TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 5

Subsection 8

■ MISUSE OF MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION25

46 Medical expertise and information should be used to heal patients and develop new methods of prevention, treatment and cure. They can, however, be used against people in destructive ways. Many people view scientific data as ‘fact’, although, taken out of context or misrepresented, such data can be used for unethical purposes and have adverse outcomes.

47 Submissions and amnesty applications forwarded to the Commission, together with court evidence and secondary sources, gave numerous indications that health professionals were involved in committing human rights abuses and used their medical knowledge directly or indirectly to harm others. Some professionals were alleged to have participated in developing more effective methods of torture and interrogation, or to have given advice on how to use chemicals to make weapons or to poison people. Some also used their knowledge to design specialised weapons. Others, especially forensic specialists, used their expertise to falsify information or to disguise the cause of death in order to exonerate certain persons (often the Security Police) from blame.

Misuse of medical expertise

48 Doctors and mental health professionals were alleged to have advised torturers on how to identify potential victims, break down their resistance and exploit their vulnerabilities in order to achieve the goals of the state. It was also alleged that they helped assess the vulnerabilities of victims and prescribed drugs or psychological procedures to weaken detainees before torture was administered. They also recommended the kind of torture that would be most effective. In addition, some doctors were alleged to have advised torturers during interrogations as to when victims were near breaking point and how much more pain could be withstood.

49 Doctors are alleged to have given advice to police on lethal chemical formulas that were undetectable or difficult to trace, and on ways to disguise torture methods. In the case of Mr Siphiwe Mthimkulu, the victim became very ill after his release from detention. Upon further investigation, it was found that he had been poisoned with thallium, an odourless, tasteless poison whose effects are delayed after ingestion.²⁶ Siphiwe Mthimkulu disappeared in the year after he was released from prison. Many people believe that only a medical professional or chemical expert would have had the knowledge to advise the police to use such a poison.

50 Mr Amos Dyantyi told the Commission that he was severely tortured on the day of his detention in 1985. He almost suffocated when his torturers put a tube over his head. He was electrocuted by having electrodes inserted into his anus and suffered excruciating pain when a mechanical piece of equipment (like a jackhammer) was forcefully pushed into his stomach. The police were so concerned about his condition that a part-time district surgeon was called in to see him. Before he was taken to the hospital, the doctor allegedly told the Security Branch police to force porridge into his nose so that it would look as if he had suffocated on the porridge.

51 It is also believed that doctors advised interrogators how to administer electric shock. Initially, it was administered through clips or wires. However, the clips left marks that were detectable under a microscope. Professor Simpson, who worked extensively with detainees, reported that, once it became widely known that detection of electric shock was possible, there was a change in the way in which detainees described the administration of electric shock. Torturers poured water over the victim and administered the current over a larger area of the body. Because the area through which the current penetrated was larger, this method left no marks. Again, it is believed that it was health professionals who advised torturers on this less detectable method of electric shock. Professor Simpson noted that, once it was discovered that electric shock could still be detected by a blood test, electric shock was used less frequently.

52 Doctors were also used by the SADF to develop weapons such as letter bombs and silencers for guns.²⁷ In a recent amnesty application, a perpetrator admitted to working for an SADF front company which, posing as a commercial chemical company, developed weapons such as letter bombs and special weapons that could deliver small amounts of lethal chemicals. This application named several medical doctors who were involved in this operation.²⁸