TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 4

Subsection 10

The case of White Mohapi and others

The Commission heard of the torture of some twenty UDF activists who were arrested while trying to cross the border into Lesotho in April 1986 with the intention of joining the ANC in exile. They were apprehended by the SADF, kept in the veld overnight and then taken to the security police camp at Ladybrand where they were interrogated. They were then sent to Security Branch offices at the Fountain Police Station in Bloemfontein where they were tortured, electrocuted and beaten.

Two individuals were singled out. Mr White Mohapi [KZN/TIS/038/BL] was taken to an office where he was tied to a chair and suffocated by Sergeants Mamome and Motsamai using the ‘tubing’ method. This happened two or three times, and on each occasion, Mohapi was asked to inform for the Security Branch. He consistently refused, refusing also to make a statement about the group crossing the border to Lesotho. His refusal brought on hours of assault from a number of officers, whose names he gave to the Commission.

Mohapi’s interrogation continued on the third day when two senior Security Branch officers allegedly took turns at assaulting him. By this time, Mohapi claimed, he could not speak or eat. On the fourth day he was taken to the doctor, who dispensed a mild painkiller.

Sergeants Mamome and Motsamai have applied for amnesty for their part in this case. In his application for amnesty before the Commission, Nelson Ngo spoke of this incident and said that Colonel Coetzee allegedly instructed Lieutenant Shaw and another senior Security Branch officer to divide the Security Branch members into two groups, to be headed by the two of them. The group of activists was also divided, and Coetzee and Colonel Stevenson allegedly ordered that assaults and interrogation of ‘comrades’ should proceed in the two groups.

Ngo said that the activists were forced to drink 2.5 litres water each, then to do frog-jump exercises, push-ups and high jump whilst they were assaulted. They were denied food and were offered opportunities to become state witnesses or informants against their fellow ‘comrades’. Some of the activists agreed to do this. Those who refused were assaulted further. Ngo said that some of the detainees were bleeding through the ears as a result of heavy beatings. Some of the detainees were forced to write statements; some turned state witnesses. The rest were charged under the Terrorism Act.

The torture of Isaac Maduna

Mr Isaac Mokoeneng Maduna told the Commission that he was arrested by police in October 1987 while he was addressing Sasol workers gathered at a Parys bus stop. Maduna was a member of the Disciplinary Committee of the South African Chemical Workers’ Union and was reporting to the assembled group the decisions of a meeting of the Committee.

He was taken to Parys police station where he was beaten with sjamboks and sticks by Security Branch Constable Hennie Sochiva and others. He was later taken to Sasolburg police station where he was forced to make a statement and again tortured [KZN/JRW/058/PS].

The case of Sam Totolo

COSAS activist Sam Nqaba Totolo was detained on numerous occasions during 1984. He was tortured in detention and poisoned with chemicals injected into his feet, causing them to swell up. He was also beaten and given electric shocks. On one occasion in 1986, he was taken to Viljoenskroon police station where white police constables would switch off the cell lights and enter the cell in order to assault him. He told the Commission:

“The worst form of torture was when they would kick me on the chest with my head facing down. The result thereof was spitting of blood through the mouth from the chest. This happened on several occasions. The district surgeon would always, when making check-ups, claim that I’m still physically and psychologically fit, whereas I could feel that I was dying slowly because of inner pains I was feeling.” [KZN/AT/004/FS.]

91 From evidence presented to the Commission by detainees in the Orange Free State, it appears that district surgeons’ fortnightly visits to detainees, provided for by the Internal Security Act of 1982, were neither regular nor reliable. Two witnesses alleged that the seriousness of their conditions was not diagnosed by doctors who examined them after police assault. In one case, a mild painkiller was dispensed to treat someone who was seriously injured as a result of police torture.

92 Not one long-term detainee giving evidence to the Commission in the Orange Free State referred to routine or regular visits by a district surgeon to the detention cells at police stations. Witnesses reported being referred to a doctor when their injuries were serious enough to require hospitalisation. Further, reports indicated that police gained admission to hospital wards in order to restrain detainee-patients by handcuffing them to hospital beds and, in at least one reported case, assaulting the detainee even further. The Commission also heard of a case where a senior hospital administrator gave false information to a deceased’s family about the death of a patient and sent the family on a spurious search for a permit before giving them access to the corpse.

93 At the Welkom hearing of the Commission, claims were made that black patients were denied treatment at ‘white’ and ‘mine’ hospitals for injuries sustained as a result of police action, obliging them to travel great distances for medical treatment, even in emergency situations.