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

UNKNOWN: I remember one time I was suffering from malaria, well, I had just recuperated from malaria, it was then
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whether you have recuperated or not, the treatment for malaria there is only three days.  Whether you are well or you are not well, you are ordered back to work.
 Now I was, I had been attacked by this malaria. Now I was ordered to work.  We were chopping wood.  Now they were telling us that we were going to chop wood which will last for, from June 16 to June 26th.  So we were made to chop that wood within two days.  It was difficult for me.  The first day I managed. The following day I could not.  And then there was this Mayboyi, Mayboyi is from Tanzania.  Mayboyi said, and we had been together in Lesotho, but Mayboyi was no more my friend now. Mayboyi said ja, you are not working like the others.  He beat me up, ordered me to stand on my head. I got more and more dizzy, but he beat me up more and then I just lost consciousness.  I collapsed. It was early, around 11 o'clock, but when I came to it was, I was in my cell and it was dark and it was in the evening.  My other inmates told me that they had tried their best, all these hours, they had even ordered them to stop working, for fear that they would also collapse like me.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could I just ask, during your time at Quattro, was there no way that you could appeal to anybody so that you could put your side of the story?

UNKNOWN: Appeal? No. The leaders would come, but then they would make a mockery out of the whole thing.  For instance, when Chris Hani came, he was with John Motavi, they made a mockery out of the whole thing, because we were the ones who had ordered, who had demanded the conference which was later to be held in 1985 in Quabe in Zambia.  But we are the people who had demanded the conference, were in jail during the time the conference was held.  Now when Chris Hani came,
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they said yes, we are going to, you are going to hold this national conference, whether you like it or not and don't think it is because of your efforts.  Now with such people it was simply difficult to address.  One thing they knew is that we were not enemy agents. One other thing I must highlight in Quattro is that when leaders came, they still called us comrades.  They referred to us as comrades, yes comrade so-and-so, yes comrade so-and-so, but they would make sure, it is out of ear-shot of the rest of the warders.  The administration in Quattro wouldn't call us comrades, but wouldn't call us enemy agents and wouldn't even call us by those names, derogatory names of Quattro, but would only call us by our Sotho names.  Now this meant there was a lot of double standards going on there. 
 Now I am going to answer your question and I can only say there was nobody at our rescue.

YASMINE SOOKA: Could you also tell me when you were ill, were you given access to medical facilities?

UNKNOWN: Medical facilities in Quattro can be a torment, in a sense.  Because when you get to the clinic, right behind the clinic, the door of the clinic, there is a lot of sticks there, coffee sticks. In case, in case they say no, you are malingering, you have come here now for the third day complaining about the same malaria, now you are going to get instead of chloroquinne, you are going to get this coffee stick which we later called chloro-coffee.
 Now I must say, I must say this treatment of Quattro, medical treatment was not medical treatment in the sense.  Because what happened is that you would know that my three days of treatment had lasted, so I won't go to the clinic.  Now this had its own repercussions on your health, because 
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you are expected to go to work, and there you would be expected to perform.  Now this, I mean you are not here to well, and since you are not yet well - I want to quote an example. In September 1985 one of my inmates died.  He had anaemia, he was suffering from anaemia and he had gone to the clinic.  The clinic said no, you are malingering, we know you don't want to work. Instead they beat him up.  So he didn't go to the clinic any more. But we could see that he is sick, his condition was getting worse.  We even asked our commissar in the cell and go and report to the Commander Bro, that because this was our commander, this man who was suffering. We said go and report to the commander, Shuety , our commander is getting seriously getting worse.  Because he couldn't stand up easily, he couldn't even balance well.  He didn't eat well and his tongue was turning greyish-green.  He had here some varicose veins and when our commissar went to tell the Bro, he came with Dan Mashego.  When they came they said ja, we have been treating you with kid gloves, you are now going to face the real music.  We said no, but this man is ill.  We even when Bro came into the cell, Shuety, the man who later died, trying to stand up to attention but he could not.  They said ja, you are still defiant, because we have been treating you with kid gloves.  You are now going to get real treatment.  But ...

YASMINE SOOKA: Sorry, was he given access to a doctor?

UNKNOWN: Not a doctor, just a paramedic, we had paramedics in Quattro.  So when Bro was ridiculing all this, unfortunately Shuety collapsed in front of him, and it wasn't even five minutes, he was dead.

YASMINE SOOKA: Tell me what eventually led to your own release from Quattro?
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UNKNOWN: What led to that in reality it was the political situation.  If you remember in 1988 there was going to be a solution for the Namibian question. The South African Government, the Namibian Government and Swapo together agreed that there will be no more - I can say it was pressure from the question of Namibia, that they said well, we are going to release you and we were released, otherwise things, it was going to be indefinite arrest.

YASMINE SOOKA: You mention in your statement that you appeared before three commissions, the Skeyiwa Commission in 1992, the Douglas Commission in 1993 and the Motshyanane Commission in 1993.  Yet, your names were never cleared.  Could you tell us what you expected from those commissions?

UNKNOWN: Yes, I can say first of all, there was this Steward Commission.  The Steward Commission was the commission which followed the so-called mutiny in Angola.  But the Steward Commission, all our recommendations and our demands were met by the commission, but what happened is that we were still arrested. All right.
 Now came these Skeyiwa Commission.  Lewis Skeyiwa Commission also admitted that some people were not actually enemy agents, as alleged.  Whatever some people said about Quattro was no fabrication, it was something that was there. But then the commission had its recommendations, but they were not heeded by the very organisation that had come up with the commission.

YASMINE SOOKA: So all in all you didn't get very much satisfaction from any of these commissions.

UNKNOWN: Yes, the commissions themselves did their job, but now the onus was on the organisation to - I mean these recommendations, it was the organisation was to meet the
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recommendations of these commissions.  But nothing has happened.  Even until today.

YASMINE SOOKA: I think that obviously we would need to go back to those commissions and look the evidence that you had presented to those commissions and then come back to you on this particular issue. However, one of the Commission's tasks is to recommend to Government policies which will ensure that gross human rights violations don't take place in the future, and also policies around reparation. Would you like to comment on that for us, please?

UNKNOWN: Sorry, just repeat the question, please.