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

WITNESS:   When I was held in prison, and I realised that all my co-accused were in prison, and that we were basically not - that we could be article 29-d again, I informed my family and my political parties. Okay, just for the record it's public knowledge that once you'd informed the CP and the HNP at that time the matter was taken up at the very highest level.   ---   That's right.  F W de Klerk appointed a commission of inquiry, and there was a piece in The Sunday Times whereby a general said that he had visited me to take a statement, which was not true.  The only time I ever saw a policeman was one day at prison.  Two - I don't know who they were - policemen came there.  They said that they were investigating this matter and they asked me to make a statement, which I did.  They asked me to identify the members of the Security Branch.  They had a large file.  I paged through the file and identified each one of them.  They asked me to identify the blacks.  I could not because there were no photos of them.  I asked them if this file was a Security Branch file or if it contained photos of askaris.  They said no, only photographs of policemen.  They told me that they would return with a file of askaris to continue the investigation, and then I could identify the three askaris.  They never came back.  I tried to inquire what happened to the case, and being in prison, or being detained in prison, it was very hard to follow up the case.  Until today nothing has come from that investigation.

MR LAX: Mr Veenendal, we will obviously try and get details of General Joubert's report, and of his Commission and what actually happened with that.  We will follow that up, so at least that can - you can know the outcome of that.  Did you actually lay a charge in respect of the assaults that you suffered?

WITNESS:   I laid charges.  I tried to follow it up. Where were those charges laid?   ---   I was in prison.  The police came to me in prison.  From where they were I am not sure.

MR LAX: So that was in Diepkloof?

WITNESS:   That was in Diepkloof Prison.  I was detained for I think about two years, which - when I got to prison I discovered I had a problem with my vision, especially when I tried to read or concentrate for a while, and I was referred to a optometrist.  When he investigated me he said that my eyes had gone through some or the other form of shock, and he made a report available.  The Security Branch was kind as to give me these glasses I have today.

MR LAX: Now, you - well, did you ever appear in court and get charged and convicted for any offences relating to the stuff they were questioning you about?

WITNESS:   The case was at various times postponed.  It was then at the turmoil of the political events at that time, and I was never - I was actually indemnified on those specific charges.  But remembering that two years in prison, and they would confiscate our letters.  We would go and visit our family behind glass.  My second son was just born when I was detained.  He was almost two when I came home.  I could never see him or touch him.  Constantly our cells were being searched for no reason.  We were woken up at night, our cells searched.  When we'd come back from visits we were told to strip down, and they would body search us.  We were degraded, humiliated, and from time to time the members of the Security Branch would visit us at prison and they would sarcastically ask if we were enjoying our stay in Sun City.

MR LAX: Mr Veenendal, it's public record that you and other prisoners went on a hunger strike thereafter.

WITNESS:   I went on numerous hunger strikes in prison.  Some of them were for reasons of ill-treatment, of the way we were treated, of the exceptional rules that were given to us.  There was one set of rules for us as detainees, and as awaiting-trial prisoners, compared to others, and only when we go on hunger strike were these things addressed.  Then in 1991, when we were given indemnity, I had applied for bail on the second charge, which they did not give me indemnity, which was refused.  We embarked on another hunger strike and bail was granted, and I was at home approximately eight months, maybe a year, and I was again brought before Court.  And the ruling was that I was to stay in detention for the Minister to resolve the matter.  He never resolved the matter.  That was then Kobie Coetzee.  I again embarked on a hunger strike, and during that hunger strike I was put into solitary confinement, I was harassed 24 hours a day by the prison warders.  They would leave the lights on in the cells, they would keep me awake, they would chain me to the bed.  Then they would unchain me from the bed.  When I was later taken to hospital the Security Branch insisted that I was a high-risk prisoner, and that I should be treated as such.  Despite the pleas from the medical people that were looking after me they never stopped harassing me, putting me under pressure, and after my release the harassment never stopped.

MR LAX: Mr Veenendal, when were you finally released?