Human Rights Violation Hearings — Krugersdorp — 1996-11-13

AMINA DESAI: On the morning, I think it was on the 22nd or the 23rd of October 1971, I was awakened at about three
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o'clock in the morning, by somebody knocking at the door.  Since I live alone I didn't want to open the door.  But I looked through the window and I saw some white men outside, about five of them.  One of them showed through the window his identity card.  He said he was a police officer.  He wanted to speak to me.  I then opened my door and he came in and asked me about my car; did I own a car like this, that and the other. I said yes and he said where is your car now? I said well, one of my relatives, young relatives took it because he was, he asked, he wanted to go out that evening, so he must have it.  
 Then they proceeded to tell me that I am not, I am a bit vague about how it went on, but I know they searched the house, up to about eight o'clock.  At eight o'clock they told me that look here, you'd better - well, I - you'd better get dressed and you must take something with you, because we are going to take you to John Vorster Square now. Well, I went along with them. I wasn't particularly worried because I felt that as far as I knew I had done nothing wrong. Somebody had borrowed my car and possibly he may have been involved in an accident or whatever it was. I didn't know what actually happened.
 Once I came to John Vorster they started questioning me; was I a member of the Communists, was I a member of the Communist Party, and of course I told them no, I have no connection with any political party, and I am certainly not a Communist and I don't know anything about what you are asking me about. Of course, and then they told me but we are detaining you all the same.  
 So they took me to the cells and from that time they kept on asking me to come back to the John Vorster Square 
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upstairs on the 10th floor, I think it was.  They had teams of interrogators.  Of course there no rest in-between.  They kept that up because as one team went off the other team arrived.  Perhaps they would allow you perhaps an hour or two to go back to the cell, and then the new team would be there and they would start interrogating me.  This went on for, I would say for about four days.  
 Sometime, I think it was on the Tuesday, because you lose sense of time because they don't give you a chance to sleep, they keep on coming back for you, after an hour or two. They may allow you to go and have something to eat in the cell and then they come and fetch you again.  After - on the Tuesday afternoon at about three o'clock I was standing there with my - you of course have to stand.  They don't allow you to sit.  
 I heard a terrible commotion. I heard furniture, whatever it was, being pushed around. I heard people scampering around and I heard screams.  I think it was the day, the most terrible moment of my life, because at that particular instant, I felt as if my heart was actually jumping out of my chest.  I don't think I had ever in my life had an experience, fear and terror like that.  I didn't of course know what was happening, because we were in an enclosed office.  But I could hear these sounds.  Shortly after that I saw some other officers coming in there. They of course never introduced themselves as being so-and-so.  They just used to speak to you and tell you to stand, you stand while we ask you questions.
 But that particular afternoon at about four o'clock I think, I should think it was about an hour after all this commotion there in the offices, I was taken down.  They have KRUGERSDORP HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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a subterranean tunnel through which they take you from John Vorster itself to the cells.  I was left there for literally for months.  The wardress, they had a very elderly white wardress who would come in and bring me my food and perhaps once a day - because I insisted on it, that they take me down to the shower.  I would shower and I would come back to my cell.
 I was completely alone in the cell, of course, but it had a bed and it had a couple of blankets on it.  That's where I was kept until about March, when they told me that they have to take a statement from me; was I prepared to make a statement. I said yes, of course I am prepared to make a statement.  In the meantime I was once - I think once a week a magistrate or somebody, I don't know whether he really was a magistrate, but it was a white man who came along - I think it was the man who was then the head of John Vorster. I think his name was Brig Greyling or something like that. I am not quite sure what his name was.  Anyway, they would come and they would right to the cell door and ask me have you got any complaints.  So of course what I knew that it wasn't for me to complain.  Until of course I said no, and left it to that.  
 I had been a great reader so I knew what detention was like, what imprisonment was like for political prisoners for people of whom they kept there, because I had read everything that had happened overseas in Europe. So I thought well, my conscience is clear.  There is nothing that they can have against me, they will keep me here, it doesn't really matter, because the only thing I was afraid of was perhaps that because of my imprisonment my children might feel that they should - they were all overseas. I was 
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afraid, that was the only thing that worried me, was the fear that my children would feel they should come back to South Africa, and I was afraid for them. But I was not afraid for myself. I was - and although I was bothered because I was there - it is a terrible thing to be isolated complete from everybody. But I felt my conscience was clear.  I hadn't done anything wrong. I know there were so many things that I felt very badly about. I had never even as much as written a letter to a newspaper to complain.  Although in the days when I was still a teenager I had expressed my opinions in the newspapers.  In those days we an Indian Views, and under a pseudonym my sister and I used to write letters to the Indian newspapers. Even some papers overseas in Indian. I had never otherwise published anything or written anything or been to a public meeting or even a demonstration.  
 I looked after my business. I looked after my family.  I didn't feel that - I felt there were more competent people to express what I felt.  I was very much aware of what was going on around us.  But that didn't mean to say that I should stand on a public platform and express those opinions.
 So when I was indicted and had to go to court, I couldn't believe what was happening to me.  When I finally, or when they imprisoned me, for the first couple of months I thought I was living in a nightmare. I could not believe that this was reality.  Because I just couldn't believe it, it couldn't happen to somebody like me.  
 One fine day when I was taken to Barberton and I met two political prisoners, a Ms Van der Heyden, who had been in jail for 10 years and Ms Niambe, who was back there for 
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the second time, then only did I think that I became aware of the fact that I cannot live in a fantasy world. This was the way to go mad.  When you start questioning reality, then life becomes insupportable.  
 Of course, seeing how patient they were, how courageous these women were under these conditions that we were living in, because we had cells in which there were no beds.  We only had two blankets that were given to us and a rush mat to sleep on. I had never lived a life like that, never. I had never had bread without butter. I couldn't believe that this was happening to me.  
 Well, as I said, when I heard these women speak, although I think Ms Niambe was a bit frigthened of me, because she felt that I may have been put there to observe her. I think she was practically paranoid about informers.  But then I told myself that am I less woman than these women?  No, I must taste every day as it comes and live for that day.  
 That is how I survived and I look after my business, I look after my children and I have become accustomed to living a very isolated life. I read, but now unfortunately my sight is failing and the one great pleasure of my life, reading, I can't do much of it any more.