Human Rights Violation Hearings — Duncan Village — 1996-09-23

BONGANI FINCA: I would like to call Buyisile Mapisa to come forward.  
 We welcome you Mr Buyisile Mapisa.

UNKNOWN: Thank you Reverend.

BONGANI FINCA: We would like to thank you for coming forward with your story.  Revd Xundu will take your oath and we will give this opportunity to Mr Sandi who will ask you questions.  Over to you Revd Xundu.

UNKNOWN: (sworn states)

REV XUNDU: Thank you sir.

MR SANDI: Mr Mapisa, I would like to greet you my friend this afternoon and I would thank to take this opportunity that on this day of the hearings here in Duncan Village, which the Truth Commission is trying to investigate and to get out the truth of what was happening here, I am so glad that you are one of the people who are here to testify.
 In short, Mr Mapisa, if one reads your statement, your story begins from 1975 until 1988 where you were arrested now and again and you got injured there.  You were tortured during this time.  
 And one of the injuries is a nervous breakdown, back pain, loss of memory and other things.  You will say to us firstly - will you please tell us in short what is your current occupation?

UNKNOWN: I am the Executive Director of the Culture
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Project.  I am organising cultural events here in East London.

MR SANDI: Let us now go back to 1975 when all this started.  In 1975, you said you were doing standard 9 and you were a member of organisations.  Can you please tell us from that time, from 1975.

UNKNOWN: In 1975, I joined BPC and SASO also in 1975.  In 1983, I was a member of UDF.

MR SANDI: Even if, it doesn't matter if you didn't mentioned all the organisations, you said in 1977 you were arrested and detained for three months at Westbank.  Can you please tell us in details what happened in prison?  Who did what to you?

UNKNOWN: At the time I was arrested, I was taken to Cambridge, I was arrested by a security.  The South African Police, the security police of South Africa.  In Cambridge I was tortured there.
 I was arrested together with my comrades.  We were alleged that we are people who are members of the banned organisations, and they mentioned the BPC and they mentioned the ANC, the SACP at that time.
 They said that we are trying to continue with the movements of the banned organisations.
 They said that we are terrorists.

MR SANDI: Without cutting you Mr Mapisa, can you please give us details, full details when you were tortured there in prison in 1977?

UNKNOWN: In prison I was tortured and I was beaten seriously.  The person who was a Captain at that time, I mistakenly said it was Van Wyk, but it was Captain Schooling.
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 While he was beating me together with other Special Branch, Mr Mbuwana and Mr Matoti and Mpumelelo Mandliwa and Mfazwe, the Special Branch which was Mfazwe and the one named Madikizela.  All this people, they were beating me, because they wanted me to write down statements.
 They suffocated me, they suffocated me and they put a punching bag on my head so that I couldn't breath.
 On that time, they were busy beating me, kicking me and they even subjected me to electric shocks in my hands and in my feet.
 In all this I didn't do what they wanted me to do and they continued torturing me.  There was a time when Schooling arrived.  Because he discovered that I didn't write what he wanted me to write, he pulled me with my bed and he continued beating me up but still I didn't do what they wanted me to do.
 They subjected me to a thing called "horse riding" and now it is called "boeing", it is known as "boeing".  They would handcuff me and tie my hands to my feet and hang me with a pole.
 As I am handcuffed, they would hang me with a pole that would allow me to swing beneath it.
 I will just keep on swinging beneath it and they were beating me all the time.
 I was just swinging up and down.  They were kicking me and they were beating me at that time.  It is one of the things I didn't mention when I was submitting my statement, that after all that they did to me, I was in Frere Hospital, it was the second day.
 I had a blackout, I didn't know who took me to the hospital and when did I go there.
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 The Doctor who treated me said to me he will look at this matter, he will try to investigate.  Because I didn't know what happened to me.
 After a long time I went back there to the policemen.  When I returned to them, the took me to Westbank and they put me to a single cell, I was alone in that cell for all this time.
 After a long time because we didn't write what they wanted me to write, they ended up charging us with a charge that we are terrorists and we are continuing with the activities of the banned organisations.
 But there was a help, we got help from a lawyer, Mr Mxenge, he was still alive at that time.  He was our attorney.

MR SANDI: You are speaking of Mr Griffiths Mxenge?

UNKNOWN: Yes.

MR SANDI: Did you go to court and were you charged?

UNKNOWN: Yes, we did go to that court and we were found innocent and then we went home because we wee not charged.

MR SANDI: In your statement Mr Mapisa, you said that after  that there was another incident where you were in prison?

UNKNOWN: Yes, there is.

MR SANDI: Can you please tell us what happened when you were arrested in 1979?

UNKNOWN: In 1979 when I was arrested, I was arrested together with Mandla and our late comrade Mzwanele Fazzie.  We were arrested because they wanted us to say that we are involved with the underground movements of the ANC at that present moment.
 We were arrested because there were pamphlets we were 
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distributing, but they wanted us to say that we are members of the ANC and even those pamphlets we were distributing we did that because we were members of the ANC.

MR SANDI: Can you please tell us about the pamphlets you were distributing?

UNKNOWN: It was pamphlets we just received from our comrades and then we were just distributing them.

MR SANDI: At this time, Mr Mapisa, you were arrested in 1979 up until 1980.  You said you were working at Wilson Rowntree.  What happened concerning your job in Wilson Rowntree?

UNKNOWN: Because I was detained for a long time in a single cell, because at that time what kept us for a long time there, is that we were also beaten and tortured at that time.  Mzwanele and I, they wanted us to be the State witnesses against Mandla Gxanyana, but we didn't agree to do that.
 And that led for us to stay for 10 months in Westbank cells.  After that 10 months, when I returned to Wilson's they said that I don't have a job any more, because the Security Police went there and said that someone like me is not fit and is not right for that job.
 Because I am continuing with politics inside there to people who are working there.  So they said that I should be fired.  And someone came to me, I used to know him, he was staying in Mdantsane, he came to me to apologise and I didn't write what I'm saying in my statement.  This person came to me to apologise because he agreed to go with the police to my job and he explained his problem to me.
 Because he said he was staying with his mother and he couldn't do otherwise, he just had to tell the police.  
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Because he wanted the job.

MR SANDI: At this time at Wilson Rowntree when they were telling you that you are no longer having a job, did they give you any written statement, stating the reasons why they were firing you?

UNKNOWN: No.  They just said that I don't have a job any more, they didn't write anything.  I knew person from the Personnel Office and they are the one's who explained the reasons to me.