CHAIRPERSON
This Commission has been organised by the Johannesburg office and they are part of the Human Rights Violations Hearings.  We will be having witnesses from many parts of the West Rand during the next four days.  Today all the witnesses come from Carletonville and Khutsong and we would like to extend a warm welcome to them and their families.  Before I go on any further, I just want to introduce the rest of my colleagues on the panel here today.  On my right-hand side there is Ms Joyce Seroke who is a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee and on the left-hand side I have Dr Russel Ally who is also a member of the Human Rights Violations Committee and my name is Dr Fazel Randera.  We all come from the Johannesburg office of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and today all the members on the panel are members of the Human Rights Violations Committee.  There will be changes over the next three days and we will introduce the new members of the panel as they come along.
 I want to also thank the Principal of this Nursing College for allowing us to use these premises and also all the other people both from the Commission and many of the communities that we have spoken to who have participated and helped us over the last ten week period as we have collected statements.  I know there are some people who have come here KRUGERSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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today from Bekkersdal and I want to extend a warm welcome to you.  Your statements will be heard on another day and it seems like there has been some confusion in terms of us communicating with you, but we hope that you will stay with us and listen to the statements from the people of Khutsong, Carletonville.  
 I want to just spend a few minutes explaining the process of how we have got to these hearings and any Human Rights Violations Hearing, because there are, again, a number of people within the audience who have come along thinking that they will also be speaking today.  Whenever we decide on a hearing in a particular area, we make links with community structures within those areas, with other role players and through that process we start collecting statements from those people.  Once the statements come into our office they are processed through our system and there is a big information gathering process that takes place within our system.  Let me say that in this area we have taken approximately 200 statements.  Unless we are going to have hearings that go on for ten or 15 days, it will be impossible for every person who has made a statement and we hope our statement takers, when they are taking the statements, have explained this to people.  That not every person who makes a statement comes to a hearing, to a public hearing.  Every statement that comes into the Truth and Reconciliation Commission office will be considered and given the same weight in terms of investigation and acknowledgement so that where you have asked for information relating to a loved one, we will try our utmost to give that information to you.  The hearings, we have always said, provide a window on what happened in our country and we as 
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Commissioners decide who will appear at a particular hearing.  So, if there are people within the audience today who felt that they were going to appear at this hearing, we apologise and any of us will be very happy to speak to you afterwards and take any queries and questions that you may have.  
 I would like us to start our programme and today we have 11 statements.  There is one person who has decided, for his own reasons, not to come today and that is Ms M J J Engakila who is not going to be coming.  There is a change in the programme.  Dr Russel Ally will be starting with the first witness and I will call that witness in a minute.
 I just want to make a few more announcements.  As far as the interpretation service goes, if you want to use these boxes you are most welcome to use them.  There are members of the Commission and of the interpretation unit handing these boxes out at the back.  The numbers on your right-hand side are for the different languages.  Number one is for Afrikaans, number two is for English, number three is for Zulu or Xhosa and number four is for Swana or Soetho.  My appeal on these boxes is please at the end of the day leave them behind as you go out.  They are very sensitive units so just put them on the chairs very carefully please.  
 Alright, thank you very much.  Ms Joyce Seroke will be taking the oath as people come to the table and, as I said earlier on, every morning as witnesses arrive we will stand and as we break for tea or lunch we allow the witnesses to go out first before we go out ourselves.  So if we can just respect that procedure.  Thank you very much.
 I would like to first of all call W S Goliath.  Good morning Mr Goliath.  Welcome.  
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