Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-22

GABU TUGWANA: Thank you.  As we know by now subsequent to the events of June 16 and the days which followed I was among the journalists who were detained without trial under either Section 22 of the Preventive Detention, or Section 6 of Terrorism Act.  I am raising the issue of detention only in the context of its effects.
 Speaking from experience between 1976 and 1978 I spent over 200 days under preventive detention.  For me, an unmarried youngster in his early twenties this type of incarceration was not much of a problem.  In this type of detention we were kept in communal cells which held up to 20 people.  We were allowed reading material which of course had to be passed by the prison's commanding officer.  We read newspapers, watched television, held church services and also received mass.  There was an hour of exercising.  Immediate relatives could apply for permission to be granted to visit you.  We were detained with elderly people who had responsibilities like families and businesses.  The level of stress brought by this involuntary detention was very harsh on them.  At times we would bump into elderly people hiding 
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in the toilet crying.  I have a reasonable belief that most of them never went through post traumatic stress treatment after detention.  My belief is based on reports which I received on how the behaviour of these people changed after detention.  It went to the extent that some of them lost their businesses and even families.  
 There was also this vicious type of detention in solitary confinement Section 6.  In fact our jailers made no bones about it.  When they locked us into the cells they would say they would throw away the keys and only make efforts to find them after we had, "decided to tell the truth".  Not the truth as we understand it in this Commission but rather the assumptions they had about what they wanted one or, wanted us to say for possible use in court against our own fellow colleagues or contacts. I will not get into all sorts of the gory details about the methods they used to force this so-called "truth" from us.  
 The point I want to make is when you are kept in a 4 x 6 foot cell alone, if you are lucky given only a bible to read, having no other reading material at all, no friend to talk to, no visitors allowed to see you and frequently denied exercise, you get pushed to breaking point.  Few survived this experience.  I spent almost 400 days in solitary confinement between 1977 and 1978.  Again I will save taking you through details of the human abuse I experienced there.
 I, however, was very fortunate in that solitary confinement became some kind of challenge for me.  Having been brought up from a family with strong religious background the Holy Bible became my supreme shield against depression.  Each time I closed my eyes and let the book 
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roll open some relevant scripture came to my attention when I opened my eyes.  This scripture was amazingly relevant to my situation and actually uplifted my spirits.  For the record I read and completed the bible three times.
 Another pastime was my facecloth which was imprinted with various squares.  I did not know much about chess but rather a lot about a similar game called Marabaraba which I played with pieces of dry crust from the bread supplied as breakfast.  I used my right hand to play against the left hand and I took both hands as opposition to each other.  I must say I tried my best to be as objective as I could with both hands taking them as people who are sort-of fighting to win the game.  
 At times I used to use my metal-like spoon to mark each day in detention.  This idea developed something else, that I could work backwards trying to find the week day of my birth, my birth date.  I also attempted to work backwards trying to find how many days, minutes and seconds old I was.  The exercise went on for days.  When I was tired I could do exercises.  At one stage I befriended ants in my cell.  I could talk to them and give them the remains of my bread.  If you attempted, at that moment, to interfere with those ants I think I would have killed you, because they were the only visible sympathetic, I thought, people I could communicate with. But imagine if I had no programme with which to pass the time.  I think I would have been a mental wreck.  
 Talking about one's mental attitude collapsing I can think of one of the youngsters who was detained with us.  His name is not relevant in this but I can tell you that each day his cell was opened for inspection or any other 
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official reason, this young man would stop at the warder, pull him by his clothes, demanding to be freed.  I am still not sure if he ever got treated for trauma after his release, but I know that he occupies a responsible position at Local Government level and I pray daily that he would not snap and surprise his colleagues.
 Another major problem of stress which I personally came across is that of liberation army combatants.  Some of them tend to snap and resort to a violent response to pressure.  I once worked with one of them.  One day he resisted to be accountable and he walked out of the job. Two weeks later he had burnt down the house of his fiancee and disappeared.  I think these people also need medical and psychological treatment.  The same should be applied to those people involved in violence at flashpoints like Kwazulu Natal province.  And I think to those people who were talking today like Mrs Dorothy Tshabalala about her son, and also Mrs Dorothy Seatlholo was talking about her husband, I think those people need some kind of treatment.  
 I want to urge the Truth Commission to ask the government to look into this problem and help set up as many rehabilitation centres as possible countrywide to deal with this problem, otherwise I fear that the fabric of our society would remain threatened by people who never intended to do any harm to our new democratic South Africa.  
 I thank you for this opportunity.

MR LEWIN: Gabu thank you very much for that.  What I would like to do, because we have the two people who are involved here in reparation and rehabilitation, Hlengiwe and Tom on her committee maybe they have some other points to discuss with you and raise with you.  Thank you very much.
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MS MKHIZE: I was touched by your recommendation referring to people whom you think they will benefit from trauma treatment, I just want to ask you one thing, sometimes we come across many people saying the Black community has stood together over the years, they have supported each other, they have helped them to work through whatever conflict, so when looking at your recommendation of which I agree fully with, how would you explain the two intentions, your recommendation and this popular belief that the community is sufficient in terms of dealing with the after-effects of repression?