Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-21

DR BORAINE: Thanks very much, who's next Prema? Shanthie?

MR P NAIDOO: ... (not audible)

DR BORAINE: Okay, thank you.

MS S NAIDOO: I was banned for five years in the same year Indres was arrested.  I was then the breadwinner as well and I couldn't work as I got sacked where I was working.  Fortunately I've managed to find a job.  I was banned again in '68.  I was then detained in 1969 under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act and I was held for two weeks here at The Fort in the women's section of the prison.  I was in solitary throughout, I wasn't even allowed out for a shower or a bath, water was brought to me and I wasn't even allowed to empty my own bucket.
 Two weeks later I was taken to a building where I was interrogated for six days.  The person in charge of interrogation was the famous Swanepoel who shot my brother.  I was made to stand and I don't know for how long and towards the end I lost consciousness with reality and I was sort of hallucinating, I was dreaming of going in a plane, it had something to do with bringing money into the country and so on.
 On the fifth day I was allowed to sleep for a few hours and when I got up I felt like there was no floor anymore, it was the most horrible feeling.  I was interrogated on this dream.  They then took me to Pretoria Central and left me there in solitary and I was held in similar conditions as I was in The Fort.  
 Six months later they took me to give evidence in the trial twenty two, Joyce Sekukane and Winnie Mandela where I refused to give evidence.  I was then sentenced to two months imprisonment.
 Although I was now a prisoner my detention did not end, they continued to hold me in the same cell, the only difference was that the regular Magistrate visit didn't exist for the two months and I had prison clothes but I had no letters, no contact with my family.  I have no idea where I was held.

MR LEWIN: This was at the women's section at Central.

MS S NAIDOO: In Pretoria Central Prison.  I was released a year and a week after I was actually originally detained.  They just continued with my banning orders and I then had a struggle leaving the country.  They gave me an exit permit but they wouldn't release me from my banning order to go to a port of departure.  ...  Robert Sobukwe and myself and we lost this at the highest court and eventually after a lot of campaigning my people, my anti-apartheid organisations and the people in ours I left the country in 1972 and returned in 1991.

MR LEWIN: Thanks very much.  Murthie?

MR M NAIDOO: I was first detained in 1965 on my way to visit Indres on Robben Island.  I was arrested at the airport in Cape Town and was held overnight in a dark filthy cell in Roeland Street Prison.  The next day I was taken to Swartkop Aerodrome in Pretoria in a light military aircraft.  It was a journey I will never forget to this day because I vomited from Cape Town to Pretoria, I was violently sick the entire flight from airsickness.  I was driven to Pretoria Central Prison, I was stripped naked and searched and was given back my clothes except for my belt, shoelaces and watch.  They said the belt would prevent me from committing suicide in prison but I had no intention of committing suicide.
 I was held in solitary confinement for a fortnight in a small cell of about three metres by two metres.  I slept on a grass mat with two blankets, it was bitterly cold.  One small bucket in the corner was my bathroom, another bucket contained water.  I was fed mielie rice and water only and I was usually allowed to exercise for half an hour a day.
 After two weeks I was taken to ... buildings where I was interrogated, verbally abused and assaulted.  One of my torturers was Roy... Swanepoel, that's the only policeman I remember who boasted to me that he had shot my brother.  At one point I was kept awake for two days and one night.  After making a statement I was taken back to my cell where I was kept in solitary for four months under the 180 day law.  
 I must confess that solitary confinement is the worst kind of torture that can be inflicted on any human being.  No amount of physical torture can equal that of solitary confinement.  I had absolutely no contact with any of the other prisoners who were almost entirely common-law prisoners but I could continually hear the beating and sjamboking of other prisoners.
 At some time during my detention we used to get the Rand Daily Mail and I followed very closely the Harold Strachan Trial and exactly what he had said in his newspaper article, of the beating and sjamboking of prisoners is what I had heard continually every day.  On my release I was listed as a communist.  
 My second spell of detention stretched from May 1980 to August 10th, 1980 under the General Law Amendment Act.  I'd been involved with the Parents of Detainees Committee in ... during the student unrest.  During this period I was again interrogated, assaulted and held in solitary confinement for two weeks.  Sometime during this period I saw a headline in a newspaper in the prison office about the Sasolburg explosion.  When a policeman saw me looking at this newspaper and reading it he became visibly very angry and beat me with his fists.
 Subsequently we were taken to Modder Bee prison where I was held with other detainees from around the country in communal cells until the 10th of August when we were released.

MR LEWIN: Thanks very much Murthie.  Prema?  I think we might have to ask you to be slightly briefer that Indres because I know your story goes on a long time, thank you.