Human Rights Violation Hearings — Alexandra — 1996-10-29

MS MKHIZE: Sorry, Mr Ditshego.  Will you excuse me.  Could you just tell us what they did to you in 1990.

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: What they did when they came that night there were so many, they kicked my door.  I could hear that the kind of knock that is at the door it is not the right knock.  But by that time I was already in bed.  My wife opened.  When she opened I just heard her screaming.  When I woke up quickly to see what was happening I met a lot of them coming in but the one who came first had a - what is it - a bullet- proof jacket on ammunition on him and a big gun which I couldn't see whether it is an R1 or an AK and he hit me with the butt of it on my ear and he hit me hard.  I fell on the sofa and he continued.  By the time, after he hit me with the butt of that gun and I fell on the sofa he continued hitting me.  Now I couldn't even know whether he is hitting me with his fist at the time or with the very same butt of the gun and I fell unconscious and they searched the house.  They searched the house for about, I think two hours.  After that they just handcuffed me and threw me in the car and we went to the police station here in Alexandra. They spent about an hour questioning me but there they didn't torture me.  At about one o'clock at night again, half past 12 they took me to Sandton police station where then they started torturing me.  They kicked me, they punched me.  I never slept the whole night. They could always go and have a rest
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and maybe another two come where I am and just start
questioning me, start punching me, start kicking me.  But it was very, very bad that day because when I went to a toilet I saw myself, I saw my head in a mirror that it was swollen, it was bigger - double the size it is now.  It was very bad.  In the morning round about six in the room I was sitting the door was open, I could see many of my colleagues moving past the door.  I could say that now everyone was now arrested.  Then after that I was taken alone to Newlands police station.  I was locked in one very cold cell and every morning they would come and pick me up there to Sandton to interrogate me.  They even made me to sniff a liquid in a very small bottle which at first I thought it was tear-gas but the smell of it, it wasn't.  I still don't know what it is.  At times I think my memory was taken by that thing which I don't know what it is because tear-gas wouldn't do that to me.  They would let me then afterwards because that was a daily thing now, that I am picked up from Newlands police station to Sandton to be interrogated, most of the days even tortured and then taken back to Newlands and what these guys did was that if they torture me hard today then they know that it is going to be 14 days before we will go to the district surgeon.  If today, because they had this thing that now every 14 days we must see a district surgeon so if they know that now we are from - we even knew - I even knew that I am from the doctor today the next few days I might just get it because now I have still got many days to rest.  But one other day which I don't remember the date, exact date, I was taken to Sandton and put on an armchair, my arms were tied with a rope and my chest was tied on a chair and a balaclava was put on my head.  By then I was
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naked.  A bucket of water was poured on my body and all of
a sudden not even knowing what was it that they were using because I had a balaclava on, I was electrocuted.  My legs all over my body I was electrocuted and I was screaming there.  By the time they finished I couldn't stand right up, I couldn't stand up, I couldn't walk properly.  When I walked I was bending and I had to put my legs apart so that I can balance myself, I couldn't walk properly and I was taken back to the cell where I couldn't, because it was winter we were given blankets, many of them, I couldn't even pick them up to put them on myself.  I would struggle to pick up a few blankets to cover myself, for almost a week.  And after that 14 days when they took me to the district surgeon and when I tell him about this he just said yes they mustn't do that, you know your heart will stop but I can't say anything. Right.  And there was a brigadier who used to come to me to ask me questions whether they are treating me well, whether they are giving me the right food.  When I told him about this he sort of took a statement but after a while I received a piece of letter saying there is no one who is responsible for that, from him.  That very brigadier whom I don't even remember the name. After six months in that solitary confinement I was taken to Pretoria court where I was released by an amnesty of 1994.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you Mr Ditshego.  Who was the district surgeon that you were taken to?

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: I don't know his name, sir.  He was next to the traffic department down in Johannesburg.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Ditshego can you tell us what effect on your body right now that torture has had on you.

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: I have constant pains that I didn't have
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before and my memory is lacking.  It is not like the one I
know because I used to do recitations. I know at school I would recite something from the book that I read yesterday but I can't any more.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you.  No further questions.

MS MKHIZE: Thank you very much. I will ask the other commissioners to ask you to clarify whatever might still need to be clarified.  Yasmin Sooka.

YASMINE SOOKA: Mr Ditshego, in your statement you say that you were an MK internal contact.  What exactly do you mean by that? Do you want to clarify that for me please.

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: Can you repeat your question please.

YASMINE SOOKA: In your statement you talk about being an MK internal contact.  Do you want to tell us what that involved.

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: Did you say what was it that I was involved with?  My involvement arises from the harassment of the young men and women in Mutsi Kwandabele whereby they would come here in Johannesburg where I am staying and seek refuge and I wasn't able to hide them for long because as I said the first arrest was from the Kwandabele police came here and arrested me.  They would have just been killed like I was arrested here so I had to make contact outside with MK to help them to get these young men out.

YASMINE SOOKA: Also you talked about the fact that you were not well known in this area but that your activities were in Mutsi.  Besides being a conduit for people to get out what other activities were you involved in in Mutsi itself?

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: Out activities in Mutsi Civic Association was mainly to highlight, as I have said before - because the Ndebele people and the Sotho speaking people there were at
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loggerheads, they were fighting and our work was to tell
both groups to go to Kwandabele and organise meetings and tell them about Civic and tell them about the fact that Sothos are not fighting them, they must not fight Sothos. Actually it is the work of the government that they are now fighting because of creating that homeland there and that was our main activities.

YASMINE SOOKA: You also say that after you were tortured for the third time your lawyers acted on your behalf.  Do you know the name of those lawyers?

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: Of the lawyers?

YASMINE SOOKA: Yes.

KOKANE ISAAC DITSHEGO: Yes, Bell Dewar and Wall.  Mr Nort was my lawyer.

YASMINE SOOKA: Thank you.  No further questions.

MS MKHIZE: Mr Ditshego, when you made your statement, partly I suppose you were assisting us to get a clear picture of what has happened but are there any specific things which you had in mind which you think when you made a statement you would like the Commission to be of help with?