Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietersburg — 1996-07-18

MR MALAN: Excuse me Mr Baloyi, we know each other, we've met before, we have limited time, all the witnesses are of equal importance.  You have been at that microphone now for 35 minutes, we've allocated only 30 minutes to each individual, we have another nine minutes to lunch.  We would not like to stop you or interrupt you, but you'll have to decide what is important.  We're going to finish your evidence by one o'clock.  We have a long written statement, you deal with both 1961 and 1965, you deal with the contents of the torture, we're giving you the opportunity to say that here orally to the whole world and the whole nation, but you will have to concentrate on what is important, because when the time is up at one o'clock you will have lost the opportunity to get to what we believe are the important things that we want you to share with us. So I'm asking you very friendly again, we would also have some questions, if you could try now to be crisp, we have the background, we've read all the documents, the people have heard the political events rising up to this, so that you allow us still to ask you some questions, because we have questions in our minds, but then you will have to finish your evidence so that we still have another five minutes or so for questions, so that we can then afford the other witnesses, after lunch to continue with their evidence.  We cannot continue on this basis.  So please, it's a very friendly request, but a very sincere and firm request.  Stay now with the torture, explain it, do it briefly so that everybody can hear and can understand and that we can continue with our program.  Please, do we understand each other?

EDDIE BALOYI: Thank you. My torturing up here in this way is that there was a certain hatred that I am an influenza to the other prisoners who were not involved in politics following the action of the Congress so that Langeveld hit me with a baton first on my neck.  I fell down as I said before.  And the second was Mnr Gouws, the one in charge of the span who hit me with a pick handle and I also become hopeless, I didn't wake up for a moment.  He said, "Staan op!", he hauled me with his hands and said, "Ek sL vang die krywas!", and I hesitated, I had no power, and the dogs were behind me.  Even black warders were hitting me.  I don't know how many of them, whom I saw a lot was Moses, the warder in Baviaanspoort, Moses, he's the one who laid a heavy blow on me, on my ribs and I had another punch on my left ear, that also made me dizzy.  They took me, they pulled me, they put me on a wheelbarrow, I didn't know where they brought me, because I was unconscious at that time. And there was an iron rod that I felt something heavy on my body, all over my body I was beaten by an iron rod.
 Now I felt something on my knee, very penetrating, very painful, and I felt something again below my heart, penetrating very painfully, of which I've got a mark that I can still show, and I was unconscious.
 As I heard, a fellow prisoner who was my closest friend, we were together almost every day, he told me that he saw that they were conveying me with a wheelbarrow to a compost hole and they put me in that hole and covered me with grass. It was the time when the span must knock off at four o'clock.  Now I did not see or feel anything that had happened, he told me that. He said we were about seven hundred prisoners and when they go they say, "Nee laat ons loop, die span is reg", and Dululu said no one of our fellow prisoners is not here, they asked who and he said,"Eddie Baloyi".  They said, "Nee jy praat nonsense man, laat die span loop!".  In order that these people want to collect me in that hole that if they come to check up the span and they finish there in prison they must back and shoot me in that hole, because I was a problem in prison. But for your information Dululu refused to go until Eddie Baloyi came too. And then the span did not go to prison, they waited until they found me.  But during that time I was unconscious and they took me to prison unconscious and they took me to hospital.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Baloyi, you will forgive me, we accept your story, we'll see what to do.

EDDIE BALOYI: One other thing...(intervention)

THOMAS MANTHATA: No we are through Mr Baloyi, we are through.  Just stand up.  We'll adjourn now for lunch.  We'll come back at 2 o'clock.  We'll ask all those that have ear sets and receivers, to leave them where they were sitting. You don't have to hand them over, thank you.
HEARING ADJOURNS.