The Caprivi commander who exposed Inkatha hit squads is angry he wasn’t called as a witness in the trial of Magnus Malan, report Mehlo Mvelase and Ann Eveleth
THE man who lifted the veil of secrecy once shrouding Inkatha Freedom Party-aligned hit- squads in KwaZulu-Natal launched a scathing attack this week on the prosecuting team who kept him silent during the Magnus Malan trial.
Former Caprivi political commissar Daluxolo Luthuli spoke to the Mail & Guardian this week in his first interview since the “trial of the decade” – the bloodstained province’s biggest third force trial – ended in acquittal in the Durban Supreme Court last month.
Luthuli – who has been referred to as Chief Albert Luthuli’s grandson, though he is only distantly related to the late African National Congress leader – said that from the beginning of the prosecution he had feared the murder conspiracy trial against former defence minister Malan and 19 other apartheid-era securocrats and IFP members would not succeed because of the failure to call witnesses like him.
“From the beginning [the state] was supposed to prove the existence of the Caprivis, how they were organised and who was responsible … When people like myself were not called, how were they supposed to prove how this paramilitary wing was created?” he asked.
One of 73 potential witnesses listed by the state at the beginning of the trial, Luthuli is convinced his testimony could have bolstered the state’s case: “There are a lot of things I could have added to that trial,” he said.
The presiding Judge Jan Hugo went even further than that: he referred to Luthuli as the “fons et origio” – the origin – of the whole investigation. Luthuli said he had expected to testify about the purpose of the 1986 Military Intelligence training of 206 IFP recruits in the Caprivi strip, as well as the selection procedures for specialised training and the meaning of key terms and phrases on which the state’s case ultimately fell.
“I understand the case was running around the word `offensive’. Nobody gave a correct interpretation,” he said. “I was supposed to be there to interpret those words `offensive’, `defensive’, so you know that if a defensive group has served and left the area, there must be an offensive group following in their footsteps.”
The state alleged members of the defensive group of Caprivi trainees had collected intelligence on four potential targets, after which 10 members of the 30-man offensive group had carried out the 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre at the centre of the trial.
Judge Hugo accepted that offensive group members had carried out the attack, but ruled that their training could not be construed according to the primary meaning of the term “offensive”, which is “to attack”. Hugo accepted expert defence testimony that the term had an innocent or “defensive” meaning when used in a military context.
Luthuli led the investigation task unit to the state’s star witness, Johann Opperman, but says he now fears KwaZulu-Natal attorney general Tim McNally may have jeopardised his own testimony in future cases.
Rejecting “that stupid quote [of McNally’s] that I am an unreliable witness”, Luthuli said he feared such a statement from the prosecutor could be used to discredit his testimony in other cases which are still pending: “It was up to the judge to say I was unreliable and then for McNally to charge me,” he said.
Although Luthuli had been involved in hundreds of incidents over several years McNally told the court he had not called Luthuli as he was an “unreliable” witness who had incorrectly stated that the KwaMakhutha massacre was a revenge attack for the death of a man who actually died six months later.
Luthuli countered that McNally had previously called him to testify against self-confessed Esikhawini hit-squad members Romeo Mbambo, Gcina Mkhize and Israel Hlongwane “when I didn’t want to be against them. I was the one who convinced them it was high time they told the truth. I wasn’t even consulted or told I was going to give evidence against them,” he claimed.
The state called Luthuli in an unsuccessful endeavour to counter claims in mitigation by Mbambo and his co-accused in 1995 that they had acted under orders from senior members of the IFP and KwaZulu government.
Convinced the state’s three accomplice witnesses in the Malan trial – former Military Intelligence officer Johann Opperman, Andr Cloete and Caprivi trainee Alex Khumalo – were essentially telling the truth, despite the court’s refusal to indemnify them, Luthuli says he is frustrated at the state’s failure to secure convictions because the Caprivi men “were not recruited or trained as policemen, yet they were given police appoinment cards. They have been involved in many massacres since KwaMakhutha [and] Military Intelligence were deeply involved. The Caprivis were their brainchild and if there were no Caprivis the violence would not be the way it is.”
Luthuli admitted the aqcuittal of the Malan 20 had increased his personal fears, “because they all know who is responsible for them being accused as perpetrators of violence”, but said he did not regret his 1994 decision to turn state’s evidence because the truth had “relieved” him: “I feel more free now than ever before,” he said.
Luthuli said he looks forward to testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “That is the place where I will open my heart.”