Human Rights Violation Hearings — Umtata — 1996-06-20

MR SIGWELA: Now, in terms of the evidence tabled by the police and the other things that they said it was just something that they said because they were angry when they took him from the township.  They just said you Russian, come over here, we are arresting you.  At that time the community were watching and the people I was charged with except myself and Sisa Dogata and Dorothy Neymbe and Jonga Bantoskowe, all these others were trained in the Soviet Union and the other countries.  Then some came back to Zimbabwe.  They were involved in certain skirmishes from Kwankie and other places.  Some came in by boats.  They came to overthrow this country and we did help them because we helped them come through the harbour.  The four of us plus another one and other charges.  Like I said to you that the military charges were also included in our case.
 Then we were sentenced.  I cannot remember when our case started, but I think it was in January.  Then we were sentenced on the 26th of March 1968.  When we were sentenced the accused number two, that was Lingisie, was given 20 years because it looked like he worked too much here in the Transkei and the accused number one up to accused number eight except Dalakola Lakulie, they were given 18 years and then number six which was Dalakola Lakulie and myself, number nine, we were given ten years.  Dorothy Neymbe was given 15 years, but Sisa Dogata was discharged.  After we were sentenced we just presumed that we were going to Robben Island and Dorothy` was going to the woman prisons in Barberton or Kroonstad, but when, what happened was that we passed Pietermaritzburg, she was still with us.  We then realised that it is either we are going to the Free State or Pretoria.  Then, ultimately, we went to Pretoria.  That is 
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where we were dropped Dorothy.  It was now on the 27th, we dropped her at the new local prison in Pretoria.  Then we passed a little we went to the Central Prison in Pretoria.  It was now at this time, it was only preserved for the ultimate sentence, that is the death sentence.  You would find it, it was only for blacks, that is now B.  A was only for whites.  The hardened criminals of whites use to be kept there, but there were very few.  There were very few whites who were sentenced to death sentence.  This prions was fully, fully occupied.  We were called condemned prisoners. 
 Let me first start with this one.  As we entered the prison we were received by a group of warders and the Commander was the first one to say and the way we were ordered to stand.  You could hear that this is another man now in command.  If you look at him on his face you could see a very vicious man.  He use to have black hair and black beard and his eyes were fiery.  At this prison you use to have a flight of steps and when you get into the top level it was flat.  We got into a certain passage, when we got there he told us to hold still.  Then were told to put, to go into a certain room.  It is very hard for me to say anything, to say the things that he said to us.  The way he said to us that we must take off our clothes.  It was so rude I, personally, cannot be able to say it to you now.  We could feel that we are in another land altogether.  There was no humanity whatsoever.  We were naked and then we were ordered to march into the yard.  We passed Section C, we went to Section B.  We got into the yard.  We could hear that there are other people here, but most of these cells were single cells.  You could also see sometimes a cell with three people, but as you know that condemned prisoners stay 
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in single cells.

MS GOBODO: As you were walking naked were you going to join other prisoners?

MR SIGWELA: No, we were going to have single cells.  We were going into the left of the yard.  We could see that these cells were ready for us.  We were not in the cell in any order.  When you get into a cell you would find that there are clothes, very old and torn clothes.

MS GOBODO: Could you please tell us how did you feel as you marched into the cells as a naked man?

MR SIGWELA: But we felt like we were sub-human because there was no humanity in this place.  We could feel that we have been sentenced.  We realised that we were going into another cycle.  This was a cycle of torture, but we thought that if you are already sentenced that is the ultimate sentence, but apparently that was not the end of it.  We were still going to be tortured.  That was the end of our rights as humans.  We got into the cells and we were so hungry and even the food that we had, we left it in those vans.  We could not even get anything under our, into our stomachs.  There was no appetite at all, but now I felt myself that I was hungry.  There was another bench, a chair. You would get another toilet and then you would have a small place where you can get your water and you would get your bed there.  With beds, if you look at this bed it was so, if you look at the blankets they would be transparent.  When I felt at this bun that I was supposed to eat, it was as hard as a rock and there was also a cup of tea, but it was not tea, it did not look like tea at all so we did not touch it
all.  So I thought in the morning when they brought breakfast, I thought we were going to get something warm to 
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eat.  You would, we were given a plastic bowl, the shape of that size.  We were given watery porridge.  You could even see the base of the basin.  When you get, if you want to get a spoonful you will have to collect bits and pieces of this porridge-like food and out of this whole bowl of porridge I only got two spoons and that was the end of it.  After that, of course, I did not feel like I have eaten anything.  Now, fortunately they brought something that looked like soup because it was brownish, but it was so watery.  I could not see anything else anywhere.  It was brownish water and then it was cold soup.  It looked like water that has been washing dishes.  I tried to stay just to see if there is anything thicker underneath, but there was nothing and I did not even trust it.  I got 16 mielies, kernels of corn, I ate these kernels one at a time.  There were 16, I even counted them and I was expected to be full after that.  For dinner it was the same thing that I got in the morning.  That very thin, thin porridge.  It was just a drop.  It felt like, it looked like just a drop from a teaspoon and a hardly square inch of cabbage and nothing else.

MS GOBODO: Sir, like you have said, as you were being forced into this place to be tortured.  Could you please tell us anymore torturing or ill treatment that you found, that you received at that time?

MR SIGWELA: When I got into this part, the food itself, in itself, that is torture in itself.  The kind of food that we got because if you are not given food that is torture in itself.

MS GOBODO: I understand.  I meant physical torture.