Special Hearings — Children's Hearings — 1997-05-22

MOEGAMAT QASIM WILLIAMS: Yes, I told myself over and over, I am not going to let this, like, part me from the rest of the BMW members.  I mean, I am going to stick to them like glue.  I mean, how am I going to prove to them now I am still the same person who I use to be, I am not the people, like, I am not the person, the type of person that you found out I am and, I mean, knowing that these people were against us.  Still, yet, they believed them.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: But you were eventually detained?

MOEGAMAT QASIM WILLIAMS: Yes, and it happened in 1987 and on the sixth of January 1988 I was arrested together with my brother and another member of the BMW.  They were taken to Bishop Lavis Police Station.  I was held there for about half an hour, then I was taken away to Brackenfell.  There is no way to describe this.  I will say where my hell began, because each and every member of the security branch police, they never knew what I looked like, they knew me by name and my false surname, but they never knew what I looked like and then, they like come through to find out this is, like, the guy that gave them all the trouble and each and everyone was told, listen here, you must look properly at him.  The next time he gives you trouble, shoot to kill.  Kill him, because he is a danger not only to them.  They labelled me as a threat to society as well and I was, like, first, say for, I did not have the time on me, but it was, say for, about two, three hours I was interrogated at Brackenfell Police Station whereafter I was placed under Section 29 and I was only 14 years old then.
 I was placed under Section 29 and I had been threatened I am never going to see my family again.  This one officer in particular, his name was Sergeant Pikke, he told me today is the day you are going to meet your maker, you are never going to see your family again and my direct words to him was, do whatever you want to and do what you have to do.  I am not afraid of you and then I was, like, smacked around again and that type of thing and after ten days in Macassar police cells I tried to commit suicide by hanging myself with my tracksuit pants and then when the security branch came they were informed I nearly committed suicide and then I was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison together with another few of my brothers.  Comrades like Adonis, Christopher Rutledge, Com Q, Christopher Tinto and our health Minister, Ebrahim Rasool, we were all held together.  I was only with them for about four days and then I was charged.  
 Together with the rest of the BMW members we were charged with over 300 crimes.  The then Minister of Defence, Adriaan Vlok, he did not say it was political motivated or anything, he said it was crimes and we are a danger to society and should be locked up and the keys should be thrown away.  Then, like, I was released on the same day,   R1 000,00 bail at the age of 14 and that was only where I could say my hell started, because I start having these nightmares, not knowing who to trust anymore, because of all these stories that I was told by them.  I mean, I was told that my own brother informed me, I was told that my commander informed me.  They mentioned nearly all the names, because on the morning when they arrested me they knew exactly where to come.  I did not sleep at home.  They knew exactly where to come and they came to fetch me out there, like, yes, I think that is about it.  
 If there is one thing that always gave me the strength and the courage to fight in the struggle, it was the points of the Freedom Charter and I would like to know, what I would like to know today is can anyone of the Commissioners explain to me what has happened to the Freedom Charter?  The Freedom Charter was labelled the most precious document in the whole, wide world.  I believe in the Freedom Charter, so did my brothers and sisters who fought together with me.  We knew one day when we have power we are going to live according to the Freedom Charter.  It has never happened.  You do not ever hear about the Freedom Charter anymore.  I would like to know was the Freedom Charter picked up, crumbled and thrown away.  That is my pleas to you.  I would like to know what has happened to the Freedom Charter.  I believe in the document and I still believe in it.  
 The ANC has taken over, they have got power, but all I can say, I have never once heard anyone of the Ministers nor the President mention the Freedom Charter or any particular points of the Freedom Charter and then I would also like to say today, as I am sitting here, I am a little bit cracked up.  It might not look that way, but I am.  I have brothers who was with me together in the BMW who operated me for so many years with me. I am still seeing them today.  I am still seeing them today.  Now the only point is the places where I see them it hurts me most.  There are a few of my brothers, their expectations was so high with the new Government take over.  Obviously, they were so overlooked, forgotten, they decided to become vagrants walking around the streets of town.  I found them in the docks, waterfront and Woodstock.
 I mean, like one of the brothers earlier asked, I mean, we were, like, labelled as one of the most dangerous organisations in the whole of the Western Cape.  I, myself, I was labelled as one of the most wanted activists only at the age of 12.  I am not worried about me having been overlooked, because I was a little bit fortunate, because I tried to fit myself into society again knowing that people are going to ask questions like why did you fight in the struggle, what have you gained out of the struggle.  Sometimes there is an answer to these questions, sometimes there is not an answer, because, you know, sometimes you have, like, four, five people asking the same question and they do not expect the same answer.  They want different answers.  So I am saying sometimes there is an answer, sometimes there is not an answer for these types of questions people are asking and my biggest pledge to you is I would like, I would like whether now or at a later stage, but somewhere in the near future, I would like to meet up with these security branch people.   
 I want them to personally apologise for the statements that they have laid against us in the newspapers.  I mean, people, it was very hard for people, like, to accept a terrorist back into society, because we were labelled terrorist.  We formed this group the BMW, because we knew about this harassment and the arrest and all these kind of threats that the cops laid against us and that type of thing.  I mean, we had to defend ourselves.  We could not just sit and wait for a kind of bomb to blast them, there we go.  We had to defend ourselves.  So we did what we did  in order to win our struggle.  We did not do it out of selfishness or out of saying, ag, this is "lekker", I want to do it.  We knew what we did then, but we do not know where we stand now.  Thank you.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: Moegamat, you really put a very impassioned plea before this panel and before the Commission to really look very carefully at our present state of affairs and how we can deal with those of your Comrades and others who are feeling so disillusioned today.  I just wanted to ask you one or two small questions and then, perhaps, the other panellists might want to ask you some questions.  The time you were detained in, on the sixth of January 87, you tell us that you were 14 then.

MOEGAMAT QASIM WILLIAMS: Yes.

GLENDA WILDSCHUT: 14 Years old.  What were the, apart from beating you and isolating you from others, what were, are you able to tell us what other methods were used when they were interrogating you?

MOEGAMAT QASIM WILLIAMS: Yes, I had it on two occasions where or one occasion where I was hung up by my feet and beaten and then ...