Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 1998-03-30

GEORGE BIZOS: Didn't anybody say you know, we are going to give people the wrong impression here, what is this piece of decoration doing in this room?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know.  Nobody ...

GEORGE BIZOS: Why didn't you think about it?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I did not.

GEORGE BIZOS: I mean you would react very badly if anyone had a piece of hosepipe on the table here, wouldn't you?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is so Mr Chairperson.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, may I suggest to you that what we are going to submit to the Committee has substance, that this was an instrument of choice for beating up people, prominently kept in this room.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I have no knowledge of this.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was there only one piece of hosepipe or were there two different colours?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No, what I observed was the green hosepipe.

GEORGE BIZOS: Yes, and the sense of humour of the Security Police was that you could have a choice between the green hosepipe and the black hosepipe?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No, I don't know this.

GEORGE BIZOS: Was there a filing cabinet there?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I have mentioned there was a filing cabinet.

GEORGE BIZOS: Why was Mr Coetzee's private property for the purposes of filling motor cars, why wasn't it put in the cupboard?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: You found it convenient to have it ready for whenever the need arose on the window sill?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: How many people, never mind these two, how many people complained of the green hosepipe and the black hosepipe being used during the period 1976, 1977, 1978 in the courts and elsewhere?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: But you did hear it that it was an instrument of choice by people speaking generally about it.  If you went into this room, you were going to be beaten up?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is so.

GEORGE BIZOS: Where did all the people get this idea from?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I don't know.

GEORGE BIZOS: I am going to put to you that this whole argument about the black man's right to sit on a chair was about your and your colleagues' warped view that you were superior people and you could not bear the thought of a man who would stand up for what he considered to be his rights?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.  Our objective was to interrogate him.  I did not have any other objective.

GEORGE BIZOS: We know that it had become part of the folk law in the Eastern Cape that when if I remember correctly, Mr Hattingh tried to hit Mr Biko during his previous detention in King William's Town, Mr Biko hit him back with fairly strong force, that Mr Hattingh finished up on the floor, you knew that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I heard this during the death inquest.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, you surely must have known the person that you had arrested and interrogated?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Yes, from reports and information that I gathered, I had a background of Mr Biko.

GEORGE BIZOS: And hadn't you heard before he was interrogated at Sanlam, that this incident had occurred with Mr Hattingh?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: Not that I can recall.  What I could recall is during the death inquest.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, did you ask your colleagues whether what was said in the inquest, was true or not that Mr Hattingh had come off second best?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I did not.

GEORGE BIZOS: I am going to suggest to you that partly because of that, partly because of your upbringing and a great believer in apartheid and the superiority of the white man, that was at least one of the reasons why you and your colleagues behaved in that way.

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.  It was purely - with me it was purely the protection of the State.  That is how I saw it.  I did not hate him per se.  The objective of his organisation was an enemy of mine.

GEORGE BIZOS: I want to read to you from page 270 of the record of your colleagues from which your hearing was separated and this is not brought out by me, but by your own counsel and their counsels, the same person.
	We will start at the bottom of page 269 Mr Chairman.  This is the record in the other proceedings.
	Mr Booyens - prior to your confrontation of Mr Biko, had there been any facts with regard to him personally made available to you?  I am not talking about his personal background, but with regard to his character, his physical strength and so on?  Mr Siebert - yes, Your Honour.  On the morning before the interrogation we had final consultations with Colonel Goosen.  He made - he brought it to our attention that Mr Biko would be a difficult chap, that from experience with prior detentions apparently in Natal, he mentioned that during those periods of detention, he offered no cooperation and that he would ignore one, and that on a different occasion in King William's Town, he had beaten a Security Officer, a certain Mr Hattingh with a fist.
	Mr Booyens - was this during detention in terms of the security legislation?  Yes, I believe so.  How seriously did he beat Mr Hattingh?  From what we heard, from what we were told he broke his teeth with his fist.
	Were you given instruction then by Major Snyman on the morning of the 6th of September to collect him?
	Now, you were going to be a member of this interrogation team, were you not?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, you must either have been present at the time that Mr Goosen gave this instruction or gave this information?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: No.

GEORGE BIZOS: Or your colleagues must have told you about it?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I cannot recall that.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now, Mr Biko had written had he not, of how as a result of the experience of one detention, he was going to behave if ever he was detained again.  Did you know about that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I cannot recall this.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, we can give you the precise words which were published, but let me just - I am sure you will recognise them.  That in detention I am going to be polite to them if they are polite to me.  If they are going to try and force me to do anything, I will not cooperate with them at all and that I will not allow my dignity to be insulted even in detention.  That was a public statement made by him after his previous detention.  Did that not come to your notice and the notice of your colleagues?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: It may be so, but I don't have independent recollection of this.  I do not know which publication you are referring to, I do not know when it was drafted, can I just have some insight into this.

GEORGE BIZOS: Well, I will read you if need be the very words which - his own very words, but don't you recall something like that, that he was not prepared to be treated as an inferior even though he may have been in detention.  Have you not heard of that?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That was their ideology, it was the black man's ideology that they were deemed inferior to the white.  That was part of their ideology.

GEORGE BIZOS: And their ideology was anathema to you?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: As I mentioned previously, I did not hate Mr Biko per se.

GEORGE BIZOS: You hated what he stood for?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: I hated his ideology.  It was in conflict with what I was supposed to protect.

GEORGE BIZOS: So whether he was involved in violence or not, his ideology was a threat to you?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is correct.

GEORGE BIZOS: And if he insisted sitting on a chair, that was his making a point of his ideology and you will not allow his ideology to take the upper hand as against your ideology?

GIDEON JOHANNES NIEWOUDT: That is so, that is how I understood it.