Robben Island rape victim Nomboniso Gasa speaks out on police foul-ups and a carefully orchestrated campaign to smear her through the Afrikaans-owned media, reports Gustav Thiel
LEADING feminist Nomboniso Gasa believes she has been raped twice: first by the man who attacked her on Robben Island, and then by police who botched the investigation, and instead leaked allegations that she was lying.
In the weeks following the rape, which made front-page headlines around the world in January, the wife of African National Congress MP Raymond Suttner was smeared by press reports suggesting her story was fabricated. The failure of the police to arrest suspects appeared to add weight to the rumours.
The police failed to make any breakthroughs after nine men – who had been on the island on the night of the rape and did not have alibis – refused to undergo lie detector and forensic tests.
But a report by the Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi’s Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) released this week says the initial investigation “lacked competence and professionalism”.
The ICD traced the rumours against Gasa to “unofficial police sources” and insisted on a public apology from the police – in particular the police commissioner of the Western Cape, Leon Wessels.
The report – which has Mufamadi’s full backing – also recommended sweeping changes in the way police handle rape cases.
In an exclusive interview with the Mail & Guardian, Gasa says she feels vindicated by the report, despite suffering weeks of gossip. She was hospitalised for a week for stress after the rumours began.
But Gasa, a member of the gender commission, also says she made the right decision to go public.
“I took the right decision politically,” she says. “I feel that I made the right decision, but at a huge personal cost and I don’t know how it will affect me in future.”
She went public “to make sure that a better system is devised to improve the plight of women who have similar experiences.
“Since I went public, the reactions from women who went through similar experiences have been overwhelming.
“My only hope is that through this the way all rape cases are handled will be dramatically improved. In this regard, the implementation of the ICD’s recommendations will play a pivotal role.”
Suttner, who has been at her side throughout the ordeal, says: “There’s been a sustained and concerted effort by certain segments of the media to discredit Nomboniso through vicious reporting based on unnamed police sources.”
The couple is unhappy, in particular, about reports in the Nasionale Pers publications, Die Burger, Rapport and City Press, that were based on unnamed sources.
Nasionale Pers CEO Ton Vosloo declined to comment, saying his company’s editors have complete editorial freedom. Die Burger acting editor Chris Moolman said his newspaper was willing to talk to Gasa and Suttner about their complaints.
Despite the support from Mufamadi’s office, Gasa and Suttner still have misgivings. They are wary of the disgraced policemen’s response to the report which could conceivably provoke yet another smear campaign.
The ICD report states: “There is prima facie evidence of improper conduct and/or insensitivity displayed towards the complainant by at least one or more of the members comprising the initial investigating team.”
It also states that “there is prima facie evidence of negligence and/or dereliction of duty on the part of the members of the initial investigating team in the manner in which the investigation was handled”.
The team neglected, for example, to thoroughly search the boat that brought Gasa to the mainland after the rape and no comprehensive list was compiled of the people on the boat.
It recommends that “in the light of the finding that certain members, viz. Constable M McLean and Captain Kevin Jones, were dishonest in their evidence before us and did not take us into their confidence … such members be strongly reprimanded”.
Gasa and Suttner feel the strongest vindication in the report is lodged in the recommendation that Wessels publicly acknowledge the findings of the report and apologise unreservedly to her.
Wessels on Wednesday did extend an “unreserved apology” to Gasa. “The South African Police Services acknowledges that the treatment of women in the criminal justice system particularly, and society in general, is inadequate.”
Gasa declined to comment on Wessels’s statement, saying she needed to follow the reaction of the police and the media to it. “I would be particularly interested in observing the police’s commitment to implementing the recommendations made in the report by the ICD.”