Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1997-06-13

CHAIRPERSON: Mncedisi Mapela.

MNCEDISI MAPELA: (Duly sworn in, states).

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Sir.  We welcome you.  We hand you over to Mr Sandi who will lead you on behalf of the Commission.

ADV SANDI: Thank you Mr Chairperson.  Mr Mapela, you said that in 1964 you were arrested, tortured, interrogated about certain matters.  What, which organisation did you belong to?

MNCEDISI MAPELA: The ANC.

ADV SANDI: Give us the details please about your torture at the police station.  Was this at Fleet Street?

MNCEDISI MAPELA: Yes.

ADV SANDI: Please give us the details of your torture.

MNCEDISI MAPELA: First of all, Mr Chairperson, the statement taker did not tell me what kind of evidence exactly I was supposed to give.  I was tortured because of Maziza with whom I worked.  We had a tailor at Mgene.  We were part timers there.  We were in different cell groups as an organisation so that if the Government arrested a certain number of cells members, they would not know who the others were.  As the police were looking for Dula Maziza, he took a New Age newspaper that had been banned and left with it from the tailor.  He closed me to close the tailor down.
 The one day I was taken from work at three o' clock.  I only had a shirt on.  It was cold outside.  I asked them to wait for me to go get my jacket.  They said, no, they are going to bring me up immediately.  I said, no, I was going to fetch at least a jersey.  They said that they just wanted to find something out.  It was three of them.  Donald Card, Mbombo and Chikile were the three policemen.  We went to Fleet Street.  When we got there I was put into an office, the office was locked.  I was told to sit down.  They told me to take off my glasses, my watch.  They asked me where Maziza was.  I said I did not know, because we do not stay together, we only worked together.  
 Chikile was standing behind me, Card was sitting at the table.  I said to them you work together as well, but after work you go to your different houses.  Chikile slapped me from behind.  He slapped me so hard such that my right ear is damaged to this day.  I got up, went to him and held him.  I pushed him against the wall.  I did not do anything to him.  I asked him why he had beat me up.  He said nothing.  He got loose, he opened the office door and left.  He came back with a gun and hand-cuffs.  Card then said he must not bring the old hand-cuffs, but they are old ones.  He left again, running.  He brought back these hand-cuffs.  I refused.  Donald Card punched me.  I got a bit dizzy.  That is when they got a chance to hand-cuff me.
 They the put me on top of a table that was as high as this one, very thick table, an antique.  Card, Donald held me at the feet and another one from the top.  Chikile put his knee on my stomach and started choking me on the neck.  He hit me against the table with the back of my head.  I fell on the floor, I lost consciousness.  When I regained my consciousness I tried to get up, but I could not.  They kicked me.  They put me back on the table.  I was taken from three o' clock onto 11 o' clock they were torturing me.  They would put me on the table and torture me.  If you looked on my neck you would think that a dog had beaten me.  I am like this because of Chikile.  He tortured me more than the White man.  
 He was asking me about Gloqo.  I said I did not know nothing about it.  He asked me about ANC.  I said I knew nothing about the ANC.  He beat me up.  My face was swollen, my ears bleeding, my mouth.  I was bleeding everywhere.  When I would spit on the floor they would ask me if I did not see that the floor was polished.  They said that they were going to kill me if I did not divulge.  I told them they must not torture me, but the man with the gun must shoot me, because they were not going to get any information from me.  They said that if the man they were looking for, they would have found, they were going to shoot him.  They were looking for weapons.  They were looking for weapons.

ADV SANDI: What happened?

MNCEDISI MAPELA: They stopped beating me up.  They said they would leave me with one person.  I would have to divulge everything to the one person.  I told them that I was not going to give any information, because I did not know anything.  The, Mombo, the other White man came, also asking for information on his own.  Chikile was the third one.  I spat on Chikile.  I am sorry to put it that way, but I spat on him, because he had hit me so badly.  I could not speak and I could not swallow any saliva, I was bleeding, I was all swollen up.  That is why they stopped interrogating me at the time.
 I was then put into yet another office.  There was a bed there.  Chikile slept on it.  There was a window pane that was missing.  My shirt was all torn.  They hung me with my arm hanging outside.  They tied me to the burglar proof, to the, it was so cold that from my head downwards on my right side I was numb.  Chikile was sleeping, snoring on the bed.  Donald Card had left.  In the middle of the night a CID officer came.  This CID worked with the doctors that were working with the State.  I was absolutely bruised on both arms.  This man left, came back with a plate, two slices of bread and fish.  I said thanks, but no thanks, because I could not swallow.  He turned back with it shaking his head.  He could see that I was in the same position for hours.  
 Donald Card arrived.  I heard someone crying out.  This man would not get out of the car.  It was Dula Maziza's wife.  She was six months pregnant at the time.  They brought her in.  They asked if they, if she knew me.  She could not recognise me for a while.  She tried to look carefully.  I was swollen up and had been bleeding.  When she realised who I was she cried out and screamed.  She could not believe the state I was in.  Card then left with her.  There would be Boers coming in and out with a gun.  They would put it against my neck.  I would ask them to pull the trigger.  They refused.  Some of them would come and hold a knife against my neck.  I would ask them to cut my head off.  They would refuse.  
 After one a.m. Donald Card came.  He said, oh Chikile, this man is still here.  You have still hung him this way.  Chikile was snoring.  I am sad that Chikile is not here, because he is the one who tortured me the most.  Donald Card then said this was too much.  They put me down.  I had been hung from the outside.  You must understand, my arm was hanging and my arm was absolutely numb by then.  Chikile was crying.  He, my shirt was wet because of his tears.  He said I knew what Boko was all about.  Donald Card, a Boer, said that Chikile had tortured me too much.  He must stop Donald Card said.  That is why Chikile stopped beating me up.

ADV SANDI: For how long were you detained?

MNCEDISI MAPELA: Just that night Sir.  I was released after one a.m.  They gave back my spectacles and my watch.  They put me into the car.  I stay in Mekene.  They dropped me off halfway and they said that I must walk home.  I could hardly walk.  I was kicked at the stomach as well.

ADV SANDI: Did you go to a legal representative?

MNCEDISI MAPELA: Comrades said I must go to a doctor, Dr Mashlangeni, who is late.  I went to him.  They said that if I want to lay charges I would have to give Dr Mashlangeni's report and then go to the State Doctor.  It is he who was going to confirm what Mashlangeni had diagnosed.  I thought it was too long a process and it was going to lead me back to Donald Card and I did not want that to happen.  I therefore did not lay charges.
 I forgot to add that the late Mr Mkabela, Steve Tshwete and Sparks, also Dwaba, a whole lot of them, they would go to my house visiting me.  They would say, I would hear them saying amongst each other that I was not going to survive, I was going to die, because I could not eat, I could not swallow the food.