Human Rights Violation Hearings — Soweto — 1996-07-25

ARTHUR LOLLAN: Thank you.  My name is Arthur Lollan, the younger brother of Stanley Lollan who was charged with high treason in 1956 of December, together with our State President, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Thambo, Joe Slovo, Helen Joseph and others.
 My brother, Stanley escaped the Rivonia dragnet miraculously, for unknown reasons.  My brother, Stanley, myself and my youngest brother, Ernest, all had our primary education in Booyens, Overton, under the old TED, Transvaal Education Department system.  Thereafter Stanley and I went on to college at ETC, which is Euro-Afric Training Centre in Vrededorp.
 Stanley matriculated, but I dropped out after completing my JC junior certificate. I went to a private fashion school where I obtained a diploma in fashion design, at the Learned Academy of Fashion Design. I was the first non-White to gain the distinction, together with an Indian girl called Zorre, whom I hope to meet one day.
 Stanley was the Transvaal secretary of the South African Coloured Peoples Organisation, also known as SACPO.  An organisation which formed an alliance for the African National Congress, known as the ANC, during the years of so-called struggle.
 Stanley was very close to Nelson Mandela who he affectionately called Madiba.  Stanley Lorran was at an early age very rebellious and concerned about the plight of the non-White masses.  Thus his political career.  I and my younger sister, Mavis Lorran, also followed in his footsteps.
 My sister, Mavis, also a member of the Industrial 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
3 MR A LOLLAN
Cuncil for the Clothing Industry was very close to Helen Joseph and Maggie and Robert Gesha, Hettie September and others, including people like Lionel Morrison, Ellen Kuwayo who earlier testified at the hearing.
 I followed my brother around wherever he went to attend meetings for the South African Indian Council, the Transvaal Indian Congress and many other parties and organisations.
 I myself was a member of the Garment Workers Union since its inception, under the leadership of the late Solly Sacks and later Jimmy Thomas, general secretary of the Industrial Council of Clothing Workers.
 Stanley and my sister, Mavis Lollan, who were employed by the Industrial Council for the Clothing Industry and I was also employed as a cutting room supervisor in a clothing factory.  I was also a shop steward and attended meetings of the Garment Workers Union together with people like Thom Mashanine, Lucy Muvebelo, Helen Joseph and many others.  I also served on NEC, Naional Executive Committee of the Garment Workers Union.
 In the early Sixties, a new law called Job Reservation Act was passed and I was the first victim of that law. It was splashed all over in the newspapers of the day. I refused to obey that law and as a result of that I was victimised and called a Communist.  I lost that job and moved on to other factories, working here and there until I got fed of being harassed.    
 I eventually landed in the hands of the police who interrogated me at Grays, in Main Street.  Now the Grays is a building which housed the firm of Gray Smith & Company, hence the name Grays,  the special branch headquarters.
 I was also detained at John Vorster Square by a 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
4 MR A LOLLAN
Coloured special branch detective Du Plessis. For two days I was stripped naked and made to stand up against a wall for hours until I felt faint.  While they were watching me from a two-way mirror in another room.  That was for taking part in women's marches and various other activities and for arranging transport for people who could not walk during the marches.
 The Lollan family were all activists.  My other sister, Harriet Lollan, who is a teacher in Eldorado Park, was concerned mainly with community upliftment and still is today. My mother, Augustine Lollan, hosted many parties and receptions for people like Oliver Thambo, Nelson Mandela, Dumin Nokwe, the first Black advocate, Helen Joseph, George Peak who died in London, Alex Leguma, Joe Gumede, Don Mateman, not to mention Freda Katz, Ruth First and many others.  My mother's house was always a hive of activity for politicians, church and community leaders.  My mother is still alive and is 95 years old.  Her dying wish is to see Madiba after so many years.
 She recalls the days when the police would raid our house, looking for Stanley and Madiba, while the two were disguised in Putco overalls and caps.  I will never forget the day the police surrounded my house, which was a block away from my mother's house.  As Madiba and Stanley did not realise the police, 30 of them, were waiting for them to appear after a tip-off.  I managed to alert my brother and Madiba not to walk towards to my house, but to use a back road to evade the police, who then assaulted me so severely that I was taken to Dr Nji for treatment.
 Then the police under Maj-Gen Attie Spangler, I think he was, told me that they had orders to kill the "donders" 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
5 MR A LOLLAN
and shoot them on sight.   I probably saved both their lives that day.  I am sure the President will remember that incident.
 In December of 1956 when the police and accused were ushered into the makeshift court at the drill hall, I was outside on the pavement with a parcel of fish and chips, a bottle of Coke and an overcoat for my brother, Stanley.
 I think it was day two of their appearance at the drill hall and as the truck carrying the accused entered the drill hall driveway, I waved to all the accused and suddenly I was pulled back, thrown to the ground, kicked, assaulted with a blunt object which cracked my skull. I was dazed and bleeding and ran towards the parking lot of the civic drill hall.  I felt faint and felt a sharp sting on my leg as I turned round to look back, and found that I was shot. I fell down, the crowds trampled on me. I got up and ran, never to go back to the trial again.
 Even when the trial was removed to Pretoria, the Old Synagogue I did not go, but I did not go to hospital because I was afraid they would find me and kill me or arrest me.
 I was treated privately by an Indian doctor who came to the Industrial Council's roof-top cottage where I was hiding and recuperating for two weeks.  
 In those days there were spies and government agents all over. I was so scared and nervous I could not sleep peacefully.  
 In the ensuing weeks and months police would raid my house in the middle of the night, looking for my brother and sister, Mavis.  When things started to hot up for my brother after the trial, he fled to Swaziland. My sister, Mavis was detained on several occasions, tortured, assaulted and later SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
6 MR A LOLLAN
died of a brain haemorrhage.
 My home was under surveillance day and night. While I slept, at least while we slept, they, the police would kick the doors open, pull the blankets off my bed, insult my wife and my children, who would run screaming out of my house to my mother's house, three blocks away in the dead of night.
 I was assaulted so many times just because I did not answer their questions or tell them where my brother was.  While my brother was in exile in Swaziland I was always in contact with him telephonically or by way of hand-post. I knew exactly all about his movements.
 Then one day I received a phone call from a certain person, Tom Madumo, who was a teacher from the Swaziland Training College, asking me to get to Swaziland immediately.  My passport was in order and I motored to Swaziland after midnight so as to be at the border in the morning.  On arriving there at Tom's place, I was taken to Stanley in hospital in Mmbane, where he was in a critical condition. His flat was in disorder, doors ripped off, pamphlets, typewriter and everything there was taken away and blood was all over the place. Had it not been for a Swazi Cabinet Minister who was visiting Stanley that day, he would probably have been killed.
 I later learnt that those responsible for the attack was the South African police, including one Russel Lorry, a Coloured policeman.
 Once in Orlando at a political meeting, I was arrested together with a certain Henry Numalo and Stanley.  We were beaten up and dumped in Pretoria and told to walk back to Johannesburg.
 After the Swaziland attack on my brother, he was always SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
7 MR A LOLLAN
being harassed by agents of the South African police.  So much so that the late King Sobuza sheltered Stanley within the palace grounds until he was well enough to flee to London, where he obtained British citizenship. 
 While living in London Stanley's pursuers were still hunting him. They eventually caught up with him.  Then one day, while addressing a crowd at London's Hyde Park, which is Speaker's Corner he was again severely assaulted and hospitalised in Holloway. That was during the Release Mandela Campaign.  The hospital was the Royal Northern Hospital in Holloway, Holloway Road, somewhere in Islington.  I was telephonically in contact with a certain Cathy Wood or Ward, a social worker in London.  She kept me informed of all my brother's activities.  Thanks to her, she is an angel.
 Dr Byan Ngyere assisted me in my plea to be sent overseas to London to visit my dying brother.  I eventually flew to London and on arrival there I was met by James Mhlope Phillips and Maud, his wife and daugther, who arranged for my stay with them during my time in London.  They were also exiles in London.
 I was happy to be able to visit the London headquarters of the ANC where I met many exiles, including Nzwayo Philiso, Peggy Stevensen, Errol Tobias and many others.  I even visited Robbie Gersher's grave, No 437 in Arnold's Grove in Brunswick Park.  Stanley was then in Frian Barnard Hospital where I visited him every day.
 While in London I went to the South African Embassy in Duncanan Road in Trafalgar Square where I was treated with indifference, and made to sit for hours, pleading with different officials to allow my brother back in South 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
8 A LOLLAN
Africa.
 Eventually after my long, after many long weeks in London I managed to convince the authorities to allow Stanley back into South Africa.  He was eventually put on a stretcher together with a doctor and a nurse and was flown back to South Africa. On arriving back in South Africa, at Jan Smuts Airport, Stanley was held in the transit lounge for hours, in that sick condition, while Government red tape, typical of South Africa, was being practised.
 Back home my brother was a vegetable, he was sickly, aggressive, moody and kept on saying to me Arthur, where are the police, where are the agents, "waar is die boere" (where are the boere) and I would say Stanley, don't worry, it is all over now, you are free. Stanley died in my house two months later in Eldorado Park.  (PAUSE).
 All his friends were at his funeral in Eldorado Park, including the late Helen Joseph and I think Ahmed Kathrada and many of his Indian, African, White and Coloured colleagues.
 I could then go on with my wife.  In 1986 I joined the Civil Service as a property inspector and continued to served the community in that capacity.  Excuse me.  (PAUSE).
 As time went by I was treated with contempt by my superiors in the Civil Service because I was branded an ANC loyalist.  I was forced to resign my job because I questioned the subsidy system which operated then.  I was never treated equally like my colleagues who were enjoying subsistence allowances and I felt they wrongfully made me to lose my job.
 One day my mother and I were picked up by the police, taken to Marshall Square and from thereon to Pretoria. I 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
9 A LOLLAN
remember entering a building called Civitas House.  We were then taken to the 10th or 11th floor, where we were both interrogated for hours.  My mother was not feeling very well. I tried to reason with the interrogators but to no avail. I was taken to another room where Eben Donges, the Minister of Interior at the time, asked me where my brother was, and how did he flee the country. I could not answer his questions and I was assaulted so severely that my urine turned red.  
 When they were satisfied that we hardly saw my brother and did not know his whereabouts they told us to go home.  We had nothing to eat the whole of that day, neither did we know Pretoria well.  We just walked around until we reached a robot and as the police van stopped, I asked a young White policeman the way to Johannesburg.  He said he was going to Soweto, and if we did not mind sitting in the back, it is okay with him. I said to my mother ma, let's go. The police dropped us at Bara Hospital. I just said thank you, God. 
 When we got off he asked me why I was bleeding from my nose. I said to him I was assaulted by thugs in Pretoria.  Once at Baragwanath Hospital we took a taxi to Eldorado Park. The next day I went to a clinic for treatment.
 I cannot recall all the incidents which made life hell during those years for my family.  The Lorran family that were adamant to continue with the struggle, in spite of the pressures that were brought to bear on them.  
 Since the declaration of Freedom Charter at Freedom Square, where myself and my brother and my sister, Mavis attended, we knew that one day, if God will, we will be free.  When our hero, Madiba was released we were there at his humble abode in Soweto, to welcome him back to 
SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
10 A LOLLAN
civilisation. He is not just one of the greatest Statesmen in the world, but the only Statesman who can lead the world and its peoples onto true democracy and peace.  May God add many more years to his life.  I thank you.
(APPLAUSE)