TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 3

Chapter 1

Subsection 12

Torture

116. As discussed above, a very small proportion of security force applicants applied specifically for torture violations. When prompted, however, several applicants gave vivid and sometimes horrifying testimony of torture techniques used by members of the Security Branch and the SAP. One applicant described it thus:

C A P T. ZEELIE: … there were methods used, common assault, slapping with an open hand or with fists. Then there was also the tube method that was used and at that stage we used a wet bag that was pulled over a person’s head … and basically the person was suffocated for a short while. And then we also used shock methods where, at that stage, two electrical wires which were con nected to a telephone-like device, was attached to the person. We would at that stage put a stick between a person’s teeth so he can bite on it and then the telephone handle was turned and this sent a shock through the person, and at that stage that also sort of suffocated the person.

And then what I can recall now is the method of a broomstick where a person is handcuffed and his hands are pulled over his knees and the broomstick is pushed in-between, through his arms and legs and he’s hung between two tables, and it is in that position that he is questioned…

… you took the person’s mind and you made him believe that something could happen to him … I took a hand grenade and it was a hand grenade that has been secured, there ’s no explosives in it, there ’s no detonator that could go off. And then that hand grenade, this is what I did, I would for example, take it and have the person hold it between his legs while his hands are bound behind his back and then psychologically you made him believe that if he opens his legs the hand grenade will drop to the floor and it will blow him up. .. and then, for example, we also used methods where persons would be assaulted by an interrogator and then the assault would be ceased and then perhaps the following day you would use another interrogator and that interrogator would be the so-called ‘nice guy’ and he would speak nicely to the person and then psychologically that man will, this guy who is nice to him, he would trust this guy more and supply information to him … … I will honestly say that it was general practice in the Police and specifically in the final years where I was involved in the Security Branch. There was never any person that was ashamed to say that he had assaulted a person or had applied certain techniques in order to obtain certain information. (Bloemfontein hearing, 9 October 2000.)

117. General Erasmus, who was Divisional Commander of the Eastern Cape and Witwatersrand Security Branches at the time of Mr Stanza Bopape’s detention and death, told the Committee that he accepted that violence was used as part of interrogation. He confirmed that, while members of the Security Branch were never instructed to use torture, members of the police engaged in such practices with the tacit approval of their seniors (Pretoria hearing, 4 June 1998).

118. Yet, despite such testimony, two former commanding officers of the Security Branch and the SAP, Generals Johan Coetzee and Johan van der Merwe, denied that torture was condoned at a senior level. General Coetzee said that, where persons were found using such methods, the case would be investigated and, where sufficient evidence existed, the offending party would be charged . However, aside from one incident in which two police officers had been charged and convicted, he was unable to specify any other incident or produce any documentation or evidence showing that such action had been taken.

119. General van der Merwe, who applied for amnesty for his involvement in the cover up of the actions of Security Branch members involved in the killing of Mr Bopape, told the Amnesty Committee that torture and deaths in detention ‘would beavery serious embarrassment for the South African Police and the national government’. He testified, however, that there was some sympathy for members who used torture ‘in an effort to obtain information which could have led to the saving of lives’. Yet he insisted that they would have had to face the consequences of their actions. Police members who engaged in torture were aware of the seriousness of the offence and the ‘dangerous position that could have come about if this matter was handled in the wrong manner’. He believed that offenders would not repeat their mistakes and, for this reason, he did nothing further about it. Ultimately, General van der Merwe conceded that his refusal to warn police members that the practice of torture would not be tolerated amounted to a condonation of the practice and the protection from senior officers ( Pretoria hearing, 1 September 1998).

Arson and sabotage

120. The 1980s saw a pattern of state-directed sabotage and arson, authorised from the highest levels of government. The Amnesty Committee received applications for eighty-three incidents of bombing or arson.

Attacks on buildings

121. Attacks on offices included the 1982 bombing of the ANC offices in London, Cosatu House and Khotso House, all operations that were authorised at the highest level.⁵¹ At the amnesty hearing into the bombing of Cosatu House, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) produced evidence of forty-six attacks on their offices around the country.

122. Applications for amnesty were received for over twenty attacks on offices or buildings, including the following:

a The bombing of Community House in Salt River, Cape Town on 29 August 1987. Tenants of the recently completed building were to include COSATU and several anti-apartheid organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Operatives from the Western Cape Security Branch, Security Branch Headquarters and SADF Special Forces applied for and were granted amnesty for this incident [AC/2002/150 AC/2002/042].

b An arson attack on Khanya House, the Pretoria offices of the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference on 12 October 1988, leading to the building being extensively damaged by fire. Members of C1/Vlakplaas and the Technical Section of Security Branch Headquarters applied for and were granted amnesty for this incident. A number of people were in the building at the time of the attack [AC/2000/215].⁵²

c An explosion at the offices of the Early Learning Centre in Athlone Cape Town on 31 August 1989, minutes before the Cape Youth Congress were due to hold an executive meeting there. Members of Region Six of the CCB, an SADF Special Forces covert unit, were refused amnesty for lack of full disclosure [AC/2001/232].