FREDERICK EMMANUEL HUFKIE: (sworn states)
MR SANDI: Thank you Mr Chairman. Good afternoon Father Hufkie.
REV HUFKIE: Good afternoon Sir.
MR SANDI: Before I assist you to give evidence before this Commission, I just want to say that I'm personally very glad to meet you at last. I've read a lot about you. As I told you during tea time, I used to work in an office where there was a huge file about you, a lawyers office so I thought of know some of the things you will be talking about.
I am going to ask you a number of questions just to help you to put your story to this Commission, but before I do that, I just want to ask you to tell us very briefly about yourself.
REV HUFKIE: Comrade Chair, I think I should start when I entered Fort Hare in the late 30's, the early 40's, and that is where I met the present President, Nelson Mandela and the late Oliver Tambo. So that was a great privilege for me to have been with them at university. When I left there I entered the teaching profession and I became a member of the Teachers' League of South Africa the Unity Movement. I also had friends in the Communist Party, I taught with them but I never became member of the Communist Party. In any event I was associated with those who opposed the government at the time and the apartheid system and I was being harassed and intimidated to a considerable extent during my early years as a school teacher until 1976 when I was detained for the first time. I don't know whether you want me to continue further in this trend Comrade Chair.
MR SANDI: Thank you very much Father Hufkie. I think that should be sufficient for introduction. I have read your statement and it seems to me that your testimony will cover two periods, that is 1976 and 1985, is that correct Father Hufkie?
REV HUFKIE: That is correct Sir.
MR SANDI: Before we talk about what happened to you during 1976 when you were detained, would you mind if I asked you personal question? You appear to be quite an elderly person? Are able to tell us how old you are Father Hufkie if you don't mind about that.
REV HUFKIE: I'm the same age as the President of the country Nelson Mandela, 78 years.
MR SANDI: Thank you very much for that Father Hufkie. Let us go on to talk about 1976. You say in 1976 you were arrested at school? Were you a teacher at the time?
REV HUFKIE: Yes Sir, I was at that time head master of the High School, the Spandau High School at Graaf Reinet and I was all along a target of the security police, they set my school alight, certain classrooms. I considered that as a form of intimidation in order to be able to pin something on to me. It went on until they arrested me in June 1976, I was busy in my office and without any warning the security police entered my office and told me that I'm being put under arrest. They did not convey any reasons for my arrest and just told me that I had to come along with them.
They took me to the police station at Graaf Reinet without allowing me to see my wife or to enter my home in order to pick up small toiletry requirements, etc. and I was rushed from there, from the police station at Graaf Reinet at break-neck speed by a security policeman, Sergeant van Eden, to Oudtshoorn. From there I was immediately transferred to another police vehicle and taken to Paarl, and there I was imprisoned in the Victor Verster Prison.
MR SANDI: Did you appear in court to face any criminal charge?
REV HUFKIE: Yes my wife is a very sensitive person and she was deeply distressed, and she resorted to legal action, some form of legal action but it all was in vain. No charge was lodged against me, I was merely detained and imprisoned.
MR SANDI: Was that detention without trial in terms of the security laws of the time?
MR SANDI: I take it this was detention without trial in terms of some of the security laws that existed at the time?
REV HUFKIE: I presume that is the case Sir.
MR SANDI: Did anything happen to you whilst you were in detention in terms of bad treatment or torture?
REV HUFKIE: My treatment, I was not subjected to any form of torture, but the whole experience was for me very humiliating and very distressful because I had a responsible position and I was merely taken away from my school. I still had very important matters to attend to but the security police were not interested in that at all, and that is why I felt very frustrated, very demoralised, and it was an experience of extreme distress for me during my detention. I remained in prison for seven months, it extended over the Christmas vacation, New Year, they would not release me, the security police at Oudtshoorn, under whose jurisdiction Graaf Reinet fell at the time. They maintained that I was a source of danger to the community, I had to be taken completely away from the community and it was only the intervention of the security police of Cape Town who visited the Victor Verster Prison regularly and I maintain it was because of good conduct that they declared that I had to be released in the new year.
MR SANDI: I have a copy of your statement in front of me, there is something that says here, one of the reasons why you were arrested was because you were refusing to assist the police in arresting students. Would you like to explain that?
MR SANDI: Was it a customary practice amongst the police? to expect teachers to cooperate when they want to arrest students?
REV HUFKIE: Yes they expected me to cooperate with them, but I refused. That I believe, is a contributory factor which led to my arrest.
MR SANDI: These students, were they your students at your school? Were they under you as a teacher at school?
REV HUFKIE: That's correct Sir.
MR SANDI: Is that all you've got to say about 1976 before we proceed to what happened in 1985?
REV HUFKIE: Yes as I said it was a very demoralising experience for me to have taken into custody for no reason whatsoever, except that I was opposed to the government policy, opposed to the government and I expressed myself freely. So that is the position as far as 1976 was concerned. I returned and decided that I was going to resign, take early retirement from the teaching profession because I feared that at some stage they were going to dismiss me, the Department of Education, because of my opposition to the Coloured Affairs having taken over the education of our schools at the time, I was vehemently opposed to Coloured Affairs and I expressed myself freely in the presence of inspectors when they visited my school and I think that is a factor which would have eventually led to my dismissal, and that is why I decided to go on early retirement prematurely, depriving myself of substantial financial benefits, pension benefits and other benefits. But I felt that the safest way out would be for me to go on premature retirement, even though I suffered financially because of that premature retirement in 1976. I retired in 1978, I served another year, 1977 and in 1978 my retirement was granted, voluntary retirement prematurely.
MR SANDI: Did you Father Hufkie at some stage change professions and become a church minister?
REV HUFKIE: Yes Sir, after retiring from the teaching profession, I proceeded in 1979 to Rhodes University to study theology in order to qualify for the Christian Ministry. I served three years at Rhodes and I was sent to Johannesburg to complete a period of probation of two years at Johannesburg and then I received a call to Graaf Reinet to the Parsonage Street Congregational Church. In 1984 I was ordained as the minister of that church and a minister of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa.
MR SANDI: Then in 1985 when you were a member of the UDF and the ANC did you say you were detained again by the security police?
REV HUFKIE: Yes Sir in 1985 when I returned from one of my outstations, Noupoort in the neighbourhood of Graaf Reinet, I pulled my car into the car port at my home and the security police pounced on me immediately... (end of side A tape 16)
(side B of tape 16).....inquired as after my whereabouts by telephone to the other security policemen along the road from Middelburg to Graaf Reinet and they sent through the message that I was on my way, and at my car they approached me and said that I was under arrest and they did not allow me to enter my house or to see my wife and family. They shoved me on to one of the caspars, together with other comrades of mine and took me to the police station at Graaf Reinet.
MR SANDI: Then can we talk about the humiliation to which you were subjected when you were in detention, what happened to you when you were in the police cells during 1985?
REV HUFKIE: Yes Sir it was a much worse experience for me at Middelburg. They held us at Graaf Reinet's police station for ten days, about twenty of us locked up in a small cell without any toilet facilities, there was one bucket that served ablution purposes and we were all crowded together in that cell for 10 days without being able to was or clean ourselves and with only that bucket as an ablution facility. We slept amongst one another and it was a horrible experience. I told this Sergeant Stander, when he came into the cell that it was a disgraceful state to which we were being subjected and were they not going to see to it that we were at least allowed human facilities. He said that he would see to that and that was the last that I saw of him at that time.
That was at Graaf Reinet, from they transported us to the prison in Middelburg. There are colleagues that were with us at the time in this audience here today, and we were locked up in the prison at Middelburg and there we served over six months.
MR SANDI: Was anyone of your colleagues at that stage forced to take off all his clothes?
REV HUFKIE: Yes in prison we were at one stage instructed to strip ourselves to the skin, we were naked all of us, naked, and we were told to lean against the wall of the cell. It was a very very humiliating experience for me as a Christian minister, some of my colleagues were members of my church and to have been exposed in such a manner created great pain and humiliation for me.
MR SANDI: Who was doing this to you?
REV HUFKIE: The captain of the prison. I cannot remember his name. He instructed all the other warders who came dressed in the uniform that they put on when they were busy with onslaughts on prisoners. They came and told us to undress, the captain of the prison led this squad.
MR SANDI: Did they give any reasons for this order?
REV HUFKIE: Sir I don't know what happened, I don't know whether some of us peeped through the window, we were disallowed to do that I think, but something must have happened to have disturbed them to the extent that they instructed us to strip naked.
MR SANDI: Is that the end of your testimony Father Hufkie.
REV HUFKIE: Yes Sir, I would just like to mention that my premature retirement from teaching, as I mentioned at the beginning landed me in financial difficulties, because I deprived myself of substantial financial benefits and at this stage I retired from the Christian ministry as well now, I'm no longer active in the ministry, although I still serve when the church needs me for communion and baptism and marriages, but the paucity of my present pension as a teacher is absolutely inadequate for me to meet my commitments and I depend to a great extent my children to support me. So I feel that as a result of my premature retirement, I deprived myself of financial needs which create difficulties for me at the present time and I wish to appeal for a small pension. I believe there is a pension for those who had committed themselves to this struggle for liberation in the past, to be rewarded with a pension, a small pension to supplement my present teacher's pension will be deeply appreciated.
MR SANDI: I take it Father Hufkie, that that is the end of your testimony.
REV HUFKIE: That is right Sir.
MR SANDI: Thank you very much Father Hufkie, I will now return you to the Chairman. Thank you very much Mr Chairman.
CHAIRPERSON: Father Hufkie, we are grateful that you have come to share your experiences with the Commission. We are aware of the kind of humiliation that you suffered and as you know, many people who dared to oppose the system of apartheid were subjected to those kinds of experiences, and even worse. We are grateful that you have shared this experience with us and with the people of South Africa.
We have noted the request that you have made. We are going to be sitting down and analysing all these submissions and see if they fit into the definition of what the Act requires us to do in terms of the gross human rights violations and make recommendations to the State President who then will take the final decision on these matters. For now let me just say that the Commission is grateful that you have made this submission, and indeed you belong to a few of those who were not so disadvantaged but preferred to identify themselves with those who were on the side of disadvantage. Thank you very much.