TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
SUBMISSIONS - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
DATE: 12 JUNE 1997
NAME: NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU
CASE: EC0113/96ELN - MDANTSANE
DAY: 4
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CHAIRPERSON: If we could change our order. If Nosipho Blossom Marwezu,
number 12, could come forward please. Nosipho, please stand up to be sworn in.
NOSIPHO BLOSSOM MARWEZU: (Duly sworn in, states).
CHAIRPERSON: We just want to clarify that the reason we called you, it is because
there is an attorney, a legal representative of an alleged perpetrator. We had given him
a notice. So I am going to ask you questions. The story you are about today is about
yourself, what happened to you on the 18th of June 1986. Is that so?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: You were seven months pregnant at that time, arrested, tortured.
Could you tell us what was happening at this time.
MRS MARWEZU: Should I start with my arrest?
CHAIRPERSON: Just before you got arrested. Why were you arrested?
MRS MARWEZU: In 1985 I was a student at Qaqamba doing my standard nine.
There were riots at Duncan Village. The police then would regularly come to my
home looking for me. I got a message that the police are looking for me. I left and
stayed at Mdantsane, NU15, with my sister. My mother said that I must just go and
surrender to the police, because she could not sleep, the police were regularly there.
They were going to arrest her if I did not give myself up to the police. I then said I
would go to the Cambridge Police Station.
Heather, my sister, said that I should go to Cape Town to my eldest sister. I
truly went to Cape Town. I stayed there in 1985. In 1986, May, I came back. I
thought that, perhaps, everything had subsided. On the 18th of June I was at home
sleeping. There was a knock at the door. It is the police. It was at about one or two
a.m. My mother opened the door. When they got in they did not say anything to my
mother. They were with a policeman who knows me, Mandisi Mbewana. They could
not see me, because I had covered myself. They said to my mother that they are going
to arrest her if they cannot find me. They then took me. However, they took my two
other brothers as well, Thembinkosi and Mbuyiseli, who is late.
I was in pyjamas. They did not even let me change. When I got outside I saw
a caspar. They put me into that caspar. It was packed with people. They were
probably going around collecting people. They took us to a place called Strongpoint
where the soldiers are in Duncan Village. The next morning we were taken to
Cambridge. The Captain asked what the charges were. This man then responded in
saying that he does not know. He was just given a list to arrest all the people. Mr
Mbewana came saying that he wants all of us at Westbank. Then there was a State of
Emergency. We were taken to Westbank.
CHAIRPERSON: Is this Mandisi Mbewana or the elder one?
MRS MARWEZU: Mandisi is the younger one who arrested me. The one who said
we must go to Westbank is the elder one. We could not even get visitors for two
months. They had arrested me, I was in pyjamas. I was using the clothes that they
provided me in prison. I was three months pregnant. Then the interrogation started.
They took us one by one to Cambridge. They asked me if I knew that COSAS had
been banned. I said yes. So they asked me why I worked for COSAS even though it
had been banned. I said I did no such. They then said that I was a member at, of
COSAS at Qaqamba. They asked if I know that the riots at Duncan Village were all
inspired by Qaqamba students. They asked who had burnt down a policeman's house.
I said I did not know.
They took me back to the cell. They called me back. I did not know I was
going to go there. I was going to Frere Hospital regularly at that time. They said that
I am supposed to go to the Frere Hospital. I told them that I had no appointment
there. Nomsa's attorney, a co-prisoner, gave me her headscarf to put on. I put it on.
They took me to Cambridge to an office there. Mr Mpumelelo Madliwa was there
and Mpumelelo Nkonzombi. They asked me who had burnt down his house. I said I
do not know. They strangled me. They pulled down my headscarf, put it around my
neck. The one pulled from the left and the other from the right. I lost all strength. I
urinated on myself. I was pregnant at the time.
They said I must tell the truth, who burnt the house down. I said it was me.
Who else? I said by myself. They told me that I was lying. They put down the
headscarf and they strangled me with their own hands. They were not beating me up,
just strangling me. What happened is that my eyes went red. They then took me to,
back to Westbank Prison. When I got there I was not taken to a cell where the others
were. I was taken to solitary confinement. My eyes were red. I saw nobody but the
police.
CHAIRPERSON: How long were you in prison by then?
MRS MARWEZU: It was around September.
CHAIRPERSON: You had been arrested in June?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: You were on your own. What happened?
MRS MARWEZU: They would take me to the Frere Hospital at the clinic there
regularly. From solitary confinement they took me to Cambridge again. A police car
came to fetch me. I got there. There were chairs outside. They made me sit there for
such a long time that I thought they had forgotten about me. After a while Mr
Mbewana said I must go into his office. He did not settle down, he just, he was
walking in and out. A White policeman called Radue came. This man bowed down,
took something from under the table then left. After a short while there was a bang. I
did not know whether I was being shot. I did not know what was happening. I just
fell down. After a long while I got up. I could see I was on my own. They came
back. They asked what it was. I said I did not know.
CHAIRPERSON: So what was the bang?
MRS MARWEZU: I do not know even to this day.
CHAIRPERSON: So when you had gotten up this policeman, Glen Henry Radue,
was not there?
MRS MARWEZU: No.
CHAIRPERSON: How did you get released? How did that come about?
MRS MARWEZU: On the sixth of December, after the bang, I was taken back to
prison. It happened that in my being shocked I started hurting, contractions. I was
then taken to hospital. I gave birth to a premature child at seven months. There was a
policeman at my side all the time. I got out, back to the prison with my child,
Thinasonke. In the morning they went, when the police would come and count us
they would take my child and bring the baby back late.
CHAIRPERSON: When did you go back to the cell?
MRS MARWEZU: After my child was five days old.
CHAIRPERSON: Where would you sleep at the cell?
MRS MARWEZU: On the floor.
CHAIRPERSON: With the baby?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: After they had taken the child do you know who looked after the
child, who fed the child?
MRS MARWEZU: No, when I would ask they would say that they would take the
child to the creche.
CHAIRPERSON: What happened eventually?
MRS MARWEZU: Until such time when they felt like releasing me they just released
me.
CHAIRPERSON: What month was that?
MRS MARWEZU: It was in 1987. I cannot remember whether it was March or
April.
CHAIRPERSON: How old was the child?
MRS MARWEZU: Three months.
CHAIRPERSON: How old were you when this all happened?
MRS MARWEZU: I was 20 years of age in 1986.
CHAIRPERSON: Were you politically active at the time?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes, I was a COSAS member before COSAS was banned and
then after that it was banned.
CHAIRPERSON: Therefore, no charges were laid on you? That was the end of your
harassment?
MRS MARWEZU: They put me into a car and took me to a taxi rank. They told me
that the people that you had been arrested with were still in jail. I was the only one
who had been released. If two people come to my house and you are the third one.
CHAIRPERSON: Therefore that is a political meeting and they were going to
rearrest me.
MRS MARWEZU: No, not my family members, but visitors. I would have to get
one visitor at a time. If it is two, more than one then it would be taken as I am holding
a meeting.
CHAIRPERSON: Who would take you from Cambridge?
MRS MARWEZU: There was a policeman called Solly. I do not know whether that
is his first name or his last name.
CHAIRPERSON: He would just drive you around to the places they took you to. He
never did anything to you?
MRS MARWEZU: No, he did not.
CHAIRPERSON: Who beat you or harassed you?
MRS MARWEZU: Madliwa and Nkonzombi.
CHAIRPERSON: What is his first name?
MRS MARWEZU: Both their first names are Mpumelelo.
CHAIRPERSON: These are the people who were strangling you with a head scarf?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: Did they do anything else to you?
MRS MARWEZU: No.
CHAIRPERSON: Therefore they have both strangled you and released you?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes.
CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Nosipho. Perhaps there are questions from my co-
panellists. Dr Magwaza will ask just one question.
PROF MAGWAZA: Today the focus of our hearings is on how women were treated
and violated. In your case we have a typical case of a woman who was violated not
only by torture, but who was also violated by just being a woman, a woman. You say
your baby was taken away from you. You say that you were tortured when you were
pregnant, you were strangled when you were pregnant. They were almost strangling
two people not one person. How, what was your, what was the attitude of your
torturers to you when you were pregnant? Did they say any nasty things to you?
How did they treat you when you were actually pregnant, before you had your baby?
MRS MARWEZU: Yes, first of all, when I was arrested Mpumelelo Madliwa did not
know Nosipho Marwezu, myself. They asked if they had found Nosipho. Mandisi
Mbewana then said here she is. Mpumelelo Madliwa then said we have wasted a lot
of money, the Government's money has been wasted. They were using the
Government's money looking for me. He swore at me. When they were strangling me
at Cambridge he swore at me yet again, saying I am a bitch, I am going to tell the truth
whether I like it or not. I gave them the truth that was not really. I said that because I
wanted them to lay charges on me, because I had had enough of being imprisoned.
PROF MAGWAZA: So, what they said to you, something that would apply
specifically to a woman which they would not have said to a man, was that they called
you a bitch? Is that what you are saying? If you were a man they would not have said
that to you. Is it all they said to you, that is something they would have said
specifically to a woman?
MRS MARWEZU: Well, they said much more, but I cannot repeat those swear
words.
PROF MAGWAZA: Okay, we respect that. Thank you very much.
CHAIRPERSON: June Crichton has a few more questions for you.
MS CRICHTON: Thank you Madam Chair. I just have two questions for you for
clarification, Mrs Marwezu. The first one is did you know Nkonzombi or Mbewana
before the arrest and the torture? Did you know them?
MRS MARWEZU: I knew him well. Mr Mbewana was my father's friend. He, we
were neighbours. My father called him uncle. I was born before him. I was shocked
in the way he treated me.
MS CRICHTON: Thank you. My second question to you was did anybody assault
you in the presence of or with the help of Nkonzombi or Mbewana during your
detention?
MRS MARWEZU: There were other policemen from Cambridge.
MS CRICHTON: Do you know who they were?
MRS MARWEZU: Nkonzombi and Madliwa, that is all I know. I do not know the
other peoples' names.
MS CRICHTON: Thank you. I hand over to you Madam Chair.
CHAIRPERSON: Nosipho, thank you so much for sharing your painful story with us.
Perhaps some other people, especially people who are not women, they do not know
the significance of giving birth to a child. I do not know how it would be to give birth
to a child and have to keep that child in the first few months in prison. Your story is
very painful especially because your baby would be taken from you for the whole day.
Dr Magwaza has already said that some of us are not oppressed because we are
human beings, just mere human beings, but because we are women, but, and we, as
women, have suffered in a way that men, perhaps, can never understand and I hope
that the men in this hall are listening so that this does not happen again in future.
Thank you so much.
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1 N B MARWEZU
MDANTSANE HEARING TRC/EASTERN CAPE