Human Rights Violation Hearings — Karoo — 1996-10-09

MARY BURTON: Good morning.  Can everybody hear all right.

UNKNOWN: Yes we can hear.

MARY BURTON: Mr Gcanga, please will you stand to make the oath.
SOLANI GCANGA Duly sworn states

MARY BURTON: Ms Mlauli you are going to be the one speak, is that right.  Will you also make the oath then please.  Would you stand.
MS MLAULI  Duly sworn states

MARY BURTON: Please sit down.  Is your son also going to speak. Thank you.  I will then hand you over to Ms Seroke.

MS SEROKE: I welcome all of you today and I would like the briefer to switch on the microphone.  Thank you.  We will start with Mr Gcanga.  You both came you all came here, the three of you, because you story is similar.  The story of Mr Gcanga and Patrick Galawe.  We will start with Mr Gcanga.
In your statement you have stated that there were events in Colesberg from the 2 July until the time you arrested and you were tortured.  Will you please tell us what happened to you.

UNKNOWN: It was on the 3 July.  It was in the morning.  We were toi-toiing.  We were toi-toiing from the Apostolic church.  While we were still toi-toiing, there is another church, the Methodist church.  We left we were a group of people and we left the toi-toi at that time. 
I was on my way home at that time and I met my friends on my way home.  We stayed on the way with my friends, but not in the main road where people were toi-toiing in the other street.  While we were still in that street, police came with a Casspir  and they came to watch us.  They had binoculars with them.  They came to the place where we were staying.  As we see the Casspir was approaching us, we decided to go to one of the nearest houses, Ms Lutolo's house.  
The police stopped the Casspir near this house.  The other police went in the back door and the others came through the front door.  They found me inside the house.  They didn't say anything.  They didn't ask anything from us.  The first policeman names Jansen touched my shoulder and he dragged out of the house in the front door and he kicked me and there was  a policeman waiting for me outside the house.  They beat me with their guns, their rifles, they kicked me and they took me to Casspir.  They put me inside the Casspir.  The Casspir has got two seats inside and their is a passage in the middle.  I was told to lie down flat on that passage between the seats.  They kicked me severally at that time.  They stamped me, they  stamped on me.  
And all this time they were kicking me, they placed me on top of the Casspir with a sjambok around my neck and around my waist.  They were beating me all this time.  They told me to toi-toi, because I was toi-toiing.  They told me to say Viva and I did all that.  They were assaulting me all this time with their sjamboks.  All this time this police were beating me and they moved they drove the Casspir to town and I saw two police vans, a brown and a yellow one.  They transferred me from the Casspir to the van.  
While I was in the van I think they arrested me at about eleven to twelve p.m.  Before one o'clock the police came back and Chris was one of the police who was there.  He was a detective here in Colesberg, initially he is from Aliwal North.  He accused me of burning his car.  He came to me with one litre Coca Cola.  He opened and entered inside the van.  That litre of Coca Cola was empty.  He knocked me with that empty bottle on my left eye severely. The one white policeman came and he dragged him out of the van trying to stop him from beating me.  The Hippo was following the van and they took me to the police station with the van.  [Indistinct]    
I was taken out of the van and they were beating me and assaulting me all the time.  I was taken to the charge office.  Chris came from the Casspir and he took me to the back. Through the back door of the police station.  He took me to shower in the police station.  What they did to me in the charge office, Chris opened the shower, the tap of the shower, together with Jansen.  Chris had a cane and Jansen had a sjambok in their hands.  Chris put me under the shower and accused me of burning his car.  He was asking me why I burned down his car.  I couldn't answer him at that time.  I was crying all the time.  They didn't stop.  
When they finished with beating me, the took me to another room.  In that room there many policemen waiting for me there.  The first policeman showed me tied my hands and there was one policeman with an axe handle.  All of those policemen who were in that room, they assaulted me several times with this axe handle.  They gave each other a chance to beat me.  They didn't stop.  They put a sack in my face. And they twisted my private parts.  I couldn't see at that time because the sack was in my face.  They at this time my face was still covered with the sack.  They didn't stop there.  There is a drawer in that room and they took my private parts and put them inside the shelves and close it hard.  And they then took me outside and then they took me inside again to do the same thing to me again.  That was not all they did to me.  
They took me to another room, the third room.  When I got in that third room, they were boers in that room, the white men.  They assaulted me. They were beating me up.  They were doing all this dirty work to me.  I was taken out of that room, it was late.  At about midnight they took me to the garage.  When I got in the garage there was a van in that police garage.  They took me to the van.  
In all this time, I was naked all this time.  They took off my clothes.  They took me to van and they told me to lie there.  When I look inside this van, there was blood all over the van.  I couldn't sleep in that van, because I was so scared.  I saw blood all over the van.  I stayed there for ten minutes and they took me out of the van.  I think it was about six to eight boers who came to take me out.  There were also black policemen who were there.  They had R1 rifles with them.  They took me out of the van to the gate.  They told me to run.  I refused to run away.  I refused to run away.  
They took me inside again.  They were beating me and assaulting me all this time and I was naked.  They took me to the front door of the police station.  It was during the time at that time at about two.  My attorney phoned them and told them they must release me and that was when I was released and I went back home.  Thank you.

MS SEROKE: How old were you at this time when the police arrested you?

UNKNOWN: I was seventeen years old.

MS SEROKE: What standard were you doing at school?

UNKNOWN: I was in standard six.

MS SEROKE: You said that they arrested you because you were toi-toiing.  Why were you toi-toiing.  What was happening in Colesberg at that time of the 2nd  and 3rd  of July.

UNKNOWN: Firstly we there were some issued we demanded from the police and we told them that if they didn't answer us on the second, we will protest.  So that's why we were toi-toiing.

MS SEROKE: You decided to toi-toi because they did not answer your demand.

UNKNOWN: Yes,  but we did not do anything.  We not destroying anything, we're just toi-toiing.

MS SEROKE: But these police, they just chased you.

UNKNOWN: Yes, they chased us, but we didn't do anything.  There was nothing wrong we did at that time.

MS SEROKE: You say they took you to the Casspir.  They hung you from the top.  What do you think the reason was for them to do this.  What did they want to happen.

UNKNOWN: When they did this to me they wanted to kill, because they knew that what they did to me was a bad thing.  Everybody who saw this didn't like it.

MS SEROKE: In other words you say that  they were showing other people what would happen to them.

UNKNOWN: Yes, I think so.

MS SEROKE: You say Chris when he was assaulting you, he accused you of burning his car.  Did you do that?

UNKNOWN: No, I did not burn his car.

MS SEROKE: Was his car burnt here in Colesberg.