Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

WITNESS:   On the second day without having had sleep they told me that I should go with them and point some guns out.  I told them I didn't have any guns.  They told me I couldn't be able to take people to outside countries to be trained if I did not have guns, and they asked me where I got the money from to take the youngsters out to be trained.  They tried all means of extracting information from me, and when I listened to them talking I heard them talking about John Nene and Harry Gwala, whom they were also interrogating together with me, but in different rooms.  At times they would leave you, go out, come back with certain articles, and say to you, "So-and-so has said you know these articles, so you should also speak your part."  They wouldn't get the truth from us because we were so strong, we were fighting for freedom.  When I was injured they decided that they would come with witnesses who would testify against me.  I asked them to leave my wife alone because she knew nothing about politics or about any organisations, so there was absolutely no use for me to tell the police if I didn't tell my wife.  After having been tortured tremendously, putting my stones in shoes and say I must do a frog jump with stones inside my shoes.  They handcuffed me.  They handcuffed my hands to my back and they hooked my hands and they kept me suspended in the air just like meat in the butchery.  They told me that when I go out of that place I would already be a corpse.  They told  me that they had killed Joseph Mdluli at that time.  I told them that I would not say anything, because where we came from we made oaths that the struggle that we are fighting for, we are going through, we will die with whatever knowledge we have without giving away any information to anyone.  They threatened me and told me that I have been in gaol for quite a long time, and that's where I will go back because I was one of the stubborn people according to them.  We went to the Supreme Court.  The Judge who was presiding over the case is the president today in our region.  That is now Justice Howard.  He is also a culprit because all the testimony that we gave before the Court he never accepted the testimony.  All the testimony that was given by the police was accepted as is, even the evidence that they gave of lies and pointings out.  He even promised us that he will give us a life sentence, death sentence.  He gave me a life sentence, five of us.  We went to Robben Island.  When we got to Robben Island I got headaches and I had a broken arm.  They took me to Robben Island hospital.  They didn't want me to go for the x-ray.  They kept on giving me tablets, kept on telling me there was something wrong with my arm, I should take tablets, but I shouldn't go for x-rays.  Late in 1990 - that was in 1989, just before we got released, I was taken for x-rays.  The x-rays showed that there was a broken bone.  I came back from Groote Schuur Hospital, where I went for the x-rays.  When I got to Robben Island I had to see a local doctor on the following day.  When he asked where the x-rays were they said the x-rays were lost, because they did not want me to go and get admitted because they had a belief that I wanted to run away.  I stayed with my very painful arm, as well as this painful headache.  Then in March 1990 I got a stroke.  I was taken to the hospital.  I stayed there for four months.  I underwent a major operation on my head.  I know that all the perpetrators are today innocent.  I meet them along the way.  I see them almost every time.  Then when I came out I went to a Pietermaritzburg doctor, who told me that my arm had been broken.  Then I had to be operated on.  I refused, I told them I was very old for an operation now.  It was going to be difficult for me to heal as old as I am.  And I even pointed out that I had to fork out a lot of money trying to get medical attention with regard to my broken arm.  All those things pose a predicament for me.  Now I realise that even if we have to forgive I am not a very hard-hearted person.  I am not a person who likes forgetting easily about the past.  I don't want to be cheated by the statement that they make asking for amnesty.  When they got to Robben Island to interrogate us the then Government was a government of tsotsis, was a government of ruffians, as well as Dr Verwoerd.  It was a network of ruffians because there was a lot of things that they did.  People had been shot and they had bullets in their stomachs which couldn't be taken out.  At that time I had a problem, because when you talk about these things you are taken as a person who is mentally disturbed.  If today they say we should forgive them, I absolutely cannot forgive ragamuffins because they did these things knowingly.  I can hear that they say we must forgive them, but it's not very easy for us to forgive.  If people want to be forgiven they must show it in the true sense of the word that they deserve forgiveness, but they must also be taken to Nuremburg they still conduct themselves in the manner that they did.  There are so many people that we were with in Robben Island who were very sick, and nobody paid attention to those things, because the police in Robben Island were the same as the Security Police, because the Security Branch used to come and observe as to what treatment we were getting at Robben Island.

MR LYSTER: Have you been working, or what are you doing?

WITNESS:  I was working at the ANC office as an organiser, but due to circumstances that I cannot control I had to leave the job and take early retirement.

MR LYSTER: And how are you supporting yourself at the moment?  Sorry, how do you support yourself at the present time?

WITNESS:   Present now?

MR LYSTER: Ja, how do you support yourself?  Are you getting some income, or do you have a pension, or is your wife working?

WITNESS:   That's a very difficult question because I am supporting myself in a very subtle way I cannot mention myself.  I don't know how.

MR LYSTER: Mr Xaba, thank you very, very much for coming here today and relating your story.  I am going to hand you back to the Chairman now.

KHOZA MGOJO: Just one question.  You told us that you've gone through a lot of expense because you had to get medical attention and you had to take tablets every day.  Which doctor saw you or attended to you, so that if you need any help we should know where you were being treated?

WITNESS:   It's quite a few doctors.  I do go to the clinic.  I also do go to another doctor's surgery there at Retief Surgeries.  I see Dr Motana every now and then.

KHOZA MGOJO: Thank you.  We'll try to contact the Minister of Health and see if there's anything with which we can help you.  I don't promise, but we will make an attempt.

MR LAX: Just one question please, Mr Xaba.  During both your trials that you were - the one in Pretoria and the one in Pietermaritzburg subsequently, did you and your co-accused tell the Court about the torture that you'd suffered during those trials, or did your lawyers raise that as an issue during the trials?

WITNESS:   Yes, we did raise some complaints, because when we were detained in Pretoria we were on the fifth floor right at the top.  At that time President Mandela was in another floor that was below ours.  We managed to transport messages because there were many places that we went to, there were many things that we did in order to try and draw the authorities' attention to our tortures.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... authorities, did they basically just ignore that, pretend it didn't happen?

WITNESS:   They were not arrested.

MR LAX: And ... (intervention)

WITNESS:   Maybe I don't understand your question well.

MR LAX: (Inaudible) ... interested in what was the attitude of the Judges that heard your cases to these tortures?  Did they ... (intervention)

WITNESS:   The Judges?

MR LAX: Yes.