special Prison Hearings 1997-07-21 THE FORT - JOHNNESBURG 1 MR HENRY MAGKOTHI https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/hearing.php?id=56356&t=&tab=hearings https://sabctrc.saha.org.za/originals/special/prison/magkothi.htm DR BORAINE</B> I will ask Mr Henry Magkothi to come forward please. Mr Magkothi thank you very much for coming, we welcome you most warmly. Would you please stand for the taking of the oath. MR HENRY MAGKOTHI (sworn states) DR BORAINE</B> Mr Magkothi as I explained earlier when each of the witnesses come before us it is their story that they are telling, we are not trying to tell them what to say. You know what happened to you but in order to assist the proceedings and because we have a lot of people who want to speak Mrs Joyce Seroke will facilitate your story, thank you. Mrs Seroke? MRS SEROKE</B> MR MAGKOTHI MRS SEROKE</B> MR MAGKOTHI Yes as I say, I was involved in the logistics side of Umkhonto weSizwe and when I was given instructions to go abroad I was also given instructions to accompany, to take out of the country, I think it must have been in the region of about thirty young people. I was given this instruction together with the late Joe Ghabe who by then was an experienced guerrilla, he already had military training abroad in China and we were given the responsibility of taking these young people across. As I say the roots, Joe Ghabe had more experience as he had been abroad I think once or twice already, gone outside and come back into the country but for me it was the first time I was taking these young men over who were going for military training abroad. At the time it was a pretty risky business because the security, the tentacles of the South African security reached very, very far as we discovered. We travelled through Botswana, we travelled through the bush but I think that even while we were travelling through the bush in Botswana, the authorities at home here already knew, I mean the special branch already knew, through their numerous contacts I believe also in Botswana, that there was this group of young people going abroad. All along the way we were dogged by security agents or people whom we suspected were security agents until we crossed over into Zambia. It was at the time when the Unik Movement was on the verge of taking over power in Zambia and there was a very heightened security on the part of the authorities there so when we crossed the Zambezi into Livingstone, I think by then the authorities on the other side knew about our arriving in the country and very soon we were rounded up in Livingstone and arrested. We spent some time in jail there and then eventually we were sent back to South Africa. MRS SEROKE</B> You spent some time after you were charged with leaving the country illegally, you were sentenced for two years and then you spent some time in Leeuwkop Prison and thereafter you were sent to Robben Island. Neville Alexander in his dossier which he wrote to give an insight of what was happening in Robben Island when he was also incarcerated, describes some of the situations in Robben Island. He says quote, more astounding if possible is the almost total lack of knowledge of the main regulations and sections of the Act pertaining to the treatment and conduct of offenders and he goes on to say that most of the warders were either very cruel, harsh, vindictive or adverse and coldly indifferent to the sufferings of prisoners. How would you confirm that or reject it? MR MAGKOTHI I think that is a fair summary of what was taking place at the time in the prisons and you will have heard also the testimony given by Mr Masondo that it is in line with what he said there. Insofar as my experience about the amount of ignorance there was about what ... the prisoners generally should be incarcerated under in the prisons. I must say that when I first got to Leeuwkop and this was in 1962 I think, the treatment was so harsh there that we soon realised that unless we do something because we were a group, as I say some thirty three of us were arrested so there was an advantage of numbers and we soon realised that unless we do something about this we would not be able to survive here in jail. After they had given us the rules, they said look here there is no, we discovered that among the privileges that we could have in jail was the privilege to study and things like that and we thought that we were going to start making representations to be allowed to study and so on and also to have decent clothing, like shoes. We had no shoes despite the fact that we were driven out every morning to work, shackled hand and foot and chased by warders on horseback to places where we should work. I was in Robben Island from 1962, I was one of the very early inmates of that prison even though when I was there I did find Mr Masondo and I did find Johnson and there were other people who had been there before us but I certainly was one of the earliest to be, you know our group was one of the very earliest to go to Robben Island. MRS SEROKE</B> In your statement you say that when you were in Robben Island you discovered you had tuberculosis and you had to work in spite of your physical incapacity, was there any medical help in that prison? MR MAGKOTHI MRS SEROKE</B> Also in your statement you say that you had to fight very hard to change the conditions at the prison, how did you try to effect these changes? MR MAGKOTHI The only weapons which we had while we were at Robben Island were strikes in the form of hunger strikes and we had numerous of these strikes in Robben Island in particular. That is how we thought we would be able to change things. The strikes would go on for a very long time. It was just a test of endurance between ourselves and the authorities. After each strike we would be very much weaker but we always consoled ourselves that after every such strike we made a little progress. MRS SEROKE</B> In the statement one of your recommendations to the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee is that you would like that there should be counselling for ex-prisoners and financial help as well as councelling for perpetrators. That is very interesting coming from you, having suffered at the hands of perpetrators. How do you come to make such a statement? MR MAGKOTHI As for councelling for the victims, I think that is easy to appreciate because of the type of life which they were forced to live in jail. Mr Masondo has referred to the type of warder who was in charge of us while we were in jail, you heard some of the stories he told about the distorted kind humour which they had and how easy it was for them to resort to brutalities. These are human beings, people like you and me so how did it come about that people should behave in the way these people behaved? How did that happen? Mr Masondo has already said there was a lot of indoctrination, these people sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing by treating political prisoners in the manner in which they did and that they were simply being loyal to a system. I think to a very large extent these people must have been brainwashed, they must have been indoctrinated as well and it is on that basis that I think that if we are going to make a difference in this country, a difference in the manner in we approach things like human rights, it is essential that something should be done about changing the way that people like that look at other human beings and how they approach life in general. MRS SEROKE</B> Thank you very much Mr Magkothi. DR BORAINE</B> Thank you very much, just before go, are there any other questions? Mr Lewin? MR LEWIN</B> Mr Magkothi thanks very much, I would just like to ask one question. You had a fair amount of time and you must have thought a great deal about it, about prison reform. One of the responsibilities of the Commission is to make recommendations in our final report for matters arising out of our hearings. Do you specifically have any thoughts about recommendations for prison reform, based on you own experience which we can include in our final report? MR MAGKOTHI I think one of the recommendations certainly would be the point which I just made now, paying attention to the kind of people that you employ as warders and also the training which they should receive to enable them to discharge their duties in a manner which is fitting for human beings. MR LEWIN</B> Thank you very much. MR MANTHATA</B> How long before your trial started had you been in detention? MR MAGKOTHI MR MANTHATA</B> And this was in isolation? MR MAGKOTHI MR MANTHATA</B> MR MAGKOTHI I was certainly not exposed to a very lengthy period of solitary confinement but I did suffer solitary confinement. It was made worse by the fact that the police officials at Marabastad took advantage of our presence there to commit all manners of abuses against us really, acts of torture while we were there. When you were incarcerated there you were subjected to all manners of torture and even your food, I mean for all the time that I was in Marabastad I think I lived on porridge, mostly not well cooked and sometimes it was porridge which was rotten. By the time they were ready to charge us I was only too pleased to leave solitary confinement to be formally charged so that I could go to prison where I thought the conditions would be better. MR MANTHATA</B> Thank you. DR BORAINE</B> MR MAGKOTHI Thank you.