TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 7

Volume FOUR Chapter SEVEN

Institutional Hearing:Prisons

■ INTRODUCTION

1 As an institution of the state, prisons – together with the police, the judiciary and the security apparatus – were an integral part of the chain of oppression of those who resisted apartheid.

2 Numerous statements to the Commission provided extensive evidence of gross human rights violations suffered by prisoners, either in detention or serving prison sentences. This testimony supported the considerable body of published accounts that shed light on the particular role played by prisons in the period under review. It also highlighted the irony that many of the leaders of our new democracy spent long years in prison because of their opposition to apartheid.

3 In a significant way, prisons were a microcosm of the society outside. They were protected from scrutiny by law and driven by a system that was determined by the nature of the society they protected. As such, they provide an important window on the nature of the former state. The special hearing was an attempt to open that window.

■ PREPARATION FOR THE HEARING

4 Choice of venue was important in providing a symbolic focus for the hearings. The first and obvious choice was Robben Island, but unfortunately this proved impossible because of logistic problems and cost factors. It was decided that the Johannesburg Fort was an equally appropriate symbol of political resistance. Its former inmates included Mahatma Gandhi and President Mandela and, as the notorious ‘Number Four’ prison, it played a significant part in the lives of many apartheid detainees and prisoners, male and female. The hearing was held in the courtyard of the Fort, in a marquee erected alongside the former isolation block.

5 The two-day hearing at the Fort was made financially and practically possible through the assistance of the Human Rights Desk of the Gauteng Greater Metropolitan Council.

Focus

6 Preparatory discussions led to a decision to distinguish between common law criminals and political prisoners. Political prisoners were particularly disadvantaged by the apartheid system: their imprisonment was retributive and punitive, making no pretence of rehabilitation. Because the focus of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act (the Act) was on the political conflicts of the past, it was decided that the hearing should concentrate on the experiences of political prisoners.

7 It was also decided that the hearing should focus on the testimony of sentenced political prisoners rather than detainees, for reasons discussed below. The inevitable effect of this restricted agenda was that there were gaps in the testimony heard.

Pass law offenders

8 The first of these gaps concerned the experiences of pass law offenders who, for many of the years under review, formed a large proportion of the prison population – as high as one in every four inmates during the 1960s and 1970s. A strong argument was made for the inclusion of this category of common law prisoners in the hearings.

9 Pass law offenders were sent to prison, not because they were criminals, but because they did not meet the administrative requirements of a racist, apartheid law. The result was that a large number of people were sent to prison for offences that would not have qualified as criminal anywhere else in the world. Moreover, the treatment of pass law offenders could well be interpreted as a human rights violation, especially considering the nature of prison life at the time. Prisoners of all races experienced over-crowding and harsh conditions, but conditions were particularly brutal for black prisoners. In addition, gangs dominated the non-political sections of prisons. There was thus a strong probability that offenders, especially young and first-time offenders, would be drawn into gangsterism. Prisons thus became a base for the criminalisation of a significant part of at least two generations of young South Africans.

10 However, it was decided that the pass laws and their effects fell outside the Commission’s mandate, especially given the requirement that every violation had to originate within a political context. This decision was not, however, a comfortable one for the group planning the hearing, especially in the light of the devastating effect of the pass laws on the lives of so many South Africans.