hrvtrans HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, SUBMISSIONS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 1997-06-05 WITBANK 1 MR MARK SHINNERS https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=56157&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/hrvtrans/witbank/9witshi.htm DR RANDERA MR MARK SHINNERS (sworn states) DR RANDERA Thank you very much. The floor is yours. MR SHINNERS To-day, we look back at the history of our struggle. We look back at the cost and the immense suffering that our struggle entailed. We look at the present successors but also we look back at the human cost, the ordinary people who made our struggle develop. The Bethal trial was a reflection in most measures of the struggle of our people. It came about because the African people refused to accept that they had to live with oppression, with injustices, with racial discrimination and to be discriminated upon and live with all the things which were intended to make them feel sub-human. Then on that certain night there was this heavy shuffling and somebody was either carrying a bag or something heavy up the stairs, past the passage and in the morning we heard a shout through the window, the term that we used because of the situation, was a code-name for Freedom Fighters. We used to refer to Freedom Fighters as horses, Amahashe. If ever there was reference to a horse, a racing horse then we knew that it was a Freedom Fighter. Somebody shouted through a window and said, I think it was Moses Masemala, he said that a horse is dead in the cell. Apparently he was told by one of the cleaners. May I mention that a few days later, in the reception office of the prison, there was a heated confrontation between warders and security police. These warders were saying that, to take any prisoner out of this place, you have to ensure that you comply with the requirements of the prison service, you cannot just take prisoners out of the prison complex and away, without any record being kept. This was just a few days after the death of Aron Xhosa. One can go on. We have the case of Wyembibi Mnzizi whose photograph has a very chilling reflection, hanging in the toilet, his feet below the bowl between the cistern, with a rope around his neck, his toes touching the floor and yet he had committed suicide. Somehow those who were supposed to look into these issues did not perhaps feel fit to be more questioning, to be more circumspect and to be more critical of the methods that the police used against detainees. There was no voluntary participation on the question of those who gave evidence for the State. Firstly, these people had been seriously assaulted and we knew that. We know of cases of people who were made to spend some time in a mortuary where there were corpses of motor car accident victims and these people were being brought to testify, even against their spouses. The court gave a ruling that, that witness could give evidence against her own spouse. That stood. We were tried far away from our homes and the question was, why is it that we are being, our trial is being conducted so far away. Was it that we did not have facilities in Pretoria where the majority of the accused were? We were also interrogated very far away from our homes. If during interrogation maybe they pick up that there was a pamphlet, a PAC pamphlet somewhere in Attridgeville a car would be given and they would drive all the way from Pietermaritzburg to Pretoria to pick up that one-page pamphlet and bring it back to Pietermaritzburg. The people who were assembled there were referred to as a team and amongst them were those who were called the PAC team, you have the ANC team because they were specialists in torturing and in dealing with members of the different organizations, particularly members of the PAC as it was facing us that time. I noticed that some of the names of the people who were part of the interrogating team have featured in other incidences, like the Vlakplaas incident and so forth. It was not surprising that their names popped up there. These men were sort of way above the law. They were way above anything in terms of authority. They felt that they ruled the roost. They determined what happens to you, virtually they do not make it a secret that your life was in their hands. To survive you simply had to do as they expected you to do. It was not surprising that when we went and appeared in court, the first thing that was done was, the State asked for the proceedings to be held "in camera."