Special Report Transcript Episode 12, Section 3, Time 07:33

The submission that I shall make here is not an assault on the ANC as a movement but something to point out some of the atrocities and the violation of human rights by some of the members of the ANC in exile. In 1989 we heard he was in detention in Lusaka. The South African Council of Churches gave my wife and I two air tickets to proceed to Lusaka. In Lusaka I met Mr. Nzo, then Secretary-General of the African National Congress, Mr. Nkoli, Treasurer-General, Mr. Joe Ndlandla, Chief of Intelligence, and Mr. Zuma, Jacob. We told them we had come to find out why our son was in detention. They told us that our son was not detained. Of course, this was proved afterwards to have been a lie. Six months later, his wife phoned me to say TZ was now in an ANC cell and in solitary confinement. And that he was being tortured. At my expense, because the SACC could no longer finance me to fly over to Lusaka, I bought my own air ticket. I waited and waited, and altogether I remained in Lusaka for 18 days and in the 18 days I hadn’t seen my son. Why was I not allowed by Mr. Zuma to see my son for 18 days? Even under the most cruel regime, apartheid regime, people were allowed visitors. Around December, Reverend Frank Chikane phoned me to say my son had been released by the ANC and was very sick. I should fly over he said, because my son needed my moral support. It was very strange. Very sick, a bag of bones, instead of being taken to hospital he strolled into the street to look after himself.

Notes: TRC testimony: Philemon Ngwenya (Father)

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