Human Rights Violation Hearings — Uitenhage — 1996-08-28

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: Jagter said this.  That is a Uitenhage detective 
who is now a Captain in Le Grange.
 So, I spent the night there.  The following morning, I 
was called at about 6 o'clock in the morning and I went up 
to the seventh floor where they were seated in a round table 
and they asked whether I had a firearm, they asked this 
question repeatedly and I told them that I did not have one. 
 Then, they took out a parcel and which had some soil inside 
and they asked me, do you know anything about this?  I 
looked at it, and I could see that it was mine, and then I 
was scared.

UNKNOWN: Did you know this parcel that was shown to you?

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: Yes, I knew that it was mine, but to them, I 
denied that it belonged to me. I then identified this 
parcel.  Then, they opened this parcel.  It had some bullets 
for a 9mm fire arm, there were 45 of these bullets.  Then 
they opened another plastic, there was a magazine with 15 
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VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: bullets and a magazine and they asked, where is the main 
part of this cassette, then I said to them, I know nothing 
about this thing.  They asked about the bullets of the 9mm, 
I said I knew nothing about it.  Then they said Lulamile, 
your sister said that these belonged to you, and I denied 
it.  They kept on interrogating me, trying to get the truth 
and then one Coloured person, who's name was Campbell, 
because I could understand them as they were speaking 
Afrikaans, that I heard that his name was Campbell, then he 
again asked me, do you know anything about the bee's, and 
then I said that I know the bee's.  But I said to him that I 
know nothing about bee's.  
 Then he made me sit down, I want to demonstrate how he 
made me sit down.  This is how I sat, and there was a stick 
just layed here on my hands.  I had to hold the stick.  They 
call this action of sitting the helicopter, so they would 
cover me with plastic and tie it very tight, so as to 
suffocate me.  They again used the thing a doctor uses when 
he is trying to determine your blood pressure and they 
tightened it and I was hanging in one of the tables, and 
they would do this for five minutes, then relax and then go 
back once more and all this time, they were asking me who 
things these were.  
 So, they ultimately said that these things belonged to 
me, then they asked with whom was I staying, then I said I 
was staying with Aubrey and Tini, because if they wanted to 
go there, they were not going to find them.  Then they kept 
on torturing me for about 10 days, following the same 
procedures as that on the third day.   I appeared in court 
and there was an allegation that I owned all these things, 
that was in May.  
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VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: Then, from the court, I was locked in, in Algoa Park 
and I was there for three days, and then transferred to La 
Grange. For this whole month, people at home did not know 
anything about my whereabouts.  Then, on the 5th, I saw 
someone in court and sent a message to my family that I was 
in Le Grange.  And then Vanessa came on the 5th, saying that 
it is long that they had been looking for me.  Then, Vanessa 
said she was late and promised to come back the following 
day and she came and already was from upstairs and Vanessa 
said, you are being charged in this way, and she told me 
what I was being accused of,  And I had to appear therefore 
on the 24 June, and my advocate was Mr Pillay, and Mr Pillay 
got information from Campbell that a certain Mr X had 
informed them with information.
 The following day, they took my sister and made her to 
agree that I was responsible for all this and they belonged 
to me and this case was postponed and anyway, I was found 
not guilty.

UNKNOWN: Now, did you ultimately admit, do you ultimately 
know who brought this parcel to the police?

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: Even now, I am still wondering about who brought 
this, because when we were hiding these things, there were 
three of us, it was me, Abrey and Kiki.  So I was worried 
when this parcel landed in the wrong hands, landed in the 
hands of the people who were not there.

UNKNOWN: Where are they now?  Did you ask them about this 
parcel?

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: What about it?

UNKNOWN: That who actually took it to the police.

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: People say, I noticed this.  Jagter said that all 
comrades are working for us and he said to me, in 1986, I 
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VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: once planned to get to Durban, and I denied because I had 
not gone there.  We had planned to go there, but our plans 
got aborted.  So, I did not follow the comrades, but I was 
very happy that this person was found and I was not the 
informer.  All I knew was that this Mr X was one of my 
friends.

UNKNOWN: Then, how has this torture affected your health?

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: When the police tortured me, they affected my 
health.  Some other times I feel that my body becomes 
painful even if it is in the morning.  They did not only 
electrocute me, but the kicked me as well, but what mostly 
effected me was the electric shock that I was subjected to 
and it caused a lot of damage.

UNKNOWN: What is your request to this Commission?

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: I didn't mention, here when they were writing this 
statement, that I would like this Commission to take note of 
this, that this was not done to me because I was Ngahle, but 
they were trying to damage the idea that we as Black could 
think we could liberate this country.  So all this happened 
under the conditions of discouraging the various structures 
and they various organisations that were fighting for 
freedom of this country, all this was not directed to me but 
it just happened that I got affected.  It was politically 
motivated.
 Then, I am asking this Commission, I know that there 
isn't much that it can do, but I recognise it as it was 
appointed by the government, perhaps it has the power that 
we as all the victims here in South Africa, could especially 
those who got disabled during this struggle, because looking 
at the other countries, I find that incidents of this 
nature, were happening, but their governments did attend to 
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VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: their victims, and those people got some compensation 
because these people did give their lives in this battle for 
the people.  If perhaps I had not joined the struggle, 
perhaps my mother would still be alive, she died because I 
was arrested, repeatedly, and this greatly affected her 
life.

UNKNOWN: Could I ask you that you should allow me to help 
you so that we could conclude.  Your request is that there 
should be projects for job creations, those are the people 
who could not further their education because of the 
tortures of that time, and even those who are still at 
school should be assisted to go back to school and even 
those who are disabled, should be assisted through, because 
they definitely had some goals.  So if they were to be 
assisted to achieve their ambitions, you would feel very 
comfortable?

VINCENT LUNGILE CALU: Yes, I did say so. Thank you.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.