Item Belt 18c - PDF - Witnesses: Nana Weinberg, Desmond Gray Williams, Lennox Smollen

Description

Once again proceedings began with Dr Yutar telling the court that the state intended to begin with a few witnesses with very short testimonies. These four witnesses gave evidence of Denis Goldberg operating under the alias of Mr Don Williams in Johannesburg.

Following this the state called a batch of three witnesses who would all give evidence of about 15 acts of sabotage committed in the East London and Port Elizabeth areas of the Eastern Cape. Dr Yutar stated at the outset of proceedings that of these three witnesses, the state only considered Reginald Mdubi to be a co-conspirator. The other witness, Bennet Mashiyane, was also involved in ANC activities in the area, and the final witness was the police officer in charge of investigating the acts of sabotage discussed.

Yet again Dr Yutar argued that the first two witnesses “are in deadly fear of their lives” and requested that they give their evidence in camera. Dr Yutar added, as justification, that the court would hear on this day about no fewer than five violent attacks on people – including state witnesses - who were targeted as a result of their being seen as against the liberation movement.

As this was the first day that witnesses from the Eastern Cape region were called it was also the first day on which the translator, Mr Lee, was unable to perform satisfactorily in court. Mr Lee struggled so much with translating the particular dialect of isiXhosa spoken by Bennet Mashiyane that Dr Yutar asked the witness to respond as best he could in English for today and the state would arrange for an isiXhosa expert to be brought in the next day.

Witnesses Called

34th State Witness: Mrs Nana Weinberg – Housewife, Houghton, Johannesburg.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.

Nana Weinberg was a housewife who lived in Houghton, Johannesburg. When asked by Dr Yutar if she knew Accused No.3, Denis Goldberg, she said yes and Dr Yutar commented, “in fact you know him so well you just greeted him by smiling at him”. Nana Weinberg knew Denis Goldberg when he satay with his family in Cape Town and worked as an engineer. Denis Goldberg had visited Nana Weinberg during 1962 and around June, 1963, and stayed at her house in Houghton. On his second stay he asked Nana Weinberg permission to have some letters received at her address. She agreed and thereafter letters often arrived at her address which were addressed to Williams.

These letters were then picked up by Denis Goldberg but Nana Weinberg could not recall any conversations she had with Denis Goldberg regarding the letters. Nana Weinberg discussed the matter with her husband and they decided that they were going to tell Denis Goldberg that they no longer wanted to receive these letters. Nana Weinberg could not recall if such a discussion had taken place with Denis Goldberg but she did say that after he collected the last batch of letters no more arrived at her house.

Nana Weinberg was aware of Denis Goldberg’s political affiliations.
Cross-examination reserved.

35th State Witness: Desmond Grey Williams – P.O. Box, Saxonwold.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
When called by Dr Yutar, Judge De Wet chuckled at his own mistaken assumption that the state was trying to call Accused No.3, Denis Goldberg, to the witness stand. Desmond Williams testified that he did not give permission, nor was he aware, that an unknown person had applied for a P.O. Box in Saxonwold in his name. The witness did not know Denis Goldberg or any of the other accused in the Rivonia Trial.

No cross-examination.

36th State Witness: Lennox Smollan – Director, Fred C. Solomon Box and Board Sales (Pty) Ltd.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
Lennox Smollan gives a very similar testimony as those businessmen and women who gave evidence concerning Denis Goldberg as Mr D. Williams during the previous day of court. As director of a timber firm he was approached by Mr Williams, not identified as Denis Goldberg in court but as photograph No.3 of Exhibit D, and asked to provide quotations and samples for large orders of wooden boxes and extra pieces. Exhibits T. 11, T. 12, and T. 13, are all submitted as evidence relating to these transactions and correspondences. Exhibit T. 11 also provides specific instructions for the use of these timber materials in the production of landmines, hand grenades, and other objects used for the purposes of sabotage.

Cross-examination-reserved.

37th State Witness: James C. Lankenau – Sales Manager, James Barlow.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
James Lankenau was one of the few state witnesses who confidently identified Accused No. 3, Denis Goldberg, in the courtroom as well as photo No.3 of Exhibit D as the man who he knew as Mr D. Williams. Similarly to the other most recent witness called by the state, James Lankenau testified to the fact that Mr D. Williams had approached him and requested a large quantity of materials for casting, such as cast iron. A copy of the drawing and quotation James Lankenau prepared for Mr D. Williams was created for the police and handed in to the court as Exhibit 13.

Having been given a copy of Exhibit T. 11 to study during the last adjournment, James Lankenau tells the court that he thinks that it could have been instructions for a stick grenade.

Cross-examination by Mr Fischer.
Under cross-examination, James Lankenau did state that the objects shown to him during his examination could also have been used for many other purposes in ordinary engineering.

No re-examination.

38th State Witness: Bennet Nbuyo Mashiyane – ANC West Bank Branch, East London.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
Bennet Mashiyane was the secretary of the West Bank Branch of the ANC in East London. He identified Accused Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 7, as people he knew. After the ANC went underground in 1960 Bennet Mashiyane became the contact between his Branch at West Bank and the Regional High Command in East London. According to Bennet Mashiyane the chairman of the ANC in East London was George Komane and a young man called Johanson Mqubela, also known as Khandoti, was the head of the Regional High Command.

East London fell under the authority of the ANC structures in Port Elizabeth and Govan Mbeki was said to have come often from Port Elizabeth, sometimes with Raymond Mhlaba and Vuyisile Mini, to report instructions from the National High Command to the Regional High Command.

Bennet Mashiyane testified that when the ANC was banned he was instructed by Vuyisile Mini and Zolo Qini to burn all documents relating to the organisation and that once operating underground the ANC was to operate according to the Mandela Plan, also known as the ‘M’ Plan.

Dr Yutar askes Bennet Mashiyane to explain what the Mandela Plan was at least five times. The witness was unable to give a clear answer to this question and could only comment on the division of East London into seven different zones, and the organisational structure and chain of command in the area, and the fact that there was much secrecy involved in the operations of the ANC.

Dr Yutar then shifts attention and asks Bennet Mashiyane if he knew any leaders of the ANC who ‘ran away’ from South Africa. Mark Masize, Gobosi, O. R. Tambo, Joe Mathews, Duma Nokwe, Robert Resha, Tennyson Makiwane, Arthur Goldreich, Jack Hodgson, Harold Wolpe, Patrick Duncan, and Abe Segal, were all identified as such leaders who had fled the country at some time.

Returning to the meetings Bennet Mashiyane claimed to have attended with Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba, Judge De Wet put it to the witness, “Are you confusing NHC with P.E. High Command?” In response to this Bennet Mashiyane insisted that, as far as he understood, prior to being banned the National Executive of the ANC was based in Johannesburg, however after going underground, “under the new plan, people I was told about that were members of the NHC I knew them as people under whom we were working at P.E.”. There was still clear confusion in the court regarding the Regional and High Commands, associated with MK, and the High Commands and National High Command of the ANC. In particular it was unclear if the witness alleged that Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba were members of the P.E. Committee of the ANC or the National High Command of MK. According to the notes of the defence “it seems that the former is the proper construction of the evidence”.

One of Bennet Mashiyane’s responsibilities was to appoint a Volunteer-in-Chief in his area, which he did, who was in charge of organising volunteers that had been recruited and instructing them on what work they had to do. In the main volunteers, referred to as Madelakula and seen as “the soldiers of the organisation”.

According to Bennet Mashiyane volunteers had duties including the distribution of leaflets, the reporting of “squealers” to higher authorities, and to carry out any instructions given to them by the Volunteer-in-Chief. Bennet Mashiyane claimed that he knew, having been told by Mark Masiso, of three “squealers” who had been shot as a result of their actions against the liberation movement.

Govan Mbeki and Vuyisile Mini were said to have held a meeting during April, 1962, with the Regional High Command in East London because they were dissatisfied about the work which was being done in East London. According to Bennet Mashiyane he and his comrades were told that more volunteers had to be recruited, more subscriptions collected, and people needed to be sent out to the rural areas in order to organise and teach the people there about the freedom struggle.

Although various plans and acts of sabotage were discussed during Bennet Mashiyane’s testimony, none had been conducted in the East London area or discussed in the meetings of his particular West Bank Branch. Furthermore, although Bennet Mashiyane claimed that Mark Masize had told him that it was the duty of volunteers to kill people “who were to be done away with”, no “squealers” were killed in East London. This was an important support for the defence case that the ANC continued as a peaceful organisation and MK was kept separate from it.

As none could be identified in the East London area, Dr Yutar asked Bennet Mashiyane to discuss what happened to the “squealers” found in other parts of the country. To this Mr Fischer informed the court that, having been given no basis by the state, the court had no way of knowing whether any of this evidence was of the witness’s own knowledge, or if he simply heard it. As previously mentioned, Bennet Mashiyane claimed to have heard about three killings of “squealers” from Mark Masiza, Chief Secretary of the East London Regional High Command.

Cross-examination reserved.

39th State Witness: Reginald Mdubi – Regional Committee, East London.
Examination-in-chief by Mr Krogh.
Like Bennet Mashiyane, Reginald Mdubi was a member of the ANC Regional Committee for the border area in East London while the organisation was underground and had adopted the Mandela Plan. Reginald Mdubi said that Sparks was the chairman of this Committee, Tuli Masiza was Secretary, and he, Dwaba, Mkosana, and Pshwete, were also office bearers. Mgabela was said to have been the contact man between this committee and the National Committee in Port Elizabeth and a man named Bongco was Chief volunteer. All written instructions Mgabela received from the National Committee in P.E. were destroyed as soon as they had been given to the Secretary, Masiza.

As Chief Volunteer in East London, Bongco, was ultimately in charge of all volunteers in the area and was said to have personally taught Reginald Mdubi how to make petrol bombs to be used in sabotage attacks on private homes. Reginald Mdubi insisted that because Bongco was his superior within the ANC he was not allowed to question the instructions he received from Bongco. As such, Reginald Mdubi, describes participating, to varying degrees, in a number of acts of sabotage on the instructions of Bongco.

In all Reginald Mdubi gives evidence in relation to three sabotage attacks. The first was Item 102 of Annexure B in which a bomb was placed in the personal home of an Advisory Board member. The second was Item 101 in which a man named Tongeni’s residence was successfully targeted because he was going to appear as a state witness in the Dhami Thumi case. The third was Item 129, in which an old man named Hoyi, ambassador to Chief Archie Sanele in the Ciskei and perceived enemy of the liberation movement, had his private house burned down. Reginald Mdubi claimed that on this occasion two children in the house got burnt and one of them died. However, under cross-examination, the defence made the case that this, and other evidence given by Reginald Mdubi concerning death or injury of people in acts of sabotage, was heresy. Although, it would not be denied that Reginald Mdubi was truthful in his evidence that he had been involved in the creation of bombs for these acts.

Cross-examination reserved.

Court is adjourned until 10:00am the following day.

Sources
Dictablets: (Vol.50/6A/18c) (Vol.50/6A/19c) (Vol.50/6A/20c) (Vol.50/6A/21c) (Vol.50/6A/22c) (Vol.50/6B/23c) (Vol.50/6B/24c) (Vol.50/6B/25c).
Percy Yutar Papers:
Handwritten notes from the prosecution for 23rd January, 1964 (Ms.385/36/7).
Evidence of Bennet Nyuya Mashiyana (Ms.385/4).
Evidence of Reginald Mdubi (Ms.385/4).
WITS Historical Papers:
F1 – F70: Evidence by: Mrs Nana Weinburg, Mr DG Williams, Lennox Smollan, JC Lankenau, Bennet Nbuyo Nashigana, Reginald Mdubi, Det. Sgt Donald Card, Emily Sebone, John Tshingana, Det. Sgt van Tonder, and Lieut. Swanepoel (AD1844.A7.3).
Evidence: BN Mashiyana (AD1844.A12.1).
Analysis of evidence: Bennet Mashiyana (AD1844.A18.1).
Evaluation of evidence: Bennet Mashiyane (AD1844.Ba8).

Key Words
Denis Goldberg, Mountain View, ANC Volunteers, Mandela Plan, East London, Port Elizabeth, Sabotage, ANC Organisational Structures, National High Command, Violence.