/ 13 October 1998

APLA cadre refused amnesty

OWN CORRESPONDENTS, East London and Johannesburg | Tuesday 9.00pm.

AN Eastern Cape amnmesty applicant who took part in Fort Beaufort’s violent political conflict in 1993 faces the next six years in jail after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission rejected his application on Tuesday.

The TRC’s amnesty committee, sitting in East London, refused to pardon former Azanian People’s Liberation Army cadre Thembisile Majebe for maiming African National Congress member Lucky August, whose eyes were gouged out during an attack in February 1993.

Majebe was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment last year for the attack.

The committee found Majebe had failed to meet some of the requirements for amnesty. It found that the manner of the attack was disproportionate to its stated aim. Judge Ronnie Pillay said while the committee had decided to give the applicant the benefit of the doubt as to whether the attack was politically motivated, it found that instead of making a full disclosure Majebe had changed his statements whenever he felt like it and had evaded answering questions.

He could also not prove that August was involved in any of the attacks he claimed took place against Pan Africanist Congress supporters.

* In a seperate hearing in Johannesburg on Tuesday a traffic policeman who was injured in a shootout with three Umkhonto we Sizwe members withdrew his objection to their amnesty applications after hearing their testimony.

Ezekiel Maletsane, who was shot in the legs when three MK members opened fire at traffic policemen at a roadblock in Magaliesberg in September 1991, said at the start of the hearing that he could never understand why the MK men had shot him and the other victims.

A passing motorist, John Barbas, was killed and six police injured in the attack. Stanley Wanyane and Bathandwa Godlo were arrested soon afterwards and are in prison. The third applicant, Bukhosibakhe Masiso, was never caught. After hearing Wanyane’s testimony, Maletsane told the committee that he accepted the explanations of the applicants and withdrew his objection to amnesty.