SNOEKIE MZAMBU
As I said, we were in church.  I didn't know what they were doing but what we heard during the service was that these were comrades, they were just sitting there.  What is surprising is that while we were still preparing to bury them the magistrate in this letter before me, it is written enquiry to Mr L Mendelsohn.  This was from the Chief Magistrate in Randburg.  When we went to him he blankly refused to give us permission to bury our dead in a mass funeral.  In my opinion I think that people should be given a chance to bury their people.  And I think he was wrong for refusing us to bury the dead.  And that is the reason why I would like this magistrate to come before the Commission as to why he refused to give us permission to bury our children. I would like to say that some of our people ... bury them on mass funeral - so to bury them on mass funeral we assist these people.  We as ministers we go around asking
ALEXANDRA HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
4 MZAMBU
for some donations to help us and bury the dead ones.  That is the reason to bury them.  If the excuse of the magistrate to refuse us the permission to bury our dead ones I think he was very much wrong.  If his excuse is that he was trying to get the safety to the community or the properties of the people he should have at least got some more security to escort us and not to refuse us to bury our dead ones.  This was later granted to us through the ANC and ACO.  ACO is Alexandra Civic Organisation.  They got us a lawyer, Mr Huyzen.  We made an appeal to the magistrate saying that to the magistrate if he refuses to give us the permission to bury our dead ones he is prepared to take that immediately to court.