The truth commission hearings in the Western Cape might have missed the full picture of human rights abuses committed there, Rehana Rossouw reports
UNITED Democratic Front (UDF) activists, who bore the brunt of the state’s iron fist in the Western Cape, did not show up at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings in Cape Town this week.
Resistance to testifying at the TRC was particularly high in the Cape, where many victims and their relatives expressed misgivings about the process. But their absence could give the public a skewed idea of the extent of human rights violations perpetrated against opponents of apartheid.
UDF and former Umkhonto weSizwe operatives had in the 1980s claimed on numerous occasions, including at court hearings, that security police had shot them and tortured them during detention.
Former UDF leader, Johnny Issel, now a member of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature, said this week he saw no purpose in testifying at the TRC. He had been detained and tortured on numerous occasions in the 1970s and 1980s and was banned. In 1989 he brought an application to the supreme court in an attempt to stop police harassment.
In an affidavit he described his fears that the police would “shoot to kill” him. “I was confronted by a member of the security forces at the home of my wife’s parents. He took out his gun and wanted to shoot me, but my wife came between us and prevented him from shooting me.
“If my wife had not prevented him, I could have been killed or seriously injured.”
He also described an incident in February 1989 where 50 policemen wearing balaclavas arrived at a party he was attending. He hid in bushes and overheard one policeman shout to another that he would kill him if he spotted him.
Issel said he still believed today that the police meant to murder him. “They told me they were going to kill me and they made numerous attempts to do so. It was premeditated and planned. Thank God I’m a survivor.”
Issel said he had been tortured by several security policemen, including some whose names have already come up at TRC hearings. He also named others who had not only tortured him, but members of his family as well. Yet, he is not prepared to share this with the TRC.
“I don’t think I’ll get lasting peace if I go to the truth commission and give them my story. All I will be doing is giving them more time on television,” he said.
Other victims of security policemen who were members of what was called the Terrorist Detection Unit in the Western Cape also claimed this week that they had been tortured. They also said they would not testify at the TRC.
During the 1980s, the Terrorist Detection Unit detained scores of people and produced two major terrorism trials. Both trials started after people were held for months in solitary confinement, and in both instances, trialists told the courts how they had been tortured.
In one case known as the Yengeni trial (MP Tony Yengeni was accused number one), trialists initiated steps to have a security policeman prosecuted abroad for crimes against humanity and torture. They claimed they were beaten, chained, suffocated and shocked at the security police’s offices in Culemborg.
One of the trialists, who asked not to be named, said this week he believed there was a “culture of silence and self-denial” in the Western Cape. He had not considered testifying to the TRC about his experiences in detention.
“This is going to sound strange, but it’s something we just don’t talk about. If any of the people who had undergone torture speaks out, it’s almost as though others believe they are bragging, that they believe they had been stronger or tougher than the rest,” he said.
“I agree someone needs to break that culture of silence if the TRC is to hear the full story of the atrocities committed in the Western Cape, but it’s not going to be me.”
Another former UDF member who claimed she had been tortured by the security police said she would not testify at the truth commission as it was nothing more than a “church service”.
“I was at the truth commission’s public meeting in Cape Town last week and it was pathetic. They had people singing Senzenina (What have we done?). We know what we did, we opposed apartheid, a crime against humanity,” she said.
‘We told our stories before, there were court cases, there was media exposure, there were international campaigns. People know what atrocities were committed. Why must we now come again and sit in front of television cameras so everyone can see us cry? I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor.
“Why must we reconcile? If a murder was committed, justice must take its course in the courts of law. The TRC can’t stop that from happening.”
The family of one of the most respected leaders to emerge from the Muslim community in Cape Town, Imam Abdullah Haron, has not yet decided whether to testify before the TRC. Haron died in detention in 1969 after being held by security police at the Caledon Square police station. Police said he had fallen down a flight of stairs.
Despite a personal appeal from TRC commissioner Mary Burton and a visit to President Nelson Mandela last week, the Haron family attended the hearings as observers, not participants. They want Haron’s killers to be brought to justice in a court of law and are reluctant to offer them an opportunity to apply to the TRC for amnesty.
TRC representative John Allen said in response that the process was completely voluntary and although an attempt was made to make the hearings as representative as possible of all cases, it was not always possible to do so.
“The commission appealed generally for people to come forward, we are making no distinction between high-profile and lower-profile cases,” he said.