did.

MR KHOISAN: Are they all from the same region inside the country?

_MR MTHEMBU: I think in the case of Seremane, Malo, Mushwewu, the two
Mushwewus, more or less the same area. I'm not sure about the area
where Balile Mpila or Joseph Meketsi Nkwena came from, but they
predominantly came from what was Bophutatswana predominant.

MR KHOISAN: So at the time that Gabriel Pake Mushwewu was executed,
his brother Gordon was in detention, is that correct?

MR MTHEMBU: I don't know.

MR KHOISAN: He claims that they were sentenced to four years,
something like that.

MR MTHEMBU: I remember the period when Gordon Mushwewu was in
detention in general but I don't recall concretely the period during
which Pake was executed.

MR KHOISAN: But you never had anything to do with the investigation
into Pake Mushwewu.

MR MTHEMBU: Not in a focus sense that I was personally investigating
that case but I had to exercise supervision over investigation of all
these broad issues, but I also had superiors over me like Masondo,
Mzwandile Piliso and other officers, I think my immediate superiors,
we were regional headquarters at that time; that would be Captain
Lindswi, Joseph Vuke, Alfred Waiman and the like.

MR KHOISAN: Okay now what can you tell us about the - so in your view
the, and we had testimony from General Masondo in respect of all of
these people and he has a fairly sharp memory, but you said that
these were cross-verifying... (intervention)

MR MTHEMBU: In a sense, yes.

MR KHOISAN: Sort of the one corroborating the other, corroborating
the other, corroborating the other, and as such, so but at the same
time all of these people, besides the fact that they

Page 54 	

were being, their cases were being checked and rechecked inside
exile, there was also an onus on the internal structure to provide
corroboration. Is it your view that the internal structure needs to
provide an accounting of what kind of corroboration they sent?

MR MTHEMBU: What I'm going to tell you is purely my personal view.
It's that in a debated or controversial case, of necessity there had
to be further investigations. In a straight forward case like
somebody confessing, admitting to whatever wrongs they will have
done, voluntarily, without any particular pressure pushed on that
person, either in the form of interviewing them extended hours or
making them to stand for extended hours, I not necessarily have would
have advised that it should be a routine necessarily to risk the
lives of people trying to confirm something that the bearer of it is
actually openly acknowledging and accepting. It was not an easy or
automatic process, I should like to believe, for anybody to conduct
investigations of a security nature within the country itself,
because in one way and another you had to reach I would say, to
certain police who worked for the liberation movement or something of
the like. We could not do this leisurely without risking either the
arrest or the death of those people and yourself as the person who is
conducting that investigation.

MR KHOISAN: Yes, I raised that merely because you know you indicated,
and I would like to see if we could actually soften that, you know
about the grilling. I believe that there is a communication that is
happening here and something that is providing for the purpose of an
accurate accounting of history.

What you've shared with us today has opened up and it has amplified
for us, you see, it has amplified for us the Stewart Commission, the
Motsanyani Commission, the Skweyiya Commission, because we're hearing
directly from you, and for us this opens up a way in which we can
accurately reflect from all sides what happened, because at the end
of the day we can only really make an informed judgement of what
occurred in history. That's not even my function, it is the function
of the people who get paid lots more money.

Be that as it may, we are talking about matters here, where even
though a liberation movement is engaged against an enemy and is
organising itself irregularly, it had judicial processes and people
now, with the safety of history behind them, are saying let's put
that process under review and the death sentence is a very heavy
measure to adopt against somebody, and they're going to say, what was
the weight of evidence and so that's why I put it to you, you know. I
know the degree of difficulty that you're talking about, but I'm
putting it to you because at the end of the day it's going to be, it
shouldn't be Quatro or the Intelligence structures in exile who
handled an investigation who should account if you say that there
were mechanisms for verification in certain cases, and I just wanted
to find out from you, is it your view that, given the degree of
difficulty there should be some

55 	

kind of records that we can look at in respect of what came in from
the country?

MR MTHEMBU: I cannot, well I would not really say there records in so
far as that is concerned. I would instead advise that if you want to
find out if there were records proving that certain investigations
were done to verify cases outside and such investigations were done
inside the country, you should check that with the ANC Headquarters;
you can check that with the ministers who might be knowing about some
of these things. The level at which I served did not permit me to
have access to things that came from inside the country, because in
one way or the other it would tell me who was involved. That would
compromise in a sense the people who were involved and what have you.
So if for instance the particular information that we acquire from
within Angola itself was such that we forward to the leadership and
that the leadership would make a decision on it or would consider it
necessary still to investigate in other areas.

That was completely outside of my jurisdiction.

I honestly would not tell you if whatever decisions were taken were
taken purely and only on the strength of information we provided or
it was together with information they acquired elsewhere, I'm not in
a position to say.

MR KHOISAN: Okay that's well taken. Just before we go further, I want
to get on to the two allegations of tortures and we can finish with
that, but I just want to ask you, you mentioned earlier that you have
some information, let's talk about this case, the Joseph Muketsi
Mukuna, Balile Mpila - that's his travelling name - what can you share 
with us which can throw more light on this particular matter? It says 
he was executed in 1980...(intervention)

MR MTHEMBU: In 19..?

MR KHOISAN: In 1980, that we have, is that correct?

MR MTHEMBU: I don't know. What I know for a fact - I know this chap,
he was an officer at our Headquarters in Lusaka; I think he was
working in the treasury department, but he was part of those people,
he could possibly not have been executed in 1980, I doubt because I
think he fell under the group that we brought from Lusaka
...(indistinct)

MR KHOISAN: I think we missed the last part of that because the sound
cut out can you just maybe..?

MR MTHEMBU: I was saying the extent which I know him was that he was
deployed in Lusaka at our headquarters and to the best of my
recollection he was working in the Treasury Department, the TG's
office, Treasurer General's office and that he fell under this group
precisely because he had been revealed also as part of the network
and when there was a swoop of those that belonged to this network in
Lusaka he was part and parcel of those who were brought from Lusaka
to Angola and ultimately to Camp 32.

Page 56 	

MR KHOISAN: Are you saying it was known already before he went to Mr
Titi Nkobe's office that he was ...(intervention)

MR MTHEMBU: No it was not known, he had been working there for some
time and it was only at a certain stage that information got to be
known about this spy network from people, and wherever they were, the
movement recalled them back to Angola so that their cases could be
sorted out in Angola.

MR KHOISAN: And did you personally handle his case, did you review
his file etc?

MR MTHEMBU: By way of supervision I would have.

_MR KHOISAN: And what was in that file that, beyond just the fact
that he was in the spy network and stuff like that and he worked at
the treasurer's office? What else can you give us which might throw
light on to the final recommendation which was that he should be
executed. Are there any five or six things that you specifically
remember about this guy that can help us?

MR MTHEMBU: No, you know the fact that we kept records including of
those things, or rather Headquarters kept records of the cases of
these people, made us to avoid knowing some of these things by rote.
It's not humanly possible for us to have all the facts on all these
people. You must recall that this was not the only group, there was
no shortage of people who in one way or another were connected to the
system. I pointed out that for instance the then foreign minister,
Pik Botha said it that out of every ten, five were their own people,
so we can just about figure out how many people we're dealing with,
different cases not only within Angola, cases that came from inside
the country, cases that came from Tanzania and what have you, so it
is not possible to know all the facts about concrete individuals but
in general I knew that he was part of this particular group. Apart
from that I don't recall further instances about him but I do think
that if you should be interested in details regarding these
individuals, there is a way of getting those details in consultation
with the ANC.

MR KHOISAN: Okay and I think we'll proceed with that. Mr Chairman I
know we have about ten or fifteen minutes left, I'd like to proceed
to the issues of Mr Gordon Moshwewu and Mr William Mashodana. Now
you've already put on the record Mr Mthembu that this particular
person Gordon Moshwewu, and you say he's recently been in touch with
you too, that he may be freelancing with the story, he may be
developing the story around what happened with Seremane. But now both
the person of Gordon Moshwewu and William Mashodana, they both claim
to have been people who were detained and sentenced to hard labour
and tortured in Quatro.

Now on the case of Mr Moshwewu, Gordon Moshwewu, he claims that he
was tortured, he was given a really hard time by the people in
Quatro, by your people. Can you give us an account of what happened
with that matter?

MR MTHEMBU: Gordon Moshwewu, I know him, I've explained about him
earlier on, but if you are specifically asking me about

Page 57 	

the allegations of torture that he's making, I was going to say, as
far as I'm concerned he was never tortured. That's my very
categorical answer to that question.

William Mashodana, I don't even recall and instance where he was
touched actually. It could be that maybe some of the officers in the
process of investigating him might have clapped him and what have you
and I would not interpret that as torture, at least in my
conventional understanding of the term.

MR KHOISAN: You see now in terms of this man, he is making
allegations that, on page 2 of his statement he is talking about the
fact that he also was the subject, his case was decided by a kangaroo
court comprised Andrew Masondo, Joe Modise and Mzwai Piliso. Did you
attend that, what he alleges was a kangaroo court?

MR MTHEMBU: Well you can just about figure out from the usage of the
term, in my opinion a structure composed of people serving at that
level, I would not really refer to as a Kangaroo Court. We are
speaking about Muzwandile, he was the national member, head of
security and intelligence. Joe Modise was army commander at the time.
Masondo was national commissar both of the army and of the ANC at
large. I would not first of all to like to refer to that as a
kangaroo court, I don't know what particular type of a court that he
would have wanted to review or pass judgement over his case, but you
know, the extent to which Mushwewu alleges he was tortured is such
that he should not have been still living in the first place, he
should not have been here. If you look at him he doesn't even bear
scratches. I really am perplexed by this particular case and also the
fact that what on the one hand he says about us and on the other, the
way he relates to ourselves, I wonder what he's really up to but I do
think that he's bitter. Given his capabilities, he obviously could
have arisen very very high within the ANC or Mkhonto weSizwe itself,
but unfortunately he got exposed for what he was and did not have
that opportunity.

He was locked up, eventually got released, he requested to go to
school, he was given an opportunity to go to school, he ended up
studying in the United States. Now if really we are as monstrous and
as viscous as people are made to believe we were, I think we could
have afforded such opportunities to - comrades would have
distinguished themselves rather than people who were alleged to be
enemy agents.

MR KHOISAN: And why in your view was he given four years, do you have
any information on that and not the other people whom he says
received death sentences?

MR MTHEMBU: No, that was an issue beyond me, judgement and sentences,
it was definitely not an issue that I had to deal with.

MR KHOISAN: But you never dealt with his matter, his file as such.

MR MTHEMBU: His what?

Page 58
 	
MR KHOISAN: His file, his case.

MR MTHEMBU: Dealing with a file at the level of investigation differs
with dealing with a file at the level of sentence being passed or
judgement being passed over the case.

MR KHOISAN: What I'm trying to find out is, was the information in
the file of a degree that wouldn't warrant the death penalty, you
see?

MR MTHEMBU: Well that would amount to my questioning, the
advisability or otherwise of this sentence meted out to him. I really
would not want to answer the question because what follow is why four
years, why not three or two and I really am not competent to answer
that question.

MR KHOISAN: Do you recall some of the things that were in the file?

MR MTHEMBU: Everything that I recalled are the things I have said.

MR KHOISAN: Okay there's nothing more, now he says also in his
statement that the people who were executed by firing squad were
dumped behind Quatro, somewhere near Quatro, is that true?

MR MTHEMBU:		He really would have been part of the
intelligence to know some of the things that he claims to know.

There is no other person who was an inmate of 32 and believe you me
that there are quite a number of people who were locked up at 32 who
are outside, who were pardoned, who were integrated both within the
ANC and with the community inside the country, some of them occupy
senior positions at different structures of government who cannot say
what he's saying. I think it just occurs to him that it is possible
that they executed people and buried them behind there but I think
those are his wild imaginations if I may use that term.

MR KHOISAN: But it's not possible that somebody could have been
executed and buried there? I mean you are dealing with a war here.

MR MTHEMBU: I know of a particular case of somebody, I don't know who
was, I don't remember the name who might have been because he was
escaping and he got shot whilst escaping.

He could not have been buried in Luanda because of the nature of the
case, he could well possibly within the neighbourhood of the camp.

MR KHOISAN: Okay and you can't remember that case? 

MR MTHEMBU: No.

MR KHOISAN: But you know which year?

MR MTHEMBU: No I don't, definitely between '82 and between my tenure
of..

MR KHOISAN: Okay, and so it's your evidence before us that on balance
you question the veracity of his statement?

MR MTHEMBU: Who, whose statement?

MR KHOISAN: Mr Moshwewu.

Page 59 	

MR KHOISAN: Yes, absolutely, I am saying either he's exaggerating
certain things or he's pushing a particular agenda, but some of the
things that he's alleging the ANC did outside, I was made aware of
certain statements that were said by either Chris or what have you. I
mean Chris is no longer here to give evidence whether he said those
things, if it was Mushwewu who said some of those things, possibly
he's saying those things, just you know just forging lies about
Chris.

MR KHOISAN: Yes, actually the statements by Chris are located in the
Skweiyiya Report where he recounts the horrors of Quatro, you might
want to at some point review that. The comments by Chris Hani are in
there and it's in the same neighbourhood as comments regarding the
Security Department, but let's deal with the case of William
Mashodana. What do you know of this person?

MR MTHEMBU: William Mashodana, he was part of the people that were
trained with the June 16 detachment. I think after training he was
part of the people who got sent to Zimbabwe.

The aim was to fight alongside the Zimbabwean liberation forces but
with a view ultimately of penetrating into South Africa. As far as
I'm concerned he fought very well in Zimbabwe, he came back to Lusaka
then there was the discovery of this spy network, he was implicated;
I think he was brought from Lusaka together with those that were
deployed at the time in Lusaka and were part of the spy network. I am
not aware of any beating in relation to Mashodana at all.

MR KHOISAN: Are you aware of the conditions under which he was
incarcerated?

MR MTHEMBU: Conditions under which he was incarcerated? 

MR KHOISAN: Okay he claims that, he says,

"I was accused of having conspired with other comrades of plotting to
assassinate the then military high command in Zambia. We were
transported in smaller groups to Angola for interrogation in the
notorious concentration camp in Northern Angola in a town called
Quebashe and where there was this Quatro prison, Number 4. On my
arrival torture started again in an attempt at forcing me to
implicate myself as being an enemy agent"

Now that's what he says there.

MR MTHEMBU: I seem to recall certain facts but I think in the main,
what I said is still valid. There was a group of people who were
brought by members of the leadership from Lusaka on the strength that
they were part of an enemy network or a spy network and part of those
people included William Mashodana. I recall for instance that there
were officers that came over there from Lusaka, middle leadership and
senior leadership of the movement.

MR KHOISAN: So the allegation here is that what I see in both
Mashadona's statement and in Moshwewu's statement, is that they place
you at the scene of taking them into the cell with Seremane

Page 60 	

and they have you there in proximity to this badly tortured man in
both of these statements. Are you saying that that is incorrect
because I believe that would have been your travelling name, Sizwe
Nkhonto.

MR MTHEMBU: Yes that was my name and what was the allegation?

MR KHOISAN: The allegation is that you brought them into the cell.

MR MTHEMBU: For what purpose?

MR KHOISAN: I guess to, you know, I'll just give it to you right now.

"I arrived in Quatro on March 8, 1981 and I was taken to Chief in
April 1881 which at first I couldn't recognise him. I was supposed to
say in front of him that yes I am an agent of which he was my boss,
but I couldn't but implicate myself. If I agreed to that instead said
something different, that I only know chief as ...(indistinct) and my
comrade and nothing else. We were all stunned. I was promised and
threatened that I would look like him, (he was badly disfigured), if
I did not obey orders. Instead I was taken for hard labour until 1983
when I appeared before a kangaroo court whatever"

But the view here is - and just here with Moshwewu he says,

"One night I was woken up by the torture officers of the ANC, namely
Sizwe Mkhonto, Jomo George Zulu and others and I was taken to one of
the cells in the middle of Quatro. In this cell there was a badly
tortured and beaten person standing in the dark in the back of the
cell and a light was brought into the cell for us to see each other.
I could hardly identify this figure. In the middle of my wondering
Sizwe asked this figure to tell me what he told them."

So the view here is that what both of these people are saying and I'm
not saying it just because we want to say it or because you'll
probably at one point or another due - and he's probably been in the
public arena. The fact is that they are alleging that you took them
into a cell where there was this badly tortured person and the
implication is also that if they didn't cooperate they would be like
this person. How do you respond to that?

MR MTHEMBU: I'm going to say there were instances when we took
people, for instance if so and so said something against me,
eventually we would have to take that particular person and say the
things he was saying about him so that particular person may then
have to defend themselves if they had to defend themselves. We might
have taken him to Seremane or Seremane to him depending on who was
accusing whom or was alleging who was involved in what. That we would
have done but if he was at any stage disfigured and what have you, I
definitely think those are lies and exaggerations.

Page 61 	

MR KHOISAN: I think that on my side Mr Chairman and given the
lateness of the hour, we promised people we'd be finished by 03H30, I
don't know if Mrs Burton has any further questions but I want to
thank the witness for being so helpful.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Khoisan. Well it only remains for me to say
that this concludes this part of the inquiry into the events in
Angola and unless there is anything that Mr Kupedi wants to say, this
witness will be excused and these proceedings will be adjourned.
There remains the matter of Mr Mnisi. My view is that due to the
lateness of the hour and because of other engagements that I have
this afternoon, Mr Kupedi and Mr Khoisan will put their heads
together and find a suitable date to which we can take the enquiry to
and on that basis these proceedings would then be adjourned to a date
to be arranged.

MR KUPEDI: I have nothing to say Commissioner Chair.

CHAIRPERSON: Then the matter stands adjourned to a date to be
arranged. We are adjourned.

COMMITTEE ADJOURNS

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