CHAIRPERSON: I would like Andile Phillip Blaauw to come forward. We welcome you Andile Blaauw.
ANDILE PHILLIP BLAAUW: (sworn states)
PANEL MEMBER: Welcome here. Your evidence relates to at least three days and various incidents that you will be talking about and the nature of the complaint is classified as an attempted murder, resulting from the experiences that you had. Now, we have heard earlier from Netisis Toto about the situation in Kwanobuhle in January 1987, now in fact, your story starts on the 4 January 1987, is that correct?
MR BLAAUW: Yes, it is like that, sir.
PANEL MEMBER: Now, let's start there and then we can work our way through the various incidents. On the 4th, you were not sleeping at home you said, as a result of continued harassment by the security police, would you like to tell us what happened?
MR BLAAUW: Yes, I will explain it, the previous night, I had not spent the night at home due to the police harassment, so early in the morning, on my way home, as I was walking down Matamsima I saw there was a combi parked next to my house, so I went on and I stood next to a certain house just before my home and I knelt down and looked. I thought that it was a police combi that had come to look for me. Some people came out of this combi and they had some
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axes, some spades with them. It was a blue mini bus. They went into my home. Some were knocking at the windows, at the doors, all over the house. Then I came from the back of the yard and I went up Pungulu and I still found that there were people there between Matamsima and Pungulu. They were quite a group and they were armed with axes, spades and sticks. I had a woollen hat on, and they said, there is another one, then I tried to turn but they hit me here on the head. I did not fall, I ran towards Nyoga and that is where I spent the whole day. I didn't go to hospital. I looked after myself, I was there for the full day, hiding, I slept there, I didn't see any doctor because I knew that if I could go to any doctor or any hospital, the policemen were going to arrest me so that is the reason I had to stay there.
PANEL MEMBER: Sorry to interrupt you. At that stage, you were involved in an organisation, do you want to tell us about that?
MR BLAAUW: I was a member of Uitenhage Youth Congress of the UDF. The policemen were harassing me for that reason because all these members of the UDF were being harassed at the time. Even members of the UDF were being harassed, the policemen did not want to see us at the time, so I slept there in that Nyoga base, and then the following morning, I woke up very early at about six with intentions to go away to the old location, and I walked down the street called Nkulu, past the dumping area and I saw a small bakkie there and I asked for a lift from the driver and there were other comrades who had asked for a lift and we told the driver that we wanted to get to Klapa and he offered us the life. As we were driving there was a casper that stopped us and we UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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were asked to get off this bakkie and we were asked where we were going and we said we were getting to Klapa, the old location. Then they said to us, No, turn back and go and fight where you came from, then we said, no, we are not fighting. They then took us by force and put us onto the casper, it was me, the driver and the two comrades and they assaulted us, they tortured us, they took me to a police station in Church Street where I met Germit and other detectives from Uitenhage and they locked me in a cell, and I was there for the whole day and very late at night they took me out of the cell. There was a policemen known as Pentz. That was a detective together with Domse and Wimser were their informers, they were not policemen, they were just used by the policemen so they handcuffed me, my hands and also my legs, and they put me into a small office and asked me about Netisi Toto, Brafiks and Inkala. Then I said I didn't know all those people, then they said you are going to know them, then they assaulted me and put me into a car. They took me to Sotwai No.9, that is a place in Khayelitsha, that was at night. When we got there, still handcuffed as I was, there were some people that were dressed in big coats and they had sjamboks, they had some arms with them and they stood in front of this house and Pense talked to the leaders of these people.
There was one person who I identified who came to me and said, we have been looking for you for a long time, and the name of this person was Vujanie, I saw him face to face. The other one who I saw who died was, Julianda Goqo, there was also Kimoti Dandi who was their leader and he was present at the time. So this policemen said to them that they should assault me, but not hit me on the head, but beat UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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me up on the body. I was still hand cuffed. They pushed me and I fell down and they beat me with what they had, sticks and all.
They beat me for a long time, and they put me into a car and a Hippo was following. They took me to the police station in Despatch. I was there and I was swollen and my clothes were in tatters. I was kept there in a cell and after some time, after the whole day because I got there in the morning and I was there in Despatch for the whole day and then late at night, very early in the morning, a Lieutenant came there. I could see there was a badge written Fouche. It was quite an elderly man, I can describe him, he was in the company of another White policeman who did not have any pellets. They had a box of this size which was blue in size and it had some cross marks. He opened this box and took out a small bottle out of this box. It was an injection. All this time I was watching and I felt that perhaps Fouche knew a lot about me and then he took this injection with intention to inject me. Then I took a blanket to try and protect myself and so he stopped and then he sent his colleague that he should go and get handcuffs and he brought them and I was handcuffed. They threw me to the ground and that is when they got an opportunity to inject me on the right hand side of my buttock. They gave me two injections and I was still conscious at the time. After that I collapsed, I felt dizzy.
It was for a long time and then the following morning at 11:00, when I regained consciousness, my leg was numbed, it couldn't function well, it was swollen and I was wondering what had happened and my pants was down. I saw that I had some holes and it was itching. There were about
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five of these holes and then I regained my consciousness and I thought back about the injections that they had given to me.
Later on, at about 3:00, another detective came, it was a White man from Church Street but I have forgotten the name. He was in the company of a White female. They took me out of the cell and they put me into a yellow car and they asked me to lie on the back seat and I did that. They drove to another street here in Despatch and this was not a police station. This car reversed into the yard. There was an old White man with a panama hat on and I could hear them talking on a walkie talkie and then I could make out that I was at no.13 John Street. I was there for about two hours, in this car, together with these people and after that I lifted my head as we were driving on and I could make out there was 13, and they took me to Kirkwood to hide me there.
A lawyer came to me whilst I was there in Kirkwood and I told everything to the lawyer. After that, there were two people who came, one of them was Mayburgh Quitestoutimen, who came from Uitenhage and they enquired to me what had happened and I told them. I gave them a statement but up to date, I don't know what happened to everything I gave to them, so I pause.
PANEL MEMBER: Thank you very much for that. That was quite an incredible experience. I just need to go back slightly just to try and fill in any details. You were obviously injured, you had this wound to your head, and you were assaulted by the people that you have mentioned. Did they ever take you to consult a doctor?
MR BLAAUW: No, I never consulted any doctor.
PANEL MEMBER: You refer to a policeman, a Lieutenant
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Fouche, and you said you could see from the name tag, I assume, what his name was. Now, he administered some or other injection to you, did he tell you what it was all about. Why he was doing that?
MR BLAAUW: No, he just said to me, dearde gat, because I was saying to him, protesting that he had no right to inject me because he was not a doctor. Then he insulted me.
PANEL MEMBER: So, what did you understand, that he was going to punish you because you are, "harde gat", as he put it?
MR BLAAUW: Yes, I would say, it was not the first time that they arrested me. After that incident, of the Ama-Afrika, they had previously arrested me and Fouche had a lot that he knew about me, that is why he called me a harde gat, because it had been several times that he had arrested me. It is not only because he injected me because I was "harde gat", I think he had these plans even before that, that they were going to do that.
PANEL MEMBER: But, the point is that there wasn't giving you this injection to help you, or to help your medical condition, he was trying to do something bad to you, really?
MR BLAAUW: Yes, it is like that.
PANEL MEMBER: You say that another quite peculiar thing that you were removed from the police station and you were taken to a house in Despatch. Is it a private home?
MR BLAAUW: Sir, what happened in this house was that is was one of the Streets in Despatch. They asked me to lie flat on the back of the car. What I just looked was for the number of the car as I had heard them talking over the radio, that was in no.13 John Street in Despatch where they took me to.
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PANEL MEMBER: Subsequently, why they did that, why they removed you from the police station, took you to the residential area in Despatch and asked you to lie down in the car, as if you must ride away? Did you find out why they did that?
MR BLAAUW: There was a reason for it, because I heard, when I was in this house, when I was out of bay, that they had gone there to look for me there in Despatch. At that time, I was in a very bad state because of the assault by the Ama-Afrika, so they were hiding me there because they didn't want them to see me. My parents had gone with the people of Black Sash, there in Despatch, that is why they therefore decided to take me and to hide me.
PANEL MEMBER: Why did they keep you there in prison? Were you charged with anything?
MR BLAAUW: What they said at the regional court was that they were charging me with public violence.
PANEL MEMBER: But, they never arrested you for anything, they just stopped the car that you were driving in, you were on your way to Kabar, and they just kept you in police custody and afterwards you heard that you were being charged, and you knew nothing about this charge. Do I understand the position correctly?
MR BLAAUW: Yes, it is like that. These people had a grudge against the members of the Youth Congress and even the begrudged the members of the UDF, and I was a member of the United Congress at that time, so they decided to put these allegations because they did not just want to release me for nothing and then they decided to accuse me of public violence, not just to let me go.
PANEL MEMBER: So you were found not guilty?
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MR BLAAUW: That is right, sir.
PANEL MEMBER: In prison at Kirkwood, when were you released. They took you in January 1987, when did you get out of prison?
MR BLAAUW: I was released in September on bail, that was in Kirkwood, so I spent a long time in Kirkwood.
PANEL MEMBER: What was the effect of all this on you? Did it leave any effect on you, on your body, on your medical condition?
MR BLAAUW: Firstly, my eyes were affected because after all these assaults, I had some growth here on my eyes, and I had to be operated at Livingstone hospital. I again went to the provincial hospital for testing of my eyes. There is an old deaf doctor there who would always say that there was nothing wrong with my eyes. I still have my files there, but this doctor keeps on saying that there is nothing wrong with my eyes and yet I feel that there is something wrong with my eyes. Which is the reason why I put on these sunglasses. At night I can not see clearly, even here at the back, I feel some pain from the assault even here inside, I feel some pain. At the provincial hospital, I told the doctor that he should sent me for X-Rays, so as to see whether I wasn't perhaps affected by those injections because I just loose weight for no reason. I am a sportsman but my weight has just gone down in a very bad way.
One other thing sir, is that ever since I went through this incident, my father was also assaulted by those Ama-Afrika, I omitted that my father was a taxi owner, and he was driving to Khayelitsha, and he was assaulted by the Ama-Afrika when they were trying to find out about my whereabouts and ever since, my father became ill and he
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ultimately had a stroke and this really bothers me and this case was sent to Mrs Vanessa, a lawyer, but there was no progress because the kept on saying why investigating up till now. Yet, we see the perpetrators and they still say they are investigating even now.
PANEL MEMBER: Just before I conclude, are there any specific issues that you would want us to attend to, that you would like to draw our attention to as a Commission?
MR BLAAUW: My request to this Commission is that these perpetrators should come and appear before this Commission and come and tell the reason why they did all these bad things to us and who had sent them to do it.
Again, I am asking that I should excellent medical treatment because we are just in this hospital, given some tablets that are of no help to our health.
Some of us had to leave school. We could not continue with our education, we are asking this Commission that there should be some training centres that are to be erected so that we at least acquire some skills so as to be able to lead a better life. Thank you.
PANEL MEMBER: Thank you Mr Blaauw. Thank you for the detailed evidence and thank you for the requests that you have made, it is really a challenge to the Commission, we have heard it so many times and we quite appreciate the approach that you are adopting. Thank you very much, I am going to hand you back to the Chairperson now.
CHAIRPERSON: There is a question from Rev Xundu.
REV XUNDU: I would like you to be brief as much as possible because time is against us. You made mention of SABTA somewhere in no. 2, I want to know who was the owner of this SABTA taxi, or what was the role that was played by SABTA in UITENHAGE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE
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this conflict? Just tell us in short.
MR BLAAUW: I really don't know the owner, but it was blue in colour, it was written SABTA. What was happening that very morning as I was walking down, that taxi was driving right round the location.
REV XUNDU: Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON: .... to determine, how the security forces enticed people to become informers and collaborators. In your statement you say that they asked you to be an informer, exactly what did they say to you?
MR BLAAUW: They said to me at the time, they were taking me out of the cell, they asked about Netisi Toto and Hwangala, and other members. They said I should work for them, they were going to give me money. They brought money notes and showed them to me and they said that I should be their informer and I said I was not going to do that. They could kill me. So, they actually entice people by showing them the notes.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Blaauw, could you take your seat.
