Human Rights Violation Hearings — Middelburg — 1997-06-04

FLORENCE B LIBERTY: It all started in 1987 when Eric became involved in community work.  His community work started in church, being a devoted Christian, he chaired the parish council of St. Martin Depores.
 Through this he became very much aware of the sufferings of people, people living in poverty, people being homeless and children digging in bins for food.  That touched Eric a lot and that made him very much active in the community.
 He started by chairing the Justice and Peace Committee of Witbank and then from there the problems started, because being active in the Justice and Peace Committee he had to go to the council to complain about people that are living in very bad conditions and children that are not having food and the people that are squatering in very bad conditions.
 From there, he started getting lots of phone calls, threatening phone calls, threatening letters and pamphlets, because of his being so active.
 Wherever we went, we were never private.  Wherever we went, we were followed.  And we would always notice that there was one or two cars that are following us.
 Our telephone was bugged.  We couldn't be private on our telephone.  And we - the house we were knocked up any time of the night by the police, searching the house.  I couldn't understand what they were looking for, because, to my knowledge, Eric was doing a good job;  working for the community.
 It went further when Eric joined more and more action committees and he became a very active member of the ANC.  At night, midnight, two o'clock, early morning hours, taps would be open in the yard.  
 I used to go out, because I realised that the person - maybe they're trying to get Eric out of the house.  I would go out to close the tap and then at the stage teargas would be thrown into the yard or thrown into the house.
 Afterwards he was being detained;  he was detained for more than four times;  the longest period for about a month or more, he was detained.  Whilst he was detained, I was also detained for a few hours, because I was questioned. 
 I had to tell the police what was Eric's involvement.  They wanted me to tell them at what time and where he would have meetings.  The words of this man - has was at the security branch - I remember his surname was Mr Etsebet.  
 He said to me, I must just tell him, what time will Eric go to a meeting and where.  He said to me, Eric said you have lots of financial problems.  I can help you, he said to me.  He said to me in Afrikaans, he said, "die een hand was die ander hand."
 I said to him, you want me to take money from you.  You want me to sell my own husband, my own people.  I said to him, my husband does not tell me where he goes and what he does.  All I know, my husband is doing a good job.  He's working for the community.
 I wasn't, I didn't sleep until that night.  I was really tired after a few hours.  I went home.  
 Afterwards Eric arranged, because we had lots of crime in Schoongesigt, I was living a Witbank at that time;  he arranged for a gathering for gangsters to have them, instead of being in gangsterism works, to be more involved in a democratic movement and work to do better things than being gangsters.
 That day was a very bad day.  Instead of having a peace rally that day, it was more like a war, because before he could actually start with what he really wanted to do, the police were all there.  Lots of police, lots of vans.  We were surrounded.
 Eric was grabbed in front of all those people.  He was beaten and he was thrown into a van.  He was carried by about ten policemen.
 My daughter, who was 11 years at that time, was there and my sister in law, sitting in the audience, she also witnessed that it was a terrible experience for my daughter.  Because, as they threw him into the van, all ten of them at that time, shot teargas into the van where he was already pushed in.
 My daughter was in a state, because she thought that he was killed, she thought that they shot him.  I had to console and tell her, no he wasn't shot, it was teargas.
 And then he was locked up for holding an illegal gathering.  Whilst he was in detention, they wouldn't let  Eric be detained with the other comrades.  He had to be alone in a cell.  And Eric was fighting for that, because he wanted to be with the others.  They said to him, you're not supposed to be with the others.  You're not one of them.
 Because of that, Eric went on a hunger strike.  He was on hunger strike for about more than three weeks and because of that then they had him locked with the other fellow comrades.
 He was then released and he came home.  Repeatedly we were so harassed, phone calls.  In front of my house there was an electric box.  The following morning when we woke up, there would be printings of him and so on.
 What I noticed;  Eric's name was spelled with a C.  And all the threatening letters and the pamphlets and things written on the side of the electric box;  it was spelled with a K.  Eric was a K.  And I noticed that it was only the police.
 When we went to the police station, or whatever thing where the police were involved, they would spell his name the way it was spelled on the papers and threatening letters that we used to get.  Whilst Eric's name, we spell it with a C.
 He was then detained again.  That time he was from work.  They stopped him in the street in front of the house.  They didn't give him a chance to come in the house.  He had to get out of the car and get into a Kombi.  It was a red Kombi.  It was the security branch people and they took him.
 Fortunately, around there was a little boy, one of my relatives.  He gave the car keys and said to him and said he must go call my sister to tell her to come and lock up and so on.
 He was then detained for another few weeks.  On, after being released, he came home.  I had a householder who stayed with him, because in 1989 I went to college to further my studies.
 One night, the police or the security branch came home;  about midnight, according to what the household told me.  I wasn't there at the time.  She phoned me to tell me that I must come home, because Eric's life was really in danger.
 That night, she said, she was awakened by a lot of noise in the house.  It was midnight, maybe early hours, I don't know.  When she got out of her room, because she was living in the house, she, in the passage, she found Eric on his knees with quite a few, a lot of policemen.
 One had the gun on Eric's head and he was on his knees.  They were shocked to see her, because I think they thought Eric was alone at home.  They were much aware that I was at college at that time.
 They shouted and asked her, what are you doing here.  She looked at Eric and she says, she said to them, no, I live here.
 And they just fled of.  They didn't talk and they just left and left Eric there.  And okay, Eric got up and went back to bed.
 The following - after that he was detained again.  August, he was detained August in 1989.  The 14th of September he was released.  And at that day when he was released, he tried to contact to me as I was at college at that time.  
 He had problems contacting me and problems getting hold of his car, because his brother had his car that time.  So at home, the police said to him, phone your wife and tell her what time are you going to see her.
 And they were sitting there.  And Eric made a call to me whilst they were sitting there.  According to him he said to me, they said to him, tell her what time are you coming to fetch her, are you going to fetch her.
 He told me that he can't come tonight as it was late already.  I'll come tomorrow morning.  He gave me the time.  He would leave at about between four and five.
 The next morning, Eric was on his way to Johannesburg to come and see me after being released.  He was then followed again by these two cars.  He said it was two cars.  Near Springs on the highway, they pushed Eric off the road, forced him off the road.  The car overturned and maybe they thought Eric was dead, because the car was a write-off.
 Fortunately he didn't die.  A person travelling from Swaziland stopped and he helped Eric.  But Eric was too scared to go to hospital.  He insisted they take him to my sister who was living in Boksburg.
 So this person took Eric to Boksburg.  And from Boksburg from my sister phoned me and told me that I must come immediately to Boksburg;  Eric was in a car accident.
 I went to Boksburg, saw Eric.  He had a - not a fracture, but in any way, his neck was seriously injured and his arm was also injured.  And we took him to Hillbrow Hospital where he was operated, because some of his veins was not active, blood wasn't flowing through his veins.
 So he underwent an operation.  I went back to college at that time.  What I didn't say;  every time Eric was detained, it was the same Kombi of the security branch that fetched him.  So it was the same people all the time.
 From there, after Eric got better, he came home.  The year was over and I also went home for the holiday.  Three weeks before Eric was killed, a friend of us and another guy that I'm not so sure, I don't know, I think it's Samuel Solly, I don't know, came there with a car and they asked Eric to fix the car, because they were going to Swaziland for the weekend.
 But that night we were invited for supper.  So I said no, Eric can't work on the car.  We are invited.  We're going out.  Then we left that night.  He didn't work on the car.
 They said they were in a hurry, they were going to Swaziland.  But Eric didn't work on the car.  And so he didn't work on the - so we went out and then three weeks after it was Christmas Eve, the 23rd in fact of Christmas.
 The same people with the same car, came again.  They wanted Eric to work on the car to fix the car.  I actually asked the guy, I said, but three weeks ago you were here.  You said you needed the car, because you were going to Swaziland.  Now this car is still not fixed, but you were going to Swaziland?
 No, they wanted Eric to work on the car?  Anyway, Eric worked on the car.  He fixed the car and at about ten to eleven that night, Eric said to me they're just going for a ride.  They're going to test the car.
 I didn't want him to go.  I said, no it's too late.  Tomorrow we have to be god-parents at church for a relative.  No, he says, we're just going to test the car, we'll be back just now.
 They left.  It was hardly an hour.  And the young comrades came to tell me that Eric was stabbed.  I ran up, the boys literally carried me, because I couldn't move.  When I got to the shop, there was no sign of Eric.
 What I didn't say;  in the letters which we used to get they used to say that they're going to kill Eric, we're going to rip your heart out of your body.
 And that night, Eric's whole chest was opened.  His ribs was standing out.  His lungs were on his chest and his heart was (... indistinct).
 I looked and I saw, my God, and I remembered the letter said;  we are going to rip your heart out of your chest.
The following day, I went to the police station, to the state mortuary at the police station.  I went there and the policemen looked at me and they asked me what I was - I said to them, no, I'm here to identify the corpse of Eric Liberty.
 And the one policeman was very cold and very cruel.  He said to one of his colleagues, " Oh, ons het hom!  Mandela se seun is mos dood."
 In front of me it was very cruel, it was very painful.  Never the less, we went in and when they opened, Eric wasn't clothed, he was just in the drawer and I saw again.
 And then he came up again, his heart was now, at that time, really out and it was put right on top of his chest.
 We went home.  Eric was killed.  We are suffering emotionally.  My children are growing without a father.  It's very painful to realise the way he was threatened, the way they said he was going to be killed;  and later it was done.
 And the boy that actually did the killing, his father is a policeman.  The killing happened right in front of his house and the witness that saw the killing, ran in to call the father of this boy that was killing Eric.
 He closed the door, according to what the witness says to me.  He said to me, don't involve yourself in matters.  And he didn't want this boy to go out to this boy.  He said, he pushed him and he ran out.
 And what's more scaring to me is the witnesses are all dying one by one in unnatural causes.  The witness that saw the actual killing, died in a car accident, just the following year.
 Afterwards the killer, Godphrey, also got shot.  And now the owner of the car, who came with the car, also died, also died in a car accident.  
 And what I noticed of this car one day when I was driving from town, I saw the same car and I thought, but this is the car that Eric was fixing.  And I looked and I noticed that the driver was a policeman that was driving the car.
 Now those are all the things that are bothering me, they're worrying me, because the witnesses are dying and now here is the car and it's a policeman driving the car.
 I didn't stop the car.  I didn't talk to the policeman.  So I don't know who it really is.