Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-22

CHAIRPERSON: The translation is not coming through, English.

DUMA KHUMALO: The people from the Catholic congregation will stay on my mind forever.  Every time when people would be going for hanging, they would sing a song.  Never cry my fellow congregators, we will be apart for just a moment.  Just like the star that would come and shine again.  It was quite tough.
 Personally I am not surprised why they harassed and tortured us like that.  They shifted me from one cell to the other.  To them it was a mistake.  I remember one time we were very furious singing Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika, God bless Africa.
 They came and did something shocking to us.  Threw me down in the very last section, I was the last prisoner in that cell.  They said I led people to do this.  It was very difficult and tough on me.  Whilst there, what was important was the letters.
 They kept our letters from us.  The letters were the things that gave us strength.  People would tell us that it has been the third week since we have sent you letters, when we found the letters, we found that the letters have been kept away from us eversince.  Even when you have the letters, after a certain time, they would come and search the cells, they would seize the letters and tear them.
 What hurt me the most was that nothing stolen from outside, would be brought into this jail, but when they get angry, this would happen only when a White man was hanged, only one White man was hanged, they would come at our cells.
 You will find that they are very furious, we were ordered to get out of the cells.  We would be stark naked and we were told to undergo the frog jump as it was known.  Maybe they would find something that we hid on our person, not knowing why we would do that.  Like I have said, that there was one boy who arrived at the prison who was under age, he was supposed to be hanged.  They let him grow for death row, when he reached 22 years of age, they hanged him.
 There are a lot of things that I may tell you, but I don't know where to start.  I think I would stop there.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Yes, Duma, I personally find it very difficult to even raise any question.  More especially when what you give us complete loss of hope.  We are sometimes told that whether these are just political prisoners only, where we are told that some of them become so strong that they can even tell their parents to tell the rest of the nation, not to worry about their death but rather focus on the struggle itself, on the cause for which they are dying.
 It never happened to you?

DUMA KHUMALO: We have this book, called the Sharpville 6.  They arrived while we were still on death row.  I regretted why I did not skip the country and take up arms.  I said that my blood is a sacrifice, it is an indication.  This is intertwined - I was prepared to die in that manner, however, on the other side, I was not prepared to die either.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Ntsebeza?

MR NTSEBEZA: Thank you Chairperson.  Duma, I would just like to know what you are saying about Steinberg, if you can give us a little bit more detail about what you were saying about Steinberg?

DUMA KHUMALO: This is twofold, as I have explained I said we were harassed and tortured a lot by our very people.  They took side with fellow White people who were there.  The Steinberg type of people were those who took the back chairs.  I remember when we were in this pot, there were Whites who sympathised with us.
 They said we don't believe you will be hanged because we were from different prisons who could manage to get messages from boers or rather White persons, taken from another White person, a boer in my words.
 I would say something here.  We were people who believed in the traditional medicine and we would ask them to bring this medicines wrapped in handkerchiefs so that we escape the noose.  We tried all means to escape the hangman's noose through White people, some of the things we planned, we managed to achieve.
 I don't know if I answered you sir.

MR NTSEBEZA: Well, I got the impression in your earlier testimony, you were saying Steinberg was one of those who treated you badly, that is why I wanted some clarification.

DUMA KHUMALO: Oh, that was not correct sir.

CHAIRPERSON: Hugh?

MR LEWIN: Duma, could I ask, I understand that as part of your own programme afterwards, now, to come to terms with what happened to you on death row, you had asked for permission to go back to your cell and that this had been refused.  Could you explain about that?

DUMA KHUMALO: I wrote to Commissioner Olckers that I be granted permission to go back to my cell, thinking that this might help me psychologically.  There is this kind of problem here - the dreams that you have whilst in jail, would be reflecting life outside prison.
 When you wake up to your embarrassment, you are still there in prison.  This brings grave dissatisfaction to you.  I have great hardships now.  And I think my wife is experiencing a lot of problems.  Sometimes I do have nightmares.  You find that I dream that I am still in prison, those are my dreams.  Most of my dreams pertain to life in prison.
 I do not know how to put it quite clearly, I think if I could go back to that prison and assure myself that I have been released, maybe this psychological effect it had on me, might subside.  I plead with the Truth Commission to assist me in that regard, that I go back to that cell.
 The second point is that the Truth Commission arranges that I meet parents of some of the people I was with on death row, like Lucky Payi and Tosondo and Siphoqolo.  I remember that they were from Durban.  If I had the means, I would have made everything possible to meet their parents.

MR LEWIN: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Duma.  I would just like to clarify, that Duma and five others were convicted and sentenced to death for their alleged "association with the crowd", that killed the Mayor, Mr Ndlamini.  Although the trial Judge and Appeals court acknowledged that there was no direct evidence they were involved in the murder, and yet they went through this process.
 And Paula, earlier, quoted Chris Barnard, the executioner and I would like to quote from her submission what Chris Barnard the executioner says.  "I stand at the back when they come in there.  The warders lead them and they walk onto the platform under every rope there are two black spoors that is footprints and they stand on this spoors.  You put the rope on the one at the back, the second, third, the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh.  They have white caps on with a flap.  The moment you put the rope around his neck, they put the strap over his face.  He can still see you until you see the flap down.  Then you pull the lever and they drop."
 Ironically, coincidentally, another Chris Barnard, the heart surgeon, this is what he says "put a rope around a man's neck, tie the knot next to his ear, fastened his wrists behind his back and drop him a distance of just less than two metres.  If you haven't bodged it by miscalculating the length of the drop or the strength of the rope, you will achieve several things at once.  The man's spinal cord will rupture at the point where it enters the scull.  Electrochemical discharges will send his limbs falling in a grotesque dance, eyes and tongue will start from the facial (indistinct) under the assault of the rope and his bowel and bladder may simultaneously void themselves to soil the legs and drip onto the floor, unless of course you are an efficient hangman who has thoughtfully fitted your subject with a nappy or rubber pants.  Quick and clean, I believe that it is a slow, dirty, horrible, brutal, uncivilised and unspeakably barbaric to take a man's life in this manner and for the reason that he had caused the death of another."
 Two Barnards, thank you.