Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-21

DR BORAINE: I will ask Mr Henry Magkothi to come forward please.  Mr Magkothi thank you very much for coming, we welcome you most warmly.  Would you please stand for the taking of the oath.

UNKNOWN: (sworn states)

DR BORAINE: Mr Magkothi as I explained earlier when each of the witnesses come before us it is their story that they are telling, we are not trying to tell them what to say.  You know what happened to you but in order to assist the proceedings and because we have a lot of people who want to speak Mrs Joyce Seroke will facilitate your story, thank you.  Mrs Seroke?

MRS SEROKE: Good morning Henry, you've come to tell us a very sad story about your life in two prisons but more importantly in Robben Island.  In your statement you say that in 1962 you skipped the country for the purpose of doing military training for the ANC, what prompted you to skip the country and want to engage in that profession, to call it that?

UNKNOWN: Long before 1962 I had been an activist of the African National Congress and when the organisation was banned in 1961, I worked  underground for the organisation.  As the struggle developed and the organisation decided to form the MK, I was recruited into the structures of Umkhonto weSizwe.  I worked largely in the administrative sections of Umkhonto weSizwe's logistics sections here at home and then in 1962 I was given instructions that I should proceed abroad to go and strengthen the mission of the ANC abroad.  That is how I left the country.

MRS SEROKE: Unfortunately you didn't reach your destination and you were intercepted in Zambia and arrested.

UNKNOWN: Yes as I say, I was involved in the logistics side of Umkhonto weSizwe and when I was given instructions to go abroad I was also given instructions to accompany, to take out of the country, I think it must have been in the region of about thirty young people.  I was given this instruction together with the late Joe Ghabe who by then was an experienced guerrilla, he already had military training abroad in China and we were given the responsibility of taking these young people across.
 As I say the roots, Joe Ghabe had more experience as he had been abroad I think once or twice already, gone outside and come back into the country but for me it was the first time I was taking these young men over who were going for military training abroad.  At the time it was a pretty risky business because the security, the tentacles of the South African security reached very, very far as we discovered.  We travelled through Botswana, we travelled through the bush but I think that even while we were travelling through the bush in Botswana, the authorities at home here already knew, I mean the special branch already knew, through their numerous contacts I believe also in Botswana, that there was this group of young people going abroad. 
 All along the way we were dogged by security agents or people whom we suspected were security agents until we crossed over into Zambia.  It was at the time when the Unik Movement was on the verge of taking over power in Zambia and there was a very heightened security on the part of the authorities there so when we crossed the Zambezi into Livingstone, I think by then the authorities on the other side knew about our arriving in the country and very soon we were rounded up in Livingstone and arrested.  We spent some time in jail there and then eventually we were sent back to South Africa.

MRS SEROKE: You spent some time after you were charged with leaving the country illegally, you were sentenced for two years and then you spent some time in Leeuwkop Prison and thereafter you were sent to Robben Island.  Neville Alexander in his dossier which he wrote to give an insight of what was happening in Robben Island when he was also incarcerated, describes some of the situations in Robben Island.  He says quote, more astounding if possible is the almost total lack of knowledge of the main regulations and sections of the Act pertaining to the treatment and conduct of offenders and he goes on to say that most of the warders were either very cruel, harsh, vindictive or adverse and coldly indifferent to the sufferings of prisoners.  How would you confirm that or reject it?

UNKNOWN: I think that is a fair summary of what was taking place at the time in the prisons and you will have heard also the testimony given by Mr Masondo that it is in line with what he said there.  Insofar as my experience about the amount of ignorance there was about what ... the prisoners generally should be incarcerated under in the prisons.
 I must say that when I first got to Leeuwkop and this was in 1962 I think, the treatment was so harsh there that we soon realised that unless we do something because we were a group, as I say some thirty three of us were arrested so there was an advantage of numbers and we soon realised that unless we do something about this we would not be able to survive here in jail.  
 Then we thought, well we had an idea that there were regulations which governed how prisoners should be kept in jail and we asked for the rules as we wanted to study the rules to see what we were supposed to do and what we were not supposed to do and what the authorities could do.  This was of course met with disbelief, it was clear to us that some of the officers when we approached them, maybe this was a novel question nobody had really asked for before or probably they didn't know but it certainly took some time for us to be able to get the rules from the authorities.  
 After they had given us the rules, they said look here there is no, we discovered that among the privileges that we could have in jail was the privilege to study and things like that and we thought that we were going to start making representations to be allowed to study and so on and also to have decent clothing, like shoes.  We had no shoes despite the fact that we were driven out every morning to work, shackled hand and foot and chased by warders on horseback to places where we should work.  
 When we said we would like to exercise this kind of privilege such as studying, they then turned around to us and said, look we don't have the facilities in Leeuwkop for you to study, you can't enjoy  privileges here you will get your priveleges when you are in Robben Island.  I think Mr Masondo has given you an idea of what was meant by the type of privileges which were in store for us in Robben Island.  
 I was in Robben Island from 1962, I was one of the very early inmates of that prison even though when I was there I did find Mr Masondo and I did find Johnson and there were other people who had been there before us but I certainly was one of the earliest to be, you know our group was one of the very earliest to go to Robben Island.

MRS SEROKE: In your statement you say that when you were in Robben Island you discovered you had tuberculosis and you had to work in spite of your physical incapacity, was there any medical help in that prison?