Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-22

DILIZA MTHEMBU: Thank you.  Firstly I was appointed Chief representative of the ANC in Angola, that was in Bengela province in 1981.
 I know that place very well.  I spent the whole 12 years in Angola since I went there in 1976.  In our province where we were, we experienced a lot of problems which are related even to the leadership of the ANC at that time, Mzwandile Piliso, Andrew Masondo and the likes.  (Indistinct) Gaba who was the Chief representative in Luanda.
 We had a lot of problems financially.  I was a Commander and the Chief representative in Bengela.  Problems emanating from transport.  We were responsible for our boots which came from Europe or any other country outside Angola.  I was responsible for the stores and everything.
 Keeping our logistics, including arms, everything.   And I think I had a problem with the leadership in Luanda because all the time I told them we don't have transport.  The only transport we have here is wheelbarrows and a bicycle and they promised us transport.  And the transport came, that was two landcruisers.
 Then things started to change.  They told me I should use that transport to our own benefit.  Then I used the transport.  Later they told me to take back the transport to Luanda.
 That is where things started and then I told them that it is difficult for me to take this transport to Luanda, because in Luanda you've got enough transport and here we don't have any transport.
 And then that is when (indistinct) Gaba started reminding me of my father, that my behaviour is in such acceptable, I should not forget that what my father did to this movement.
 So when I tried to be disciplined, but I couldn't take it.   Then I told them that I will never, ever do that, take this transport back to Luanda.  I was working with Henry Manney who was my assistant and then one Saturday morning security called by the name Midumaleng, an African came to Bengela.
 And they were with one Angolan official and then they told me that we are here to come and discuss the problems.  Do you know this man, I told them no, I don't know him.  And then I said my problem is I cannot discuss our internal problems with somebody outside the movement.
 So maybe that made them to be more - and then they took us to prison.  And then we were locked in one prison.  But when we arrived at the prison, it was in Bengela, the very same guy asked in Portuguese asking Midumaleng, what now, what must we do.
 What is it in Portuguese, these are contra-revolutionaries we have to lock them up.  Okay, we were locked for almost I think three weeks.  Sorry to say, the prisons in Africa, they are very horrible, the conditions are bad.
 I started developing as asthmatic, which I am now and high blood.   And then after three weeks, Africa came and told us the leadership wants to see us in Luanda.
 Then from the prison we were taken out, straight to the airport and back to Luanda.  When we arrived in Luanda, we were taken to a transit camp which was called Viala.  Which was our transit camp where new recruits and so on are brought and processed until they are taken to their respective training camps.
 So whilst I was in Luanda I think, the second day, the third day night, in the evening, about eleven, security guys of the ANC came to me and Manney and called us.  then they took us out and we went outside in Viala, but we moved in the direction where there was this freight containers, containers which you used to put goods and then we were locked inside those containers.
 No window, no ventilation.  When it is cold, it is cold.  If it is hot, it is hot in that container.  No food, no water.  Just once in the evening, we are taken out to go and do, help yourself and then come back, you are locked.
 I think I stayed in that container for 28 days with Henry Manney and then after that, we were released.  One day, we don't know, it was a surprise for us, somebody came and said just go out and wash yourself, it was daylight, round about one or past one o'clock.  Then we went out and we washed ourselves but we realised that there is something happening here.
 We discovered that no, the leadership had come and it was led by the late comrade Mapeqa.  But since I was used now because I had no other place except that container, after washing myself, when it was beginning to become dark, I went to the very same guy and asked I am going back to my place because I don't know where I am supposed to sleep.
 He said to me, no, you can look around where you can sleep because in Viala there are tents.  So I realised no, there is a problem okay, I had to get ourselves a place where to sleep and we slept.  
 And then after some days, I think two or three, Captain came to us and said we must make a statement what happened.  We made a statement of what has happened and then we submitted the statement, so we waited, waiting to be called maybe for a case or anything - only to found that we were found guilty and we were supposed to be sent into Malangi where we had a farm where we were supposed to go and wait.
 I am not a farmer, I don't know anything about farms, I grew up in Soweto.  Then I told him that  no, I don't understand now, because you said we must write a statement and suddenly we are supposed to go to the farm.  So this is how you solve your problems.
 Then thereafter I said okay, I will go to the farm but there is no justice here.  So after I went back to Viala then somebody came in the evening in the tent where we were sleeping, he told us no, you are no more going to the farm, you have to stay here in Viala.
 Then I stayed in Viala until such time that there was this (indistinct) thing, where I would say 90 percent of our colleagues in the MK were sent to the Eastern part of Angola to go and fight Unita.  (Indistinct) should understand this clearly, because fighting Unita for us - it wouldn't bring anything because those kids were supposed to go and fight against Unita.
 Those kids who were sacrificed in my opinion, because the leadership of the ANC at that time, some of them went there to go and fetch their own kids, not to die there.  So for us it was very, very painful to experience such a move, as a champion of liberation movement, of liberation.
 So there was (indistinct) mutiny which we found ourselves involved in, where we go for the conference because the movement had - so many as the last conference was in 1969, and that was 1983, it is too much.
 Because we felt that staying in the camp for more than five, six, seven, eight years, ten years, doing nothing, it is no use, no scholarship, nothing, that is where these horrible things we find rapes and so on and so forth, people killing local people and so on and so forth.
 I would say after that, that is when things started changing and everybody was brought back to Luanda and I refused to be used as a Commander who will come, who will assist in disarming those comrades who were from the East because the problem was that those comrades were supposed to be disarmed and containers were cleaned and you could see that everybody who was involved would be disarmed and would be put into those containers and we don't know what will happen.
 So, then I left Viala and then I went to a place where we were building, that is Moses Kodani Recreational Centre.  I was working there with people like (indistinct) and most of them whom I came back with, but after some time, we went to hear the story of our own comrades who were from the East and what are their story and they told us we want just to go back home and fight the apartheid regime, that is all.
 That is what we want.  So the leadership said we must have a committee that we should elect and then we must try to talk to them with our own grievances, but in turn that committee was termed to be a committee which wanted to overthrow the leadership of the movement.
 And I was part of that committee that was elected and then I find myself being someone who wanted to overthrow the leadership of the ANC, even including the Angolan Government, which was surprising.
 And the next day, in the morning, after we made our committee, prepared our own grievances, we found that now things are changing day by day.  The leadership had gone to an extent of asking the Angolan Government to assist them in attacking us very early in the morning with tanks and everything.
 But because we were trained, we repelled that army and some of them find themselves in the trench with us, joining us, fighting against their own very same people, because we told them that this is an internal problem, you just have to keep away from it.  We will solve it our own because  everybody did not want to be disarmed.
 We wanted to meet our leadership and discuss our own problems, but things were not on our own liking, then we were taken to Luanda Central Prison.
 That prison also, it is horrible.  Well, it is used for people who are counter-revolutionaries like Unita, (indistinct) which were put together there and then we stayed together there for a year.  We were about 32, thirty men and two women.
 I remember the number.  In that prison, it is lucky if you had a plate or a plate of meal for a day.  You are lucky.  We slept sometimes without food and we were so skinny that I remember (indistinct).  It was so horrible.
 There is one guy who is called by Lawrence, I remember he brought us some biscuits.  Those biscuits we used to call them in our camps soldiers' biscuits, which they were from Holland.  And he ... (tape ends) ... after eating that biscuit, they were so very delicious and tasty, but what I noticed is that that night we never slept, we were discussing only about food.
 Only food, because of those four biscuits.  I remember one time I will never mention (indistinct), one leader from the ANC used to tell, when threatening some of us, he used to tell and see my boy, I will take you - when I will give you bread, you will think it is a cake.
 Then I said yes, I am in a hell.  Then after a year, we were visited by the late Chris Hani, the late - I forgot just the name - they promised us that we will be released and so forth.  But only a few were left and then the rest were released.
 It was me, Misotwala Simla, Kalakhan, Pedi, Mufondis, I think we were eight or nine.  We were handcuffed the following morning, forced to lie on our stomach in the landrover and we could see now we are going to a place where if they give you bread, you will think it is a cake.
 That is Quatro.  Quatro is a number in Portuguese.  We called it Quatro because we used to believe in our country we had a place like number 4.  I think this is the place.  So we were trying to hide when we talk about Quatro, other people shouldn't understand why we say we've got a place which is called Quatro.
 So we were taken to Quatro and I never saw Quatro because I was laying in the landrover, just heard the door opened and what was most surprising was that the uniform they gave, was so dirty.
 And then they told us that this is a hell of a place.  You could feel - they just pointed to us, that is your cell.  You don't look anywhere, you just go straight into that cell and you have to do that.  So we went straight into our cells.
 The situation was very tense.  Others started feeling sick, headache and so on and so forth, asking the Commander in the door we want to go to the Clinic, I am not feeling very well and I myself and Jackie said I don't want to be the first to taste what is happening here outside, so we stayed, we said no, we are okay.
 The rest went outside and then went to the Clinic but when they came back, it was a surprise.  I just look at Misotwala on the eyes and then he told me, my friend, it is hell, we just have to conform here.
 Then we sat down, then we discussed in the cell, trying to ask them what happened there.