Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pretoria — 1996-08-14

CHAIRPERSON: We welcome you, Mr Mabena. I notice that you have someone next to you.

MRS MOIMA: He is Mogale Lagalagala.

CHAIRPERSON: How is he related to you?

MRS MOIMA: He is my comrade.

CHAIRPERSON: We welcome you Mogale Lgalagala.  I will ask Mr Wynand Malan to lead you to take the oath.

DANIEL MNINDWA MABENA: (Duly sworn, states).

MR MALAN: Thank you very much and you may sit down.

CHAIRPERSON: What I notice here is that you are going to tell us what they did to you at Themba police station.  We would like you to tell us about the injuries that they inflicted upon you at Themba police station, all the facts surrounding your arrest at Themba police station.

DANIEL MNINDWA MABENA: (Speaker's mike not on) ... Playwright Art and Poetry Organisation.  There was this organisation to consider the question of developing of artists locally around my area of residence.  So it happened somewhere in 1985 in the evening. It was one o'clock, if my memory still serves me well.  There was a raid by the police of the then Bophuthatswana government, together the security branch police and the soldiers with their Hippos.
 They took me off my bed and then I was locked into the
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bakkie, the police bakkie and they drove with me to the Themba police station. On arrival there, then they started sjambokking me.  We arrived at the police station round about two o' clock early in the morning. They started sjambokking me and then the next thing, on the morning, round about six o'clock, the other group came in.  They were also being sjambokked.  
 When we later had a meeting with the station commander, during that arrest, we were told that the cultural group what we have launched is not acceptable in the area, because they felt there were some political activities within that organisation as well.  
 Our organisation was only concentrating on dramatising poetry and also fine art, but they felt there were politics involved there. So it happened that the police would just warn us by word of mouth to say this organisation must cease to operate.  Then they released us.
 It did not end there.  I was already on their books it looked like.  On the 26th of March 1986, they came again, round about two o'clock in the early hours of the morning and they drove away with me again.  That very day that was when the massacre of Winterveld also took place. I was locked in there, sjambokked and then there were also other raids, house to house raids where all male, boys so to say, were also being taken during that raid.  All what happened is during our stay at the police station, they started asking us questions as to who our leaders were.  Some of the people within the group from my community, pointed me out. I had no option but to stand for it because I was the leadership within my area, Eersterus.
 So then they sjambokked me and then there was this tyre
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with the petrol which was placed over my neck to my chest and then I had to carry it.  Then they commanded me to chant political songs and they were laughing at me. When at the same time they were sjambokking me, using the exhausted brake cables.  
 There were two policemen. The other one on the left, the other one on the right. When the other brick cable is on my body the other one was up, to and fro, to and fro.   So that was the type of the torture that one was exposed to.  That was on that day, the 26th, the 27th.  Then I was later released on a Friday, that was the 28th.  I was released on the 27th, Thursday.  After I had been taken on the Wednesday, the 26th.  
 Then I went to the local doctor within the Hammanskraal shopping complex, and the doctor just looked at me and he never gave me any medication whatsoever.So on Friday I went to Garankuwa hospital where I was being attended to. 
 As I am talking, I had abrasions on my body, a lot of scars that emanated out of such a torture or through these brick cables.
 It did not end up there. I was politically education of the United Democratic Front, prior its official phasing-out in 1991, March, the 3rd.  They were also bugging our telephones, because a lot of time our telephones were being bugged.  At some stage I was receiving telephone threats.  They were threatening me over the telephone, people who could not identify themselves were phoning me through in and throughout, and threatening me that I will be killed.  
 It did not end up there, I must say to this Commission.  Because I was at some stage registered with this institution for B.Prog degree, and at some stage because of the type of 
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life, for which one had to be on the run from time to time. Then I was too distanced from my books. I was not even able to bring even a single assignment to this institution.  To the extent that I reapplied again, the other forthcoming years. I think the last time when I reapplied it was in 1992, wherein I was also not able to bring in even a hardly a single assingment due to a situation one was being exposed to through this police brutality.
 It did not end up there, anyway.  There was at some stage wherein our names appeared in the mass media.  Among other papers that I still recognise, it was the Star,  Citizen and many other newspapers.  There was this statement that there is an attempt to murder us by the CCB, the then Civil Corporation Bureau.  This statement was being issued out by the director of the Lawyers for Human Rights, Mr Brian Curen.  
 The other thing is that at some stage when the police were looking for me at my residing place, they could not find me a lot of times due to my manoeuvres, because I was a bit skilled due to a situation I was exposed to.  So a lot of time they were unable to get me and then my family were exposed to harassment as well.  
 My father at some stage got some claps from the police and my younger brother, Frans Mabena.  That was the type of situation one was exposed to.  When I was a journalist - at some stage I was a journalist for the New Nation, an alternative newspaper based in Johannesburg. I was doing freelance work for that newspaper.  So they confiscated a lot of my newspaper articles, a lot of times, to an extent that that career was also being disturbed.  My future career within the mass media.
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 There was also some stage wherein there was this confiscation of articles at my residing place.  When this police, the security branch special corps came, I was not there. It is only unfortunate, because sometimes I don't have the dates, because I was being called even today on the eleventh hour.  I am actually from work now, and I had to run here. I did not bring in the page.  
 So they broke my bedroom door, it is still not repaired today, until today.  Then they confiscated some of my materials, political materials, including some of my books which I bought for this degree, B.Prog degree. They were being confiscated together with another briefcase which I had. Until today such items have not been returned to me.  When I am trying to follow that up they say they are lost, they are lost.  That is the type of answer that one is getting.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr Mabena.  You talk about 200 other male residents. Were these - these were mainly residents from Eersterus?

DANIEL MNINDWA MABENA: There were a number of incidents that took place in Eersterus. One incident, the first incident wherein the whole community was being involved, roundabout 36 people were being arrested, both boys and girls. I arranged their legal representation through the Lawyers for Human Rights offices in Pretoria.  Out of such a situation one was being targeted as well.

CHAIRPERSON: My question was, we are talking about the 200 people.  Perhaps I should have ended my question.  What were they arrested for?