Special Hearings — Women's Hearings — 1997-07-28

THANDI SHEZI: I started going to counselling when I joined Kulumane last year. That's when I started going for counselling, because I was a reserved person. I wasn't able to speak. I am a shy person.  People just used to know that I've just been arrested, detained and assaulted, but I'd never really related the full extend of what I suffered.

MS SEROKE: So you started getting counselling in 1996.  So it means from 1988 up until 1996 you have been keeping this inside, this painful experience inside yourself.  How were you coping during this long time?

THANDI SHEZI: I wasn't coping, because when this whole thing had started - when I started feeling this anger inside me, I would beat up my children. I'd be angry with my children.  Even with my mother, I used to fight with my father, because deep down within me I was trying to grapple with this painful experiences, going through.
 I also used to sing for the choir then.  That's the only way I could get some of peace of mind, but during the night I used to have all this terrible actions.

MS SEROKE: But did you also - did you get a chance of going to the doctor and relate this to the doctor?

THANDI SHEZI: No, I didn't do that. I was not able to tell this to the doctor, because I felt I will be revealing the secret I was keeping inside me. All along I had thought I could keep this inside myself and just retain it up until I die. But through - going through counselling I think I got assisted there so that in order be healed.  They told me that in order to be healed, I must talk about this.

MS SEROKE: How do you feel now after sharing this here?

THANDI SHEZI: I feel a bit better. I really do feel better, but what I would like to say to people, they shouldn't feel shame for me.  They shouldn't really give me any pity. I don't need any pity from these people, but I just want to share this pain with people, but I don't want any pity from people and I don't want to - another thing that made me talk, I thought, I felt if people knew about what had happened to me, they will start calling me names.

MS SEROKE: Thank you very much, Thandi.

MS MKHIZE: Thandi, if I may just ask a question so that you can clarify your story here?  You said they went to fetch and then they, because they said you're an ANC activist in 1988;  was the ANC, was there any base of ANC?

THANDI SHEZI: No, there was a youth league then.

MS MKHIZE: Were there many women who were activists?

THANDI SHEZI: Yes, there were a lot of them. Yes, there were some.  Dorothy Sekela, Thande, Tembe, there were quite a number of them. Some of them had been detained for a week or two, but I'm the only one among them who was detained for a longest period.

MS MKHIZE: In your knowledge, all these people, during the time you were involved in the struggle, what were the activities you were involved in?

THANDI SHEZI: We used to hold meetings and helped people who were being evicted from their houses especially and I personally was working in the underground unit and with this very Silver they were looking for.

MS MKHIZE: When you say you were working underground, could you explain to this Commission what exactly were you doing?

THANDI SHEZI: We used to have missions of attacking the soft targets like Rand offices and places we knew that there were Government figures and like the Government places during that time. So my task was to transport the material, the ammunition and also to check out the place and give information and take this information to Silver.

MS MKHIZE: You have also related to us that at the time when they arrested you they wanted you to give them information about this Silver and lead them to where this Silver was.  Could you actually just explain to us, you have related a lot of things that they did to you, could you relate to us that when you look back, how did they link you up to Silver and how did they get to know that you're related to Silver?

THANDI SHEZI: When I was released and I tried to find out how did they know about me;  they got to know this through a lady where Silver was hiding, who told them that the person whose always with Silver is this lady.  And also they gave them information, she gave them information on where they could find me.
 But this cop said they looked for me for two months, looking for me.

MS MKHIZE: You have also related to us that there wardens would look after you.  Where they women or male?

THANDI SHEZI: They were females.

MS MKHIZE: And the way they treated you;  do you think was it any better than how male police treated you?

THANDI SHEZI: I think it was slightly better, because I knew with males they would really brutalise us, but the female wardens they were not as brutali as the male wardens, police.
 The female used to hand over their assault and brutalisation to their male counterparts.  Even when they came to assault me, even though I couldn't take it any more, there was a time when I put them in the cell and I beat them up, because I had already been gone beyond, I had been beaten so much.
 They said I'll stay there 30 days, drinking water and "ryswater" and I told them I am not going to drink any "ryswater".  I will just be on hunger strike, but the way they were scared of this hunger strike;  they called me.  This male policeman took me to town and they were pleading with me that I must co-operate with them and I must give them the information they wanted from me.
 They told me that my children and that my children had been handed over to welfare, but my father - and if they were not told, if I didn't tell them the truth, they would kill my children.
 There were a lot of things they were using to threaten me, but I think I'd learned to know that there were a lot of misinformation they would give you as part of their harassment and to confuse you.

MS MKHIZE: Thandi, please excuse us the way we're questioning you.  There is also something you have said.  I'd like you to expand a bit on it and clarify it.
 You said you were working underground.  Could you actually explain to us, that as a woman, what the role did you play, what role did you play to actually make you trusted in that male dominated area and their activities underground?

THANDI SHEZI: I think the comrades I was working with in a Umdane, this unit, they trusted me.  Maybe they saw bravery in me.  I used to be able to withstand difficulty.  They were not even too alarmed when they heard that I'd been arrested and detained, because they knew I was a strong person, I could withstand difficulties.

MS MKHIZE: That is why you say you don't need any pity.  You don't see yourself as a person who needs any pity.  You see yourself as a hero.

THANDI SHEZI: I do want people to empathise with me and share the pain with me, but I do not want them to reduce me to an object and see me as just nothing.
 I realise that in many times that when an actor is - when an actor is acting in a story they tend to identify that character the actor's doing.  People associate that person with that story.  But I also think that I will fall into that role of being identified with that kind of character, you sort of seen a story where people identify with the particular character.

MS MKHIZE: Thandi, it does show that in all the painful experiences you went through, it seems the rape experience was the most painful one, that you cannot be able to go through, but as far as you're concerned;  what do you think should be done to help other women who could be in the same position, or went through that same position?
 I can see that you don't want - one of the things that you don't want the community to see them as bad people since they raped, but as a person who has been involved in counselling and you have played a role in counselling other women;  what do you think will help other women in a similar situation?