Human Rights Violation Hearings — Worcester — 1996-06-24

WENDY ORR: Mr KARIEM can you hear me?

MR KARIEM: Yes.

WENDY ORR: Thank you - thank you for being here today, welcome and thank you for coming to share your story.  You have indicated that you will make an affirmation, so could you stand now while I read the affirmation to you.
SHU-EIB KARIEM Affirms to speak the truth

WENDY ORR: Thank you - advocate Denzil Potgieter will be helping you to tell your story.

ADV POTGIETER: Shu-Eib jy kan daai maar afhaal.

INTERPRETER: Shu-Eib you can take off - we will be able to understand each other in Afrikaans, welcome.

ADV POTGIETER: Please relax, take your time to tell your story.   Your case also goes back all the way to 1985.  We have already from previous victims heard what were the circumstances in Worcester during 1985 and your case concerns your being held by the police,  your arrestation, the way in which you were treated and the consequences thereof.
It actually begins during June 1985 if I understand it correctly, is that the case?   I think what I will do is to ask you in your own time to tell us the entire story from the very first time when the police arrested you and began to question you right through till the very end of your story.  Just tell us everything that happened, is that fine.

MR KARIEM: It was June 1985 the last week of the school holidays.

ADV POTGIETER: Just allow me to interrupt you so that you can maybe tell us some of  your background, were you a student at that time?

MR KARIEM: I was a student - a scholar at the Esselen Park High School and a member of the SRC.

ADV POTGIETER: So you were in matric and it was during June of that year, is that true?

MR KARIEM: Yes that is true.

ADV POTGIETER: What then happened?

ADV POTGIETER: It was the last week of the holiday and my cousin had just been married the previous week.  And at about 1 o'clock the special branch members  Niewoudt  - Lieutenant Niewoudt  - I didn't want to call him Lieutenant but his name was Niewoudt  and then a certain Buys who actually is still a member of the Police Force and he is still a detective until this day here in Worcester.
And what then happened I was in the Mosque and when I left the Mosque I heard that there were people who had come for me at my home, a white man and a Coloured man.  Then we had lunch and left to go to the City because since my cousin had been married the previous week all the various things that they had rented to take care of the wedding, we had to return to the people we had rented them from in the City so we were preparing to return it.
While we were busy preparing for this trip Lieutenant  Niewoudt stopped outside of our home along with this Buys person.   Their approach was to make me an informer for them, they wanted to know what the situation was with regard to the school boycott in the previous year 1984.  They wanted me to get into the back of the car with them and they asked me that question - when they asked me this question I got out of the car and went back into the house.
They sat and talked to each other for about two minutes in the car in front of the house where they were parked and then they knocked at the front door again.  This is Niewoudt and Buys and then they said they were going to get a warrant for my arrest and would then take me into the Sanlam Building which is where they took the late Hennie Ferris, where they tortured him in that very same building.

ADV POTGIETER: Is this where the security police or the special branch offices were?

MR KARIEM: Yes, this is where their head office was, on the top floor, the 5th floor of the Sanlam Building.
Then my cousin said I must go and talk to them, so I talked to them and they asked me all sorts of questions, whether in 1985 there would be another school boycott or not and then I said to them I wouldn't know.  But I was involved in the Cape Youth Organisation at that time as well as the UDF.  And as was mentioned by the first witness today that the UDF came from 1986 but this is not the case because I've got evidence here that already earlier on in 1983 there was a meeting in the Civic Centre where Oscar Mpeta was the Chairperson and he was here himself.

ADV POTGIETER: So you were involved with CACO as well as the UDF and their activities at that time.

MR KARIEM: Yes, that's the case.

ADV POTGIETER: So they wanted to ask you about the school boycott, and then what happened?

MR KARIEM: He then gave me his phone number and then they left.  And just after they left I threw the phone number away there in the stove and what then happened was that the schools opened again.  About a week or two after the schools opened the schools boycotts did begin again, all over the country.  Then we continued with the boycott and during the time of this boycott, I received phone calls from them in which they, the security police harassed me so that was during that time.

ADV POTGIETER: Who phoned you - was it a wide variety of people?

MR KARIEM: I don't know who phoned me, it was a whole lot of people.  On the 18th August 1995 there was then a UDF rally in Worcester that had to do with the launch of the consumer and schools boycotts.
Alan Boesak came and Imam Solomons also came as well as a further speaker, the late Ashley Kriel.  At this mass meeting, the students met together  all the scholars of Worcester and we all met with the late Ashley Kriel.  He then explained to us what the reason is for the boycott and how it should go and so forth and we than began with the boycott on that  Monday.
On the Monday the SRC members of the Sohnge Teachers College then decided -  and it must be taken into account that the Sohnge at that time was at the old buildings in Gray Street.  May I mention someone's name - a person [indistinct]

ADV POTGIETER: Sorry the interpreter could not hear the name.