TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 4

Subsection 2

Psychological problems

20 Internationally, the best-documented psychological consequences of human rights violations relate to the effects of torture. Torture can lead to wide ranging psychological, behavioural and medical problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder whose symptoms include “re-experiencing of the traumatic event, persistent avoidance stimuli associated with the event and persistent symptoms of increased arousal not present before the traumatic event.”⁶

21 Post-traumatic stress disorder is not, however, the only consequence of torture and human rights violations. Other problems include depression, anxiety disorders and psychotic conditions. The effects are multidimensional and interconnected, leaving no part of the victim’s life untouched. Exposure to trauma can lead to sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, chronic irritability, physical illness and a disruption of interpersonal relations and occupational, family and social functioning.

22 In many statements made to the Commission, deponents described symptoms of psychological disturbance. Although many deponents and victims referred to their symptoms, it was not possible to diagnose actual disorders or problems based on the statements and testimony at hearings. However, the following examples illustrate the kinds of psychological problems that resulted from gross human rights violations.

23 In 1987, after he refused to join the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, Mr Bhaki George Morake’s house in Botshabelo township was burnt down. He described the effects of this on his wife at the Bloemfontein hearing:

From 1987, my first wife had lost her mind - until the 1994 elections when we separated ... She might have suffered some anxiety, because she didn’t really act like a normal person ... When our house was petrol bombed, the bomb fell on the bed on which she was sleeping. Then I noticed thereafter that she was quite depressed.

24 Mr Sizwe Kondile went into exile in response to constant harassment by the police. In 1981, he was arrested and killed in detention. At the East London hearing, his mother, Ms Charity Nongqalelo Kondile described the effects on the family:

Lindiwe and Sizwe have been very close, were very closely placed. Lindiwe never reconciled. She never accepted the fact that her brother [had] been killed. Until recently she suffered from depressive psychosis which the doctors at the hospital referred to as some depression that has been bottled up for a long time, and I feel that this [was] the result of all that she has been bottling up for all these years.

25 Ms Elizabeth Sizane Mduli was shot and paralysed while attending a school boycott gathering in Nelspruit in 1986. From being a fit athlete, she became physically disabled and has since suffered from psychological problems:

My mind, my mental state, is unstable. At times I just stop thinking ... I realise that it seems as if I am a bit insane.

26 Many victims reported problems of memory loss and emotional numbness.

27 Mr Morgan Sabatha Phehlani was a councillor whose home and business were burnt down by youth in the course of a community conflict in 1991. Mr Phelani’s son was eleven years old when he witnessed the stabbing and burning of his mother. Since this incident, he has suffered psychologically:

You know, he goes and forgets. He forgets, now and then he forgets. You must always remind him. That’s the trouble we’re having with him.

28 Ms Nobuthi Winnie Ncaca’s sixteen-year-old son, Mawethu, was shot and killed by the police in Cradock in 1986. Since his death, Ms Ncaca has been suffering from psychological problems. At the Cradock hearing, she told the Commission:

My memory was affected, if you tell me something I just forget. I always forget.

29 Mr Johannes Petrus Roos spoke of the death of his wife and son in a landmine explosion in 1986. He and his other two children witnessed the explosion. He described the effects on his daughter at the Nelspruit hearing:

It was not easy, an easy time for my five-year old daughter who had turned six, who had to go to school the following year without her mom. It was not easy to explain all this to her. That child never cried. That child doesn’t cry today either.

30 Mr Mthembeni Sipho Magwaza was attending a peace rally when members of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) abducted him and five of his friends. One of his friends and five other people were shot and killed. His shop was later looted and destroyed. He described his psychological state:

I am a living zombie; psychologically and emotionally, I am dead.