Amnesty Hearings — Port Elizabeth — 1997-09-08

MR JACK DEMONSTRATES: I'm going to read from an affidavit which was the basis for the civil claims which the applicant have referred to in his evidence and I presume he has read it carefully and they're settled on the basis of the information that is in this document.
	Among other things it does, referring to the assault in question, they refer to my arrest at a friend's house on the 2nd of August, which was a Friday.
"At approximately 11:30 am and the people who arrested me there, I know their names very well. Capt Van Zyl was drafted into the Eastern Cape in the early 1980s to come and assist to deal with the troublesome activists.  He was from Koevoet in Namibia - according to his own admission to myself - and a Capt Sakkie du Plessis and a team of security policemen which included Black policemen.
		I was taken to the Campsteen Road Police Station, commonly known as Barry's Corner.  I was locked alone in a cell and only later taken out to an office where my name and other particulars were taken down by two black security policemen, known to me as Jean and Serg Tonkata. That is the younger brother."
Sorry -
"This Tonkata is the younger brother of Serg Tonkata.
		The following morning I was picked up on the 3rd of April by two security policemen.  One of them was Deon Nieuwoudt, who was a warrant-officer at the time and a policeman called Bezuidenhout, who I know very well and I can locate him, even now if I have to go and look for him.
		I know Deon Nieuwoudt since 1979.  He picked me up whilst I was writing exams.  The Black policemen he was with, was Mkodoka and Metselo."
Mkodoka died recently in a bomb blast - a few years ago.  
"On that occasion, Deon Nieuwoudt gave me four choices which I could take in my life.  That was either to work for him, quit the country, go to Robben Island or face death.
		That was very clear and he explained to me each of those choices what they meant.
		The other one was that the emphasis of his advice for me was that if I were to stay out of politics, I would never see him again, but if I intend to be in politics, I must accept my life will be hell.
		He sticked to that right through from that time until 1986, the last time he tortured me.
		They took me to Louis Le Grange Square.
That is Deon Nieuwoudt and Bezuidenhout -
"When we arrived there, he took me to an office where there was Warrant-Officer Coetzee, who I know very well also.
		It was a Saturday.  He was with his small boy, which is one of the things which make me feel sad about that day on every time when I think about it;  that he has brought his boy;  I could imagine. I have a boy today.  It must have gone to the shop to do something for him, but the boy had to wait in a room next door, whilst he was busy preparing me as he said; `ons het jou gekry en vandag ons sal al die politiek uit jou kop slaan.  Jy wil mos nie hoor nie.' (Today we got you and today we will hit all the politics out of your head, because you will not listen.)
		He took out a towel and tied it nicely around each of my wrists and placed the hand-cuffs over the towelling.  He screwed the hand-cuffs tight.  I was told to sit on the floor and place my hand-cuffed arms over my legs.  A stick was then inserted below my knees and above my forearms, locking me into a permanent crouch.
		Nieuwoudt entered the room."
 That is the document he was showing here, as having arrested me on the 3rd.  It is the document on that day, he wrote, sitting there and taking the particulars and he knew exactly who arrested me, because that's the question he was asking to me as he was sitting on a table there.  Who arrested you, which he knew anyway, which  I repeated.  He wanted to make sure whether I knew those people or not.
I find it absolutely strange today that he doesn't know who arrested me.  
"Nieuwoudt entered the room.  Assistant Coetzee pushed the stick through.  Both men then lifted me up by means of the stick and suspended me between two tables.  This form of torture is what is known as a helicopter and not only me alone who was subjected to this.  About 60 other applicants who were the basis of the civil claim he talks about, were subjected to that.  On 80 per cent of them, he was involved. Apart from being ..."
I'm not going to go into the discomfort, because everybody knows what this thing is about -
"Coetzee sat at one of the tables with documents which I assumed were papers relating to my file.  He was putting questions.
		At some stage, Serg Diaan, who is also dead now, Lieut Strydom, Warrant-Officer Nieuwoudt and Basil came into the office again, as they were doing this up and down, whilst Warrant-Officer Coetzee was putting the questions to me.
		Bezuidenhout and Nieuwoudt took me off the two tables and removed the stick between my legs and replaced it with what looked like a thick broom stick.  They questioned me about the speech I made in Cape Town where I addressed a University and I referred to the Port Elizabeth security policemen as worse than the Gestapo.
		This thing was put the question to me;  did I say that. I denied that, I said I never said that.
		Coetzee at that time asked me what business it was of Molly Blackburne to value herself with Blacks and my organisation in particular.  When I replied that Mrs Blackburne understands the hardships that Blacks suffered, Nieuwoudt stopped writing and took up the sjambok, hitting me several times, shouting `you lie'. 
		All Mrs Blackburne wants is a violent overthrow of the state and one man one vote.  I was thereafter taken to Algoa Park Police Station by Nieuwoudt ..."
And I find it strange that he doesn't remember this, because he was bragging about how he has assaulted all the other people, the likes of Alexgala and Pume Odolo and all that.
	Nieuwoudt in his life, has never, as far as I'm concerned, he's not a talkative person who likes to talk nonsense.  He will never commit himself and make statements about things he is not involved in.  His record, as far as I know him, has never involved that kind of thing.  He will never say that I have done that as he said.  He will ask what happened to Hashe, what I've been to that?
	I knew and all my friends, we know, that Nieuwoudt knows what he talks about.  We know him to be a man that was dedicated and know his job very well and he has demonstrated that in this house today;  that he knows his job.
On the way there he warned me not to lay any complaints of assault against the police."
 This is the important point -
"He said that if I did, that I would disappear like Godoloze, Hashe and Galela or that my body would be found, burned to death like Goniwe and others.
		These communist leaders has disappeared or had been killed in strange circumstances.  That was frightening to me."
The date of the 12th he refers to, is perfectly correct.  	It is correct in that he did call me in that day.  What he did, was to tell me - to ask me, didn't you tell me when we drove to Algoa Park Police Station that I cannot lay charges against police and that is what - and on that day, let me tell you, I was jelly - like you wouldn't have - my whole body was still as hard and sore as it was when he took me to - when I was taken to St Albans by riot police, not by him.
"I was taken by the riot police to St Alpines prison.  He left me at Algoa Park and I was taken from Algoa Park to St Albans.
		I think what caused all this problem was the fact that there was a Col Paulsen ..."
I hope I got it right -
" ... who came to visit me in court and I was the only detainee at the time who had the privilege of getting this high profile visit from this colonel. This colonel was supposed to come and find out about my situation after my then employer, Daz Chalmas, have asked the then PFP member of Parliament, Malcomess, to enquire as to how is my situation in jail.	I told the colonel that I was assaulted and I do want to lay charges against Deon Nieuwoudt, but I wouldn't do it whilst I was there in prison. He said I must sign something to that effect.  That's what made Deon Nieuwoudt extremely happy when I told him that's what actually transpired in the meeting between me and this Col Paulsen.
		He was a proud man.  He took me to Coetzee's office and told Coetzee that I had not laid a charge against them.  Coetzee spoke to me and said that they were just angry on the day I was assaulted;  that I should not take the incident seriously.
		Coetzee said it was right in not laying a charge against them, but wanted to know how it had become known that I had been assaulted.  I told him that I had been with detainees who have since been released and that these ex-detainees might have spread the word, because I could never say that I have made plans to make together information outside the prison, because that would have invited some extra punishment.
So that is that side of things.  I find it extremely strange that Deon Nieuwoudt had, he says he had a team of 10 people who were working with him.  Now he had 10 and about 10 Whites and 10 others, Blacks and all that.  I presume, informers are included into that, I don't know.
	But I want to bring him back to 1979 when he, Nieuwoudt, Roelofse and Tongkata and Mselo terrorised me on that evening at Sanlam Building.  I presume as far as he know, I was never in Sanlam building.
	What they did there, they tortured me with - when they did this thing first to me, this thing of this putting a electrocuting - electrocutes, putting them on my fingers.
"Nieuwoudt used the others.  I don't know for what reason.  Roelofse would turn off the light and go outside, but Nieuwoudt would do it with the light on when he was there himself.
	What the significance is of doing it and standing outside when it's being done on me, I don't know.  It's still a mystery to me, but it looks to me like it's always been Roelofse's idea that maybe he plays the smart guy that was not involved in assaulting people.
	Whilst jumping and jumping and trying to show the gaps in what he's been trying to talk about, looking at the 1922 incident - sorry, 1984, on the 22nd of January.  He doesn't know where this took place now, but he was there in charge on that day when he claims that I intimidated people, which I deny.  There's nothing like that.  I never intimidated anybody.  He laid charges, alleged that I intimidated people and it was proven in his own courts that that was a lie and that was nonsense.
	The important thing about this day that we are raising on this matter, is the fact that they took me - he took me into his car from Ahoza.  I think it's Ivan Peter there in next to the Limbo Church to New Brighton Police Station.  There a Major or Col Du Plessis is today, whatever his title is, I know him very well the person I'm talking about;  he put me down.
	What he likes to do is this, his Honour.  I'll show you.  He would take his victim ...