Human Rights Violation Hearings — Pietersburg — 1996-07-18

EDDIE BALOYI: Mr Manthata, if I have to take a short cut it's going to trouble me really.  If I relate my story I want to go through every point.  If you realise that the time is limited you should tell me and then I will shorten my story.
 Mr Manthata, I will then carry on.  I will leave some of the things, it's not a problem.
 Now in this action, things started becoming hot.  Mr Sebukwe asked in Pretoria, he wanted to know why I was arrested and they told him I was arrested for forgery, and he couldn't believe it.  I requested to see him because he was in another section and I asked the commanding officer in Pretoria to let me see him.. They took me to see him and then he asked me if it is true that I have been arrested for fraud and forgery.  We said no, they only suspect that we did this.  We said to him we don't want to accept, because if we do we are going to be arrested. but he asked us how we are going to defend ourselves since we are now involved in a criminal case.
 And then he suggested that it was not going to be heavy on us because we are still suspected and not yet charged. They kept us outside so that they can investigate whether we were members of his party or not.  And then he showed me his constitution and it's contents.  We said to him, we accept that we have made a mistake, we shouldn't have done what we did.  He said to us that he is not with us in this, we must see to it that we are not mishandled in the prison.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Mr Baloyi, you haven't come to the issue we are asking you.  We don't have time.

EDDIE BALOYI: I will take it briefly because you don't give me time.

THOMAS MANTHATA: We are asking you to talk about the tortures, the assaults and those are things that we want there .

EDDIE BALOYI: Those are short cuts, I can't talk about something that does not have a body.  I want to explain what happened because we want the story as a whole, as to how it was started.
 Mr Manthata, we are talking about something that happened, we want what happened.  You want what happened to me.  That's why I'm starting from the beginning.
 At first I was surprised when the security branch in the form of Johan Hendrik van der Berg, a general in the South African security, showed me his ID, that he's a security general in Pretoria, and had come to interrogate me, to find out whether it was true that I'm involved in politics. I agreed it's true and said I'm a member of the Pan Africanist Congress.  He requested me to verify this.  I showed him my card which I now still have. They requested the prison officials who had come and interrogate me, to go out, leaving me alone with him in the office. He took the papers and said he was going back to Cape Town and would send someone in the name of van Staden and I should not be surprised.
 Van Staden came and asked me the same question, and said that I would go into detention for 90 days solitary confinement, since they found out that I was involved in politics, and was a member of the Pan Africanist Congress.  I agreed that I am a member.  They detained us, and we started with the 90 days detention.  It was six months, 180 days detention, not 90.  In October the 14th they told us that we must get prepared, we are going to court. We were 26 in number, all members of the Pan Africanist Congress.  I was accused number four in the case.  We found that in court we were ten in a box, and there were 10 state witnesses.  While we were talking, the judge asked how it was that I became a member of the PAC and I replied that I was recruited and he asked what it was that I can show that this organisation was innocent.  I had a pocket bible in my pocket which I opened and said to him that I'm used to Chapter 5 verse 1 to verse 26 which talks about Africa and Africans when they're oppressed, and because the Law is a sin, we are oppressed because we are black. The water we would buy with money, everything even wood we buy with money. Our fathers sinned and our sin is that we are standing here today.  I'm not going to read the whole verse, they can read it at home, Lamentations Chapter 12.  These are Jeremiah's cries. It stopped...(intervention)

RUSSELL ALLY: Excuse me Mr Baloyi, I'm going directly on what happened to you because you're coming before us to actually speak about what happened to you personally, you say that you were arrested twice.  In 1961 and 1965, is that correct?

EDDIE BALOYI: Yes that was the first in 1961.

RUSSELL ALLY: When did the actual torture take place?

EDDIE BALOYI: 1965.

RUSSELL ALLY: 1965.  We want to know about the actual torture.  What you're telling us about the background is important and we'll get to that when we ask some questions, but what we really want to establish first and what we hope you will help us to establish is this torture that you're speaking about, because the Act which establishes the Truth Commission , one of the gross human rights violations is torture, so if it's possible, please could you tell us, you speak about a General van der Berg, who you say interrogated you.  Is this the same person who also tortured you?

EDDIE BALOYI: No he's not.

RUSSELL ALLY: And what type of torture, what were you, what did they do to you?  The actual torture?

EDDIE BALOYI: First in March at Baviaanspoort Prison, when I was detained there, I was a patient with hypertension disease, and I couldn't work, the doctors said to me, no I can not even pick up a four pound weight, I must not do hard labour, in fact no labour.  There was a fellow who was in charge of the hard labour span at Langeveld, N Gouws, that fellow said, "Hierdie Kaffer, ek wil hL hy moet werk, hy's mos 'n kommunis, hoekom bly hy binnekant?"
 I did not answer, he asked the hospital, Piet van Staden to me out with the span to go and work.  And Piet van Staden said, "Hy is 'n pasient, dit is nie nodag dat hy moet gaan werk nie", but he replied, "Nee, hierdie man is nie siek nie", and he took me by force, he opened up the gate and he handcuffed me, and he had a sjambok that they call a rubber baton, and he hit me in the joint of my neck and I fell down.  He said, "Staan op!" and I wake up, and he said, "Loop!" I asked where, but I went.  We go a distance from here, I think up to town where the other prisoners are working.  Now when we appeared there, he said to me, "hier's 'n finger krywa", and I had to grab a wheelbarrow.  I did not hesitate, I took the wheelbarrow, meanwhile I while pushing it some dogs and black police following behind me.  I was sjamboked by those donkey police until I fell down.  I did not know who but the first man whom I see who was powerful was Langeveld.

RUSSELL ALLY: In your statement you also speak about your left ear drum.  What happened, were you struck on the head, can you tell us about that?

EDDIE BALOYI: I will get there.  And ...(intervention)