Special Hearings — Women's Hearings — 1997-07-29

MS SEROKE: Thank you very much, Joyce, for that well prepared statement.  I think it deserves a handshake.  It is interesting that in your statement here you actually mention some of the mind breaking tactics which Sheila Meintjies mentioned in her submission as a researcher and you put what she said as a reality.  What was research came out as a reality through your experience.  I know you briefly touched about how that meant when your child was taken away and you saw a White child, a toddler ... how, what goes on in somebodies mind when these mind breaking tactics are introduced when torturing.

JOYCE SIKHAKHANE RANKEN: I think what happened with the South Africa Special Branch was that they studied people.  We know that they had a psychological profile of a detainee who they had targeted.  For instance, they would ask you very personal questions during detention and you wondered where did they get this information from and then you realised later on that they have actually been making a profile of you and they knew how they were going to get the information from you.  Therefore, they used different methods on detainees.  Of course there were common methods they used, but they also used different ones according to how they wanted the information from them.
 You asked about the question of mind torture.  The very fact that you were put into solitary confinement.  For a person like myself who was a journalist, I was a journalist, I moved all around the country, I use to write and this was my life.  Not so much the money I earned, my life was the pen and the paper and they knew that.  That depravation on its own will make you break down.  Ruth First, in her book also confirms this.  When she was a journalist and also they used the same methods, depravation of what you really need to make your life go on and they break that and you are food to them.  So that is one of the ways and, of course, there is also the emotional side of it.  What now they use, term, emotional intelligence.
 It is not only your intellect which is important in your life, it is also emotions, your relationships with other people, how to deal with these people.  So, when they brought that child they knew how much I was in love with my son.  They knew that I would break down immediately.  So this is part of the warfare, part of the game.  They put the child there.  They knew she will crack, she will do what we want and I refused to do that.  That is why I am saying that enduring race which I was in, fighting for change in this country, I think, was a price to pay for the separation with my son.  I was not going to break down.  So that is another way of the way they dealt with us.  I hope I have been able to.

MS SEROKE: We also note your request to the TRC about looking into women who are on death row.  Just last week we had our prisons hearings and I do not know whether you watched the media about that hearing, because one of the things it highlighted was the, you know, what happened to prisoners who are on death row and, fortunately, we also had a woman who was on death row, Theresa, sharing her experiences.  She was one of the, so called, Sharpeville Six who were sentenced to death and I think the TRC was very fortunate to have those two people, a man and a woman, highlighting their experiences in death row and, I am sure, through following Theresa's testimony and statements, the TRC would be able to further mention that in their recommendations, but I think it is also important to raise the fact that on that day we had Paula McBride, who had a submission on death row, and she came out very strongly in that submission to the TRC that we should look into the possibility of looking at the death row and the death penalty as a gross human rights violation.  So, we have got those recommendations from people and I hope that would satisfy your need to, for us to dwell in this area.  Thank you.  I would hand over.  Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: Yasmin Sooka.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.  I thought, I just want to take, I was very happy when you read the names of the people in the early 1960's who, in fact, found their deaths in all the different manners that you described whilst in the hands of the Security Branch and, I think, that I am very glad to say that in most of the names that you mentioned, we actually have received submissions from the families of all the individuals that you name.  So, certainly, from our perspective we have not actually forgotten them, but it was good that you reminded us that there was a period pre-Steve Biko, when people died in very strange circumstances in the 1960's.
 However, you raised quite a number of issues and I would just like to get your feedback on this.  You raised the question of many people, whilst in detention are asked, in fact, to turn State witness.  We have a number of people who after spending a number of months in solitary confinement are then given statements to sign which then incriminate their fellow Comrades.  We have the incident of Shanti Naidoo who at the trial of her Comrades then refused to turn State witness.  It is a very difficult issue.  Their are people who do not, perhaps, have the resources and the strength to survive that moment of vulnerability and they do break down.  In fact, many of them go on to become informers, because the State did exploit that vulnerability.
 The Commission is being faced with this issue that people are saying that we should release their names where we have them.  What would your view be on how one should deal with those people who did turn State Witness and, secondly, how should we deal with the question of informers, particularly, in the media world where it has become quite a major issue?