BONISWA ELSIE KHETHWA
Yes.  The police started by troubling our
CRADOCK HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
2 BE KHETHWA
brothers who were studying outside Colesberg and Burgersdorp, they didn't like them because they were saying that they were the cause of the commotion at Venterstad.
 Just before the death of my son, my brother quarrelled with a Sergeant, I was called, I went there.  When I tried to intervene by asking the police what was their problem, because they were assaulting my brothers, what was the reason now for that chaos, the policemen said I must keep quiet, because I had a communist right in the house.
 And they are going to make it a point that they end all the communists, they will put them to end.  On the 6th of April 1986, it was on Good Friday, the police came to my house in the afternoon.  When they arrived, they said today we are here, and we want these communists that are here in your house, these dogs.
 Unfortunately the elder people were not in the house, it was only my child and the other children who were in the house.  They ran away, they ran out of the house through the back door, because the police were coming through the front door.
 They ran away, they went to the bush and the police was still chasing them.  They were running towards the farms.  Late in the evening the other children came back who also ran away with my son, but my son didn't come back.
 The following day we started looking for him, asking people.  One of the children from the Baduli family said he left him next to the river and the police were following him and he didn't see him, because he was also running away.
 That is when the residents of Venterstad took a step and said we are going there, we are going to the farm, we will be looking for this boy.
CRADOCK HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
3 BE KHETHWA
 My father had left with a bicycle to the neighbouring farms with the aim of looking for him.
 He couldn't find him, he came back.  After some time they got him.  I went to the owner of the butchery and told him to help me trying to find my son and I requested that the people shouldn't be killed, because they were looking for my son.  And the owner of the butchery said he was going to talk to the police about this.
 My father and my uncle found my son.  My father said while he was still at a distance, he could see that the head was twisted, the face was facing another direction.
 He noticed that he was not alive, just before he could come closer to him.  He touched him, he could see that he was beaten and his body was full of blood.
 Even under the arms, he had blisters all over the body.  My father left my uncle there and he also went to the police and he called the police to see him.
 When the police arrived, my father said he asked the police if they could see that my son's neck was broken.  The police said it is because of his behaviour, that is why he was like that, there is nothing that the police could do at that stage and he deserved to die at that place.
 And the police even said that we parents, don't talk to our children to tell them to stop doing the things.  The police took my son with my father, they took him with the van, took them with a van and took them to the police station.