SELLO, Ms

Sipho Mutsi knew that beating and torture were in store for him. What he couldn’t know was that this time the [inaudible] than routine. // On this day, the 4th of May, it was just after breakfast, I saw comrade Sipho passing by the door. It was this steel door. The door was still open but the ...

Sipho and I were actually seen as very close friends and from time to time the police would say to us that if we could get rid of you and Sipho then everything would settle in Kutlwanong. Actually they did not understand that it was actually part of the whole process of the revolution, and that not ...

I enjoyed my friendship with him a lot and I believe that if he were alive today he would actually be one of the most senior leaders in our community.

They took ice cubes and forced them into my anus. One policeman ordered them to bring the electrocution equipment. While these ice cubes were in my anus I was electrocuted. // This little bottle of milk was going to be poured onto my forehead. I didn’t know what was happening. They were aiming ...

And they kicked Sipho. Then Sithole began to hit him with a sjambok because Sithole said Sipho tried to burn his house. When I was still there we didn’t agree that allegation what Sithole made, that we were trying to burn his house. Then they ordered us to go out of the cell. I was taken to cell ...

Today Sello Dithebe is the mayor of Odendaalsrus. Eleven years ago he wore chains of an altogether different kind. When he and dozens of other student activists were detained here at Odendaalsrus police station. This week Mayor Dithebe and fellow detainee Patrick Motshedi revisited the cells where ...