Human Rights Violation Hearings — Mabopane — 1997-05-08

CHAIRPERSON: The next person who needs to come, I'd like to invite Shiko Ntsoko. Shiko Ntsoko to come to the front please.
 Here is a nice announcement - an urgent announcement - Please announce that the school children are wanted in their classrooms. The school children have to return to their classrooms please. Children will be children. But please can the children return. 
 Can I, while I you are listening to me, just remind you that we do have statement takers at the back, if there are some of you sitting here thinking - I also have a story to tell, I also had an experience - if you want to use this time now, to go out outside at the, in the press room, in the communications room, Tseko will be there. He will avail you, he will help you to find statement takers, if you want to make a statement.
 But now we have Mr Shiko Ntsoko at the table. You have somebody with you, please introduce him to us.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: This is Solomon Molete, one of our family members.

CHAIRPERSON: A very warm welcome to you too. Before I ask Dr Ally to help you with your testimony, Mr Ntsoko will you please stand and I will ask Ms Seroke to help with taking the oath. Please stand and raise your hand.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: (Sworn states)

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much and over to Dr Ally.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thank you and good day to you Mr Ntsoko .

SHIKO J NTSOKO: Good afternoon sir.

RUSSELL ALLY: Mr Ntsoko, in the program, the date of the violation, it says 1996, that's obviously incorrect. It was in the early 1960.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: It was early yes.

RUSSELL ALLY: You were one of the first people, I imagine, to be recruited into the ANC underground. This was just, I suppose, after the decisions that the ANC had to take in after the banning of the political organization, but you are going to speak to us about your arrest, detention and also the torture that you were subjected too. These were events in 1960, which was really when this commission itself begins its investigation, from 1960 to 1993, so your story is very important, unfortunately we don't get many accounts of the earlier period, so we would like to hear from you, what actually happened to you.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: During that time I was a student at Mamelodi High, I was doing a std 7 if I remember well. One day it was during Easter holidays, but that time our mathematics teacher said we should not go for holiday, we should continue with our studies for maths and physical science and chemistry. Those are the subjects which I chose, that I promised my parents that I will either be a doctor or a lawyer.     During that time I remember it was Good Friday Eve, I was in, I was a member of the ANC Youth League, but it was not popular then. We were at the time which we should help other students. On that the police came with many vans, I was sleeping in the den room with my younger brother. Both of us were in that organization, then they entered, looked for me, they arrested me to Pretoria Central Prison, where life wasn't easy.
 On Good Friday, there was Sergeant Magobe who was my father's friend. Those are the people who arrested me together with Sergeant Msemane and Brigadier Ferreira. We were few in that van, but in Good Friday they took me to Pretoria Central Prison where we were tortured and beaten.  They put me in a certain room where I found Sergeant Magobe together with Brigadier Ferreira. Sergeant Magobe was my father's best friend, he knew all about us, we took as our father. What he asked me was,"Who are you, being a young person, who do you think you are to overthrow the government?" What I said to him was, "Who are you to ask me that kind of a question?"
  I took it that he cannot ask that kind of a question because I regard him as a parent and no parent can ask me that kind of a stupid question.
 They took me and hand-cuffed me and then they put my hands behind a pole, that is the pole was between me and my hands and they started beating me. I was hanging from above by then when they were beating me. Thereafter there was a desk like this one in front of me, it had eight holes in it, next to Ferreira there was something that looked like it would lock those holes. One did not know what was going to happen to him because your fingers were in those eight holes, you couldn't see them.
 They took something like a wet blanket and then there was a switch next to Ferreira which he switched on and when he put it on you would feel some shock on your fingers. What helped me most was that I was bleeding after that interrogation.

CHAIRPERSON: Take your time, take your time Mr Ntsoko, when you are ready to continue you can continue. Maybe you would like to have a drink of water first.......
If you want to continue please do that.

SHIKO J NTSOKO: What hurt me most was when I saw my mother, when I was alighting the steps and I realized that she was my mother. They had hand-cuffed me from behind and they pushed me and I had fell through the steps and fell next to my mum. What is important now is that, by that time my future was really wasted, because I couldn't be what I had promised my parents.
 What hurt me most is that when I had to return to school, even those teachers who supported those  people didn't want us in school. What I am worried the most is that when I had made a promise to someone I want to fulfil it, and by now my father is dead.
  Presently I have only my mother, who is paralysed, she is on a wheel-chair. I want to end by saying, I will ask the then government to come and ask for forgiveness from us because they really messed up our future. I want them to come and appear before you so that they can speak for themselves.
  I did not want to work as an industrial worker, I wanted to help the community. I was intending to help the community with my profession, not to be a security or a guard to the community. I want the then government to come and appear before you and you should also call us that is the victims. I remember one was the secretary of the Bantu Education, he was Mr Brozidsky. If he is still alive I would like him to appear before you and before us to ask for forgiveness for what he did to us. (tape ends)
..... to ask for forgiveness and then I myself would also tell him that I forgive him, if he could that. Presently it is difficult, because Sergeant Mogobe is dead, maybe he hears me where he is, because he can't speak, but I forgive him if at all he can hear me, but the then government,  I think has to appear before us and you to come and ask for forgiveness, then I think my wounds would be healed. I will end off there.