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TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
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TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION

DAY 1 - 18 JUNE 1996

 

CASE NO:&#9;&#9;&#9;&#9;CT/00328

VICTIM:&#9;&#9;&#9;&#9;SOYISILE DOUSE

NATURE OF VIOLENCE:&#9;SHOT DEAD BY POLICEMEN

TESTIMONY BY:&#9;&#9;RAYMOND DOUSE [brother]

 

MS BURTON:

Our next witness is Mr Raymond Douse, would you please come to the platform Mr Douse and Ms Seroke will be facilitating your story and we may run a little late into our tea break time, but I hope we will aim to be finished as soon after 10:30 as can be possible.

&#9;Good morning Mr Douse.

MR DOUSE:

Good morning.

MS BURTON:

Do you - do you want the earphones or are you all right.

MR DOUSE:

I am all right.

 

MS BURTON:

Would you stand please to take the oath.

 

RAYMOND DOUSE&#9;&#9;&#9;&#9;Duly sworn states

 

MS BURTON:

Thank you very much.

MS SEROKE:

Morning Mr Raymond Douse.

MR DOUSE:

Good morning lady.

MS SEROKE:

Are you going to testify in English or in Xhosa or Afrikaans, which language would you prefer?

MR DOUSE:

Well I think I’ll be testifying in Xhosa.

MS SEROKE:

Okay.

MR DOUSE:

Yes.

 

 

MS SEROKE:

We are going to be talking about Soyisile Douse, were you the older brother or the younger brother [indistinct] Was Soyisile your younger brother or your elder brother?

MR DOUSE:

He as a younger brother.

MS SEROKE:

Okay, I would - in a few words I am going to summarise this situation at the time. [indistinct] people killed and ten injured on January the 16th 1988 in Bhongolethu, Oudtshoorn by David Sibango who was a kitskonstabel and others. 

&#9;I want in a few words Raymond - just tell us the reason of this tragedy that prefer your younger brother by shooting.

MR DOUSE:

Firstly I don’t want to tell lies about this situation about Soyisile’s situation. Soyisile wasn’t with me, however, what he did he came to me for the first time to tell me that he met - met kitskonstabels this kitskonstabels - the previous before the day before they shoot him, they asked for tobacco from him and he didn’t give it to them, and they quarrelled over that.

After that quarrel they disbursed each one his one way, I am in my own place and Soyisile stays with his mother in the old location. I heard when I was on my way to church the other day, some kids who shouted at me and said, there Soyisile is lying there, he has been shot by David Sibango - David Sibango. I was driving my car and when I turned on my way to them - to see - to have a look at this - then there was this other kitskonstabels together with other - two other white and then I - a gun was pointed at me by one of the kitskonstabels and he said - here is this dog, and I am also to [indistinct] and then he used very obscene words.

And this kitskonstabels name was said to be Skhumbuzo. He called me names by my mother. The white one stopped him and said don’t - don’t shoot him, then they said I could go - I said no, I can’t go, I just want to find out what the problem was. At that time Soyisile was down on the ground and the sun is - face is hanging on his face and then they turned him around and he - as he was lying on his side and then they turned him around and his face was up, facing the sun and he was lying on his back so that the blood should not move, because they shot him on the side, at the left.

[indistinct] and I then ran to my car because this one wanted to shoot me, this one called Skhumbuzo and David was just standing over the corpse and then I went on - as I was going towards Bhongolethu, there was some people from Bhongolethu who were coming back and they could see the [indistinct] [indistinct] and the [indistinct] there, the son of - and two Coloureds who were also shot, they were also in that tragedy, which took place on that day when Soyisile was shot.

When I wanted to go and find out from the police what the reason was for the shooting of my younger brother, I was told that I should go to town. There at Bhongolethu there was a police station at the time, they told me to go to town. I didn’t go to town, I went to the hospital and that’s where I saw the three corpses.

I just want to say to the Truth Commission maybe my statement may be different from the one that I gave for the first time, because I don’t remember all this things in my mind, because I just [indistinct] of them and it’s a long time, since this happened, regarding the death of Soyisile.

I just want to say that’s all I can remember about my younger brother. Amongst the papers that we have here it is said that on the 10th of February 1988 there was someone who killed - who killed a kitskonstabel his name was Bangi Salman it is alleged that a few days thereafter the kitskonstabels in their anger, angry because one off them - one of their colleagues that they decided to take it on the people and Soyisile was one of them.

Do you - do you understand it that way?

MS SEROKE:

Yes I understand it very clearly.

MR DOUSE:

That is the truth Bangi Salman was killed by another person I - who’s name I can’t mention, maybe it’s known and then when that Sibango said they are going to revenge because a colleague of them can’t just die and that’s why I think that was the revenge - he was carrying out the revenge on my brother.

MS SEROKE:

Soyisile - did he belong to any organisation at the time?

MR DOUSE:

Soyisile was not a member of any organisation, he was just someone, I don’t know how to put it. He was someone who use to just to get drunk and then from time to time he would go to those meetings - our meetings but they were not full meetings at that time, because we were being chased around by the former Government that was in power then.

&#9;At Bhongolethu special, we were living very sad and difficult life in those days, so much so that I had - at the time I had a shop, that shop - there was a Captain Marx who - who was - who was very active at the time. He said he was going to close my shop because I was one of the UDF members and he said he knew I was a member of the UDF and that there were many things that there was stolen from my shop. There was a number of stolen goods in my shop and that’s how we lived at that time.

&#9;I don’t want to say much about some of the things, some of them are forgotten, I don’t want to make a detailed description.

 

 

 

MS SEROKE:

As you are describing this situation in Bhongolethu at the time, were you - do you think this kitskonstabels and this police, what were their views, as far as you think about people - about people in the community.

MR DOUSE:

Their aim was to perpetrate the needs of the apartheid regime of the time because the Government didn’t want people - black people to live peacefully and decently in South Africa. Those were the aims of the Government of the day.

MS SEROKE:

On the aims of those Governments as you as the civilians of Bhongolethu, what were your aims about this Government views?

MR DOUSE:

Our views was to fight for freedom. It’s there I want to recommend the youth of Bhongolethu in Oudtshoorn, because we old people at that time of struggle, we were afraid we were only in action during the nights, there were places that we were not even want to been seen in especially I for one. 

&#9;As from 1968 when I was joining the ANC organisation there was - there is a - there was a school in [indistinct] and - and there was a hollow that ran water, we were holding our meetings there, lying on our tummies. We use to light candles if we are reading the letters from Cape Town etcetera. We were trying our best to fight for the freedom of the black people.

&#9;But in 1984/85 our youth in Bhongolethu, they have seen that they need to fulfil the needs of the youth in this country and they need the freedom and they supported us as parents and they were the one’s who died at that time.

MS SEROKE:

Was Soyisile one of the youth who was trying to get freedom?

MR DOUSE:

Yes he was one of them - Soyisile was one of them, the one of the Freedom Fighters that we - the freedom that we are having today. His death was very sad, but today some of us are going to eat the fruits of his death, fighting for freedom.

MS SEROKE:

Thank you very much Mr Raymond, I’ll just give to my colleagues if there is any question.

MS BURTON:

Now as you mentioned in your written statement that Soyisile had a child, where and how is that child today?

MR DOUSE:

The child is by her mother in Bhongolethu. Her mother is working at Holiday Inn, but it’s not a wife, it was Soyisile’s girl friend.

CHAIRPERSON:

Dr Ramashala.

DR RAMASHALA:

At the time of his death, what was Soyisile doing, was he working, was he in school?

MR DOUSE:

He was working.

DR RAMASHALA:

[indistinct] Soyisile’s child, how is she doing?

MR DOUSE:

No he is doing very well and he is at school.

DR RAMASHALA:

What grade?

MR DOUSE:

I beg yours?

DR RAMASHALA:

What grade is he in?

MR DOUSE:

In a lower standard, in a primary school.

DR RAMASHALA:

Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON:

Mary Burton.

MS BURTON:

You mentioned also in your statement that there was a court case, do you know what happened in that court case?

 

MR DOUSE:

Oh! up to this moment, I don’t know what was the charge of that man who killed my brother, because he killed so many people in the township - now up to this moment I just wan to know, what is David - let met put it this way, I don’t know David’s case - what happened to him, what was his - whether he was charged and what the sentence was - because he has three murder cases.

&#9;Now I don’t know hom many has he - was sentenced to. I would like to know what he was sentenced too for killing my brother.

MS BURTON:

We will try and follow up the - whether there was a court case and what the outcome was and what the sentence was, so that we can inform you of that.

MR DOUSE:

Good.

CHAIRPERSON:

My apologies, Russell Ally.

MR ALLY:

I’d just like to get some idea of what was happening in the - in the townships. The police were apparently driven out of the - out of the townships - out of Bhongolethu not so, is that why the kitskonstabels came? Were the police first forced out of the townships in the struggles that were taking place in the 1980’s.

MR DOUSE:

Yes I can say so.

MR ALLY:

How did that happen - [indistinct] what happened to those policeman who were - who were driven out of the townships?

MR DOUSE:

Those police were taken by white people and gave them accommodation in town and they kept them at the police station in the garages there. Thereafter they were accommodated amongst the Coloureds - I am talking about the police who - who were driven out of the township.

MR ALLY:

Were there any of the policeman killed?

MR DOUSE:

It - I am not clear.

MR ALLY:

Were any of those policeman - were any policeman killed before they were taken out of the township.

MR DOUSE:

No not a single police was killed in - no - no let me get a clear qualification now - this - I don’t think so.

 

 

 

MR ALLY:

And the kitskonstabels where did they come from, where were they brought from - from somewhere else or were some of them from the township itself.

MR DOUSE:

Some of them - they were from - this place is like Transkei and Ciskei and some of them they were in the township like Salman - two brothers of Salman and - and Ben - I don’t know what is her surname, but there is a Southern Sotho, but I am just out of her - out of his surname now.

MR ALLY:

And the police have they since, have they since come back - the police who were forced out of the township, have they since come back into the township.

MR DOUSE:

Ja, some of them they stay there, now they’ve got their place what you call - Rykmans - not Rykmanshoogte, they call it like that, and this kitskonstabels what municipality do for them, ’87 they built for them houses - some few houses down there in the new township where I am staying.

MR ALLY:

Thank you.

 

MR DOUSE:

Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON:

Thank you - thank you sir, as Mary Burton has already said, we will try and follow up of - follow up what happened. We are not saying we will get the truth but we will investigate so that we are in a position to tell you - we thank you for coming and for revealing the pain that you went through in your township, thank you.

MS BURTON:

Thank you - thank you very much Mr Douse. 

 

