TRC Final Report

Volume 4

Chapter 10

Subsection 14

■ RELATIONSHIPS

112 As noted, women’s relationships were often used against them to weaken them and extract information. In their testimony, women also related how their experiences had affected those close to them, and their relationships with them.

113 On the one hand, concern for family could make women act fiercely. Ms Adonis told the Commission that shehita policeman on the head with a chair when he came to arrest her son²⁴. Ms Lephina Zodwa Thobela related how, when she went to visit her husband in prison and a policeman tried to prevent her, she forced her way into the office of a superior officer: “He tried to assault me … and we started fighting... I challenged him to kill me … and at that time we were grabbing each other by the throats.”

114 On the other hand, their involvement in the struggle and subjection to abuse could endanger important relationships. Ms Ntombenkulu Ngubane was served with a banning order in 1963 for ANC membership. While pregnant, she was arrested and jailed for breaking the order. While in jail, her child was delivered by a fellow-prisoner who was a nurse as no doctors were available.

The next day I found my child yellow … they took my child, they told me they are taking him to another cell in hospital. When I asked them how can they take my child when he is sick and leave me behind, I am supposed to breast-feed my child, they told me, "You are a prisoner" and then the next day they came back and they told me that, “Your child is dead”… they told me that, “this child will be buried by the government”. I don't know up until today if my child is still alive or really my child died.

115 On her release from detention, Ms Ngubane’s husband, a reverend, claimed that she was “crazy”, and began to beat her. The lack of “peace” between herself and her husband ended in divorce.

116 Ms Deborah Matshoba, too, lost her husband because of her political involvement. Her husband “grew impatient” when Ms Matshoba was restricted to Krugersdorp by a banning order. He objected to the restrictions placed on her, which he saw as offending him and his “man’s pride”. Ms Virginia Mbatha said that after her arrest, “we were not able to conduct a proper family life” and she ended up separating from her husband. Ms Kedeboni Dube said that after being raped during the Inkatha-ANC conflict in Natal, she was not able to conceive, and that this had caused fights with her boyfriend. Ms Fowzia Turner and Ms Joyce Sikhakhane Ranken spoke about the harassment suffered by those who ignored the Immorality Act and married across the colour line.

117 Several women said that their experience had left them unable to handle their children and other family members as well as they wished. Ms Thandi Shezi said she would “beat up” her children, or even her parents, “because deep down within me I was trying to grapple with this painful experience”. Ms Sheila Masote described how her mother, out of frustration at being excluded from the struggle, used to beat her. “And this I carried along even into my marriage life. I also bashed my son. I almost killed my son.”

118 Several women felt guilty about how their activities had rebounded on those close to them. Ms Virginia Mbatha acknowledged a broader burden, when she apologised to all the mothers who children she assisted to leave the country: “I did this because I loved this country and I love those kids.” Others spoke more intimately about their own loved ones.

119 Ms Fatima Meer said that her son, Rashid, was only three months old when her husband was arrested for treason. His absence from home “affected the children fairly profoundly”. Ms Nozizwe Madlala recounted how, at two years of age, her son saw his father detained, tried and then sentenced to a prison term of ten years:

Although he has grown up to be a gentle young man, at that tender age he had learnt to hate… My mother tells me that during that time he used to complain of pain, physical pain, for which there was no physical explanation.

120 Ms Sheila Masote, speaking as the child of a leading politician, described how, “from my childhood I developed a block. I hated politics. I hated this gogga that took my father away from me, that destroyed my home.”

121 Many women tried to protect their families. Ms Thandi Shezi, active in the ANC Youth and Women’s Leagues, recalled how, when she told her mother that she suspected she would be detained, her mother told her to run away. “I said: ‘No, if I run away, they're going to beat all of you here in the house and even the children. I don't want you to get hurt’.”

122 Ms Sylvia Nomhle Dlamini had a longer tale describing how her mother was actually victimised. Ms Dlamini initially felt unable to tell her mother she was a UDF member. “My mother was old and she was very strict. She didn't like things like politics… because she was a Christian.” One night, when Ms Dlamini was out, police arrived at their house. “Police asked my mother where we were and she didn't know truly and they took my mother with them.” When her mother returned the following day, she would not relate what happened but simply asked for painkillers. Later she revealed the extent of her torture:

She was given an electrical shock and she couldn't remember what they used to use hitting her head. Other day they put a plastic over her head and she couldn't breathe, and one day she told me one white man came and he tied her and then he hit her, and even after she died, she had bruises all over her ribs.

123 When her mother died some time later from heart disease, Ms Dlamini felt responsible for her death: “I realised that my mother died because of me.” She said that relatives ostracised her and also blamed her for her mother’s death. But, she also said that, when her mother was ill, “I asked her as to how she was feeling about the whole issue of my joining politics, she said to me what I was doing was right, because I was fighting for rights.” One of the anonymous KwaZulu-Natal witnesses who was raped and impregnated also felt her mother’s health was affected by the incident “My mother, after I came back and told her about the story, she had a heart disease. Up until today she is suffering from heart attacks.”

124 It would be wrong, however, to assume that it is only women who experience strong family ties and the associated guilt and protectiveness. Ms Sylvia Dlomo-Jele related how her son, Sicelo, refused to stay at home once he began to be harassed by the police. He said “that it would not be nice for his parents to see the police killing him”.²⁵