Amnesty Hearings — Bloemfontein — 1998-01-22

MR BRINK: Similar to that one which I have pointed out to you in this hall?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: It was this size and this big.

MR BRINK: There wasn't a piece of paper stuck to the wall?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: It was something like a sticker, it was stuck to the wall.

MR BRINK: And was it made of wood?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: No, just like ordinary stickers, plastic stickers.

MR BRINK: And you say it was there when you arrived at Fountain?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: It was there when I arrived.

MR BRINK: Was it there when you left?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: When I left for?

MR BRINK: Well, when you left the force in 1992?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: We had changed office, we left Fountain and went to St Andrew's street.

CHAIRPERSON: When did you leave Fountain?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I do not well, but it's around the beginning of 1991 but it was somewhere in those years.

MR BRINK: Do you know why this passage was called Violent Street?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I would not know because I only saw that thing put there, written Violent Street, now we did not spend a lot of time there.

MR BRINK: You understand what violent means, the English word violent?  You know what that means, don't you?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I understand.

MR BRINK: Were you not curious to find out why this passage was called Violent Street in security branch headquarters?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: When we have to tell the truth I did not follow that up because I had a lot of work to do.  I saw it just pasted there  and I thought it was one of the stickers, they might have found it somewhere.  There were ANC stickers, COSAS.  They used to put stickers on.

MR BRINK: Thank you.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR BRINK

ADV MEMANI: Mr Chairman, there's one aspect which I forgot to put, I just got instructed.

CHAIRPERSON: Go ahead.

ADV MEMANI: Yes.  Now, you told us that your office was about 10 metres from Violent Street.

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: That's correct.

ADV MEMANI: Now, did you - are you aware that people were tortured along Violent Street?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I never saw a person being tortured in Violent Street.  I want to clarify this.  If there was anything there, we were against torturing.  If ever tortures were conducted it was in our absence because we signed that nobody will be assaulted.

ADV MEMANI: Did you ever see members of the security branch instructing people to do frog jumps along Violent Street?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: Not next to me, I've never seen them frog jumping.

ADV MEMANI: There was in April 1986 a big catch when about 25 people who were attempting to skip the country were arrested, about 20 people were arrested trying to skip the border.  Did you hear about that?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I do not have knowledge of that issue.  I do not have knowledge because there were people who were working on those cases.

ADV MEMANI: Didn't you hear of such big news as the catching of so many youngsters attempting to skip the country at the same time?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I never heard that, I told you.  It was important to concentrate on my work as much as it was important for them to work outside.  You'd never see us outside, most of the time we were confined.

ADV MEMANI: People were screaming there we are told by witness after witness.

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I've never seen people screaming, not at all.  We don't know after hours but where I was sitting we would never even hear people crying because we used headphones.

ADV MEMANI: As the Chair please, those are my questions.
NO FURTHER QUESTIONS BY MR MEMANI

MR STANDER: Could I please ask a few questions, there are a few aspects which I feel could be important.
	Mr Mbanjani, what was your objective when you got a person in to interrogate this person while you were stationed at Fountain Street?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: When a person came in, it was for the reason of
being interrogated, of being asked questions.

MR STANDER: What method did you follow by which to interrogate these people?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: You are asking a difficult question, I will give you my method.  I would give a person a chair and then I would talk with him.  When I drink tea, the person would drink tea, that's my kind of work.

MR STANDER: When you brought in a political activist, are you now telling us that you would give such a person a chair and tea to drink?  Is that what you are telling us?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: The person who taught me the work taught me that way. I can quote you many people who know that around Bloemfontein.

MR STANDER: Let's take it that the person who's being interrogated in such a manner does not want to reply to the questions that you ask him, what would you do then?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: If he doesn't want to give answers, he doesn't want to give answers.  We had many laws to detain them, we had many laws until you give us an answer.

MR STANDER: If you had information that this person could give the reply to such a question and he did not want to give it to you, what would you do then?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I detain that kind of a person.  I signed that I will not assault a person.

MR STANDER: And tell me, if he was detained, would he then answer your question at a later stage?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: When this person is detained and does not provide answers, we do not make decisions, we have officers above us and they would take the decisions, we were not supposed to even assault this person.

MR STANDER: Were the persons handcuffed at all, the persons that you were interrogating on any occasion?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: Let me tell you the work that I did.  I did not arrest people, I did enquiries.  It was once or twice when we'd go and get a person and we'd hand him over to the investigation unit, we did not do interrogations.  When we had an opportunity we would go and get a person.

MR STANDER: Did you at any stage handcuff a person in your office while he was being interrogated?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: I do not remember but there was once a person whom we cuffed.  I think it was late in the 1970's, I do not know but thereafter people changed.

MR STANDER: Did you at any stage enter an office where a person was being - interrogating someone else in the security branch while you were working there?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: Many a times.

MR STANDER: Did you at any stage see somebody who was handcuffed, sitting on a chair while he was being interrogated?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: It happened or that can happen.

MR STANDER: Was it necessary for persons to be handcuffed while they were being interrogated in an office?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: People are not the same, there's this kind of a person who would escape through the window.  People are not just the same.  A person would the kind of treatment according to his personality.

MR STANDER: Do you really want this Committee to believe that a person would jump out of the window from the 5th or 4th floor and that is the reason for him being handcuffed?  Is that what you are telling us?

CHAIRPERSON: How many incidents of that have been reported?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: These things happened Sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Including some recently?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: Those things happened to people who escaped through windows.

MR STANDER: People who jumped out of the 4th of the 5th floor here in Bloemfontein?

ZANELE PETRUS MBANJANI: That is what the Chairman asked you.

CHAIRPERSON: I was asking you Mr Stander, how many.  You were saying: "You expect us to believe that".  Have you not read in the past of such instances?  Have the police not been criticised for not taking steps to avoid them?

MR STANDER: I'm afraid that I've never read of anything like that in Bloemfontein, it might have happened in other centres but I do not know of it happening in Bloemfontein.

UNKNOWN: In Bloemfontein they prevented it by handcuffing them.