Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-25

MS MKHIZE: Mr Ozynski, thank you very much. If there are any aspects of your experiences which you have left out, I am sure you will have an opportunity of coming back to them.
 What I will do now, is ask you just a few questions so as to clarify some aspects of your statement here and then other Commissioners will examine carefully the statement that you have made.
 For a start, I will as you to tell the Commissioners the aims of the Congress of Democrats, briefly.

UNKNOWN: I was very young at the time and my aim concern
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was that it was against the Government. It was an organisation that seemed to be mainly of White people, which wasn't strange.  There was an Indian Congress at the time, there was an ANC. I am not a hundred per cent sure, but I have a feeling that my father signed for the ANC for me as well. I can't remember exactly what forms I signed, but when I was interrogated it was put to me about the Congress of Democrats. I think they were very interested in the fact that the liquidator - a nice name for him - had lost a lot of the list of people who belonged to the Congress.  I, being an inactive minor figure though - I was - I was one of the few they managed to get hold of and thought I could reveal the rest. But the aims were, as I have said, to oppose this Government, to form a, what I believe I suppose, a non-racial position.  Even although it had racially divided itself, but so as I said, had the Indian Congres, and the African National Congress.

MS MKHIZE: Maybe a related question. Can you just tell the Commissioners whether you used peaceful modes of opposing the Government or violent modes or strategies?

UNKNOWN: We never used a violent move every in my life.  The only time I ever used any form of violence is when I was dragged in by these two plainclothes men who I thought were hooligans.  I did hit one as hard as I could.  That's the only violence I had ever used. I had never used violence.  I played in a band, I joined an organisation and that was as far as my political - and race relations, okay, it was a pretty peaceful organisation, fought for freedom with facts and figures, as people used to laugh at it, saying, ja.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you.  Also you mention that you had been detained for interrogation by the security police.  Can you
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just clarify that for the Commission, as to what exactly was done to you?  To explain the interrogation.

UNKNOWN: Sorry. The first time they pulled me in, they pushed me in a chair and put a light on my face, not unlike the lights that are on me now, a la Hollywood style, and although I could look back and talk on it jokingly now, it was pretty terrifying. There were three of them.  They kept asking me questions and not letting me answer, by saying did you join an organisation in 1950 so-and-so and I am standing there, puzzling to say yes or no, and they said don't bother to tell us, here it is.  So trying to indicate to me that they knew everything about my life and that you know, that there was no way that I was going to get out of this.  The only thing that I could do was - they weren't violent at that stage with me at all.  They were just very fierce, determined and very frightening.  I might add that a few weeks previous to this, it also seems to happen to me, I can't remember the name of the gentleman who got shoved or whatever outside the Grays, the first step there.  So I was in a fairly nervous situation and - but no violence was used against me. Just interrogating me on an on and on, showing me these pictures and urging me to co-operate with them and telling me it was within my interests to co-operate, to co-operate, and tell them. I got out of this by, as I say, by saying I joined playing in a band, which they knew all about.  This justified it. Somehow this convinced them that this was so.
 The second time I got interrogated was when I wrote a letter to the newspaper.  When they picked me up and I reared back, I didn't know what was going to happen and they were altogether changed and were extremely threatening.  
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They dragged me down to the car.  They didn't ask me to come with them, to go to the Rand Daily Mail to get this letter, dragging me along, pulling me, pushing me, shoving me into the car. I accepted this. I mean, at this point one is just numb, you know, there is nothing I could do.

MS MKHIZE: In terms of food, were you, did you get the food which you considered to be appropriate?

UNKNOWN: Sorry, I wasn't detained long enough to have meal. No, I was not given anything. Just a number of hours interrogation, there was no food or anything given.

MS MKHIZE: You mentioned circumstances surrounding, what you say here, as an unlawful arrest at demonstration. You simply ran over there.  I would ask you to slowly go over it again, so that the Commission can get a sense of what exactly happened, especially circumstances around your arrest. If you can try to recollect. You mentioned that you were with Prof Dugard and Prof Peter Randall. If maybe you can just talk about how you were seated and their appearance and how many were there, what exactly happened. If you can slow down because that is the gist of your statement here.

UNKNOWN: Sorry, okay, the reason I am rushing is, I believe there is a shortage of time. I will explain now in more detail. I do remember, obviously quite a lot.
 I had driven there by car. I parked my car some way away from John Vorster Square and walked over.  It was by chance that I met Patrick Lawrence, whom I had known from the Institute of Race Relations, and John Dugard, whom I had known.  The three of us stood, together with a number of other onlookers, quite a way, I would say about 20 metres, 30 metres away from students, a lot of whom had seated themselves and were cordoned off by police. So we were a 
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distinctly different group. It was not just Patrick Lawrence, Peter Randall, John Dugard and myself. There were a number of other people who watched this. In fact, there were hundreds of people.
 We were standing, the three of us together.  Arrests were taking place all over.  So I accept that Peter Randall was probably looking somewhere else and not seeing me being tackled and shoved in.  This was done terribly quickly.  I mean I resisted as much as I could. Mainly because I thought I was in a fight. It never occurred to me that all of this was going to happen. I was just being tackled by two long-haired plainclothes men, they were long-haired hooligans. So John Dugard and Patrick Lawrence saw this happening. I was near them, maybe two metres away from each of them. I mean, we weren't standing huddled in a little group, we were next to each other.  He immediately went to this Brig Buys and said you have arrested somebody next to me who was not in the march.  For myself, I was standing there, I was dive-tackled from behind. I didn't see any signals that Prof Dugard says he saw, I just know I was tackled from behind, and I hit the person who had tackled me, and I was grabbed by another person and being dragged. I then realised I was being dragged towards the students.  This made no difference.  So I, you know, fought as much as I could, I was in there and once I was in, I was taken over by other policemen and shoved into John Vorster Square's entrance, and was up the stairs, into the cells with the other pupils, students, I mean.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much. I will ask other, the Law Commissioners to ask you a few questions.  Tom Manthata? Glenda Wildschut?  Yasmin Sooka?
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YASMINE SOOKA: Mr Ozynski, who were the other members of the Congress of Democrats?