Human Rights Violation Hearings — East London — 1997-06-12

CHAIRPERSON: If we could change our order.  If Nosipho Blossom Marwezu, 
number 12, could come forward please.  Nosipho, please stand up to be sworn in.

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: (Duly sworn in, states).

CHAIRPERSON: We just want to clarify that the reason we called you, it is because 
there is an attorney, a legal representative of an alleged perpetrator.  We had given him 
a notice.  So I am going to ask you questions.  The story you are about today is about 
yourself, what happened to you on the 18th of June 1986.  Is that so?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: You were seven months pregnant at that time, arrested, tortured.  
Could you tell us what was happening at this time.

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Should I start with my arrest?

CHAIRPERSON: Just before you got arrested.  Why were you arrested?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: In 1985 I was a student at Qaqamba doing my standard nine.  
There were riots at Duncan Village.  The police then would regularly come to my 
home looking for me.  I got a message that the police are looking for me.  I left and 
stayed at Mdantsane, NU15, with my sister.  My mother said that I must just go and 
surrender to the police, because she could not sleep, the police were regularly there.  
They were going to arrest her if I did not give myself up to the police.  I then said I 
would go to the Cambridge Police Station.  
 Heather, my sister, said that I should go to Cape Town to my eldest sister.  I 
truly went to Cape Town.  I stayed there in 1985.  In 1986, May, I came back.  I 
thought that, perhaps, everything had subsided.  On the 18th of June I was at home 
sleeping.  There was a knock at the door.  It is the police.  It was at about one or two 
a.m.  My mother opened the door.  When they got in they did not say anything to my 
mother.  They were with a policeman who knows me, Mandisi Mbewana.  They could 
not see me, because I had covered myself.  They said to my mother that they are going 
to arrest her if they cannot find me.  They then took me.  However, they took my two 
other brothers as well, Thembinkosi and Mbuyiseli, who is late.
 I was in pyjamas.  They did not even let me change.  When I got outside I saw 
a caspar.  They put me into that caspar.  It was packed with people.  They were 
probably going around collecting people.  They took us to a place called Strongpoint 
where the soldiers are in Duncan Village.  The next morning we were taken to 
Cambridge.  The Captain asked what the charges were.  This man then responded in 
saying that he does not know.  He was just given a list to arrest all the people.  Mr 
Mbewana came saying that he wants all of us at Westbank.  Then there was a State of 
Emergency.  We were taken to Westbank.

CHAIRPERSON: Is this Mandisi Mbewana or the elder one?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Mandisi is the younger one who arrested me.  The one who said 
we must go to Westbank is the elder one.  We could not even get visitors for two 
months.  They had arrested me, I was in pyjamas.  I was using the clothes that they 
provided me in prison.  I was three months pregnant.  Then the interrogation started.  
They took us one by one to Cambridge.  They asked me if I knew that COSAS had 
been banned.  I said yes.  So they asked me why I worked for COSAS even though it 
had been banned.  I said I did no such.  They then said that I was a member at, of 
COSAS at Qaqamba.  They asked if I know that the riots at Duncan Village were all 
inspired by Qaqamba students.  They asked who had burnt down a policeman's house. 
 I said I did not know.  
 They took me back to the cell.  They called me back.  I did not know I was 
going to go there.  I was going to Frere Hospital regularly at that time.  They said that 
I am supposed to go to the Frere Hospital.  I told them that I had no appointment 
there.  Nomsa's attorney, a co-prisoner, gave me her headscarf to put on.  I put it on.  
They took me to Cambridge to an office there.  Mr Mpumelelo Madliwa was there 
and Mpumelelo Nkonzombi.  They asked me who had burnt down his house.  I said I 
do not know.  They strangled me.  They pulled down my headscarf, put it around my 
neck.  The one pulled from the left and the other from the right.  I lost all strength.  I 
urinated on myself.  I was pregnant at the time.  
 They said I must tell the truth, who burnt the house down.  I said it was me.  
Who else?  I said by myself.  They told me that I was lying.  They put down the 
headscarf and they strangled me with their own hands.  They were not beating me up, 
just strangling me.  What happened is that my eyes went red.  They then took me to, 
back to Westbank Prison.  When I got there I was not taken to a cell where the others 
were.  I was taken to solitary confinement.  My eyes were red.  I saw nobody but the 
police.

CHAIRPERSON: How long were you in prison by then?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: It was around September.

CHAIRPERSON: You had been arrested in June?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: You were on your own.  What happened?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: They would take me to the Frere Hospital at the clinic there 
regularly.  From solitary confinement they took me to Cambridge again.  A police car 
came to fetch me.  I got there.  There were chairs outside.  They made me sit there for 
such a long time that I thought they had forgotten about me.  After a while Mr 
Mbewana said I must go into his office.  He did not settle down, he just, he was 
walking in and out.  A White policeman called Radue came.  This man bowed down, 
took something from under the table then left.  After a short while there was a bang.  I 
did not know whether I was being shot.  I did not know what was happening.  I just 
fell down.  After a long while I got up.  I could see I was on my own.  They came 
back.  They asked what it was.  I said I did not know.

CHAIRPERSON: So what was the bang?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: I do not know even to this day.

CHAIRPERSON: So when you had gotten up this policeman, Glen Henry Radue, 
was not there?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: No.

CHAIRPERSON: How did you get released?  How did that come about?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: On the sixth of December, after the bang, I was taken back to 
prison.  It happened that in my being shocked I started hurting, contractions.  I was 
then taken to hospital.  I gave birth to a premature child at seven months.  There was a 
policeman at my side all the time.  I got out, back to the prison with my child, 
Thinasonke.  In the morning they went, when the police would come and count us 
they would take my child and bring the baby back late.

CHAIRPERSON: When did you go back to the cell?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: After my child was five days old.

CHAIRPERSON: Where would you sleep at the cell?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: On the floor.

CHAIRPERSON: With the baby?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: After they had taken the child do you know who looked after the 
child, who fed the child?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: No, when I would ask they would say that they would take the 
child to the creche.

CHAIRPERSON: What happened eventually?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Until such time when they felt like releasing me they just released 
me.

CHAIRPERSON: What month was that?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: It was in 1987.  I cannot remember whether it was March or 
April.

CHAIRPERSON: How old was the child?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Three months.

CHAIRPERSON: How old were you when this all happened?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: I was 20 years of age in 1986.

CHAIRPERSON: Were you politically active at the time?

NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: Yes, I was a COSAS member before COSAS was banned and 
then after that it was banned.

CHAIRPERSON: Therefore, no charges were laid on you?  That was the end of your 
harassment?