Special Hearings — Conscription Hearings — 1997-07-23

CHAIRPERSON: Can I interrupt please, could I ask you to make reference because you have submitted quite an extensive statement which is available for the members of the public, it's in the media room, if you could perhaps just refer.  The problem is we've had so many, you know, submissions and the next two speakers are under incredible time constraints. So you know, if you could bear that in mind please.

MR STEELE: I understand. Alright certainly.

CHAIRPERSON: I really am sorry.

MR STEELE: That's fine, I'll extract from the rest of my statement, is that what you're suggesting?

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, thank you.

MR STEELE: Okay sure. I'll just read one paragraph from that statement I made at my seventh summary trial
" It displays a shallow understanding of my position to think that to do me violence by sentencing me to solitary confinement will make me violent. I will not change from being a peacemaker to being a soldier.  I cannot deny myself, nor can I deny Jesus Christ my Lord. Passivism is at the core of my Christain beliefs and essential to my whole lifestyle, it is the way of truth for me and I mean to follow it, no matter what the cost."
 I was particularly concerned about the role of church ministers within the military, in their capacity as chaplains and what I'm going to say now will have been elucidated by the previous submission. I was disturbed by the fact that chaplains played a key ideological role in rationalising the fact and activity of war and preparing soldiers psychologically, emotionally and spiritually for war. I witnessed this directly in Tempe detention barracks when chaplains came twice a month to present so-called motivation lectures which were nothing short of political propaganda and rationalisation for war.  After attending the first lecture I refused to attend anymore and wrote a letter in this regard.
 During my year of imprisonment I came into contact with chaplains from many denominations, even though I was a Christian and attended all the church services offered in the detention barracks.  Many of the chaplains were automatically hostile toward me because of my conscientious objections, however, some of them were sympathetic to my circumstances if not my C O convictions and made an effort to exercise pastoral care towards me.  In this regard I would like to mention Padre James Gray in Voortrekker Hoogte an Padre Danny Veldhuis, Duminy Willie van Rooyen and Duminy Johan Marais in Tempe.
 One of the most moving experiences of my year in prison took place during my first period of solitary confinement at the Tempe Detention Barracks and involved Duminy Johan Marais, a citizen force chaplain who was doing a camp at the Tempe military base at the time.  
 On May 23rd I was sentenced to two days in solitary confinement on a spare diet. That is bread and water only. Physically going without proper meals was not such a problem for me, I had fasted every Friday anyway as a spiritual discipline and as regular protest action against my imprisonment.  And two days in solitary confinement is short compared to the usual 14 days but somehow I felt humiliated by that sentence and found it very hard to deal with psychologically. On the second day I received a visit from Duminy Marais. He was doing his doctorate in theological ethics and I had enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of previous discussions with him. After we had chatted for a while, sitting on my mattress on the floor, he reached for the jug of water and chunk of bread and said that he would like to share a meal with me in the form of a eucharist.  As we ate the bread and drank the water together, we both cried. He was in full military uniform, I was in a track suit having refused to wear the uniform, but at that moment we were one in spirit and humanity.
 When I look back on the experience of being a conscientious objector and subjected to detention barracks, I believe it was worthwhile in several respects. For me personally in terms of maintaining  coherence between my convictions and my actions and in terms of my general maturation, secondly as an act of non-cooperation with injustice and violence in South Africa and in that way, reducing the level of violence in South Africa, at least an iota. Thirdly as a demonstration of non-violent action. Fourthly as a challenge to White South Africans regarding their role in supporting apartheid, especially in respect of the connection between conscription and apartheid; as a challenge to men regarding the negative socialisation, associated with military training which enforces patterns of male dominance and violence; as a demonstration of solidarity with Black South Africans and all other individuals and groups fighting apartheid.  And finally that experience was a foundation for anti-apartheid and peace activism of later years.
 I'd like to conclude this submission by telling the Commission about visits I have made to the detention barracks since my release.
 In 1983 I went back to Voortrekker Hoogte and Tempe detention barracks and shook hands and chatted with the officers.  In fact in terms of victims in this whole scenario I didn't feel victimised in the true sense of the word while I was a prisoner. In fact from my point of view it was the officers of the prison and the soldiers and the military who were the victims in the sense that they were just merely conforming to their socialisation an were being used in fact by politicians to fulfil their ideological ends.  Anyway those people I visited back again they were quite polite and in one case actually pleased to see me. 
 Then last year in 1996 while in Pretoria visiting friends my wife and I took a drive out to Voortrekker Hoogte.  The first thing we noticed was that the parade ground outside the hall in which I was court martialled and on which new conscripts were being drilled while I was being court martialled, was overgrown with weeds.  The detention barracks itself is no longer used as a prison.  The outside door was wide open and the few personnel around were wearing casual civilian clothes.  They told me the buildings were being used by the Air Force firefighting unit.  I walked around the cell blocks.  Most of it was in disrepair.  Block 5, which housed the solitary confinement cells was being used for storage.  The parade ground was overgrown with weeds and wild flowers.  What a different scene to what I remembered from 1980.  Time, nature and a new government with different priorities had softened the hard edges.
 Going back and facing the ghosts of those places important in helping me to lay them to rest.  I am hoping that the next time I visit Voortrekker Hoogte the weeds and wild flowers would have taken over completely.
 Preparing my submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and appearing here today has further helped me banish those ghosts and left me empowered by the deep strata of truth and integrity that I have rediscovered in the process.  I thank the Commission for providing me with the opportunity to revisit my history and integrate it into my present life.
 I would like to express my appreciation in general to the Commission for the role it is playing in liberating us as a nation from the ghosts of the past.  Thank you.