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

UNKNOWN: What happened after that, we had to withdraw from this trench, because it was so clear, so near this Fapla forces.  We had to run deeper into the bush.  So they realised that we had stopped our fire, they came and they shot at us.  We were just lucky, because these people were really shooting at us, aiming at us.  Those bullets were whizzing like this, past us. We managed to get to the trench. When we managed to get to that trench, it was then that the rest of these Fapla forces, that they realised that they were themselves encircled.  My other comrades had their guns also levelled at them.
 Now these others realised that they were going to die.  They said no, no, no, comrades, comrades, please don't shoot at us.  Now it was now going to be, we were now going to negotiate why people, why did you come here to kill. 
 One other thing I must mention is that when they came, those shots that I heard, really, they were aimed at us, and one comrade died, that comrade Bugsy died.  So I, when I was shooting at that APC, I wasn't the one, the first one who 
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was shooting.  They had themselves shot and they had killed. So it was a war situation.  Like I said, little did I imagine that I would end up in Quattro.
 So in short, that was the reason why I ended up in Quattro.  But let me just detail, continue, because what happened is that they didn't know who had shot the APC.  What they did, they arrested somebody else. I don't know why they, my own comrades wanted to arrest us, us.  Instead of arresting the Fapla forces who had come shooting and killing our own comrades, but they were prepared to arrest us, to arrest me.  Though they didn't arrest me, they arrested somebody else.
 Now so I escaped arrest, I escaped immediate arrest. I was arrested later in - when I was already in another camp called Bhengu.  So I was arrested on the 26th of April 1984. I got to Quattro ...

YASMINE SOOKA: Sorry, was your arrest because you killed the driver of the APC?

UNKNOWN: I am coming to that. I got to Quattro.  They didn't tell me that they were taking me to Quattro, you know, they said they are taking me back to Quashito where I had been before I even went to the eastern front.  The road was leading to Quattro.  When I was about to ask people that this road doesn't lead to - I mean, this road doesn't lead to Quashito, where are we going, they ordered me out of the Land Rover and they encircled me and with their AKs aimed at me, and they ordered me to lie down on the road.  I thought they were going to kill me, but they didn't kill me. I only tied me on my back and kicked me inside the Land Rover and piled a lot of newspapers on top of me, so that if we pass any control posts those local people wouldn't see that there SOWETO HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
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is somebody who was arrested.
 So I got to Quattro, I didn't even know I was in Quattro.  But when I was in Quattro, one of these Land Rovers stopped.  They all got out and then I heard a voice that was Dan Mashego.  Dan Mashego who was a chief of staff in Quattro, ordered me to get out.  So I tried to get out of this pile of papers and whilst I was trying to climb out of this Land Rover he kept on punching me.  So he punched me and punched me back, I lost my tooth, even before I could even get into that reception of Quattro.  When I saw that this was going to be the way, he forced me to get out and he kicked me more. I fell on top of those flowers and they took me and ordered me inside the reception.  
 When I was in the reception, when I was in the reception I was faced with different people, not my comrades.  They were different now.  They ordered me to strip.  They ordered me to strip and they gave me a new uniform which was big in size and it was louse-ridden. It was dirty, it was louse-ridden and they give me a size 10 tackies, both of the left foot. Different designs but both of the left foot.  Kingsley, Kingsley, I had trained with Kingsley.  Kingsley took out a cable and hit me on the soles of my feet, it is that here, he was beating me so that I cannot run away, I cannot escape Quattro.  Now you are in Quattro you no longer have any rights, forget about calling us comrades, you now no more have any rights, you have only two rights: to work hard and to be beaten.
 Whoever you meet here, any warder you meet here, is your commander, and from now on forget calling us comrades. I couldn't even have a chance to ask them what was happening, because they left and in came warders who didn't 
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know me, I didn't even know them. They started beating me up, beating me up, beating me up. I couldn't, I didn't know, I couldn't understand what was going on.  They kicked me into isolation. I stayed in isolation for two months.  
 But the following day, because I was worried the whole night, what is happening, why am I here, I asked the warder who was opening the door the following morning, to take me to the administration. When I got to the administration I asked people, why do you take me here, because I am made to understand this is the place where enemy agents are kept, and unless there is another definition of an enemy agent, I am not an enemy agent, tell me why do you bring me here.  They didn't answer me.  One by one they left and one by one enters these warders and again beating me up. 
 The only idea I could get as to why I was in Quattro, was the name they gave me, they called me APC, APC hitman, that I am the responsible man for that APC who was shot in Vienna.  Now this name really got me into ... (PAUSE) ...

YASMINE SOOKA: Take your time.

UNKNOWN: This name got me into big things.  There was this guy Fortunate.  Fortunate who took it upon him, it was as if they had told him that he should beat me.  He came to my isolation, beat me every day.  Even when I was released from that isolation, and I joined someone who had been in prison before, because they had people who had been imprisoned, including that group of ten which we had elected.  These people, I had to - after my two months in isolation I joined them.  They were five and we were six.  So every morning we would take our - there are these dirty buckets that we used, and to go down and throw them - but on our way to and fro, these warders would be lined up, they would beat us as much
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as they liked.  But Fortunate, I mean, this guy, Fortunate, took it upon himself, he was responsible for me. He would - I knew automatically that here is Fortunate, let me go and get some beating.  So Fortunate would beat me with this coffee sticks or guava sticks or sometimes he would take a small, a small something else, it is like a latch and beat me on my back and say he is writing the date on which I will be released from Quattro. 
 I can say there in Quattro, really when they say you have got the right to be detained, those words are really execute that order, that they are going to beat you up.  Whether there is a good reason or not. 
 For instance, they would have a reason. Of course, everybody can clean up this cable, but if you order me to clean this cable in two seconds, it is impossible, and if I do not do that in two seconds, I will be beaten up.  So that is the pretext, they used pretexts to beat us up.

YASMINE SOOKA: I just want to ask you some questions for clarification. You say that you arrived at Quattro but you were not told about why you had been brought there. Is that correct?

UNKNOWN: Yes, that's why I even asked them.  I even asked them why they are arresting me. They didn't tell me. They didn't tell me.

YASMINE SOOKA: How long did you spend in Quattro?

UNKNOWN: I stayed in Quattro from that 26th of April 1984 to 16 November 1988.

YASMINE SOOKA: Besides the beatings, can you tell us what other ill-treatment you sustained during your stay in Quattro?