Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-08

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: (Indistinct)

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: ... and he slapped me, he hit me with a stick and wanting to know what do I want from his informer, Patrick Hlongwane.  Why did I harass him and this is to do with the case he referred to earlier on.
	That is why ended - that incident was raised again by Molly Blackburne via Moorcroft, the then PFP MP in Parliament and the then Minister of Justice, whatever justice or injustice, said that the reason was that I had an intimidatory behaviour which is on record.  They have done that.  He said it.
"Later on, after they had to prove that they made a case against him, after about six months for this so-called intimidation, which they lost anyway."
The interesting element of this is this one -
"During the trial, the State Prosecutor in the case, Mr H F Goosen, who Nieuwoudt boasted to me that he was his close friend."
Ad this, for interest, just, this very prosecutor visited me in Jeffreys Bay when I was locked up there.
	He was just there, because I used to meet him when I was working in North End, every day, because we were passing each other and we used to talk and always I ask him.
	There was this case, I met him at the Daybreak Cafe and he said to me that what Nieuwoudt wanted to get me for a crime that would kill my credibility in the eyes of the Black Sash and that's what Nieuwoudt told H F Goosen and H F Goosen told me that, because he couldn't get me into the case in which he bundled these other people that are sitting there in there.
	I'm going to bring maybe the second last thing.  This one is in January 1987.  I was locked up at Bethelsdorp Police Station and I was taken by two Black policemen from there.  You get discharged.  You get taken to another place.  	They took me from there.  This is going to be very interesting also.  How Deon Nieuwoudt can deny this, I really don't understand.  How does he hope to get amnesty, because I was taken to a - to a place which was known as Willowdene. 	I'm not sure about this which place I was taken.  I assumed, because all the other people who were assaulted at Willowdene with the method that I'm going to explain.
"Before we got there, the police stopped the car, the van and they put a bag over my face and of course I was wearing shorts, just a T-shirt.  It might have been written release this or release that or viva that or viva whatever. 	When I got there, I got tortured.  I got tortured.  I don't know whether Nieuwoudt tortured me there or not.  On that one I cannot say he did, but the interesting thing is that he took me from that place and drove with me from there to Grahamstown, to Fort Brown, that side of Grahamstown. I think it's near the Fish River.
		There is an old fort there.  When we got there, Nieuwoudt insisted to the young policeman who was there, who was a sergeant in charge of that police station, that they must put me in the fort.
		There is a fort there which is a - is never used, I presume, since the Anglo Boer War.

CHAIRPERSON: What was the name of the fort?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: Fort Brown.

CHAIRPERSON: B-R-A-N-D?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: F-O-R-T Brown.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. What is the second word?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: I want to explain, Sir, this Fort Brown.  It's a police station ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: No, you better take the mike with you, because the evidence has to be recorded.

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: Okay.  The police station is standing like - about say 15 metre, 15 metres from the place that was originally the fort.  Then you come into the fort, which is dark.  There's never been any light in there.  There is a door.  When you open the door as you come in, then the sunlight would come in.  The time was roundabout four and five.
"Mr Nieuwoudt accompanied me to this new residence of mine. (Laughter).
	There was a sort of a trap door, much like this.  It could have been two by two, whatever.  Then you pick that up and you put a step-ladder down and then they put it down and then you walk - you move down there and then they take it out.
He said let him stay there until he, but in Afrikaans, he said;  hy moet daar vrot. (He must rot there).
I finished that. 
"I went down there. I stayed there. By the mercy of God I was lucky.  I had two slabs of chocolate which were big.  I don't know how I managed to keep them with me.
		I stayed with that there.  To keep my chocolate there I had a competition with the mice that were staying there, trying to get to my chocolate, but after five days or four or five days, I was taken to a doctor, because this fellow, although he said to me he had his wife who was pregnant at the time, this White policeman, came and stood there with his wife and said to me at night;  ek voel niks vir jou nie. (I feel nothing for you.)
		I never saw him.  He never took me on the day he was supposed to take me to the doctor.  I stayed there.  Ultimately I was take to a doctor in Grahamstown.  I cannot remember the name of this young doctor, but that man, in front of this policeman, shouted at him and said;  `what happened to this man,  I want him back here again', and he gave prescription.	That policeman turned around and said that, oh no, never bring me back again there.  He was so angry with me I had to say in front him, yes doctor I'm fine. The doctor said;  `this person is not fine, can't you see', as a result of the torture that was happening there.  I was taken from that place on his instructions.  Locked.  After that they took me out of that place and they put me in a cell in Fort Brown.
	You can go there now.  There is a ... (intervention).

CHAIRPERSON: I just want you to be a little more - just take control over yourself.  You've told us how you were taken to a doctor in Grahamstown.  From Grahamstown, where were you taken to?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: I was taken back to that cell.

CHAIRPERSON: Fort Brown?

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: Yes, but not in the fort, now into a small cell, where in this cell I was tied with my feet, which was one of the rare thing that a detainee stayed with hand-cuffs for about five weeks I stayed there, until some policeman took me there to Alicedale.
	I want to repeat that I would laugh.  I have no intentions myself to his Honour to hope and say that I would like to see Nieuwoudt rotting in prison.  I have no - my - but I believe that this platform of amnesty should be used with the dignity it deserve and it mustn't be turned into a mockery with the aim of insulting the families.  
	My family and myself and the families of many other people who would not be having an opportunity to come and speak in front of this thing.
	What I have seen now, although I know many families harbour no grudge against anybody, but I think if the humiliation that was done to us, is going to be brushed aside just like that, it could create a little bit of a problem.  I think, I want to support the institution of the land, which I so dearly sacrificed a lot, but not as much as many of my friends, whom Mr Nieuwoudt hasn't given an opportunity to be able and stand in front of you and decide to oppose or not to oppose this amnesty. 
	I am in a very fortunate position whereby I can make that choice, but many people would have loved to do that.  He has denied himself the opportunity that they do that.  Thank you.  (Applause).

CHAIRPERSON: Are there any questions you wish to put to your client?

MR NYOKA: Was Mr Nieuwoudt ever alone during such interrogations or assaults?