Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietermaritzburg — UNKNOWN

WITNESS:   When they told me this I told them that I am not in that class to work for a bantustan.  Then they said to me I was stubborn, and they told me that I will die burning because my head was stiff just as Harry Gwala's head, so they'll deal with me accordingly as I've come back from prison.  As time went on I was banned, up to such an extent where there was some change.  People had to be taken as recruits to be trained as soldiers so that they might come back and fight for freedom.  Many youngsters in the youth from Pietermaritzburg went.  We took them out.  Then on a particular day in the morning, it was on a Sunday round about half past two, when I woke up my house was full of policemen.  They woke me up.  They said I should get dressed up because they already knew my workings.  They took me.  They even took my wife as well as my sister.  There were six of us that were taken on that particular night.  They put me alone in a car.  They said I shouldn't talk to anybody.  The only people I will talk to were them.  We went to the charge office in Loop Street.  When we got there they took me to an upstairs building.  When I got in there in that office Dreyer said to me - he first started by talking to the other policemen who were full in the house.  He said to me I must give him my glasses or my spectacles.  He took my glasses and he went out with them.  As soon as he had taken my glasses they just pounced on me, the policemen.  They started assaulting me.  They never asked me anything.  They started assaulting me, kicking me, banging my head against the wall.  I lost consciousness without ever having uttered a word.  When I regained my consciousness it was probably three or four hours.  The place was full of blood.  The blood had already dried out.  When I regained the consciousness I noticed one policeman who was standing guard.  He pressed a button and told the others that I had regained consciousness.  Dreyer came to me and said that I didn't want to talk.  I asked him what was I supposed to say.   He said whatever they wanted me to say I was going to say.  I told them I wasn't going to say anything.  They took me, they grabbed me by my feet and put me upside-down throughout the window.  (Pause)

MR LYSTER: Try to relax if you can.  (Pause)

WITNESS:   They banged my head against the wall.

MR LYSTER: (Inaudible) ... that after you had recovered consciousness that you were tortured again, and that they requested you to speak, but you refused to speak, and that they then continued to torture you by holding you upside-down, twisting your arms, swinging you along a wall - I presume that's through the open window - and that in the process of doing this they broke your right arm.  Is that correct?  Did you break your arm?  (Pause)  We do understand that it is very difficult for you to remember these things and to have to recount them again, and we extend our deep sympathy to you and salute your courage in doing what you are doing.  If you feel composed enough now to carry on please ... (intervention)

WITNESS:   I can carry on.

MR LYSTER: Thank you.

WITNESS:   They hit my head against the wall.  I broke my arm, my right-hand arm.  They kept on hitting me against the wall.  They told me that they wouldn't leave me alone until such time that I had said all that they wanted me to say.  At that time I could hear my wife screaming from the adjoining rooms.

MR LYSTER: (Inaudible) ... difficult for you to remember.  Just to confirm, Mr Xaba, you mentioned a Dreyer.  Is this Colonel Dreyer or Colonel Driemeyer?

WITNESS:   Dreyer was the one who was in control.  He was a lieutenant.  He was a colonel.  He was the big culprit.  Thereafter, after I had been injured, bleeding all over - the most painful experience was that I came round about half past two in the morning.  They interrogated me right through the day until dawn.  They were interchanging.  At night there was another group in the - during the day there was another group.  I didn't sleep throughout that time.

MR LYSTER: You mentioned a minute ago that your wife was being held in the room next to you, is that correct?