Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-10-25

CHAIRPERSON: ... would rape them.   They were punished with no pads when they menstruated.   Lulu Gwala, Harry's daughter, had to wrap a blanket around herself when she menstruated, they wouldn't give her a pad.  I, myself, was arrested - no, sentenced, and they wouldn't give me pads, and I had to use newspapers.   Can you think of a worse thing that can happen to a woman?   You washed - we washed clothes, so you pick up the blood from your and put it into the washing.   It was horrible, and terribly demeaning.  And the other aspect of detainees was that they would let you not wash, you would stand for hours.  I think, Steph, you probably stood for three days without a wash.   And the smell of your body, you know, you are not washing, and then you go to the toilet, you are not allowed to wash, there is no toilet paper, and all these horrendous things happen to woman, and your self confidence went.   If mothers were detained, leaving their children behind, it was horrendous.   I went crazy 10 days detention leaving my three children behind, and Sathee(?) was two days old when that happened.   So, Nester Basel(?), I think you ladies haven't met some of the old women in the communist party trial, with Braam Fisher.   Six women were detained, and Nester was one of them.   Served long sentences.  She served three years and had absolute hell being away from her three young daughters.  Her children have never forgiven her.   I think just one is coming around now.  And then you read Ruth First's book on her 117 days.   And her detention.  I mean if you read that, I think they made a film of it too, isn't it.   She was suicidal with detention.   So, detention was no picnic as I say.   It was feared.   In fact, we in the underground, were told if somebody is detained, don't assume that they would not break, assume they would break and move out.   June the 16th, 1976, brought the detention of our children following the massive uprising.  They were several pregnancies due to rape by the detaining officers.  And I knew about this because I was working in the Harry Gwala trial and had to go and see witnesses like Helen Joseph and Lilian Ngoye.   And Lilian brought some of the mothers to me and said talk to them, Phyllis, let them do something about these children.   It was too late to abort.   So, they wouldn't.  They were - you see, they feared the special branch.   No, Phyllis, go away, go away, we are not going to do anything about it.  So, we lived in that very difficult period, detention, isolation.  Then subsequently of course you had all the deaths in detention.  And you know, that was a strong list, I think the TRC has a list of about 73 people, who were killed in political detention.  There are many more.   At first when I thought about how could we deal with women in detention and fear of rape and fear of violence and all that, and I thought it be best to employee women officers, but then I was held in Durban Central here, in an all women prison, and my God, what horrors they were.   They kicked your food, they spat at you.  I can't tell you, I don't know how, I was the only "Indian" and 400 African women, mindless treatment we all had.   And African women did it, except one, Marge Dlamini.   And when I said to her, "What are you doing in this place?", she said, "Phyllis, if I don't stay here, people forget that there was something better outside".   Anyway, so we will have to think about who looks after women detainees.   The wardresses now, these were women wardresses in Kroonstad gave Dorothy Nembe boiled hard mielies with her teeth all removed, sadists.   I mean, how do you eat those big mielies without teeth?   She was starving and hungry and a letter to me asking for R250,00 to get false teeth so that she could eat are very painful memories.   I suffered a banning order, five years at a time, two banning orders.  The second banning order was accompanied with a house arrest order from March 1966 to March 1976.   I was pregnant at the time, I was first banned and restricted to the magisterial area of Durban.   There is a man in the house here.  There is a man in the house.   (Pause)   Okay.  Overnight my job as a teacher was ended because you couldn't enter school premises, you couldn't enter educational premises, you couldn't go to libraries, you had six pages of restriction, I am sure all of you know about those things.   And later, with a husband on Robben Island, I was expected to care for three children, it was a horrendous punitive measure, worse, the Minister of Justice, that is a misnomer, would not give reasons for this invasion of my limited rights.  Instead the special branch asked me to make application for a child welfare grant, and what an insult, I refused.   I asked in a letter to him how could an unarmed pregnant mother of two young boys, five years and four years, threaten the military might of the regime?   They boasted they were the greatest army from Cape to Cairo, until of course they met the Cubans in 1988 at Quito Codovales, and thank God for that.   When the minister replied, he said it was not in the interests of security of the state to divulge the reasons for my restriction orders.   So, for 10 years, not knowing why, I had to report my presence to the police every Monday.   One morning I failed to report, when Shah, my son, had an asthmatic attack during my law exams.  I was sentenced to 10 days, those were 10 days that shook my world.   I want to know why I was banned, what do my police files say and I must tell you when I visited the once they had so much in my files, I want the police to return all my stuff they removed from my home, especially my short stories.  Exile for me for was from the 23rd of July 1977 to the 26th of June 1990.   I must tell you as an attorney I take statements from everybody and I had interviewed somebody who said, "We were given the death penalty", I said, "When?", he couldn't remember.   I said, "When were you released from prison?", you would think that somebody getting the death penalty will remember that, he couldn't remember.   Can you remember the days when your children were born?   No.   What can you remember?   Says nothing.   When did you go into exile?   The date, time, place.   So, exile sticks in your mind like nothing else does.   It is a hard life.  Two women helped me go into exile, one was Solvey Piper, she was here yesterday with the Turners, she kept me in her home for a night, and the other was a black woman and I am so sorry I have forgotten her name.   You know, I say here that one of the things we have to do was to forget, we dealt with Mrs Magwaza, we had to forget her, or we would be given another name, you know, and we had to forget her.  Well, she took me across, first of all she had me in her room in Clermont, a tin shack, with a huge hole at the bottom.   And she said to me if you walk across they will be able to see you, so sit here.   And she left her pot for me to do a job, there were no toilets so I couldn't go out to that, and a tin of Milo.  And Milo was so expensive in those days, still is, you know.   And she made sure that I - the quality of comradeship that I have enjoyed, you know, I could write books about it.   And this lady, I wish she hears me and I wish she would come and see me, because I need to thank her.   What worries me with the murder and mayhem in Natal, she might be dead.   A young girl, she could have been about 25 maybe.   My driver was too tired, and she wanted to sleep.  I had to drive during the petrol restrictions, and you know if you were caught carrying petrol, oh my, and I couldn't be caught, and we carried petrol, that was illegal.  I filled up at Escort late at night, terrified out of my wits.   Those who planned my trip said we should cross at Ficksburg, because that is where the river is so narrow looking at a map.   And one of those people who plotted my trip was Ric Turner.   And I mean they forgot that the sides of the river are so steep and I had to go down those sides losing my gloves, losing my shoes and losing my socks.   And I hit the river, ice cold morning at five - half past five, a freezing morning.   And of course, without shoes, my feet had to trample frost, it was the first time I heard -I knew what was frost.   Some advocates' reading of my self imposed exile laughed about it.  Well, I hope that exile is never their lot.  It is never but never self imposed.   That statement is stupid.   Ask my friend here.  We were underground operatives and we could not operate if our cell was intact.   And we could operate, sorry.   If a member of our cell was arrested, the others had to go into hiding.   I was ordered to leave the country and I left my three children without telling them I was leaving and the counsel who laughed at me should try that.  I thought exile was the ultimate punishment, until I lost my son.  You exist in exile like your body is here in Harare, Lesotho, and all, but your heart is at home.   Everything that happens, ask Nosiswe, she will tell you about how she met us in exile.   What was home for us?   We didn't have - you know, we didn't own any property, or anything.  There was no home.   We were tenants.   We would have to come back if ever and find a house to rent.   For some of my comrades, it was under the bridges that they were, you know, had lived.   It was in buses, you know.   For some they had come from gail to exile.   And the worse thing that can happen to you in exile, I think is to lose somebody.   Oliver Tambo lost his mother in exile.   And he was, you know, oh so hurt by it.   I lost my mother and my brother in exile.   It is very very painful.   It will take a book to describe exile and more.   Mandla Langa, my comrade, tells of his pained exile in his new book, "The Naked Song", I recommend it to you.  Many writers have written of the pain of exile.   I was 50 in exile.   50 years old.   I am nearly 70 now.  Can you imagine the pain of our 10 year old children in exile?    Somebody asked why were there so many suicides in the list of our dead the ANC submission to the TRC, I would say being in exile was a big part of that, you know, one ought to explain it.   At 50 I have stood at the banks of the Caledon River with its sandy belly open to the elements, with only a trickle of water for river, and wanted to return home.   Again and again.   It was Braam Fisher who had said, "Better a South African prison than exile".  You stand there and shall I, shall I not, shall I?   And you ask the Caledon River and of course it doesn't answer.   A exile was compounded by a parcel bomb that was sent to Cannon John Osmos, it was opened in my home, and I can't show you my backside, but it is full of potted holes.  I can't wear a bathing costume.   Right.   I have lost my ear, my eardrum has gone.   And I lost 7 teeth.   Four of my comrades were very badly hurt.  The church paid for John's medical care, while the ANC took care of the five of us.   You don't wish me to describe the pain of that, do you?   Thank you.   I was phoned daily in exile at 10 pm, somebody employed by the dirty tricks department, who would say, "Is that Mrs Naidoo, we are coming to get you".   "Ons sal jou kry".   Can you believe that someone's father, brother or son, would do a mindless stupid job like that?   And can you believe that he was paid by the state, your money, taxpayers money paid for him to be stupid.   I was sent to Hungary for medical care by the ANC and Hungary was in the Eastern Block.   And I want to tell you that their solidarity was a very precious experience.   My son, Sargan, was studying agricultural engineering there, it was Hungary's solidarity for the ANC.   There were 26 ANC students there, Sargan spend eight years, and for the eight years they took care of his food, his learning, his accommodation, you have no idea what solidarity we experienced.  But those countries were not as bad as the African countries.   And the solidarity we experienced in the poverty of Africa, was something else.   You have my book with you, and you will see what I say there.  My 11 year old daughter was phoned to say that they were coming to Maseru to finish the job they hadn't finished.   She thought it was my comrades playing the fool.  When she enquired further, she found that it was the boers, and the boers I mean this bloody apartheid sods, it was the SB threatening to bomb our home.   I was in the UK.  She fled the home unlocked, taking our dog with her.   We had to move her but fast from Lesotho.  While was I the UK I received a registered post, a letter purporting to come from the Lesotho Government, declaring me a prohibited immigrant.   And asking me not to return to Lesotho.   I was surprised because I had just got a new contract.   Through the ... (inaudible) ... we found out that it was a hoax, it was the South African Government or the regime doing this.   The Lesotho Government wanted me back immediately.   I was given 24 hours to leave Maseru In September of 1983.  The justice department was told, "If Mrs Naidoo is not in the plane to Maputo at 7 am on Saturday, you will find a dead body".   The government asked me to leave saying they could not protect me.   I just had a new contract with government and was reluctant to leave, but when my clients told me of the border problems, all the borders were closed, South Africa closed the borders, I was forced to change my mind.  South Africa refused oxygen for patients in the Queen II Hospital, patients were waiting in the theatre for oxygen and they wouldn't let the oxygen come in.  I had to leave.  Then the Maseru massacre I have described in the book that you have got, I would like you to look at some of these hair-raising pictures, especially these commissioners here.  I hope you will all have my book on the massacre.  I want to share with you the women who died there, despite the order not to kill women and children.   They, the SADF, explained it as cross-fire killings.  This commission should confront Constant Viljoen of Freedom Front fame who led the SADF into the cross-border raid in Lesotho.   He needs to talk with the families that he decimated on that night.   And there were all - they were all about, most of them in the Transkei area.  And of course the little children that he killed.   And you will see in this book what happened to our money.  He stole our money, they stole money of ours, we had over R68 000,00 somebody said, but certainly over R60 000,00 was in a mielie bag in Gase's home ... (inaudible) ...   That money wasn't there after they went.   In Sydney Magandela's house, SACTU money, couple of thousands were there.   They have to tell us what happened.   You see, if police use 10 bullets, they have to go to their commander to account for the bullets.   What was the report that came from the SADF raid, how many bullets were used?   We need to know all these things.   Then lastly, the murder of my son, Sargan(?).  My son born in 1961, I think you can read this for yourself.   Do you want me to read it?   (Pause)  My son Sargan was born on the 4th of April 1961.   Together with his colleague, Moss, were employed on the ANC farm at Chongela(?), near Lusaka in Zambia.  Sargan was the manager and Moss a senior mechanic.  Both were assassinated by Tex, on the night of the 15th of April 1989, 11 days after Sargan's 28th birthday.   Tex from Brits was found at Livingstone by the Zambian Police.   He being the first South African to arrive at Livingstone the Zambian Police were suspicious.  Most refugees came via Swaziland and Botswana at that time.   They duly informed the ANC, who interviewed Tex, he confessed that he was brought by Paulos from Com... (inaudible) ... building in Pretoria via Rhodesia.   His orders would come later after his military training.   I have read Tex' statement given to his interrogators.   No one in the ANC found it strange that he was the only survivor after a Unita ambush.  He was badly wounded and he needed to be hospitalized.   Later he was sent to Hungary and then the GDR, East Germany, for treatment.   When he returned he was sent to the ANC farm, where he would have plenty of green vegetables and fresh milk.   How well we took care of this agent.  Two days after the assassination, he was arrested and charged with murder.   He died from AIDS before the trial commenced.  No post-mortem was held to test the voracity of AIDS.   Sargan was interviewed on BBC about the farm in 1988.   We all heard it.   My sister in Senegal heard it.   Following this interview, Pik Botha in parliament attacked my son, saying he was not the manager of the farm, but the commander of our military stores.  Subsequently European parliamentarians looked the farm over and Sargan invited them to look for the military hardware.   They did not find anything.  Who ordered the killing of my son and Moss?   Two senior comrades responsible for feeding the ANC in Zambia and Angola, and at times Zimbabwe.   Where did Pik Botha get his information?   Did he order the killing of my son?   If he confesses to this, I would like to speak to him to tell him about the terrorists he killed, the so-called terrorists he killed.   When I asked Sargan in Hungary in 1979, 18 years, why he had chosen when he was 18 years, why he had chosen agriculture, we could not grow a potted plant in our flat I reminded him, "What does South Africa need most, Mum?" he asked, "Food, Mum, food", he said. "We must feed our people, we cannot build a new South Africa on a empty stomach".   What can I tell mothers who lose their children.   To compound my pain I have recently lost my second son, Shah, through a medical accident.   It is cruel and internal pain.   Both my sons have contributed their youth and their lives to the struggle for freedom.  Yes, I am very proud.   It is a painful, very painful pride.   Now, I would just like to read this last portion, it is not in your -