Human Rights Violation Hearings — Umtata — 1996-06-19

MEMBER OF PANEL: Mr Chairperson, I would like to call Mr Bokvela Thomas Phulula to the stand.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Phulula, I welcome you this evening, on behalf of the Commission. I am going to ask you now to please tell your story.  As you have listened, we have heard how the Government has violated people's human rights, torturing them. You are also here today with the same cry, that you have been tortured, ill-treated, such that you were also in danger of being killed.    But still, that didn't deter you from making your standpoint.  You told us that you were going to fight for our liberation, come what may.  We salute you!
 We would ask you now to please carry on with your story before the Commission.  Before that I am going to ask you to take the oath.  Please stand up.

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: (Duly sworn, states).

CHAIRPERSON: Tiny Maya will lead the witness.

MS MAYA: Thank you, Mr Chairperson.  Mr Bokvela, before you start I would like to say that your names are Bokvela Phulula, people call you Lavenda, is that so?

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: Yes, that is so.

MS MAYA: Do you come from Ntambeni at (indistinct) here in Umtata, is that correct?
UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
2 B T PHULULA

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: Yes, that is correct.

MS MAYA: Now in your story when you tell us about yourself you left your home when you were 28 years, going to Cape Town to look for work in 1963.  Is that correct?

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: Yes, that's correct.

MS MAYA: Could you please start there, Sir, why did you go to Cape Town and which political organisations were you involved with at the time.

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: The reason why I went to Cape Town, I went to look for work.  At the time I was a member of Mr Mandela's organisation, that is the ANC.  The reason why I joined the ANC was because he was so tortured.  That was the first thing.  The reason why I went to Cape Town is I was tortured inside by the fact that he was tortured.  His torture affected me inside.
 Then I was offered employment in Woodstock.  But then I was arrested and my uncle found me at Pollsmoor. At the time I was arrested for the pass, because I didn't have my pass. I was still working. While I was still working they also fetched me again.  The same place where I was working. I was again arrested and put in Pollsmoor.  These boers were still asking me tell us, man, we don't trust you very much, which organisation are you affiliated with.  I said I am in the same organisation as Mandela.  They said to you know him. I said yes, I know him. Where does he come from? I said he comes from Umtata.  Then after that they left.  I slept.
 My uncle came in the morning, trying to release me, because he was under the impression that I was arrested under the pass laws.  But they said no, I was not there. That is what they said, the boers, they said I was not there, Phulula is not here.  
UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
3 B T PHULULA
 Then I went to a court at Observatory.  While I was still in the police van, I had been beaten up, they were still beating me up.  They were competing in beating me up. I told them, even when I got there, I said I am still saying the same thing, but I was saying then, I told them that I come from the rural areas, I am from Umtata, and I didn't know that by coming to Cape Town I have sinned, because I know that Cape Town is still South Africa, I am not from overseas.  But now apparently now the magistrate now didn't like what I was saying.  Then he said no, I must be taken down, I must be taken down from the courts, from the stand, I was beaten up so much that day, I wished for the sun to come up. I was beaten up the whole night. They tried all kinds of things to torture me.  That whole week they used to come just to beat me up only.  
 Then on the second week, they took me again.  They fetched me from my cell.  Then I said you murderers, there is no other thing that you came to fetch me here for, you only want to kill me. Because it looks like to me then that you are murderers, that is the only thing that you know here.  You came here under the pretext that you are preachers, because you came with a Bible, and you made us to believe in the Bible, and now you have shown your true colours.  You are now murderers, we can now see that.  I know that you are murderers.  Then the magistrate said no, this one must go straight to Mandela, he thinks the same way as Mandela.  I said yes, I am still saying this to you that you are murderers, I know that you want to kill me, you want to drown me.

MS MAYA: Were you sentenced?

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: No, I was never sentenced, this whole time.
UMTATA HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
4 B T PHULULA
Even then I was taken again. We were in the Observatory court all the time.  I was again taken from the stand into the van.  Right in the police van they again assaulted me so much, I was never beaten up so much.  Such that even yesterday I had to go through an operation. The doctor who was taken care of me was Dr Bekker at the time.
 Let me continue.  I stayed in the prison for too long. I didn't even get food sometimes. I would sleep without anything to eat.  Things got better when one man from Gauteng, his clan name is Dlamini, I can't remember his name. I was with him in the cell.  I found out now that we were thinking the same way politically. We stayed in that cell for the whole year.  Now we started a second year with this man.

MS MAYA: Let me interrupt you and take you back to where you were taken into Observatory. What was your crime, what were you accused of?

BOKVELA THOMAS PHULULA: I was only accused of being in Cape Town with no permission, meaning that I was arrested under the pass laws, and that I know that Cape Town was just part of my country and I didn't know that I was in a foreign country by being in Cape Town.

MS MAYA: When did you come out of the cell and what happened?