Human Rights Violation Hearings — Newcastle — 1996-09-12

WITNESS:   At home, late at night.  We were asleep.  We were asleep.  It was late at night, though it was before 12 o'clock.  We saw a light, a bright light.  I think seven cars were in my yard.  A lot of police were there.  Sergeant van Huyssteen and Sergeant Gama were there from Newcastle.  When they arrested me in front of my children they went right inside my bedroom while I was sleeping with my husband.  They said to me I mustn't move.  They started searching my house.  Me and my husband we were in my bedroom.  It was cold because that year it was real cold.  After they were satisfied searching my house they even took my novels.  Up until today they didn't bring them back.  They told my husband that they were arresting me.  My husband said, "If you're taking my wife she must take the child, because she is still breast-feeding."  My child was one and a half years, and I knew it was my last-born.  And usually when I was going to Durban for meetings I never used to take her along, so my husband said I must take my child with me.  The child was crying.  Van Huyssteen left my house and he was talking on a radio with other police from Newcastle Police Station, asking them if they are allowing me to come with my child.  He came back in the dining-room.  My house was full of police.  I can't even tell how many there were.  There were also policewomen.  Van Huyssteen came inside and said they don't allow children who are above six months.  My husband asked them, "How long are you going to arrest my wife?"  Sergeant Gama told my husband that he won't tell how many.  They handcuffed me.  I couldn't even move.  It was painful, and it was also cold.  One of my childs put a blanket over my shoulder.  They handcuffed my hands very tight.  They took me behind the van.  I couldn't balance because my hands were handcuffed.  We drove up until Newcastle Police Station.  I didn't even know Newcastle that well.  They took fingerprints.  They made me to stand for the whole night.  I think it was in an office.  The next morning they took me to a cell.  It was filthy and there was nothing I could do.  I was never given any food.  I had a headache.  There was no tea.  I wanted tea because I am used to drinking tea.  The next day it was on Thursday.  That's when they gave me food.  After two days, if I am not mistaken, I was taken to a certain floor.  That's when they started interrogating me, asking me who I was, what my position was, and what were we doing at Sibongile township.  I couldn't hide anything.  I told them the truth that we wanted decent place to stay, because they used to raise rent and they used to promise us they were going to do this and this, but nothing ever happened.  So I told them the truth.  On a certain day during the same week which they arrested me van Huyssteen used to interrogate me and harass me.  I think he hated me.  Even today if I can meet him I would like to ask him why he hated me that much.  He told me that I will die like Mr Mxenge, Victoria Mxenge's husband.  So I asked him, "Do you know how he died?"   After two days after he told me that I had a stomach ache, and I started having a running stomach.  I went to see Dr Wait and we also embarked on a hunger strike because it was difficult in those cells.  And my tummy was still terrible painful, and the treatment that I received from Dr Wait I took it with me to Utrecht Prison.  It looked like an old yard belonged to a white man.  I had pains on my throat because I wasn't talking to anyone.  One child was brought to accompany me there.  I stayed at Utrecht Prison.  I persevered because I knew that I could die any time.  In 1986, when they allowed people to come and visit us, my husband came with police from Utrecht.  He was there listening to us as we were talking and checking the time.  My husband realised that I was filthy.  He cried when he realised that I was filthy.  That's when he started bringing clothes for me to change.  They would allow us only 15 minutes and once a month.  As time goes on relatives and families were allowed now to come and visit us.  I made an application to a Judge that I was old, and I was - I am a mother.  If they can release me what bad can I do outside?  Because all my life I knew that a prison is a place for criminals.  I didn't know that me, being a non-criminal, I will end up in prison.  I never killed, I never stole anything.  I wanted him to tell me what actually wrong I did.  My application went through.  In 1986 I was told that my application went to Bloemfontein.  I stayed there.  In 1987, I think it was between January or February, my mother-in-law passed away.  I wasn't told.  I was in prison, and I didn't know why I was in prison.  When my mother-in-law died I asked how come are the SB or the Security Branch telling me at that manner?  When they arrived there two of them, Sergeant Gama, the other one I have forgotten his name, but both of them were black.  They took me to the funeral.  After the funeral they took me back to prison.  After the funeral they told me that my ring had disappeared.  I would like to go back a little bit and clarify something.  When they take you in prison they take everything, your belongings.  They take your rings, your jacket, buttons, pins.  They take everything -belts.  From me they took my earrings.  They took my earrings, my ID, my wedding ring, my pin which I had pinned my jacket.  My wedding ring, of all the things that they kept there it was the only thing that was missing.  I asked to see Mr Alison, Warrant-Officer Alison, and then he was surprised when I told him that it's missing.  So he said - he asked me if I was sure.  I told him yes, I was.  Warrant Alison told me I must make a statement, which I did.  He told me my lawyers will take one statement and he'll have one, and Sergeant de Kock will have one as well.  Up until today my wedding ring never came back to me, and I was never told about it, and I can tell you it was a nine carat ring.  The harassment which I received, and my losing the ring, made me to quarrel with Mrs Botha.  What makes me so sad is that I meet her sometimes at Dundee.  She is staying at an old age home somewhere in Dundee, and what makes me so sad is that I know she knows my ring.  Her daughter was Sergeant Starrett's(?) wife.  These are the people who were looking after me.  That is the daughter as well as the mother.  They know where my wedding ring is, but because it was that time they have never revealed the whereabouts of my ring.  According to them they just took a wedding ring from an animal, but according to them animals are far better than us.  I want to know where my wedding ring is.  I am staying in Utrecht now, and white people were in good terms and they were supporting each other in oppressing us, and I was transferred from Utrecht because I had already opened a  case with regard to the loss of my ring.  We were taken to Newcastle in 1987.  I stayed in Newcastle Prison, and there was also torture and harassment there.  They never allowed me to buy Vaseline at some times, because it was winter at that time and they told us that we were not allowed to have Vaseline Blue Seal in the prison.  At times they would not allow my husband to bring me any food.  There was a lot of torture, a lot of torment.  I stayed in Newcastle in 1987, up until the end of 1987.  Then at the beginning of 1988, I think it was in March, my application came back from Vlok, in which I had asked him to detail to me as to what I had done wrong.  And then Mxenge attorneys were handling my case.  They kept on postponing the matter up until September in 1988, and by then it had been transferred to 'Maritzburg at College Road.  In October 1988 they were forced to release me because they had not formally charged me.  The torture, the harassment, and the trauma that I went through in Newcastle was just tremendous.  At some stage I had a cracked tooth and they wanted to extract it.  And we had a fight about that because I did not want to have my tooth extracted, and they were forcing issues that I should extract my tooth, and I wanted them to be filled in, I did not want to extract my teeth.  I was tortured, I was harassed under the state of emergency.  As I am having seven children the eldest one decided that he should not go back to school, and after I had been released he decided that he would go to school.  And that is a problem even now, because Lewis dismissed me and they never gave me my blue card.  And I could not go and get my blue card, because when I was released I was put under house arrest.  And my father-in-law died in 1989 October.  I still had