Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-25

HENRY ISAACS: My name is Henry Isaacs, and I am originally from Pietermaritzburg in Natal where I matriculated.  After which I studied at the University of the Western Cape, from 1968 until 1973.  During that time I was active in various political organisations, various student organisations, amongst them the National Union of South African Students, the University Christian Movement and later was one of the founding members of the South African Students Organisation.
I was also the President of the Students Representative Council at the University of the Western Cape.
 Now the University of the Western Cape at that particular time was one of the various tribal universities 
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set up by the authorities in pursuit of its policies of apartheid.  Student activities were strictly regulated, not only in terms of the university's own rules and regulations, but more particularly, by the activities of the security police.  We were subjected to constant harassment and intimidation and this included regular detention, interrogation by various police officers and in the Western Cape at that particular time there were a number of security policemen who operated freely on the campus of the University of the Western Cape.  These included a Sgt Spyker van Wyk, an Andries van Wyk, a Sgt Small and a Sgt Lottering.
 In Durban where we also frequently held conferences and meetings, our main interrogators were a Capt Welman and I think a Lieut Taylor.  As a result of my leadership role in the University of the Western Cape's Student Council, as well as the South African Students Organisation, I was subsequently placed under a banning and house arrest in terms of the so-called Suppression of Communism Act.  The banning order was served on me at Port Elizabeth in an attempt to prevent me giving evidence in defence of Barney Pachana, who at that time had been banned and was restricted to Port Elizabeth and the security police were attempting to bring various charges against him.
 After detention in Port Elizabeth I was then transported to Pietermaritzburg where I was then placed under banning and house arrest in the evenings, at weekends and on public holidays. 
 In Pietermaritzburg, because there were really very few activists who were living under restriction at that particular time, it meant that the bulk of the security 
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force maintained constant surveillance over the handful of us who were living under restriction.  At that particular time there were seven police officers, a Lieut Fourie, Warrant-Officer Lochner, Sgt Gould, Sgt Khabasha, Sgt Mkhize, Sgt Naidoo and another young officer named Krish, whose surname I do not know.
 They harassed and not only myself as an individual but also my family, relatives, friends, as well as prospective employers. Some idea of the extent of the harassment to which we were subjected at that particular time, could be gained from the fact that at the time of my banning, I was five months away from completing my law degree.  The University of Natal which has an excellen law school right in Pietermaritzburg, was quite prepared to provide tuition to enable me to complete the degree.  The University of the Western Cape at that particular time had a White administration that was colluding with the security police, refused to provide a certificate which would have enabled me to enroll with the University of South Africa and in that way complete my studies.
 In addition to that, they refused to provide a so-called statement of good conduct, which would have enabled me to enroll at the University of South Africa.  
 While we were subjected to this kind of harassment and an attempt literally to break our spirits,  there were a number of individuals who during that time provided tremendous moral support and whose names I do want to mention very briefly here.  They were Mrs Nomtusi Mbege who lived in Soweto at the time, but who frequently visited detainees and restricted persons in different parts of the country, to offer moral support and to bring information 
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about what was going on.  There was Deborah Motshaba who was also based here in Soweto.  There was Ilphe Makai from the Eastern Cape. Soma Reddy from Durban and at that particular time, Auntie Phyllis Naidoo, who was a lawyer living under banning and restriction in Durban, was also a tremendous inspiration to very ....
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 ... we were subjected to this kind of persecution.  
 I am mentioning this, because it is important that while these hearings have focused on the experiences of those who have been described as victims, it is also important to understand fully that when we were involved in the struggle, we fully expected the retribution that the State then meted out to us and very many of us survived that, because of the support and solidarity, not only from our family and friends, but fellow activists and others in the community.  Very many of whose contributions have largely gone unnoticed and unrecognised.
 Another person whose name I do wish to mention here and who at that particular time suffered a great deal of harassment also, was the Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches. His name was Cecil John Rees. The State subsequently brought charges of fraud against him, ostensibly for embezzling funds from the South African Council of Churches.  Those of us who were activists refused to believe that he did that, but that was an attempt on the part of the regime to discredit and ultimately destroy him politically.
 One of the things that I would urge the Commission to do is to investigate some of these kinds of actions on the part of the State, particularly with a view to
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rehabilitating the memory as well as the images of those people who were involved in the struggle in that particular way and who rendered assistance, particularly since they are no longer with us.
 After having been found guilty of violating my banning order and being sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, suspended for a period of time, and as a result of the intense harassment of my family and friends, I decided to leave the country and I fled into exile in 1974, December of 1974.  
 After a brief stay in Swaziland, I ultimately went to New Zealand where I studied at Victoria University of Wellington under a scholarship provided by the New Zealand University Students Association.
 While in exile I continued my active involvement in the struggle against apartheid, particularly working with New Zealand organisations such as halting all racist tours, which was mobilising against sporting contacts with South Africa, and the anti-apartheid movements in New Zealand, as well as in Australia, where various South African exiles, including Neville Curtis, who was the President of the National Union of South African Students at that particular time of his banning was one of the prime organisers.
 After my stay in Australasia I subsequently joined the Pan Africanist Congress or PAC.  Upon completion of my studies I moved to Tanzania where I was elected to the Central Committee of the PAC, and served in various capacities, leadership positions as director of education and manpower developments and subsequently as their representative at the United Nations and director of foreign affairs until my resignation in 1982.  
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 My resignation in 1982 took place at a time when the organisation had experienced tremendous internal crises and these crises included the assassination of David Sebeko in 1979 and the assassinations of a number of militarily trained cadres at the organisation's camps in Tunya and Ambeya in Southern Tanzania.  
 There was an inability on the part of the leadership, both to recognise the intensity of the problems or to deal with them.  Following an attempt on the part of some of us to present solutions that webelieved could address the problems, there was a reluctance on the part of the leadership to accept them and so there was a parting of the ways.
 I subsequently relocated to Zimbabwe.  Now following my resignation, I had made application to the Ministry of Justice in Zimbabwe for a position. This was at a time when there was a serious shortage of lawyers and the country was recruiting lawyers from different parts of the world.   My application for employment was supported by, at that time Dr Evo Mondasa who was the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Mrs Chaneska. 
 After all the arrangements were made for my relocation from the United States to Zimbabwe to take up the position, the leadership of the PAC then intervened and in the process made various allegations to the Zimbabwean authorities. Principally the fact that because I had married an American citizen who worked for the African American Institute, that I was therefore an agent of the CIA.
 Now the absurdity of this kind of allegation could be seen in the fact that very many of the South Africans were 
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educated on scholarships provided by the African American Institute and very many of the persons who made those kinds of allegations did not ever decline invitations to conferences, workshops or the various cocktail parties organised by the African American Institute.  But these kinds of smears, slander and vilification as well as character assassination were the stock in trade of exile politics.
 Following the PAC's intervention of the Zimbabwe authorities, the position, the job offer was then withdrawn, but as a result of the intervention of the Minister of Home Affairs, at that time Dr Herbert Oshiokunze, I was granted a temporary residence permit in Zimbabwe.  
 In the three years that we lived there, we were subjected to constant harassment by the Central Intelligence Organisation in Zimbabwe, at the instigation of the PAC.  Leaders of the PAC and at that particular time, the person who was leading this particular campaign to have me either detained or deported by the Zimabweans, was Mr Gorrah Ebrahim, who is today a member of Parliament for the PAC, Mr Joe Kunazi who is a member of the Provincial Legislature in KwaZulu/Natal, the former chairman of Central Committee of the PAC, the late Nyati John Puchella.  
 In 1983 while the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Herbrert Oshiokunze was overseas on government business, the PAC succeeded in getting the Central Intelligence Organisation to prepare and present to the acting Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Sydney Sacharamy, a deportation order against me.  But fortunately Dr Sacharamy refused to sign the deportation order and insisted that the matter be held in abeyance until the return of Dr Oshiokunze. When 
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Dr Oshiokunze returned from his overseas trip he refused to sign the deportation order, on the ground that Zimbabweans had no reason to deport me, and that whatever problems the PAC leadership had, that was a matter for them to resolve with me.
 Shortly thereafter I took up residence at the University of California in Santa Cruz where I was a research associate. In the time that I was then away the PAC then attempted again to have me deported, to have my family deported, but again because of support from various government ministers in Zimbabwe, as well as a director of intelligence with whom I had worked closely when we were at the United Nations together, the PAC's efforts failed.
 I am relating this because I firmly believe that while there is a need for reconciliation, particularly as has been stressed, the need to forgive the oppressors, I think there is an equal need for reconciliation amongst the former oppressed and that aspect of reconciliation has hardly been emphasised.
 I think that from some of the testimony that I have listened to here today, it becomes very clear that that is an equally important aspect of this whole process.
 Not long after my completion of my tenure at the University of California at Santa Cruz, I returned to Zimbabwe and in the time that I was there, following return, several other South African refugees, as well as former exiles came to Zimbabwe.  Some of them I knew personally and therefore they attempted to establish contact with me.  But then they were also subjected to harassments by the Central Intelligence Organisation at the instigation of the PAC, which then alleged to the Zimbabwean authorities that I was
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attempting to establish a new faction wing of the PAC, which was something that was totally untrue, as I was no longer politically active.
 I wrote a book in 1985, the end of 1985, beginning of 1986, entitled Struggles within the Struggle.  This book attempts to analyse the origins of the South African liberation struggle, from its earliest times and explains the ideological differences between the ANC and the PAC, the Communist Party, the Unity Movements, the Black Conscious Movement and then the United Democratic Front.  The book then also examines the international environment in which the liberation movements functioned in exile, and attempted to explain the manner in which these organisations found themselves competing for support and resources and thereby increased the hostility between them rather than the co-ordination and co-operation.
 The book was to be published by Z Books of London, a progressive company that had published quite a few titles in South Africa.  The leaders of the PAC, without having read the manuscript or without even having read the book, feared that the book was some kind of expose and threatened the publishers with multiple libel actions.  Even though the publishing company believed that these libel actions would not succeed, the costs of defending of libel actions in Britain would have been ruinously expensive for a small publishing company like Z Books.  So they decided to withdraw publication after the first run of 4 000 copies had been published.
 As a result of the harassments and persecution to which we were subjected in Zimbabwe, I subsequently decided to return to the United States. But at a personal level the
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kind of pressure to which we were subjected, placed tremendous strains upon my family, particularly because I was married to an American citizen, who was not prepared for this kind of persecution on the part of a South African liberation movement in which I had been closely involved, and I think that that was to have a serious effect from which the marriage in fact was never able to recover. That however, aside.
 I subsequently spent five years in the United States, during which time I worked as a visiting professor at the University of Haverford in Pensyllvania and also as a fellow at Yale University in the Southern Africa Research Programme. I also headed a non-profit organisation in Washington DC.  In that capacity I continued my active involvement in the struggle, mainly to raise support for South African organisations and also to arrange regular programmes in the United States for visiting South Africans, as well as representatives of the liberation movements. Amongst some of the people who participated in the regular programmes that we organised, were Prof Jakes Gerwel, who is today Cabinet secretary, Mr Lindi Mabuso who is today the ambassador to West Germany and in all these activities, I attempted to maintain strict neutrality without favouring one organisation over and above the other, because my commitments were to the South African liberation struggle.
 I returned to South Africa in 1990, after the political changes that took place.  In the same year organised a visit to South Africa, Namibia and Swaziland for a group of United States college presidents who were looking for ways and means of supporting efforts in the areas of education and training for South Africans.
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 What I have discovered is that both the kind of persecution that I have described at the hands of the liberation movements, particularly the PAC, as well as the persecution at the hands of the security police, to which I had been subjected before my flight into exile, continued.  Even though the security police have ostensibly been dismantled and deployed in other areas, I think what is important to understand, is that during the apartheid era, there were not just formal networks but there were also informal networks.  When one speaks of a Third Force that forments violence and is engaged in various nefarious activities, one has to look also at these informal networks that continue to undermine the efforts to establish a democratic society as well as a human rights culture in this society or in this country.
 Since 1990 the harassments have continued in various forms. This has included strange burglaries at my home. It has included the harassment of a person with whom I was involved in a major Black economic power initiative, to the extent where he even though he was White, felt that it was better for him to leave the country than continue to live here.
 Unfortunately in very many of these activities the attorneys who represent my now former wife, have been closely involved and they have largely been able to exploit their contacts with the security forces as well as other corrupt elements within the whole criminal justice system.  This is important to understand, particularly when one looks at the creation of a human rights culture in our country.  We cannot begin to look at the creation of a human rights culture in this country, without looking at the institutions SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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that have played a critical role in the oppression of the majority of people over an historic period of time, and in the systematic denial of human rights.  Here I refer specifically to the judiciary and to the organised legal profession, and while very many of the police who have been named as violators of human rights have been identified, we must understand that they operated not in a vacuum, but in a particular environment.
 The laws under which we were banned were written by legal technocrats.  We were prosecuted not by ordinary lay policemen, but by trained lawyers who were zealous prosecutors in the criminal justice system. We were sentenced to terms of imprisonment by magistrates and judges, all of whom were legally trained and who readily accepted the evidence of the State, regardless of the fact that such evidence was in many cases either fabricated or alternatively extracted under duress through torture and other illegal methods.
 This aspect is important to understand, because at the present time it is extremely difficult to find a single person who supported apartheid. It is almost akin to the situation in post-war Germany when all of a sudden nobody supported Nazism and there were no Nazis. This is what makes it extremely difficult for us to either forgive or to forget. There does not seem to be any contrition or any remorse on the part of those who subjected us to the atrocities and the violations of human rights. 
 In saying so, we are not trying to be vengeful or harp on the past, whatever the case may be, but this country has lost some of the sharpest minds that it has been able to produce.
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 When one thinks of the Steve Bikos, the Makepo Mohapis, the Dulcie Septembers, the Joe Gqabis, these people who in any other society would have been held in the highest esteem, but unfortunately we have come from a past where not only were they subjected to various forms of harassment, discrimination, devastating humiliations in the social political and economic spheres, but in many cases they were ultimately killed.  
 I think that an important role that this Commission can play is in fact to ensure that we ultimately have an accurate record of our struggle and the sacrifices and contributions that have been made, so that we do not have sanitised versions of our history.  Because if we criticise the National Party for the kinds of history that they produced, we cannot then fall foul to the same kind of malpractice of a version that is favourable to what might be a particular tendency at any given time in our history.
 I think that truth knows no colour and in the work of the Commission we must ensure that ultimately we will be pursuing a truth that will stand the test of time. 
 One final plea that I do want to make to the Commission is that there have been very many individuals or careers have either been truncated or adversely affected through false allegations, very many times allegations either fabricated or planted by the security police themselves.  Allegations of individuals, either being spies or agents or whatever the case might be. 
 I would urge the Commission to try and ensure that the security forces reveal as many of the names of the actual informers who were in their pay and employ during the apartheid years.  So that the suspicions that have
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surrounded very many people who have been falsely accused can somehow be removed and either the images or reputations of those individuals be vindicated or alternatively, for posterity's sake, we know who the actual collaborators were.  The danger is that we will ultimately or there is a danger that there were individuals who murdered activists, who tortured and maimed anti-apartheid activists who functioned as collaborators with the apartheid regime, who are today being embraced and there are very many activists who made tremendous sacrifices in the struggle, yet whose contributions have either gone unnoticed or alternatively, whose reputations had been damaged as a result of these false allegations.  Thank you.
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