Human Rights Violation Hearings — Klerksdorp — 1996-09-25

M S HASSIAN HAFFEJJE: Yes, I will.
 By nature it is in me, I love people.  I love especially the poorest of the poor.  (Indistinct) and justice has no colour.  After my recent detention, I used to collect food parcels. I used to collect clothing, blankets and distribute that in the townships amongst the poorest and the neediest, the orphans. These were donated by the Indian community, shop to shop as you go and I used to do it. I used to enjoy it.  I used to see people, I used to see orphans, I used to see babies.  I couldn't stand it. They were dying, dying of starvation. Lips cracked, faces cracked, giving them a sweet, a banana, an apple, a jacket, a pair of socks, shoes, a blanket.  To me it was the most relieving thing, I did for many years.
 As a result the local SAP came to know about that.  They branded me as a Crypto Communist.  And once too many times, if that is branded to you,  even among your own, they start believing you are a Communist.  No, let me tell you. I am no Communist.  What I would like to say and believe, I am a humanitarian.  My care is for the poor, for the poorest of the poor.  In that time, in the Seventies, in particular, the Eighties, if your thing is a shade, a fraction of a shade away from the regime, then you are being branded as a Communist, an infiltrator or a terrorist or worse.  I took it, I loved my work.
 Then came the Eighties, after the uprising of Soweto.
There were problems. Our youth in Bophelong, which is three
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kilometres from where I live in Salamet - Salamet is halfway between Bloemhof and Bophelong.  Many young children were arrested and beaten up and so forth.  Mothers came to me running at night, fathers came to me running, asking for help.  Grandmothers used to come to me that I should get some legal advice. I was a lifeline to those people. I did whatever I could, by way of lawyers. I used to send food parcels to the jails, to the cells, and feed the people there with milk and bread, from what I could afford from my small business, me and my wife together.  
 The police used to stop me in other ways.  They came at night and then circled my whole house, late at night.  They raided my house.  They wanted the names of the people whom I am busy with the lawyers. There must be 40 or 50 names.  That docket was lying on the table in the lounge.  They grabbed it.  They went away.  But before leaving, a certain policeman mentioned that, you know what, sorry to use the words, I quote that "these bloody kaffirs are going to burn your bloody house, if you think that you can get away with it".   
 My wife blurted out, no, it will never be them, if anybody is going to burn my house or burn my shop, it will be from your side, from your pimps, from your spies and so forth, they will do the dirty thing. Bophelong will never do it, they respect their dignity and they know we work for justice and nothing more and nothing else.
 Came the turmoils of the Eighties.  We had a meeting there of the UDF, in the Salamat town hall. It was very well attended and our Premier who was here earlier, Molefe, knows about that.  The Premier of the Orange Free State, Comrade was there as well. It was a very successful meeting.  Three
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days thereafter, a person from the tricameral party or one of those guys came along, a certain, late Mr Dassow.  He also asked to hold a meeting. I said what meeting?  He said no, somebody to speak on behalf of the government. I said you can go and do it yourself, I am not prepared to do it.  He said no, I must do it, I am the secretary of our local community there. I said no, I will not do it.  We had a very heated argument. There was a time in my shop he came. I was a minute away from another slap. May God forgive him, he has passed away. I told him you are no leaders; you go to the rural areas, because Bloemhof used to fall under his constituency. He used to live in Vereeniging. He used to go to the rural areas, if you used to look at the small children it will make your flesh creep.  They were dying of poverty, Black children, but yet they are still children, they are human beings and they believe in God. I said to him go and have a look at them, take your hand. I told him take your hand and put your hand across over the head, touch them, kiss them, I will allow you then only to hold a meeting in our hall, not before that.   He became very agitated. 
 He propagated through the length and breadth of this country what kind of person I am. To me it was like water off a duck's back. I was used to it already.

PROF MEIRING: It was at that time that you also say that people came to look for names that were in your house. Was it during that time?

M S HASSIAN HAFFEJJE: It was during that period ahead of that, the names.

PROF MEIRING: Did they find the names they were looking for?
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M S HASSIAN HAFFEJJE: They found the list, yes, they found the list on the table, in the lounge.  That list was confiscated.  There must have been over 40 or 50 names, children. That morning I had to report to the parents of the respective children in the township what had happened.  That was about it.

PROF MEIRING: Thank you.  Now perhaps we can turn to the third chapter, the very recent chapter, to what happened in 1993 with the boycott.