Human Rights Violation Hearings — Welkom — UNKNOWN

MS BRAAM: Not then, no, no, no, later.  So, okay, now we come to the time of this Children Conference.  Well, we wanted to be - because, let's say, my involvement in Operation Vula was actually my main task, my main work.  That is what was most important of everything, so we wanted to use this - "We" is in this case Joe Slovo, Mac Maharaj and Oliver Tambo.  They wanted me to come to Africa for consultations and use that sort of conferences, you see, to - so I went.  I first went to Lusaka.  I stayed in the Ridgeway Hotel in Lusaka, let's say a week before the conference started, or a few days, and in that hotel I had some contacts with people - the Dutch people who were based in - actually, especially, no, one, one, Lucia Bratsoles (?), who was based in Lusaka, and in charge of communications.  The communication was set up and - she was involved with the operating inside the country, I think that was it.  No, no, that was not yet but she was in Lusaka for the set-up of the whole thing and I was in there and I had seen a few people.  I saw, for example, Siphiwe, who came for his second disguise round to be, you know, and I had to take all sort of measurements, etcetera, so on, and he came to my hotel room to do that, you know.  He was brought, I think, very late and even very early in the morning.  Other people I had contact with was Joe Slovo came to the hotel.  Well, for talks, of course, we went out.  It was also quite normal.  They could do that.  I'm making excuses that we were sort of - but I was also the chairperson of the anti-apartheid movement and we were all friends, you see, so they would come to the hotel, we would have a drink and a meal and be quite noisy, you know, to make sure that they saw that we were still very good friends.  Occasionally we went to see them and - but the talks you would do in a car.  You know, they would take them in a car - talks in the car.  Other people come with you ... (inaudible).
MR  (?): Rashid.

MS BRAAM: Ja, Rashid came.  That was - and that was actually connected with, you know, bringing in arms into the country.  We needed somebody desperately for that.  So, I mean, that was - you know, it was not talking about anti-apartheid work or something like that.  It was talks about that and it was not the first time that there were already people in operation for that, and that was also done in a car.  So it was a heavy traffic situation in the Ridgeway Hotel.

DR DANIEL: You were there about a week?

MS BRAAM: Ja, ja, I think, ja, four, five days, something like that.  Now, one morning something strange, really strange, happened.  That was - in that night - well, I'm not sure.  You see, that is the sort thing - I mean, we were busy there.  Chris Hani, I think, he came to the hotel because I had to take a print of his teeth, you know, for a new set of teeth for a disguise, and I think that he'd been to the hotel room and left late, because he was brought in the dark, of course, by two guys who stood outside because they didn't want him to be seen - to be seen humiliated by me taking prints of his teeth.  I'll never forget that scene.  He left and then so I slept and then the next morning we had - then I had a meeting with Rashid.  He picked me up in his car.  He sent one of his assistants ... (inaudible) ... name now, and so I went outside and I went with Rashid for a little drive and we talked and came back in the hotel room and the door was locked.  I kept my key with me.  I didn't give it to the reception and then I opened the door and the bed wasn't made, nothing was - it was really too early, you know, because the girls who were cleaning the room were sort of a floor below, they were busy or just started or something, but there was one chair.  It's next to my bed.  There was a bottle.  It was a brown glass bottle.  You know, typical sort of vitamins, you know - this vitamin C sort of thing, you know, where you take a lot, not a small, but a big bottle, with a label and the label said, "All vitamin pills".
MR  (?): Well, I haven't seen them.  I have your ... (intervention)

MS BRAAM: Translated.  Anyway, "All vitamin pills", it said.

DR DANIEL: About this size bottle?

MS BRAAM: It was, say, like this, and where it starts to go like this, you know, and then like that.

DR DANIEL: A large bottle.

MS BRAAM: Quite a large bottle.  That is what I was surprised about.  Brown glass and it had a top that you could, you know, screw.

DR DANIEL: Screw top.

MS BRAAM: Yes, screw top, what was light-coloured and it had a price label on top.  You know, such a sticker, and I don't know what the price was.  I didn't look at that.  But the label - you know, so there was a bit over ... (intervention)
MR DE JONGHE (?): The gastric - oh, no, that was - did you have pills besides - that was now something else?

MS BRAAM: Yes.

MR DE JONGHE: "All vitamin pills".  The label described the contents as, "All vitamin pills" and on the label was a Zambian price.

MS BRAAM: Ja, ja.  Ja, ja, not rand or something, you know, as stupid as you'd find in a funny film - special branch had been operating stupidly.  So, but over the label there was a little that you could look in it, you see.  Now, one thing, I mean I was alert but I was not - you know, I was actually - looking back, I can't understand, you know.  I see what a sort of a half nervous wreck I am now, how cool and calm I was in those days, you know.  Actually nothing could really upset me, but, seeing the bottle, I knew immediately that it was something - here was something wrong or, you know, strange, because, I mean, you know if you bring in a thing like that yourself or not.  The door is locked.  You've got the key with yourself.  So I didn't touch it and I looked for that lady who cleaned the room and I asked her - I said, "Have you been in my room?" ... (inaudible) ... "No, no, no", and I could see that she was honest, you know, because she was sort of making an excuse, as if I was complaining.  So then I went back and I looked at the bottle and there was liquid in it.  There were no pills in it.  There was liquid in it, because - and I thought, well, anyway, somebody put it there, so I can just, you know - it won't go off, you know, when you touch it and I wanted to know.  But it was a thick, thick liquid - what can you - sort of oily - oily, thick liquid it looked like, so - and I just shook it like this and anyway, so it - and I put it back. Then, then, some sort of - then I had another ... (inaudible) ... my plane was going to leave that same day, I mean, as I say, a few hours later I was going to Harare.  That's why I know it was the day of my going from Lusaka to Harare, and Siphiwe came - Ngabuza - came by just for a last thing - what I don't know, but anyway he came by and he came into my room and I said, "Look at that" and he said, "Jesus, don't touch it, get it out of here", you know.  And I said, "Can't we get, you know, your people to come in?"  He said, "We don't have that sort of people", you know, because this was Vula, you see, and Vula was a very small group then.  They didn't have - they couldn't.  It was a difficulty because, as Vula, they couldn't go to their own, you know, people with experts to say, because then they had to reveal why, you know.  So we were now stuck, and he said ... (intervention)

DR DANIEL: Was he angry or was it like a panic?