Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-22

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chairperson.  Just a few questions Mr Steinberg.  I think part of this particular exercise is to try and find to what extent the dehumanising experiences that you underwent affected either those (indistinct) or their colleagues.
 So that we can assist the nation in making sure that such things never occur.  And I can't force you to say things that you would rather not talk about, but we would be the poorer if you were not able to tell us in much more detail the things that affected you.
 You indicated here two things that I would like you to expand upon if you are able to.  You said you noticed that you became aggressive and then you said you would rather not say anything more about that.  If you are able to, I would ask you to give us an idea of some of the things that you would rather not say anything about, for the reasons that I have explained.
 Secondly, you did indicate that your colleagues showed deviant behaviour and your counsel indicated that they didn't really require you to give details thereof.  I personally would like to get details of those sort of deviant or evidence of deviant behaviour, but again, I can't really force you to do so, but it would make our work all that much more meaningful if we could get those details.

UNKNOWN: Yes, sir, aggressive.  What I mean by that is that you get to a stage where little things, for instance a person who walks in front of your car, or a person who actually bumps against your car, things like that made you aggressive, caused you to want to fight.
 I am not referring necessarily to myself personally or my colleagues, but there was abuse of alcohol as a result of the stress.  In retrospect, I am a different person now.  I was several different persons, I went through several stages and I had to sort things out for myself and in looking back, I was aggressive, I stopped playing rugby.
 My wife refused to go to rugby matches with me, because I spent more time in the cooler than on the rugby field itself because you were sent to the cooler for dirty games, rugby tactics on the field.
 And there was a lot of stress in the marriage and the family.  You couldn't tell your family, your wife about the kind of job that you did, you kept it to yourself and they didn't understand what actually went through my head and I believe that was also applicable to most of my colleagues.
 It is as if you lacked something in your life, which you were always pursuing and you tried to quieten that by means of alcohol or aggression, it is actually very difficult to talk about it.
 It is something which I have now made peace with, it is something which I tried to for a long time, to hide it away somewhere and most of my colleagues also - they just put it in a cupboard and locked it up and it is not a pleasant thing to unlock the cupboard, because you want to forget these things.

MR NTSEBEZA: Have you in fact undergone any counselling of any sort either then or before you came to testify at this Commission?

UNKNOWN: No, not at all.

MR NTSEBEZA: Do you think that you, it is a good thing for you to do?

UNKNOWN: Yes, I think I ought to go for treatment.  In those days we didn't do it.  It would have been nice if the Department had encouraged us individually or as a group to go for counselling.  At that stage you didn't want to go for counselling, because you were always scared that you were running the risk of being seen as incapable of doing your job.
 You were actually afraid of being discriminated against, as being seen as a softy.  We were men and we didn't want anybody to think that we were too soft to take the pressure of the job, so we always carried this personal feeling, perhaps anger or this frustration, you carried it around in you.  You tried to control it.
 I considered to go for counselling.  I feel good now, I don't know how it would have affected me in another ten years.  It is difficult to project into the future.  You think you have it under control, but perhaps there will come a time when I won't be in control and then it will be a good idea - counselling.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now the decision for you to come and testify in these testimonies, do you regard it as part of a healing process for you or did you just come here?  Or did you come here because you felt there is an obligation for you to come?

UNKNOWN: I think there is a measure of an obligation, yes.

MR NTSEBEZA: Do you think it is going to assist you to adjust to the reality of what happened to you, seeing where you are today in relation to where you were about ten years ago?  What do you think for you as a person, this exercise is going to do?  What is the value for you of this exercise coming to testify here in a manner in which I think most of your colleagues have not done or would not even do?

UNKNOWN: I personally didn't want to come here.  Now that I have actually given my testimony, I actually feel good about it.   What will happen later, I don't know.
 I don't know whether I will be mocked by my colleagues, whether I perhaps said something that is wrong to say.  That we will find out in due course.

MR JANSEN: Madam Chair, could I just interrupt there.  I would like to place on record the fact that during the discussions about the drawing up of this hearing, we did get a very firm undertaking from Correctional Services that they would place as much assistance as possible for you and that there would be no come back at all from an official point of view and I think I would like to record that.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now, I have also heard accounts that some of your colleagues made light of the executions.  Some of them referred to them as films and they would remark about how an execution that was going to take place, is a film.  Did that thing come into your experience or is it evidence of some of this deviant behaviours that you said your colleagues sometimes had.  In other words did they feel as concerned about these executions as you have testified, or did some of your colleagues make so light of these executions as to make no difference to them?

UNKNOWN: I think it did make a difference to each individual person.  He can laugh at me, he can tell me anything, but I tell you now, each execution affected everybody.
 And perhaps he won't admit it in a group context, but tonight when he goes to bed, he knows in his heart that it did make a difference.  The person who says it made no difference to him, he should really reflect, then he has no soul.
 Really, I believe that it made a difference, it affected each and everybody, it is a sensitive issue.  It is something which we didn't easily discuss amongst each other.

MR NTSEBEZA: Now, we and I think this will be my last question - we come all of us, come from a past that divided cemeteries.  There was Mamelodi for Black people, there was Eersterus for coloured people, etc, etc.
 Now, you have described to us in a fairly graphic detail what happens after the trap doors have been opened and Joyce has recalled what Chris Barnard says happens to a body that has been dropped when the trap doors open.
 Bowels get loose, the spinal cord gets snapped and I would suppose and he says it in a colourful language that I don't have, that people (indistinct) themselves, unless certain precautions had been taken.  In a word, the bodies become a gory mess.
 Now, and it was your tasks to clean up the mess and I think in a sense that was one of the most dehumanising aspects of it for you.  Now, South African society being what it was, were there any occasions in which you as White wardens were expected to clean up mess of Black people who had been executed or was separation carried even in those areas, Black wardens to clean up the mess of Black people who had been executed, or didn't it really matter at that level?