Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-22

HAROLD STRACHAN: Oh yes, yes.  I mean they in court completely reconstructed the whole prison system in South Africa including some buildings that don't exist and so forth you know.
 And they presented the place as a joy to live in and I mean actually the Prisons' Regulation of those days, if you look at them, you know, they would bring a tear to the eye.  I mean they are so beauteous, they are strictly in terms with the United Nations specifications, you know.
 And that wasn't the problem.  The problem was that they just ignored them.  And if you asked for a copy of the Regulations, you lost your meals.  You got rice water.  I mean it, and you don't get the rice water to alleviate the suffering of a hunger in any way, you get the rice water, a table spoon full, morning and evening, boiled in a litre of water with no salt and you've got to take that, because that stops your stomach shrinking and not asking for any more food.
 It just keeps you nice and hungry you see and it is urgent to stop feeling hungry after the second day.  On one occasion, I mean, I remember and this is what solitary is about you know, after about month two of solitary confinement, there was a sound at my little ventilator there with a steel mesh on it you know, one centimetre steel mesh, "my naam is Violet", write a letter for Braam Fischer down the way here.  Braam Fischer is here, he wants you to write him a letter, pushes through a stub of pencil and a rolled up piece of toilet paper.
 I said, go on, bugger off man, you know, but he came every day in the afternoon.  I don't know what happens to your mind.  And eventually I took it and I wrote on it "hello Braam, hou koos en hou kop".  I gave it back and there I saw the White hand take it and the door open and there stood Breedt, whom you remember and he said "yes Strachan, nou het ek jou gevang.  You gave this to the nigger hey".  And I said I have nothing to say.
 But that was six days no food, you see.  The first time, on that occasion I got Andrew Wilson who had come up from Maritzburg to defend me in this prison case.  I mean you don't normally get Advocates going to defend a prison charge, but he arrived a bit flabbergasted, but Aucamp the Super, just sat and smiled at him and when he had finished he said to him, any further statements Mr Wilson and he said no, and he said six days, rice water.
 So the next day, the next time it happened, I didn't bother to call anybody, you know, you just grind your way through it and I have heard of...

MR LEWIN: I am afraid we are going to have to curtail things now.  Could I just confirm that the Andrew Wilson that you are talking about is now Mr Justice Wilson of the Amnesty Committee?

HAROLD STRACHAN: Yes.

MR LEWIN: Madam Chair, thank you very much.

HAROLD STRACHAN: All right, I was only just starting.

MR LEWIN: Hang on, there might be some other questions.

CHAIRPERSON: No questions.

HAROLD STRACHAN: Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: Harold, I am not through yet.  Thank you very much for sharing with us.  We wish we could go on and on and on.  But there is not time.  I see that you got rice water for whistling and I would imagine that to get sanity in that place when you are in solitary confinement, whistling would be the only thing that would maintain your sanity.
 And in stead you would get rice water for that.  And we would like to commend you for your bravery that even though you were banned and on house arrest, you dared to publish those articles which exposed the cruelty and the neglect of the prison warders.
 And I see from your statement that you were fellow prisoners with this guy next to me here.

HAROLD STRACHAN: Yes, we used to polish the brass together.

CHAIRPERSON: And repairing those mail bags.

HAROLD STRACHAN: We used to dish out the mail bags.

CHAIRPERSON: And sometimes since we've been here yesterday, I wonder how he has resisted changing places and sitting there and finding himself to testify in stead of listening to it all.

HAROLD STRACHAN: Yes, you should hear us when we are together after supper.

CHAIRPERSON: Any way, we really wish you could have gone to our health hearings to share your harrowing dental attack and the way your teeth were extracted.  It could have really exposed the neglect of the so-called District Surgeons we had in this country during those times.

HAROLD STRACHAN: So-called District Surgeons.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.

HAROLD STRACHAN: It is a pleasure.