Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-21

UNKNOWN: Firstly I would like to make a point about the prisoners in Robben Island.  I happened to be one person who enjoyed both sides of that prison.  I was amongst the first ten MK members on Robben Island so most of the MK people who were there were my guests in my Republic.
 I want to say that whilst we are going to talk about the human rights violations it would be unfair to the men I was with on that Island to portray them as just simple victims who passively accepted human rights violations.  I can safely say for most of us who were there it was the continuation of the struggle.  I can also say that a great deal of the penal reforms that took place in this country were as a result of the sacrifices of the men who were at Robben Island.
 I remember when Neville Nfigile ... and I were communicating to them and I said, here we have men sitting and see each other grow.  That was the impression you got when you got into that prison.   The other thing that I also want to put on record about the prison is the role that the politicians played in that prison.  In other words, whether we were PAC or whether we were ANC, we believed that the struggle continues, we believed that we must have an underground organisation in that prison because I was taught by Govern that wherever I am there must be an ANC branch, therefore when I got to the Island I made sure that I gave them the structures of the African National Congress.
 It was necessary for the purpose of us being able to meet the difficulties that we had because if we didn't do that we would have become just individuals and as individuals we would have been weaker and suffered greater.  I think the fact that we organised ourselves was an important aspect to be able to meet the problems of the situation.
 I was arrested from Fort Hare, I remember I actually was not allowed to be a member of MK by the leadership but I just found myself being a member.  Govern had said I should have nothing to do with that organisation but it was difficult not to be part of an organisation that believed that we must do something to change the situation that was killing our people, both psychologically and physically.
 So in spite of the fact that I was a lecturer in the Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics, I happened to also be amongst the first two Blacks to study Applied Mathematics Honours at Wits.  I was part of Umkonto weZizwe and at first I was asked to just form units of Umkonto weZizwe by the late Minnie, Umkaba and Keingo but then I realised that you cannot tell people to sacrifice their lives without showing them how to do it.  That is how I also became active as a Commander of that region.
 Robben Island was a place where apartheid like in all prisons, was carried out.  Before we talk about the day to day human rights violations of individual prison warders, the mere fact that you were Black your clothing was different as if the weather treated you differently.  Your food was different as if you became hungry in a different way.  It was not a mistake that the situation in that place was like that.  I remember the nicest piece of bread that I ate after two years of not eating bread was when I went for a further charge and my wife bought me brown bread and vienna sausages, I just dealt with the brown bread and I forgot about the sausages for the time being.  The food was a problem because you were with comrades, in fact I think it was even more painful for people like Kacy and Lalo who as comrades found that they could actually eat bread.  Even the amount of sugar in your porridge when I was still in the main section, was different.  The Black got a teaspoon and the others possibly got two teaspoons.  The meat was half of that which the others got so it was institutionalized.
 When we wanted to, we were not allowed to even read the Bible by people who very, very serious about being a Christian state so again we had to battle so that we could read.  Fortunately after a time we were allowed to study and again our spirit of improving, we broke all the rights of Colleges, we used lectures of various colleges to teach people even without the permission of the authorities.
 The actual human rights violations amongst the human rights violations that we had was basically the humiliation.  You know you would wake up in the morning, they come to your cell, the main section before I went to join the other people in the civil cells before the new prison was built, whilst we were in the D Group section because that prison was actually an ultra-maximum security prison.  There are only two of them, Barbeton and Robben Island.  That place was actually regarded as a place for the worst criminals and amongst the worst criminals were ourselves.  
 If you were arrested for murder or any other crime and it was your first offence, you'd be put into B Group and that gave you a lot of privileges but if you were a political prisoner you would then be put into a D Group.  Being a D Group meant at the time you received one letter in six months and wrote one letter in six months.  Being a D Group meant you could only get on visit of thirty minutes in six months.  Those were the type of things that you got.  I never reached the A Group, I continued to be D Group for half of my sentence then I became a C Group for a short time and when I was about to become a B Group, I was demoted from B to D again.
 One of the reasons why I was demoted was that at one time I got out of my cell and found two old men being harangued by a young boy because I found Madiba and Uncle Walter, they were asking this young chap why is our food brought so late,  it's going to be cold and I heard him say they think like six year olds.  I don't like young people who don't have respect so I tendered to say to him, you know you are a six year old and that was a very serious matter.  Oucamp was there, I always had the misfortune of having Oucamp around whenever I did something wrong and when I got there they reported that I had to be made a D Group and that meant I lost the right to study.
 Now these people, you'd come out of the cell and they'd search you, you'd look at them in the face and they'd say Polko because everybody was Polko, Polko hoe kyk jy jong?  (what are you looking at?) and then we'd have to turn and if you didn't turn they'd beat you up with a baton or even a truncheon, maybe they were shy to look us in the face and didn't know why but they didn't like it, they'd hit you for that.
 From there you'd go to get your food which was lots of porridge which they probably dished out some time ago, maybe at four o'clock or six o'clock and it was nice and cold.  They'd encourage you to get your mugs with kicks and batons.  That was normal, you didn't regard that as something of violation of human rights, that was part of the life that you had in that place.
 Where things really went wrong was in the workplace.  I remember we had to just do hard labour and during my life there I worked in two quarries, I worked at the Landbouspan (Agricultural Team) and I worked at a job that I didn't like, taking out seaweed because sometimes that stuff was rotten, so I preferred pushing the wheelbarrow which was supposed to be one of the ways of torturing us.  If you had been busy writing with chalk and pencils, a wheelbarrow can be a very interesting instrument but ... that wheelbarrow has a steel wheel and it's rickety and somebody fills it up, at one time the Kernels brothers we were coming to the team and said to the people, those that have got licenses could they come one side,  all the chaps were very happy as they were going to drive trucks and things but they found themselves pushing those wheelbarrows and we used to call some of them "the break my heart".  It was a very, very painful thing.  You would find that in no time you have blisters on your hands and ... they would say, look at them, look at them they think they will govern the land.  They had a very great sense of humour.  
 I think Johnson will remember when they dug a hole for him in the Landbouspan (Agricultural Team),  they covered him and when it became a little bit hot, he wanted water so they just pissed in his face and they said look at them, they were very, very, amused because that is how they amused themselves.
 The one time there was a PAC chap who had just come to prison and was in the Landbouspan (Agricultural Team) and he knew, he answered back and then the Kernels brothers started beating him.  Unfortunately they have been brought up in ... I don't like people who beat others just for fun so I got angry and I told them no, no you can't do that and they said, oh teacher you are a very smart teacher aren't you so they went and they filled the hundred pound bag of mieliemeal, you know the container, they filled it with sand and then chaps took it and put it on my back.   
 Fortunately at that that time I was not as old as I am,  I was still a bit tough so I went carrying this thing and they called a young prisoner, a criminal prisoner who came from Vosbank, Aubrey,  they asked him to trip me and he did exactly that, he tripped me from behind but fortunately having been a sports person when I realised that I was falling, I broke the fall.  Unfortunately you can't break a fall properly with more that three hundred pounds of weight on you.  The aim was to have the bag land on my neck so I did this, I did land that side.  As a result I hurt my left arm, my shoulder.  
 I then continued to work and I reported the matter because when I got to the hospital Chief Warden Nel said, what is your problem teacher and I said look at my arm I can't use it and he said don't worry Polkos don't get ill.  After a time this hand deteriorated and I couldn't pick up anything, it started getting cold so they took me to Somerset Hospital.  I only went there for one day.  Unfortunately people got interested in me and somebody wanted to buy me a cup of coffee and when I came back they said no, you are not going back.  They treated me with ultra violet rays and I also exercised because I didn't like to be an invalid in jail.  
 I recovered,  I was discharged and I went to the team again.  As we got there I took my wheelbarrow because I had become a professional wheelbarrow pusher so I got in but I hadn't taken off my cap so they said caps off, take your caps off but I couldn't do two things, I mean you can't hold a wheelbarrow with one hand.  Just when I was going there Kernels came and said, yes teacher you are being hard assed again so I said to him, how did you expect me to take off my cap when I was falling in.  
 Then the ... came Piet, he pointed  a gun at me and started beating me, ... started beating me.  For me it was a very, very difficult thing, I'm not used to people beating me and I don't fight back but I had to endure that so they beat me up.  I don't think I would have recognized myself when I left there, I was bleeding through the eyes, bleeding through the nose, bleeding through the mouth, I was nice and rotund and I went back into hospital for the next six weeks.  I'm wearing spectacles presently because I think from that time they tampered with my lenses as I became short-sighted.
 I came out of that one and went back to where I formerly worked, the team.  We were trying to build a dike on the North Western Quarry.  I never knew that you could actually build a dike without cement and stop the water.  We just used to put sand and whatnot but you see the Kernels brothers, they had a great sense of humour.  Evert again says no, no those people are not working hard enough, now we had been pushing wheelbarrows up and down but he says it's not enough and puts two wheelbarrows here.  When you come they've already loaded so you can't rest and when you come back he wants you to run and you find this one is loaded.  
 I looked and this thing and I say to myself, I still have thirteen years to do no, no.  I then said to Evert, look here I'm no longer working, I gave in my card so they took me to isolation and locked me up.  I spent a day there and the following day they took me back to work.  They did the same thing for about nine days ... (interrupted)