Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-10-25

WITNESS:   I am Ignatian Ntombikulu Ntalani.   We were six from the family where I was born.   They are all dead.   My parents died when I was 7 years old.   Today I have my sister here with me.   I have a brother, Michael, and a sister, Mamsie(?).  We grew up very poor and we were taken by relatives because our parents died when we were very young.   I got married to the Ngubane family.   My husband left me because of something very bad that happened to my life.   I would like to relate my story from the age of 18 years.   When I was 18 years old I joined a nursing training in 1960, in King George.   Me and the other nurses we joined together, we talked about the unhappiness and the misery that we met at work.   We joined ANC.   There were many of us.   We engaged on boycotts.   Even though we were working but we were like engaged in collective bargaining.   During lunchtimes we used to go to the management and we used to negotiate with the management and tell them the things that we were not happy about.   At that time I was a member of ANC together with the other nurses.   One day we were called, 17 of us.   They told us to resign.  We were forced to resign because we were the leaders of the ANC.  We had no choice but to resign and we lost our jobs.  After a while I heard that people were hired in King Edward, so I went to King Edward, many of us were there who also heard that King Edward had been employing people.  When I arrived there, one man called me and told me that, "You see, there is your name, your name has been blacklisted, you can't be admitted in this hospital because your previous matron said you are bad".   I realised that things were bad for me and I went back home. I used to visit offices, ANC offices, because I had a problem.   After that, in 1962 ANC was banned and ANC leaders were arrested, some people went to exile.  The offices were left behind, empty, with no one in them, and then I realised that it was up to me to go in those offices because they were now empty.   The special branch used to come and harass me.   I remember one day as I was walking down the street, I had one guy, his name is Israel Ndimande, who was also working in those offices, I hired him to come and work with me in those ANC offices.  Some times they used to just arrest me in the street and Israel Ndimande will realise by not seeing me coming back that I have been arrested.   In 1963 they gave me a banning order, they told me not to move around, I was in Pinetown at that time, I wasn't at Umlazi, F Section.   I stayed at Pinetown but the police used to come and question me, interrogate me.  They used to interrogate me until I was confused because all of them they used to ask me different questions and I was confused really.   One day they arrested me.  My brother was getting married.   When my brother came and ask me to go to a shop with him so that I choose clothes to buy for his marriage, we went to Sales House.   I used to disguise the way I used to dress myself, it was like in disguise, like an old lady.   One day, Nyathi caught me, I was with my sister.   He said to me what are you doing here in Durban, you are supposed to be in Pinetown, because you are being banned to walk around up to Durban.   I apologised to him and then he said to me I can only do that if you sign here, I signed and then he left - he let go of me.   My sister went to Sales House and I decided to take a taxi or a bus back to Pinetown.   When I was talking to my sister then white policemen came and they were there.   I tried to hide.  I ran.   Within 30 minutes I was back in Pinetown.  I went to the police station to report and then I walked back home.   After two days, I am not certain if it was two or three, they told me that I was needed in Pinetown Court.  I went to the Pinetown Magistrate's Court, he told me to go to Durban Magistrate Court.   They told me that I am facing a charge that I left Pinetown for Durban when I wasn't supposed to do so.   Because the law didn't allow us to talk to a lot of people if we were banned.   I went to see my lawyer, Bagwandeen.   I was pregnant at that time.   Bagwandeen asked me how can it be if they can just give me a suspended sentence, so that I see doctors and I go to clinic, they told my lawyer that there is - there are doctors in hospital, and I will see them.  They send me to Durban Prison for a month.  After a month they called me.  They told me that I am alone in my cell, I am not with other people, therefore I am consuming a lot of space for other prisoners.   So, they were going to change me and send me to Jo'burg Prison.   They send me to Ford(?) Prison in Johannesburg.   I stayed there in a very small cell, the toilet is closer, it wasn't even a toilet, it was just a tin where you used to go and relieve yourself.   I stayed there and I was sleeping on the floor, on the floor on the cement, it was cold.  There was no doctor.   I think I stayed there for something like two to three months, and then they called me there, they asked me if I am a nurse, I said, yes, I am.  So, they told me you must come, we are going to put you in a prison hospital, so that you will be able to help other prisoners because you are having a nursing experience.   That's where I started sleeping in a bed, this was in prison hospital.   But it was late already.   I stayed a few months and then I delivered my child.   And the person who delivered my child was a nurse who was a prisoner as well, who got there because of shoplifting.  There were no doctors.   The next day I found my child yellow and because I had this nursing experience I knew it was jaundice.   I suspected jaundice, so I told the doctors that my child wasn't well, and I think he is suffering from jaundice.   So, they took my child, they told me they are taking him to another cell in hospital.   When I asked them how can they take my child when he is sick and leave me behind, I am supposed to breastfeed my child, they told me, "You are a prisoner" and then the next day they came back and they told me that, "Your child is dead".   I asked them how can I contact my family so that they give a decent funeral to my child, because I am behind bars, they told me that, "You can't contact your family, this child will be buried by the government".   I don't know up until today if my child is still alive or really my child died.   This is what they told me that the child had died.  I stayed there until just before I could be released.  Two days before they called me to the office.  When I arrive in that office I saw three white policemen and one black policeman.  When I arrived there they introduced themselves, they said they were from Pretoria.  They said they were not going to release me until they take photographs of me.   They took me outside the yard, they took the photographs.   30 minutes went by, they wanted every angle of myself, so they took photographs.   And when we went back, I realised that I didn't have clothes, because my clothes have been taken by other prisoners.  Then they released me, they gave me a blanket.  They took me by their car and they left at Park Station in Johannesburg.  I took a train and I arrived in Durban.  I went to Durban Prison, I reported that I was released.  I went back to Pinetown, because five years wasn't yet over.  I was banned for five years, I stayed there until it was over, then I returned back to Umlazi and home.   When all these things were happening I had a brother who was a CID, who was working in Smith Street.  SB police were harassing him, because they were accusing him of having a sister who was a ANC.   They were harassing him until he told him that he was going to docket - a case for them, because he wasn't ANC, his sister was.   Even if when I was in Clermont, they were harassing them, even though they knew that it was me who was an ANC member, not my family, but they were interrogating them.  They were harassing them.