Human Rights Violation Hearings — Beaufort West — 1996-08-12

CASE NO: CT/00368

<UNKNOWN>: TORTURE BY POLICE &

MARY BURTON: Welcome,  Mr Bocks before we begin, we welcome the members of the public back again to our afternoon hearing and we particularly would welcome Father Peter Rhodes, who has joined us -  very nice to have you and to have had your support in the preparations for our hearings over these past weeks.  
Mr Bocks, can you - are you going to use the headsets or are you comfortable in English?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Going to speak Afrikaans or English.

MARY BURTON: Denzil, are you going to ask questions in Afrikaans. Okay, right Mr Bocks, will you stand to take the oath.  Thank you. 
ZO-MARIUS BOCKS Duly sworn states

MARY BURTON: Adv Potgieter is going to lead your evidence.

ADV POTGIETER: Thank you, Mary, good afternoon Marius -  Zo-Marius.  I hope you're comfortable there.

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, I am - I'm happy.

ADV POTGIETER: You're most welcome here.  I know you're from Carnarvon, is that correct?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes.

ADV POTGIETER: Yes, I think you have to pull the microphone closer, so we can hear you clearly.

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, I am from Carnarvon.

ADV POTGIETER: Tell us, what do you do?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: I finished my studies last year in Business Management, I'm trying to find a work,  I'm working at a very small shop as a bookkeeper - a stock controller.

ADV POTGIETER: As bookkeeper you say?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes.

ADV POTGIETER: Is that  in Carnarvon?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, that is in Carnarvon.

ADV POTGIETER: So you say you've done a diploma at the Peninsula Technikon.

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, in Business Management, yes.

ADV POTGIETER: Have you completed it?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: No - no,  I still owe a subject.

ADV POTGIETER: So you still have to complete?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, that is correct, I still need to complete my studies.

ADV POTGIETER: What is your status, are you married or unmarried?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: I'm unmarried.

ADV POTGIETER: Any dependence - any dependence?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, I have a son.

ADV POTGIETER: How old is he?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: 7 years.

ADV POTGIETER: Your story takes us back to 1986, on 16 July '86.

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, that is correct.

ADV POTGIETER: You were still at school then?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: That's correct.

ADV POTGIETER: Where were you at school?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: I was at the Carnarvon Senior Secondary School.

ADV POTGIETER: What standard were you in '86?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: I was in Std 9.

ADV POTGIETER: Std 9?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: That's correct.

ADV POTGIETER: What positions did you hold at school?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: I was on the Prefect Council - I was part of that Council of Prefects.

ADV POTGIETER: Oh, so it's not quite an SRC but is it almost  the same structure?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, more or less the same but the status is a bit lower than SRC status.

CHAIRPERSON: [indistinct]

ADV POTGIETER: As I say they  have a bit of a stigma - bit of a air about them, but is this the leading body that showed leadership in terms of students?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, that's correct.

ADV POTGIETER: Now, lets go back to that day, in '86, the 16th of July.  What happened?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: It was just after a break and I was in my English lecture room with Mr Mohale.  Then the Security Police arrived, Mr Du Toit and a Kriel  - and a Mr Kriel - and a person that I don't know - I think it was Sergeant Moodie - something like that.  I'm  not quite sure about the name but I think that is what it is.

ADV POTGIETER: So was he also a Security Police?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes.

ADV POTGIETER: The Du Toit guy you referred to, is he also a Security Police?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes he was head - he was head.

ADV POTGIETER: So they arrived at school, did they come to you?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, they came to the classroom and they were looking for me.  I can gather that it was because of a meeting that I've chaired.  It was a meeting on students that were detained before the 16th of June.  
Now we wanted to plan to halt  the school activities since some of our leaders have been detained without good reason.  So obviously that led  to them bringing to - coming - to the school and they saw me as a kind of a instigator and obviously they wanted to stop me from intervening in school affairs.  
Slogans were written on our walls and, of cause, there were also a case of students setting  a office alight and that all led to intimidation and resulted in the slogans on the wall.  They then took me - the police - to the shooting range - the shooting range.

ADV POTGIETER: Now, where is the shooting range - in town, out  of town?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: About 2 km out of town.

ADV POTGIETER: Is it very silent there - is it a quiet spot?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, it is a very quiet spot.  Only  people there, in the immediate vicinity, would know what's happening.

ADV POTGIETER: So they took you there, in the outskirts of town.  What happened there?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: They took me there - they tied me to a pole.

ADV POTGIETER: With what did they tie you up?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: No, they  chained me, then they got hold of some bags and they've pulled that over my neck - they wetted the bags, pulled it over - and then they tied it close with a rope.  And now I had the situation it's a wet bag - they hit me - I yelled - they yell at me - the people mistreating me like this were Du Toit, Kriel and this Moodie guy. 
This went on - this treatment went on a considerable time - and at some stage I lost my consciousness and they - but they carried on hitting me - assaulting me.  At some stages I was not even experiencing it, I just had this awareness that I was hit by a baton.  Then they would refresh the bag and re-pull it over my head.

ADV POTGIETER: And you are tied up all this time?  Where, your hands and feet?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, both hands and feet - I was tied up.  In the beginning they also shot at me while my face was covered.  I couldn't see whether they were actually doing it, but I heard the shots - I - and I gathered that they were shooting at me.  After regaining my consciousness  I heard a dog - how the dog came there, I don't know.
I don't know whether they've planned this or what happened but I saw them planning to tie my private parts to fish line and they would - they planned to tie this line to the doorknob so that if somebody closes the door, so I would have to move forward and if I would move forward, the dog will bite me.  I don't know what went 
- got into them.  
They must have been crazy and this is what they've planned, but instead of them pulling this through, they decided not to continue with that - they, to the contrary, decided to rather tie me up again and start assaulting me again. I don't know what  made them do that.  They went on for a long time again - up to five o'clock, I think, that afternoon.  
So the time I came back to the cells, we received our food - usually the food were dished out about six o'clock.

ADV POTGIETER: So for the whole day you were at the shooting range?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: For the whole day, from about 10 o'clock - tot - to about 5 o'clock I was at the shooting range.

ADV POTGIETER: Were you assaulted the whole time there at the shooting range?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, that's correct.

ADV POTGIETER: And you had this bag over you all the time there.

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Yes, that's true.

ADV POTGIETER: Did they question you - interrogate you?

ZOMARIUS BOCKS: Well, it was quite simple questions.  They wanted to know about my friends, for instance this teacher that had an influence on me.  They wanted to know whether he was an instigator and whether he caused all the riots  at school and he - he - wanted to know about Gerald - friends like these, what influence they've had on us.  And they wanted to have all this information regarding these people.  They were detained, a lot of them.  They also wanted to know what caused the fire.