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

WITNESS: It was Warrant Officer Heunis, he told me his name, that his name was Warrant Officer Heunis.  The second one was from Libodi, it was Sgt Kromhout. The third one was Sgt Magedo.  He was accompanying this other policeman who
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used to take me into some of the villages.  
 Sometimes we would go to the Pondos and I would be left in the car and they would go and look for something that I don't know about.  
 Now what amazed me was that here at work, when I was working there, in my workplace, they never told my family where I went.  Even the person who told my father was Sgt Magedo.  Then he said to my family you must not tell anyone that I have told you this, because you will be expelled.  Your son has been arrested.  When they tried to look for me at my place they told them that no, they don't know where I was.

MEMBER OF PANEL: Sir, was there any court case about your torture or were there (indistinct) about your typewriter?

WITNESS: Even now, as I am talking to you, my ear drum is not functioning well. I did report to the warder, because I wanted to go to the doctor.  At the time the district doctor was Dr Umswazi.  Even now as I am speaking to you it feels as if there is cottonwool in my ear.   He told me when I am released I must go back to his surgery so that he can refer me to some specialist. So that if I want to sue the policemen, I must be able to have evidence.

MEMBER OF PANEL: Did you ever sue them?

WITNESS: When I was released from prison, after they had been interrogating me for a long time, when they realised that my ear has been damaged, then they stopped.  But they kept on trying to force me to sign something, that was written in Afrikaans. I said I am not going to sign anything. I said the one who is supposed to sign this is you, I am not going to sign anything.

MEMBER OF PANEL: Do you still wish the Commission to do
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anything regarding the problems that you have put forward to us?

WITNESS: I would like the Commission to please help me out with some money so that I can be able to survive, because I don't work at the moment, and also so that I will be able to see some more doctors for my ears.

MEMBER OF PANEL: Thank you, Sir, I will hand you over to the Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Pumla.  Are there any questions?

MEMBER OF PANEL: Thank you, Mr Ntogana(?) for your evidence and that you have come to the Commission.  I would like to assure you that the Commission is going to investigate your matter.  Unfortunately the Commission has only powers to deal with the violation of human rights that were politically related. Now when it looks closely into this matter it is going to find out was there any politically related matter that was, that caused your torture.  I want to stress this.  Afterwards when we find out, we will tell you the result of our investigations.

WITNESS: Thank you, Sir.  Oh, Mr Commissioner, there is one more thing that I would like to expose.  There was one more thing that was strange to me. This Warrant Officer Heunis said to me he didn't know me, but I was given the mandate to come and take you, was Mr Pienaar and yet when my family came over to look for me, they said no, they don't know anything about me.  Even the money that I was supposed to get, I never got anything.  For me to be reinstated I went to Mr Alie, but Mr Pienaar simply refused, he didn't want me to go back to my work.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much for your explanation, Sir.
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