Human Rights Violation Hearings — Cape Town — 1997-06-10

MARK BLETCHER: You are putting me in a difficult situation here.  Some of the injured hopped in supported by friends, coming in from between the shacks.  We would rapidly check their state of consciousness, breathing and airway and then would remove their clothes to see the injury.
 We knew the most common cause of death would be blood loss and resulting shock.  So our number one priority was to stop bleeding.  Most of the injured had been shot with shotguns.
 Severely injured patients usually needed urgent fluid replacement and rapid transfer to hospital.  Through out the day the injured poured in.  Often they would describe how they were shot, almost invariably by police.
 From the accounts that they gave, it appeared to have been a relatively one way - the battle had been a relatively one way affair.  They appeared to have fought with sticks and stones to be countered by the weapons of the police.
 Many were young, the majority were between 15 and 25 years.  In fact 43% of the injured were below 20 years.  People moaned with pain.  Mothers and families accompanied injured people, sometimes sobbed or shouted angrily.
 Many women brought their babies who had been in tear gas and we also had to treat people with chronic chest diseases and asthma which had been worsened by the tear gas.
 When a body was brought in which was already dead, we would certify the person as dead.  Then usually the nursing staff would clean the body and wrap it in a particular way.
 We had problems transporting critically injured patients out to major hospitals.  Initially ambulances would not enter.  
 Sometimes we had to load patients needing referrals into a van and drive them out to a point where an ambulance would fetch them.  By the end of those two days in Crossroads in February, we had treated 200 people who had been shot.
 I would just like to show you just to give you a feel for this, this is a list of people with injuries, and each page a list of 30 people or so, and you can see it just goes on page after page of lists of people shot.
 That is just two days of injuries and this pattern of abuse, although it was most intensive during that period, carried on right through 1985.  
 I would now like to come to the second part of my submission, which is to describe some case studies of individuals injured in various ways.
 The first is of a 14 year old boy, he was treated at the Saca clinic in Crossroads.  He said that he had been shot running away from the police.  Examination revealed shotgun injuries to his buttocks and thighs and I want to briefly show a photo of this boy in the healing stage.
 This is a 14 year old boy, you can see he has been shot from the back into his buttocks and thigh area.  One can see from the way the shot is quite close together that the range of the shooting was fairly short.
 This particular photo has got particular meaning to me.  The injury which is shown there is not a particularly serious injury and that is not the reason that I show it, although it is a 14 year old boy.
 Why that photo has particular meaning for me, is because we tried to keep medical records and evidence of people who had been injured, because we thought that many of them would like to bring legal cases against those who had injured them.  
 In fact of over 500 people we had treated who was shot, we are aware of only about 2 to 3 people who successfully brought any legal case against those who had injured them.
 This particular boy is one of the only times I appeared in court around one of the people who had been injured.  And why we appeared in court was not him bringing a case against those who had shot him at close range from the back, a case was being brought against him for public violence.
 Second case study.  A young man was brought in unconscious, smelling very strongly of petrol.  His breathing was very irregular, what we as Doctors call chain smoke breathing.  Dr Hewitson, one of our Doctors, rapidly incubated him and ventilated him with a face mask.
 His eyes were deviated to one side, we realised he was not moving the one side of his body, that is he was paralysed.
 After resuscitating him, we referred  him to hospital that night.  His scull X-ray was an X-ray I will never forget.  It showed 10 large buck shot pellets inside his scull which had gone through his scull and cause him to be paralysed and he remained so.
 A third case study I would like to briefly describe is of a man shot by the police with a severe bullet wound in his femur region.  He was brought into the clinic bleeding profusely, blood was spurting from his wounds, and he was surrounded by a large pool of blood.
 Clinic staff tried the utmost to stop the massive haemorrhaging and to resuscitate him with intravenous fluids.
 However, his condition deteriorated very rapidly and he died.  Children with shotgun injuries, aged three years old, five years old and six year olds were treated.
 Their children described indiscriminate shooting by police.  We were horrified by these experiences.  I've got a number of case studies here, but I am going to cut them because of time pressures.
 I would like though just to mention two case studies of persons injured by community or youth groups.  The vast majority of injuries that we saw during the 1985 period, were inflicted by police injuries.  As I say over 500 gunshot injuries, but we small a small number, say about 10 to 20 people injured by community groups.
 I would like to describe two particular experiences which we had.  Returning to the clinic by car, we saw a burning truck, quite close to the clinic and a man was brought in who had been pulled out of that burning delivery truck.  He had been the driver of that commercial truck which had presumably been petrol bombed.
 It was one of the most severe cases of burns I have ever seen, virtually his whole body was burned.  The room smelt pungently of burning flesh.  We gave intravenous fluids and attempted to remove some of his smouldering clothing.
 In the midst of this a police team and video crew entered and began filming everything.  They had to be asked forcefully to leave.  The man was only able to say his name and I never found out whether he lived or died, but I thought at the time that he had a very poor chance of survival with such extensive burns.
 A second case ... (tape ends) ... a particularly difficult situation arising from this was that the health workers involved, were put under great pressure by members of that particular youth group not to complete assault forms for the injured persons.
 I would like to come to the third part of my submission to give some statistical information around the 500 persons that we treated, that were shot between February and November 1995.  Of those 500 people who were shot, 90% were shot by shotguns, it is 464 people, 31 by rubber bullets and 5 by high velocity bullets.
 The birdshot and buckshot obviously consisted of multiple pellets and although less dangerous and high velocity bullets the shot can cause serious and sometimes, fatal injuries.
 Of these 500 people we treated that were shot, 13 died and 65 had serious injuries.  Some of those injuries that we saw, were from shot weapons, 12 people with penetrating eye injuries.  The eye is incredibly sensitive to shotgun injuries and we saw young children who became blinded permanently.
 7 people with penetrating chest injuries, 7 with penetrating abdominal injuries, 6 people with head injuries with neurological loss.  14 people with severe soft tissue injuries including damage to major vessels, severe (indistinct) and so on.  15 people with fractures or severe joint injuries, that is where the shot had caused injury severe enough to break bones.
 This is some of the shotgun injuries.  Follow up of patients was fairly difficult, but a number of patients that we did follow up, had permanent disabilities, including blindness, hemiplegia, that is paralysis on the one side, nerve palsies and contractions.
 Rubber bullets.  Rubber bullets many people see as fairly innocuous kind of things, in fact of 31 people we treated for rubber bullet injuries, 4 had fractures, including a fractured skull, a fractured (indistinct).
 One had an acute abdominal emergency resulting in a partial hepatectomy, which is a removal of part of the liver.  We also treated large numbers of people who had been beaten, many with batons and (indistinct) and injuries included sub-congentiva, that is eye, haematoma's, ruptured eardrums, scull lacerations and cut lips.
 Tear gas - we saw many patients who were involved in tear gas injuries.  Severe problems particularly occurred where tear gas had been shot in a confined space.  For example one person had been locked in a police van and had tear gas put into the back of the van and he became unconscious.
 Another patient received a severe injury when a tear gas canister was shot into his thigh.  
 Briefly on the age distribution of these 500 people who was shot 5 people who we treated who was shot was less than 10 years old, 36 people were between the age of 10 years and  15 years of age, and 118 people were between 15 and 20 years of age.  So in total 43% of the people who we treated who were shot, were under 20.
 The dilemmas relating to referrals to hospital and police interference and others, have been described by Dr Myburgh, I am not going to cover them now.
 I briefly want to go on to now to some of the cases of torture that we saw in the clinic during that period.  Particularly during the early part of 1986 we saw about 15 people who were tortured.
 Many of them in fact came from the areas who were subsequently burnt down, like Nyanga Bush areas and so on.
 And I have the names here of 15 people.  As health workers, we are not really able to release these names, because of confidentiality, but I would like to just read briefly from example one record, an affidavit.
 This particular gentleman was arrested in April 1986 by the Special Branch at his home.  He was taken to a police station very close to here, probably the closest police station to here.  
 In that room five White Security policemen and one Black policeman.  The policemen questioned me about two people, I didn't know anything about those people.
 When I said I didn't know anything about these men, a rubber bag was put over my head and breathing was difficult.
 Something was put on my fingers of both hands, I was given electric shocks.  My whole body was effected.
 They took the cap off my head and asked more questions.  they then put the cap back over my head and held it tightly around my neck.  I couldn't breath, they continued with the shocks.
 One policemen put my head between his thighs while the other hit me with a cane, others kicked me.  I could not tell how long this continued.  I was hurting and suffocating, etc.
 I am just going to cut this in half because it goes on and on.  But this is just an example of 15 patients that we saw like this in the early part of 1986.  Events of torture which occurred in police stations around this area.
 By the way, one of these people was a community leader of one of the areas which was burnt down.  And he was tortured also with electric shocks and so on.  He was subsequently arrested and we visited him in the psychiatric section of Valkenberg hospital where he was put under observation until he was finally released and not charged.
 I would like to then briefly go on to a description of police complicity in "witdoek" violence in the burning of the KTC area.  The area I particularly want to give witness to is to the burning of the refugee tents and of the Zwolani Centre area in Nyanga which occurred just before the burning of KTC itself.
 On the morning of the 9th of June 1986, at about ten o'clock I was in the clinic, the Nyanga Divisional Clinic, which is not far from here, down here, many people will know the clinic.
 And the Nyanga clinic is situated between the refugee tents and the Zwolani Centre.  From the window of the clinic, we observed several hundred "witdoeke" approaching from Old Crossroads, armed with weapons of various kinds.
 They charged the community members who were opposite the clinic and a battle ensued.  We witnessed the battle from the clinic where we were.
 During this period four caspers and buffels patrolled the area and they did absolutely nothing to prevent the attack, let alone to stop it.
 The "witdoeke" then gathered in front of the clinic, you could see them clearly out of the window and a casper pulled up and I saw a policeman in the casper, beckon with his hands to the "witdoeke" in the direction of Zwolani Centre.
 He then turned and emptied his gun and shot in the direction of the Zwolani Centre.  If I can just briefly demonstrate that.  He stood up in his casper, on this side was the Crossroads side, the "witdoeke" were here and that side was the Zwolani Centre which was immediately after that burnt down.
 He stood up in his casper, the "witdoeke" were there and he went like this with his hand, and he then turned with his gun and shot in this direction.  It was as clear as anything.
 Next I saw a "witdoek" go up to the main refugee tent, pour liquid from a bottle on it, light a match and set it on fire.  Following this act, another four "witdoeke" came from other refugee tents, and they were all aflame.
 All this was done within a mere 10 to 15 metres away from a stationary casper.  The police in the casper did nothing to prevent the tents being burnt nor did they take any action whatsoever against "witdoeke" and the burning tents.
 I will continue from there.  I want to end briefly with a description of cells, prison cells kept by "witdoeke" in the old Crossroads area.  From the clinic we have heard a number of accounts of people who had been beaten by home guard type forces and who had been held, detained in cells within the Crossroads area.
 Now, on Monday the 19th of May at about midday, myself and Dr Hewitson received rumours that injured people were being held within cells inside a building fairly close to the clinic, which I could name.
 We walked there and asked if they would like us to see any injured people in the cells.  We were allowed in and were taken into two cells.  They were made of zinc, each cell was about 4 metres by 3 metres and they were empty besides the occupants.
 In one cell there were three people, one a youth.  He said he had been hit with something on his forearms.  He said he had not eaten for 24 hours.
 On examination he had abrasions on both forearms.  In the second cell there were six people.  Two said they had been beaten and these two had bruises.  One of the prisoners was 14 years.
 Two youths said they had been visiting from Site C when they were arrested, they also complained of hunger.  The jailers were aggressive towards the prisoners.  One said they wanted information from these comrades because four of their people had been killed in fighting up till then.
 We later returned to treat these prisoners, with nine other members of the Saca clinic staff who also witnessed this event.  May I just briefly end on Monday the 19th of May, we travelled to work along Lansdowne Road, witnessing numerous road blocks operated by "witdoeke".  At one we witnessed on the pavement were two dead bodies and one seriously injured person.
 The one dead man had a small circular wound in his back which looked like a gunshot wound.  There were many police and soldiers around and many "witdoeke" within 20 metres.  The "witdoeke" were heavily armed with knives, panga's and sticks.
 We witnessed no attempts by the police or the soldiers to question or arrest any of the armed people, despite the dead and injured who were present.
 That concludes my testimony.  I hope I haven't gone over the time period.