Human Rights Violation Hearings — Cradock — 1997-02-12

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: (sworn states)

MR SANDI: Thank you Mr Chairman.  Good afternoon Father Hufkie.

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Good afternoon Sir.

MR SANDI: Before I assist you to give evidence before this Commission, I just want to say that I'm personally very glad to meet you at last. I've read a lot about you. As I told you during tea time, I used to work in an office where there was a huge file about you, a lawyers office so I thought of know some of the things you will be talking about.
 I am going to ask you a number of questions just to help you to put your story to this Commission, but before I do that, I just want to ask you to tell us very briefly about yourself.

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Comrade Chair, I think I should start when I entered Fort Hare in the late 30's, the early 40's, and that is where I met the present President, Nelson Mandela and the late Oliver Tambo. So that was a great privilege  for me to have been with them at university.  When I left there I entered the teaching profession and I became a member of the Teachers' League of South Africa the Unity Movement.  I also had friends in the Communist Party, I taught with them but I never became member of the Communist Party.  In any event I was associated with those who opposed the government at the time and the apartheid system and I was being harassed and intimidated to a considerable extent during my early years as a school teacher until 1976 when I was detained for the first time.  I don't know whether you want me to continue further in this trend Comrade Chair.

MR SANDI: Thank you very much Father Hufkie.  I think that should be sufficient for introduction.  I have read your statement and it seems to me that your testimony will cover two periods, that is 1976 and 1985, is that correct Father Hufkie?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: That is correct Sir.

MR SANDI: Before we talk about what happened to you during 1976 when you were detained, would you mind if I asked you  personal question?  You appear to be quite an elderly person? Are able to tell us how old you are Father Hufkie if you don't mind about that.

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: I'm the same age as the President of the country Nelson Mandela, 78 years.

MR SANDI: Thank you very much for that Father Hufkie.  Let us go on to talk about 1976.  You say in 1976 you were arrested at school?  Were you a teacher at the time?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Yes Sir, I was at that time head master of the High School, the Spandau High School at Graaf Reinet and I was all along a target of the security police, they set my school alight, certain classrooms.  I considered that as a form of intimidation in order to be able to pin something on to me.  It went on until they arrested me in June 1976, I was busy in my office and without any warning the security police entered my office and told me that I'm being put under arrest.  They did not convey any reasons for my arrest and just told me that I had to come along with them.
 They took me to the police station at Graaf Reinet without allowing me to see my wife or to enter my home in order to pick up small toiletry requirements, etc. and I was rushed from there, from the police station at Graaf Reinet at break-neck speed by a security policeman, Sergeant van Eden, to Oudtshoorn.  From there I was immediately transferred to another police vehicle and taken to Paarl, and there I was imprisoned in the Victor Verster Prison.

MR SANDI: Did you appear in court to face any criminal charge?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Yes my wife is a very sensitive person and she was deeply distressed, and she resorted to legal action, some form of legal action but it all was in vain.  No charge was lodged against me, I was merely detained and imprisoned.

MR SANDI: Was that detention without trial in terms of the security laws of the time?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Which laws Sir?

MR SANDI: I take it this was detention without trial in terms of some of the security laws that existed at the time?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: I presume that is the case Sir.

MR SANDI: Did anything happen to you whilst you were in detention in terms of bad treatment or torture?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: My treatment, I was not subjected to any form of torture, but the whole experience was for me very humiliating and very distressful because I had a responsible position and I was merely taken away from my school.  I still had very important matters to attend to but the security police were not interested in that at all, and that is why I felt very frustrated, very demoralised, and it was an experience of extreme distress for me during my detention.  I remained in prison for seven months, it extended over the Christmas vacation, New Year, they would not release me, the security police at Oudtshoorn, under whose jurisdiction Graaf Reinet fell at the time.  They maintained that I was a source of danger to the community, I had to be taken completely away from the community and it was only the intervention of the security police of Cape Town who visited the Victor Verster Prison regularly and I maintain it was because of good conduct that they declared that I had to be released in the new year.

MR SANDI: I have a copy of your statement in front of me, there is something that says here, one of the reasons why you were arrested was because you were refusing to assist the police in arresting students.  Would you like to explain that?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: That is correct.

MR SANDI: Was it a customary practice amongst the police? to expect teachers to cooperate when they want to arrest students?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Yes they expected me to cooperate with them, but I refused.  That I believe, is a contributory factor which led to my arrest.

MR SANDI: These students, were they your students at your school? Were they under you as a teacher at school?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: That's correct Sir.

MR SANDI: Is that all you've got to say about 1976 before we proceed to what happened in 1985?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Yes as I said it was a very demoralising experience for me to have taken into custody for no reason whatsoever, except that I was opposed to the government policy, opposed to the government and I expressed myself freely.  So that is the position as far as 1976 was concerned.  I returned and decided that I was going to resign, take early retirement from the teaching profession because I feared that at some stage they were going to dismiss me, the Department of Education, because of my opposition to the Coloured Affairs having taken over the education of our schools at the time, I was vehemently opposed to Coloured Affairs and I expressed myself freely in the presence of inspectors when they visited my school and I think that is a factor which would have eventually led to my dismissal, and that is why I decided to go on early retirement prematurely, depriving myself of substantial financial benefits, pension benefits and other benefits.  But I felt that the safest way out would be for me to go on premature retirement, even though I suffered financially because of that premature retirement in 1976.  I retired in 1978, I served another year, 1977 and in 1978 my retirement was granted, voluntary retirement prematurely.

MR SANDI: Did you Father Hufkie at some stage change professions and become a church minister?

FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: Yes Sir, after retiring from the teaching profession, I proceeded in 1979 to Rhodes University to study theology in order to qualify for the Christian Ministry.  I served three years at Rhodes and I was sent to Johannesburg to complete a period of probation of two years at Johannesburg and then I received a call to Graaf Reinet to the Parsonage Street Congregational Church.  In 1984 I was ordained as the minister of that church and a minister of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa.