Human Rights Violation Hearings — Newcastle — 1996-09-12

WITNESS:  I think it was in September or October '92.  Constantly I was under surveillance, and the effects it had on my family - I can still see those scars today, and it makes me cross.  In '94, I think it was in January, I was in Pretoria.  I was with some friends.  Suddenly we were surrounded by police.  I was arrested, taken to - I think it was Sinoville Police Station.  I was held there for a couple of hours, no explanation, no warrant, and then just released.  In that same week later on I was - my wife and my family were still at home, and she came from home, from work the evening to find that somebody had broken into our house.  She could not get into the house, and she went and fetched my uncle.  They then went and laid a charge that somebody had broken into the house and literally plundered it.  They were then informed that the Stability Unit had, as they termed it, penetrated my house.  With nobody there they had searched the house without issuing or submitting a warrant to us.  They then told my wife that she may not enter the house until they had instructed her.  She had to get permission from the highest authority - I am not sure, I think she phoned the Minister's office, to get permission to get baby clothes for the children, and nappies, from the house.  I was arrested in Pretoria, brought down to Newcastle.  Never was a warrant given to me.  And they said they were doing a routine investigation of my involvement in training members of Inkatha.  I asked them if it was against the law, and they told me that the law has nothing to do with it.  I was never charged, I was just taken back to Pretoria.  Never was an excuse rendered, never was an apology rendered, and the charges we laid were never investigated.  I later got to realise that the people we are dealing with is something I could not understand.  It was in my opinion people with a barbaric, cowardly streak.  And I started looking and examining the situation.  Things that bothered me were things like Steve Biko.  He was arrested.  His warrant said, "Arrest and detain."  We can argue the merit of the political objectives, or whether he was right or whether he was wrong.  The warrant said, "Arrest and detain," the warrant did not say, "Kick him to death,"  and I am sure on my warrant there was never said to teach me manners by torturing me, or any other detainee.  I thought that maybe it's time for me to add a contribution to this.  What actually brought me about was I one day visited the police station to get fingerprints for a job I was applying for, and there was a young policeman who was taking these fingerprints.  He said to me that he is a supporter of mine, and then he said to me that he was - a few days prior to that him and a colleague had arrested a black man.  They had handcuffed his hands through the bumper of the vehicle, and then they took wires from the alternator and shocked him.  This is not my people.  I told him, "My people have dignity, they have respect, and they have honour," and if he was any form of man he would remove those handcuffs if he wanted to be a sadistic and allow the man the chance to defend himself.  I later was elected as deputy chairman of the Newcastle Policing Forum, and on a visit one day to the cells - and this is in 1995 - there was one prisoner short.  When I inquired they said that it was a black woman that was out on investigation for shoplifting.  Whilst standing in the charge office she came in, and I asked her if she had eaten and she said no.  I asked the police official there to get her food.  He told me that the kitchen was closed and that she'd have to wait until the next morning.  This was not acceptable to me.  She had a human right.  The attitude has never changed, and the shift has now become from the liberation movements of the left, they shifted these acts and they are starting to implement those procedures, that culture. Despite the efforts of trying to reform that they're just redirecting that.  The Commission earlier said - referred to the Security Branch as the elite of the police.  I call them cowards, Mr Commissioner.  I call them scum of the police.  They are responsible not only for what they have done to me and my family, they are responsible to that that's happened to the whole community.  Nothing has changed.

MR LAX: Mr Veenendal, thank you for that story of yours that you've told us.  You've sat here this morning and heard the stories of other people, and I know that you were moved by those stories and you could relate to what they experienced.  I am going to hand back to the Chairperson.

COMMISSIONER: Thank you again, Mr Veenendal, for telling us that - having the courage to come forward and tell that story.  You've made shocking allegations against the police, similar to many of those that we've heard this morning.  Now, you know very well that many Security Branch policemen in the past, and perhaps even now, belonged - or were supporters of various so-called right-wing white organisations.  Many were supporters of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, and in the past no one ever heard organisations like the AWB protesting against police torture which was being administered to black people.  In fact many AWB supporters complained that the police were not being firm enough.  So there is some irony that we now hear a very sincere, a very passionate condemnation of police abuse, police excess, from you now that you have become a victim of that system.  I am not saying this in any way to minimise the terrible things which happened to you over those two years.  Whoever the police torture, whether it's opponents of the Government or opponents of apartheid, or supporters of the Government or supporters of apartheid - whoever they torture it's wrong.  It destroys the credibility of the police, and it destroys any proper notions of what the rule of law is.  Ordinary citizens who come into contact with that sort of policing experience will be justifiably mistrustful of the police.  And, as you will have heard over the past few days, they will justifiably hate the police, as we heard from a young man who gave evidence this morning.  You heard evidence this morning from those four people from Sibongile township in Dundee, who were detained also for two years, tortured by the police - not as badly as you were.  Yesterday we had evidence from people who suffered at the hands of the KwaZulu Police, who supported one side in the social or physical conflicts, and often participated in the criminal acts which were being perpetrated by members of the IFP.  Now, that is not proper policing, and if that sort of thing, that sort of policing persists in this country, we are going to continue down our present path towards lawlessness and chaos, and unless ordinary citizens trust the police, are prepared to work with the police, we will not see an end to what is happening in our country.

COMMISSIONER: So it's important that you've come here and given us that perspective.  It's very important, because we are obliged to provide the fullest possible picture of human  rights violations in this country when we report at the end of our period to the Government.  And the things that you have told us certainly give a very new, quite dramatic perspective to human rights violations, and we thank you for that.  And we are glad that you are now involved in some worthwhile pursuit such as Community Policing Forum, and we wish you well in that venture.

COMMISSIONER: Is there anything else you wish to say before you leave the stage?   We are running a little late, because there are other people to come onto the stage?

WITNESS:   Mr Chairman, the harassment and the spreading of mistrust, of suspicion, has not ended.  You yourself ... (incomplete - tape damaged)