Human Rights Violation Hearings — Newcastle — 1996-09-12

WITNESS:   Ever since I had been detained I have got these panic attacks, I've got anger, I've got intolerance, I am very insensitive.  I am very angry inside and I fight.  I like fighting because I also fought with the boers when I was in custody.  And I still have that within me, I still have that anger.  Whenever a person speaks to me in a certain manner I still feel I am a laughing stock, I am still being laughed at, because I lost my job and I could not go back to my job, and we struggled thereafter.  We had been dismissed from our workplaces, and when we asked de Kock to assist us in getting our blue cards, because we were no longer employed, he told us that we knew nothing about the blue cards.  As I was a member of the unions I knew that I was supposed to get my blue card.  We were stripped of our rights.  Even after the Judges had requested that we should write some letters to our former employers de Kock refused us that permission.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... told us in your statement that when you came out of prison they put you under house arrest for a while, where you had to do reporting every day.  Do you remember that?

WITNESS:   That is correct.  They put me under house arrest.  I was not allowed to go anywhere, and I had to report twice a week that I was still around Dundee.

MR LAX: (Inaudible)

WITNESS:   It was almost three months, if I am not mistaken, but I don't remember quite well.  One other thing that disturbed me was that after I had got a job at Consol they went to Consol and they smeared and spoiled my name that I should not be hired because I was a troublemaker.

MR LAX: (Inaudible)

WITNESS:   Yes, it's Major de Kock.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... job at Consol?

WITNESS:   Luckily I was dismissed for only one day, and the following day I was called once more to come and work.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... working at Consol?

WITNESS:   I started working in 1989, that is June 1989, and I stopped this year in April.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... or anything like that?

WITNESS:   Yes, I did get my pension.

MR LAX: In your statement you said that you were paid R3 000,00, and you felt that that wasn't enough.  What was that about?  Where did that money come from?

WITNESS:   Where I was working before, that is where I got dismissed whilst I was in prison.  I was given R3 000,00.  They said that was my pension money, and I had worked there for 18 years.  That also troubled me, that after working for 18 years, getting dismissed and getting R3 000,00 after so many years of working.

MR LAX: Mr Zwane, thank you very much for telling us your story.  You have given us a picture of what it was like to be detained during the state of emergency, and of the kinds of things which the police would do to people like yourself, who were activists and working for human rights in the townships at that time.  I am going to hand you back to the Chairperson to see whether any of my colleagues want to ask any questions.

COMMISSIONER: Thank you, Mr Zwane.  If I remember correctly the last time I saw you was when I came to see you in detention at Waterval Prison, where you were being held with Mandla Chelae and Professor Sibankhulu from Newcastle.  The story which you have been told could have been told my thousands of people around this country around those years, 1986/87, after the declaration of the state of emergency.  Thousands of people were detained for lengthy periods, and in many areas it was standard practice for people to be assaulted and tortured, sometimes even before they were interrogated.  If we think of a place like St Alban's Prison in Port Elizabeth, it was revealed in that place in a Supreme Court interdict which was brought with the assistance of a district surgeon, Dr Wendy Orr, that several hundred detainees were routinely assaulted and tortured on entering the prison, even before they were interrogated.  And when we think of senior members of the police force, the so-called elite Security Branch, armed policemen, detaining people like yourself because they wanted the Town Council of Dundee to change from an old fashioned bucket toilet system to a more modern system, it's so ridiculous that it's almost laughable.  But what is not laughable is that people like yourself were detained, interrogated and tortured, locked up for six months, and you lost your job.

COMMISSIONER: So, as Mr Lax has said, you have given us a very clear picture of what those times were like in places like Dundee, Newcastle, Waterval, and we will be hearing evidence from other people today who were detained and tortured in the same way as you were, and the remarks that I have made now to you also apply very much to them.  We don't have the power to give you compensation as a Commission, but we have the power to make recommendations to the Government, and they will decide whether people like you should be assisted.

COMMISSIONER: So thank you very much for coming in and talking to us today, giving us that clear story.  Thank you.

WITNESS:   I also thank you.

COMMISSIONER: Sibusiso, welcome here today.  Can you hear me and understand me okay?

MR MHLUNGU: Yes, I can hear you.

COMMISSIONER: (Inaudible) ... Osizweni, and you have come to tell us about the time in 1987/1988 when you were arrested, detained, tortured by the South African Police.  You have come with someone today.  Who is that who is with you?

MR MHLUNGU: It's my mother.

COMMISSIONER: That's your mother.  Welcome to her.  Before you tell us your story can you take the oath, can you stand up and take the oath.

SIBUSISO MHLUNGU: (Sworn, States)   (Through Interpreter)

COMMISSIONER: Now, you've said in your statement, just by way of background, that you were politically active here in Newcastle from in the late 80s, 1988.

WITNESS:   That is correct.

COMMISSIONER: At that stage, during the time of your arrest, were you working, or were you a scholar, or what were you doing?

WITNESS:   I had finished school.

COMMISSIONER: And you said that because of your political activism here, and the arrest of some of your friends, that you decided to leave Newcastle, is that right?  You went to Utrecht.

WITNESS:   That is correct.  It was in 1986.

COMMISSIONER: Okay.  Do you want to tell us the story from that time?

WITNESS:   Yes, I can start from that time.

COMMISSIONER: (Inaudible) ... tell us something about your family.  You're here today with your mother.  Do you have brothers and sisters?

WITNESS:   I do have a mother, she is sitting right next to me.  Her name is Lindiwe.  I have two brothers who come after me.  I am the first-born.  The second-born is Thulani, and the third one is Caspian.  We are all members of the African National Congress at home.  I am also one of the prominent members in the African National Congress, as well as in the South African Communist Party, and I was involved in peace as well as crisis committees, and I was one of the founder members.  I was also sent by the South African Communist party to go and represent it in the Peace Committee in Newcastle.  Presently I am working at the Osizweni Development Forum, and I am sitting as the head of opportunity for job opportunities.  From 1991, when I came back to Newcastle, I got involved in a workers union known as NAAWU.  That's where I worked as a volunteer from 1991 up to 1993.

COMMISSIONER: (Inaudible) ... picture of your life, and who you are and what you have been doing.  Now, this incident which you talk about in your statement happened in 1987, was it, when you were arrested?

WITNESS:   27 April 1988.

COMMISSIONER: All right.  Can you tell us what happened on that day?