Special Hearings — Prison Hearings — 1997-07-21

UNKNOWN: Actually I had contracted tuberculosis before I went to Robben Island, I went to Robben Island already being a TB sufferer.  I did have problems even while I was still in Leeuwkop and the attitude of the prison authorities to people who were ill was something rather strange.  If you complained about a cut on your body or something on your physical self, they tended to more attention to that than when you complained about a thing like TB.  I think they interpreted that as maybe you want to loaf, you don't want to work, you are lazy or something of that sort.  I remember in my case when I was having problems in Leeuwkop my colleagues said look, never mind what happens when they come for complaints, they used to do that every week on a Sunday, you should go out and tell the officer in charge about your condition so that maybe something could be done about it.  I did that but before the main officer comes to take the complaints, there is his junior who takes the complaints first and when I told this man what my problem was that I was a TB sufferer and I've got problems and I've started bleeding and so on, he said to me look here if you know what's good for you, you had better not say anything of the sort to the officer about this.  He will just put more pressure on you because quite clearly he would interpret it as me not wanting to work or something like that.
 Shortly after that we were transferred to Robben Island and on Robben Island it was very difficult to gain access to the hospital.  The doctor didn't come often enough and even then there were so many obstacles they placed in your way before you could get to hospital but eventually I did manage to get to the doctor and I was examined and they sent me to Cape Town for treatment.  I was not sent to hospital because I was a dangerous prisoner, I received treatment while I was in Pollsmoor Prison and I used to go to, I think the hospital in Cape Town's name was West Lake.  I used to go there and come back to the prison in Pollsmoor.

MRS SEROKE: Also in your statement you say that you had to fight very hard to change the conditions at the prison, how did you try to effect these changes?

UNKNOWN: The only weapons which we had while we were at Robben Island were strikes in the form of hunger strikes and we had numerous of these strikes in Robben Island in particular.  That is how we thought we would be able to change things.  The strikes would go on for a very long time.  It was just a test of endurance between ourselves and the authorities.  After each strike we would be very much weaker but we always consoled ourselves that after every such strike we made a little progress.
 We made some progress in changing our diet, better clothing and getting an opportunity to study, even on Robben Island.  That was how we managed to ..., in many cases this kind of success was short-lived because very soon the authorities would find a way of making us revert back to the position and we'd have to start fighting the battle in that way again.  As I say the main weapon which we used was the hunger strikes.

MRS SEROKE: In the statement one of your recommendations to the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee is that you would like that there should be counselling for ex-prisoners and financial help as well as councelling for perpetrators.  That is very interesting coming from you, having suffered at the hands of perpetrators.  How do you come to make such a statement?

UNKNOWN: As for councelling for the victims, I think that is easy to appreciate because of the type of life which they were forced to live in jail.  Mr Masondo has referred to the type of warder who was in charge of us while we were in jail, you heard some of the stories he told about the distorted kind humour which they had and how easy it was for them to resort to brutalities.  These are human beings, people like you and me so how did it come about that people should behave in the way these people behaved?  How did that happen?
 Mr Masondo has already said there was a lot of indoctrination, these people sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing by treating political prisoners in the manner in which they did and that they were simply being loyal to a system.  I think to a very large extent these people must have been brainwashed, they must have been indoctrinated as well and it is on that basis that I think that if we are going to make a difference in this country, a difference in the manner in we approach things like human rights, it is essential that something should be done about changing the way that people like that look at other human beings and how they approach life in general.

MRS SEROKE: Thank you very much Mr Magkothi.

DR BORAINE: Thank you very much, just before go, are there any other questions?  Mr Lewin?

MR LEWIN: Mr Magkothi thanks very much, I would just like to ask one question.  You had a fair amount of time and you must have thought a great deal about it, about prison reform.  One of the responsibilities of the Commission is to make recommendations in our final report for matters arising out of our hearings.  Do you specifically have any thoughts about recommendations for prison reform, based on you own experience which we can include in our final report?

UNKNOWN: I think one of the recommendations certainly would be the point which I just made now, paying attention to the kind of people that you employ as warders and also the training which they should receive to enable them to discharge their duties in a manner which is fitting for human beings.

MR LEWIN: Thank you very much.

THOMAS MANTHATA: How long before your trial started had you been in detention?

UNKNOWN: I was arrested at the end of 1961 I think and I'm not too sure now but it must have been some months that I was detained in Marabastad police station.

THOMAS MANTHATA: And this was in isolation?

UNKNOWN: Yes it was in Marabastad that they tried their best to isolate us but what they did after we'd been arrested and after we'd been brought back home was to take us to different places of detention, different police stations and so on.  I was detained in solitary for a very long time in Marabastad in Pretoria.

THOMAS MANTHATA: That's another element that one would have loved to hear you say such as what were the effects of solitary confinement.

UNKNOWN: I was certainly not exposed to a very lengthy period of solitary confinement but I did suffer solitary confinement.  It was made worse by the fact that the police officials at Marabastad took advantage of our presence there to commit all manners of abuses against us really, acts of torture while we were there.  When you were incarcerated there you were subjected to all manners of torture and even your food, I mean for all the time that I was in Marabastad I think I lived on porridge, mostly not well cooked and sometimes it was porridge which was rotten.   By the time they were ready to charge us I was only too pleased to leave solitary confinement to be formally charged so that I could go to prison where I thought the conditions would be better.

THOMAS MANTHATA: Thank you.

DR BORAINE: Mr Magkothi thank you very much for coming to make a statement, for doing this publicly which is not easy and it must have brought back lots of memories but if your work now today can help others, I'm sure you'll be very grateful, thank you very much indeed.

UNKNOWN: Thank you.