Special Hearings — Conscription Hearings — 1997-07-23

MR STEELE: Good morning Commissioners, members of the media and members of the public.
 On the 25th of February 1980 I was sentenced by a military court in Pretoria to 12 months in military prison for refusing to be conscripted into the SADF. Although that day was scary because I knew that by nightfall I would be in prison, it was also one of the most powerful days in my life.  On that day I publicly and practically said no to the whole system of apartheid and military conscription, both of which were anathema to my principles.  
 I can say that today the 23rd of July 1997 is one of the most powerful days of my life as well when I have the opportunity to publicly celebrate my survival through that year in prison, and to say yes to a society based on truth and reconciliation. 
 I have made a written submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission regarding the details of my experience as a conscientious objector to the SADF and as an End Conscription Campaign activist. That submission and the related appendices containing newspaper articles, etc is now part of the record.  In my oral submission today I would like to reflect more personally on the significance of my stand as a conscientious objector and on the experience of preparing this submission.  
 My stand as a conscientious objector was not restricted to that one year in prison in 1980.   I'd been building up to it since 1976 when, during my first year as a student at the University of Cape Town, I realised that the apartheid state was using conscripts to put down internal civil protest and would expect me to do the same once I had been conscripted.  My stand carried on through the 1980's and early 1990's when it took the form of being a peace worker and non-violence trainer employed by the National Fellowship of Reconciliation in South Africa and as an End Conscription Campaign activist.
 In 1993 I made a change and went back to fulltime study.  I'm currently in my fifth year of study of homeopathic medicine at Technikontal Durban. But for 17 years, from 1976 until 1993, I was directly engaged in the socio-political sphere resisting apartheid and militarism and promoting peace and justice. 
 Preparing this submission has provided me with an opportunity to look at those 17 years as a whole, make sense of them and integrate them and the energy they represent into my present lifecycle. I'm happy too that in making this submission, I've been able to contribute to the documentation of the history of our country and in particular the history of the liberation struggle.
Thus being here today and making this oral submission is very symbolic for me personally because it represents the culmination of a particular chapter of my life. 
 When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began it's work I considered making a submission for the sake of the record but was daunted by the prospect of sifting through all my papers from those years and being faced with painful memories. However, when I heard that there would be a special hearing on conscription, I decided to make the effort. True, I felt pain as I re-read some to the letters I had written, and as I read diary entries from the diary I kept while in prison, but I have also been re-energised, I can see that what I did and many hundreds and thousands of other South Africans were doing then and continued to do was very powerful. We refused to be defined by the socialisations and expectations of apartheid South Africa, but decided to think for ourselves and to start living according to human right's principles. 
 We also sought to obstruct and weaken the apartheid government in every way we could in order to bring about a society based on human rights principles and we have been successful.
 Our work now is to deepen and broaden the awareness and practice of those principles in every day life amongst all South Africans so that future generations do not have to go through what we did and do not have to make the sacrifices we had to.
 Going through my papers and looking back on my year in prison, I was struck by several experiences which I'd like to share with you today. 
 My court martial was held in Voortrekker Hoogte in Pretoria on the 25th of February 1980.  I was charged with failing to report without good reason.  Needless to say I pleaded not guilty because I believed I had very good reasons for not reporting.  I'd like to read just two of the main points from the statement I made in my defence on that day.
"My refusal to do military service arises out of a more deep-rooted refusal to consciously participate in any form of violence, be it physical, psychological or structural.  I believe that the way of violence and destruction is antithetical to the Christ-like way of love and healing.  I believe that central to my being a peacemaker is the pursuit of justice.  I view the SADF as being a major pillar of a fundamentally unjust political, social and economic system. By cooperating with the military I would be representing and perpetuating those injustices and I am unwilling to do so."
 Indeed I was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in military prison, six months of which was suspended for three years.  Despite all my intellectual and spiritual preparation, it was still a great shock to actually arrive at Voortrekker Hoogte detention barracks and be checked in, hearing the heavy metal door clanging shut behind me.  This was now the real thing. 
 On arrival at the detention barracks I was ordered to wear the military prison uniform.  I refused.  I was immediately charged with failing to obey a lawful military command.  Within days I was tried at a summary court martial and sentenced to 10 days in solitary confinement. When I arrived at my cell in the solitary confinement block, I discovered that there was huge bloodstain on the floor and found out that the previous occupant had tried to commit suicide, just picking up from the previous submission, and in fact while I was that period of solitary confinement two other prisoners were admitted to solitary confinement and one of them tried to commit suicide at the time.  
I actually managed to smuggle some paper in on that occasion of being in solitary confinement and I kept a diary of those days and I'd just like to read to you the excerpt from that particular day just as some reality about that experience.
 As an illustration, what was the date, March the 4th 1980.
"As an illustration of the effects of this place there has just been a mighty crash in the cell next door accompanied by a string of screamed swear words directed at the authorities in this place. The crash was the breakfast steel pans being hurled against the door of the cell. Botas, the chap in with Kevin, these two chaps had exposed some corruption in the prison context and were being held in solitary confinement supposedly for their own protection, has been threatening to go mad for the last two days. It is a desperate situation, you can yell your head off for a corporal in this place and they can choose to disregard you as is the case right now. And I feel so sick and helpless because I can understand why the guy is going barmy and know that I could help him if given the chance. He and Kevin are being treated so unfairly because they were promised that they would be moved to another detention barracks but instead have been incarcerated in this tiny cell, two of them for three days now. They are now breaking the windowpanes in the window, another crash of the tin plates. When people are treated like sub-humans they can very soon behave like them too. Oh Lord what a situation. All I can do is pray and speak words of peace through the peep-hole in my door. And we haven't even been let out yet to empty our chamber pots, wash and replenish our water supply. Screams, Botas has just cut his wrists, he says it is the only thing that will attract attention and get him out of there. God please."
And I make another entry after supper. 
"Botas did not actually cut his wrists, he tried but Kevin stopped him, he has been very calm for the rest of the day."
 By the way when I came out of that period of solitary confinement I made a statement of complaint about my whole experience in solitary confinement but also about this incident.  I also complained about the unhygienic conditions in the cell including the bloodstain on the floor and I sent a copy to the Chaplain's office, the medical doctor's office and the commanding officer. They painted out the cells within a week and they were much cleaner. So standing up for one's rights, we can do that in any place. I was fortunate perhaps that they heard me in that instance, but at any rate that was some of the reality.
 Turning to solitary confinement the maximum sentence was 14 days and there had to be at least 48 hours between periods. I served two other periods of 14 days each before I was transferred to Bloemfontein. In general I refused to obey any military orders or  engage in any military activity such as standing at attention, saluting, marching, etc. The only work I was prepared to do was in the gardens.  One order I could refuse without being charged was to cut off my beard.  Having studied detention barracks rules before going in I knew that you could not grow a beard in detention barracks but if you entered detention barracks with a beard you could keep it. So they cut my long hair short but my beard grew long, much to the authorities' intense annoyance. I eventually shaved it off as an act of good will after I had been granted de facto conscientious objector status in August.
 During the three months that I was in prison at Voortrekker Hoogte I greatly valued the support I received from Peter Moll whose submission you heard earlier.  He was already in the detention barracks when I arrived, having been sentenced in December of 1979.  Pete and I are first cousins, his mother and my mother are sisters and we were at university together the previous four years.  I also felt tremendous support from most of the other prisoners and there were about 360 prisoners in the Voortrekker Hoogte detention barracks, many of whom were in fact mini-conscientious objectors in the sense that they were imprisoned for going absent without leave or for insubordination. They thought Pete and I were heroic for resisting pressure from the officers in the detention barracks and standing up against the SADF in general.
 On May 2 I was moved from Voortrekker Hoogte to Tempe detention barracks in Bloemfontein.  I think the main reason for this was to separate Peter and I, not only because we were supporting one another but our combined presence in the prison was too unsettling to the authorities.
 Tempe detention barracks was smaller physically and population wise and generally was not as harsh.  Inmates had been warned not to speak to me and ordered to shun me when I arrived but very soon this broke down and once again I felt a great solidarity with them. At Tempe I was sentenced three times for refusing to wear the uniform but punishment was suspended at my seventh summary trial in July pending the outcome of an internal SADF inquiry headed by the Chaplain General Major General van Zyl into the status of Peter Moll and I. 
 On the 8th of August the Commission of Inquiry ruled that Peter and I would from then be treated as de facto conscientious objectors. This was a great relief to us, our families and supporters and a great victory for the conscientious objector movement.  
 I was never subjected to physical abuse while in detention barracks although I regard solitary confinement as psychological abuse and a form of torture.  In this regard I'd like to read extracts from a statement submitted by me to my seventh summary court martial on the 9th of July where I argue that solitary confinement is a form of torture and enumerate to the court some of the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of my experience in solitary confinement.
Firstly, punishment is usually meted out...(intervention)