Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pollsmoor — 1996-11-26

WENDY ORR: Ms Paulsen good morning I just want to ask the briefer to switch the microphone on.  Thank you verby much.  Are you the only person going to give evidence.  Your husband also wants to give evidence Mr Paulsen.  Well then fine I would ask both of you to take the oath.  Then we will listen to your evidence and if you husband wants to ask anything we will give him the opportunity to do so.  I am first going to ask you to take the oath.  Do you have any objections to taking this oath.

LOUISA PAULSEN: Duly sworn states

WENDY ORR: Mr. Paulsen will you stand please.  Will you give your full names please for the record.
LEONARD PAULSEN Duly sworn states

WENDY ORR: Please be seated.  Ms Glenda Wildschut will assist you in telling your story. I will ask you to proceed then.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Good morning Ms Paulsen.  How are you today?

MS PAULSEN: I am a bit tense this morning. I am glad to be here to be telling the truth this morning but in the past I was unable to talk about this incident.  This morning it is 'n privilege to talk about this.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: What happened on the 29th of August in Athlone as all the leaders were taken to jail.   But on the 29th everybody came back to Mitchell's Plain.  Can  I just interrupt please.  Could I ask the briefer just to put the microphone a bit nearer to you.  Perhaps they should just unfasten the tape.  Are you comfortable.  I am sorry that you had to interrupt you.

MS PAULSEN: On the 29th of Augusts all this took place in Mitchell's Plain.  We are going to march in Mitchell's Plain on the 29th because the march in Ahtlone had failed.   On the 29th of August the pupils who went to school were shot in the school yard.  My son, Lionel was one of the people who past out on the school grounds. They took him to hospital and then they brought him back home.
 Eisleben and Spine Road were the streets where all these took place.  Nobody could walk down those roads, only the police were allowed.  I do not live far from Eisleben Road.  My son came home and like children were - are was inquisitive. Then when he went there he was shot and killed.  I was at work and they called me and they told me that my son had been shot.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Please take your time Ms Paulsen  when you are ready you can continue.

MS PAULSEN: My husband and I ran home. His brother was just one year older.  His brother Karel,  Karel couldn't utter one single word.  When he saw me he said Mommy Mommy and he charged out of the house.  We tried to go to the police station but it was terrible.  You couldn't  see anything.  You could not walk, there was a crowd of people of students.  There were Casspirs but eventually we reached the police station.
 Having arrived there they chased us away like dogs and said go and find your son's body in the morgue.  My husband tried to negotiate with them, but they wanted to arrest him.  But then some friend who were with us had to calm him down.
 The next day we returned again and then they took us to the Commissioner of Police.   He was a white man on the second floor and he said please come again on Monday.  We don't have time for you now.  That was dark days, we didn't not know what to do, we were scared.   We were not allowed to talk to friends. We could not meet our friends at the various houses because if they heard that our son had been killed or were shot it was, we were branded.   The people were frightened even to talk to us and even today in that community there are still some people who are scared to talk to us.  There are other people or other students who also still have some bird shot in their bodies.
 These two boys they were 13 years old Lionel and Quentin were 13 years olds and they both died.  There were thousands of people but why did the police shoot the children?  ... end of Tape One,  side A ...  that day the 29th of August, I still remember that.  I had two sons Lionel 12 years and Karel 13 years.  That day I lost two sons. Karel did not study any further.  He could not make any progress in school at all.  He went to school, came back in the afternoons, threw down his rug sack.
  They tried to give him psychiatric treatment but even today he is still suffering.  He never talks about his brother.  You can't even ask him the same thing twice.  We also don't discuss this at home.  We just keep quiet about his death.  This was a big struggle even up till today.  Friends and colleagues at work, my husband and my family assisted me and assisted me up till today but it is still very, very hard for me to cope with this.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Ms Paulsen can we ask you a few questions just to provide clarity regarding your testimony?   Presumably Karel and Lionel walked from school together or were they together?

MS PAULSEN: No they did not walk together.  The two - Lionel and another friend were together. It's not far from my home where he had been shot.  Karel was at the corner and Lionel and Quentin were a way back.

MS WILDSCUT: So Quentin and Lionel were together.  Did Karel see how his brother was shot.

MS PAULSEN: No fortunately, when they called him his brother was still living.  He sat with him while he was dying and the principal and the teachers at the school tried to take to take him to the hospital.  Yes it happened early that morning while he was still at school and then the Casspirs came into the school grounds and then they shot into the school grounds. They shot tear gas then he passed out because of that.  He was the only child who had passed out because of this tear gas.  And then they  took him to the Day Clinic and then the teachers sent all the children home and they  brought Lionel home personally.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Have you ever heard what kind of  bullets killed Lionel?

MS PAULSEN: All that I heard is that the UDF arranged for us to get a lawyer Mr Moosa from Athlone.  Twice he told us  to come to  Wynberg, there was just a small little room.  He called us there and said this case was postponed the first time.  The second time Mr Moosa called us again and he said Ms Paulsen so many children can give evidence, but they  don't want to because they  afraid of  going to jail and I  can't continue with this case.  Because this  case is against ten policeman and I asked Mr Moosa why then was my son killed, what had he done?
 He showed me a photograph where he had been shot, he was shot  in his face and in his chest.  He was shot with rubber bullets, but it penetrated his chest and that is  what caused his death.  Or then that I heard or the only news I  got was from the lawyer, there was never a court action.  We never heard who were the guilty people - who had shot  my son.
 Never ever did a policeman approach  us to tell us this is what had happened.  So up till today, the family does not know what had happened.  The only thing we know is that the police had shot them, why and how we do not know.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: I   just want to ask you a few things about Karel.   You feel that Karel is not healthy or is not well after this incident, have you ever approached a doctor or a psychiatrist apart from the psychiatrist he saw at school.

MS PAULSEN: Never ever.  Once at school the principal told me that they did call a psychiatrist because he does not  do well at school.  But the psychiatrist couldn't find anything wrong with him.  Karel does not talk, he cannot keep  a job and today if he decides he is not going to  leave his  bedroom, he does not leave his bedroom.   He decides he is not going to speak to anybody, he does not speak to anybody.  And then he also - he had an accident with his eye later on.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Do you feel that he is  very depressed?

MS PAULSEN: Yes he is suffering because he and his brother were like twins, they grew up together, they played together, they did everything together.