TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 5

Subsection 49

Crackdown by the security forces

316 From 1985 the state, via its JMCs and its security forces, employed a dual strategy to maintain ‘law and order’ in Bonteheuwel. The first part was to upgrade the Bonteheuwel area; the second, the establishment of special Unrest Investigation Units to crack down on people held responsible for political unrest.

317 The Unrest Investigation Units were made up of SAP members deployed from different units (the Detective Branch, Uniform Branch, Murder and Robbery, the Drug Squad and the Security Branch). An Unrest Investigation Unit in Athlone infiltrated and cracked down on the BMW in the second half of 1987, effectively decimating the organisation. A series of swoops and arrests followed, resulting in the detentions of over forty BMW members at various times. A number of BMW members who made statements to the Commission alleged that they were severely tortured. By mid-1989 the BMW had been crushed.

Torture of BMW members

318 It is clear that the Unrest Investigation Unit’s main aim was to effect arrests and gather evidence for more arrests and convictions very quickly. The necessity of speedy confessions was spelt out in a directive from the Commissioner of Police, and those arrested were therefore immediately subjected to protracted and severe torture. Explicit sexual forms of torture were used; several BMW members were anally raped. It is known that in other instances, young activists were deliberately placed amongst imprisoned criminals who repeatedly raped them.

319 Fourteen statements were made to the Commission by a number of young people, mostly between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, many of whom described serious assault and torture at the hands of the police. Twelve statements were made to the Commission by BMW members, including Mohammed Faried Ferhelst [CT00666], Bradley Barrow [CT01315], Abubaker ‘Whitey’ Williams [CT00185], Colin de Souza [CT00520], Fuad Hartzenberg [CT01107], Ismael Damon [CT00297], Hercules Benjamin Booysen [CT00296], Brian Peter Barends [CT00453], Sandra and Jacques Adonis [CT01110], and Cleoton Darryl Visagie [CT00885]. Most describe serious assault and torture whilst between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Two further cases are described below. Unrest Investigation Unit members who were frequently linked to their torture included Captain Louis van Brakel, Sergeant Ilmar Pikker, a Captain Strydom and Sergeant JA Todd.

320 Mr Ebrahim Hercules [CT01539] was arrested in 1986 and immediately assaulted by two coloured policemen. He was taken to the Bishop Lavis police station where he was placed in a cell with ‘common law criminals’. The next morning Sergeant Pikker and Sergeant Todd took him to the Brackenfell police station where he was blindfolded and severely beaten with a heavy metal object. He was returned to solitary confinement. Later during his detention he was sexually assaulted by policemen who put him across a table and, after removing his pants, put the barrel of a gun into his anus and played Russian roulette. Fearing for his life, Hercules signed two statements prepared for him which he was not allowed to read. He was sentenced in 1988 and was released with other political prisoners in 1990.

321 Qasim Williams [CT01109] was arrested in February 1987 at the age of fourteen. He was taken to the Bishop Lavis police station where Sergeant Todd forced his head into a toilet bowl which he then flushed. Williams was taken to the Brackenfell police station where he was repeatedly assaulted by Captain van Brakel, Captain Strydom, and Sergeant Todd amongst others. He alleges that, after he was released from prison, he was framed as a police informer by the Unrest Investigation Unit. Williams subsequently survived an attempt on his life by other members of the BMW who, believing he had become a police informer, assaulted him and set him alight. A local priest came to his rescue and he got away with minor burns. A member of the BMW, Colin de Souza, has applied for amnesty for this attack [AM5277/97].

322 Williams was re-arrested in January 1988 and was told that he would never see his family again. A Sergeant told him, “today is the day you meet your Maker”. He was suspended upside down by rope and then beaten. On another occasion his body was tied in a spread-eagled position and grass was placed on his pubic hair. A tortoise was then put to graze on and around his genitals. He was also blindfolded and taken to an unknown place where he was suspended in the air. His torturers told him that it was the highest building in Cape Town and that if he did not co-operate with them they were going to drop him.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE REPRESSIVE CONDITIONS FACING SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE BONTEHEUWEL AREA RESULTED IN THE FORMATION OF A PARAMILITARY YOUTH ORGANISATION WHICH ADOPTED A PROGRAMME OF VIOLENT RESISTANCE. THE COMMISSION ALSO FINDS THAT THE GROUP RECEIVED ENDORSEMENT AND FACILITATION FROM THE UDF, ALBEIT AT LOCAL LEVEL, AND THAT MK OPERATIVES FURTHERED THIS ENDORSEMENT IN THE PROVISION OF ARMS AND MILITARY TRAINING. THE COMMISSION CRITICISES BOTH THE UDF AND ANC FOR ITS EXPEDIENT ENCOURAGEMENT OF THIS GROUP OF VERY YOUNG PEOPLE WHO WERE ALL UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN, FINDING IT INAPPROPRIATE THAT SUCH YOUTH WERE MOBILISED INTO ORGANISED VIOLENCE.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE BMW WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR A NUMBER OF VIOLATIONS THAT RESULTED IN THE DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, SERIOUS INJURY AND POSSIBLY DEATH. THEY WERE THEMSELVES THE SUBJECT OF EXTENSIVE TORTURE AND SEVERE ILL TREATMENT AT THE HANDS OF THE SECURITY FORCES. THE COMMISSION FINDS THE SPECIAL UNREST INVESTIGATION UNIT UNDER CAPTAIN VAN BRAKEL RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS TORTURE, IN PARTICULAR THE SEXUAL ASSAULT OF SOME OF THE YOUTH.