7/28/2019 Apartheid tactics stand the test of time_Carolyn Raphaely.pdf

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The Star MONDAY APRIL 15 2013 13INSIDE

THE BLOEMFONTEIN TouristCentre is a neat, red, modern

building in the city centre over-looking the bus terminal and the

Vodacom Rugby Stadium.

For William Dube, allegedly dangled byhis ankles from a first-floor balcony bymembers of Bloemfonteins Organised

Crime Unit (OCU), the innocuous-lookingbuilding will always be associated with tor-ture, rather than tourism.

Talking through a translator, Dube toldthe Wits Justice Project how he was cuffedto a chair in an unmarked suite of offices

occupied by the OCU in the Tourist Centre.They attached wires to my penis and backfrom something that looked like an old

Nommer Assebliefphone. Then they woundit up to get power to shock me. It was very,very painful. I even wet myself.

They put a plastic bag over my headand closed it with duct tape. They only

remove the plastic when you collapse, thenthey take it off. While they were suffocat-ing me, they put pepper spray inside the

plastic bag and sealed it.They kicked and punched me in the

eye and ear. I still cant he ar properly.

Then they took me to the balcony. Twopeople were holding me, each held one leg.While I was hanging upside down, I agreed

to co-operate. I was terrified theyd dropme. They told me places to point out, howto make a confession and what to say. I did

the pointing ou t the next day.Late last year in a trial within a trial in

the Bloemfontein Regional Court, Dube

described how he was tortured, assaultedand shocked by members of the OCU, par-ticularly Warrant Officer Jan Basson.

Dubes co-accused, Mzwandile Khani,said: I saw his legs and feet over the top ofthe balcony. I had to ask myself if I was

dreaming. It was like something straightout of the movies.

Advocate Wilfred Phalatsi said photo-

graphs of Dube with a swollen red eye,taken by a police photographer after thepointing out, formed part of the court

record. Dubes injuries were corroboratedby Khani and State witness Darren Jansen.

However, Dubes story is not unique: it

concurs with reports of assault and tor-ture by other Grootvlei inmates includingDubes five co-accused, Khani, Lucky

Mametsa, David Seleke, Davies Musimekeand Sifiso Cele. Now the four GrootvleiPrison awaiting-trial inmates, and their

two co-accused released on bail last month,are suing Minister of Police NathiMthethwa for damages.

Anyone who thinks torture and assaultof prisoners were the prerogative of theapartheid police should think again.

South Africa seems to have learnt littlefrom the lessons of the past.

Not from the deaths of Steve Biko or

Neil Aggett at the hands of the police, norfrom the deaths of Andries Tatane, theMarikana miners and Mozambican taxi

driver Mido Macia.

As reports of assaults, beatings, pepperspray and torture surface with increasing

regularity, the new South Africa is startingto look shockingly like the old.

The methods police used to abuse sus-

pects under apartheid are exactly the sameas those they employ today, said ProfessorPeter Jordi, an attorney at the Wits Law

Clinic specialising in torture.Torture hasnt suddenly reared its

ugly head. Its never stopped. It was carriedout at police stations before and continuestoday.

Previously, it was believed that mostlypolitical detainees were tortured. If yourea criminal arrested for armed robbery

today, you face exactly the same fate. Thepolice torture people all the time in theirhomes, in police cells, in the veld, in cars.

This is how the cops investigate.Torture is standard police investiga-

tion practice. These policemen are serial

criminals. They have methods of investiga-tion which are unlawful and for which theycould be prosecuted, but they never are

Thats their modus operandi. Ive hadsix cases against a policewoman at Diep-kloof, but she stays on the job and the tor-

ture continues.Many incidents of assault and torture

arent reported. And if they are, theyre

unlikely to come to court.Take the case of Dube, Khani and

Mametsa allegedly all tortured by mem-

bers of the OCU at the Tourist Centre.The three men reported the matter to

their Grootvlei unit supervisor and laid

charges of assault with intent to do griev-ous bodily harm against the OCU and Bas-son at the Bloemspruit police station.

The case was subsequently transferredto Kagisanong, but the men have heardnothing since.

Arrested at the same time as Dube,Khani alleges he was brutally assaulted athis home on May 6, 2010.

Two weeks later, he was booked out ofGrootvlei by OCU members and taken tothe Tourist Centre for a second round of

beatings, assault and torture.Like Dube, he was assaulted, kicked,

shocked with the phone, his hands and

feet cuffed to a chair, a plastic bag placedover his head and wires attached to hisback and penis. I was shocked repeatedly

for almost four hours in front of a womanofficer. There were nine or 10 policemenwatching, and kicking me.

One of them opened my legs andkicked me in my private parts. I wasscreaming so loudly, they forced a dirty

cloth in my mouth. I collapsed and fainted.They waited for me to regain con-

sciousness and laughed at me. I heard them

say: Hierdie k****r is baie sterk. ( t h i sk * * * * * i s v e r y s t r o n g )

Nearly two years later, Khanis

Grootvlei hospital records confirm a clot-like substance in the penile shaft as a

result of being assaulted by police offi-cers. The clot remains and still causes

him pain. After being beaten up I was

taken to Mangaung police station. Someinmates carried me to the van. I couldntwalk, I couldnt do anything. A police cap-

tain advised that I was taken to Pelonomi(Regional Hospital). All the doctor theredid was give me painkillers.

Pelonomi records corroborate Khanisaccount of repeated assault by police, thathe was choked (shocked), suffered severe

back pain and soft tissue injury and hadlarge bruises on his lower back.

Patient says he was hit in the face,

head, lip and right eye kicked in thelower back

Medical records also state that accord-

ing to the police, patient was caught onroof from where he fell down.

In these cases, doctors records are

usually unreliable, said Jordi.I have a case where the police arrested

a suspect in Soweto for breaking a car win-

dow. They beat him up, beat him up somemore, took him to a park in Lenasia andsuspended him with a rope around his

neck from a tree.They cut him with broken bottles and

dragged him behind a truck with rope.

Then they took him to Chris Haniwhere the doctor recorded: His pupilswere equal and reacting to light.

Actually, he was blind in o ne eye as aresult of the assault and the doctor failedto pick up his significant in jury.

Though the right to be free from tortureis enshrined in the constitution, the long-overdue Combating and Prevention of Tor-

ture of Persons Bill was tabled in Parlia-ment only in June last year.

Parliament has dragged its feet on

passing anti-torture legislation for almosta decade now, said policing authorityDavid Bruce. This is astonishing, as some

members of Parliament have themselvesbeen victims of extremely brutal torture at

the hands of the police.

Since it is extremely difficult to corrob-orate torture allegations, assaults often gounreported, police dont follow up com-

plaints, medical attention is denied, or nomedical records exist.

Mametsa, like Khani, was booked out of

Grootvlei two weeks after his arrest andtaken to the Tourist Centre.

There his head was repeatedly bashed

against a wall to elicit a confession. Theywanted me to agree with everything theysaid. How can I say yes, or no to what I

dont know?On his return to Grootvlei, Mametsa

was taken to the prison hospital where he

remained for three days: I spent fourmonths on my bed after that.

I was sneezing blood with green stuff

with rotten things in it. Pieces of bonewhich Ive kept were coming out of mynose. The section warders helped me write

a letter of complaint to Grootvlei centre co-ordinator Wiley van Heerden, who referredme to the prison doctor again.

After numerous visits to Dr MargaretBikane (a Cuban-qualified doctor fromSantiago de Cuba Medical School)

Mametsa was repeatedly told there wasnothing wrong with him.

Nine months later prison dentist Dr

Tapan Sewbarun diagnosed a broken zygo-matic bone and head fracture, and finallyreferred him to Pelonomi.

Mametsa is still in pain and his left eyesees only grey.

As Mametsa tells it, a scan and X-ray

showed a head fracture: The Pelonomidoctor wrote me a full-page script, but I

never received any medicine until today.On his second visit to Pelonomi,

Mametsa said he was told he needed an

operation, but when he returned for histhird appointment, his medical recordshad disappeared. Again, he was told there

was nothing wrong with him.Soshanguvetaxi owner Musimeke and

Cele suffered similar fates to their four co-

accused at the Tourist Centre, though Celesaid he was spared shock treatment.

Musimeke, who witnessed Celes

assault, was not as lucky and describes hisown beating as like something out ofWrestleMania.

Seleke, a former boxer, was the onlymember of the group who was questionedbut not tortured at the Tourist Centre.

Instead, he said, he was tortured athome by Basson and others in front of his

neighbours and shocked with somethinglike a cow prod.

The good news for Seleke was that sur-

veillance cameras he had installed in hishome for his money-lending businessrecorded the assaults.

The bad news? Seleke was left with abroken rib after being hit by a rifle butt andthe monitor and footage were confiscated

by the police.Straight after my arrest, I laid charges

of assault against Basson at Park Road

police station. I also complained to theIndependent Complaints Directorate(ICD). They confirmed the case, but said

my statement had disappeared. Only ablank docket remained.

La Costa, as hes known because ofhis weakness for Lacoste T-shirts, wasassaulted again a few months later by Bas-

son in front of Department of CorrectionalServices officials, Musimeke and Cele inGrootvleis reception area.

Seleke lodged another complaint withthe prison head, who referred the matter tothe area commissioner.

Though an official investigation wasundertaken, the outcome is still unknown.

To date, all attempts by the men to seek

redress have fallen on deaf ears.In addition to laying charges, reporting

the matter to the Judicial Inspectorate ofCorrectional Services and the head ofGrootvlei, they have written to the Human

Rights Commission, the ICD and FreeState Premier Ace Magashula.

Theyve received no response.

With unbridled lawlessness and vio-lence part of a pervasive pattern of policebrutality occurring nationwide, taxpayers

are bearing the brunt.The 2011/12 annual SAPS financial

statements reveal payments of nearly

R15 billion for civil claims against thedepartment, nearly R1bn for assaultclaims, R11.9bn for police actions and

R1.1bn for shooting incidents.Clearly, public money used to settle

these claims could be far better utilised for

crime prevention. Moreover, the ICD2011/12 annual report records 4923 com-plaints received against the police and 720

deaths in police custody and deaths as aresult of police action.

Independent Police Investigative Direc-

torate spokesman Moses Dlamini acknowl-edged at least 194 charges had been laid bysurvivors of the Marikana massacre who

were allegedly assaulted and torturedwhile in police custody at Phokeng,Mogase and Jericho police stations.

Since torture is not categorised as a sep-arate crime in South Africa, its prevalenceis almost impossible to assess.

Police torture is a daily occurrence inGauteng, where I practise, said Jordi.

I probably handled more than 20 tor-

ture cases against the police in Gautengalone last year.

Anti-Police Brutality Corruption Net-

work SAs Zwelakhe Mnisi said: Nothinghas changed. Its only got worse.

I received more than 400 reports of

police brutality, torture, bagging, pepperspray and electric shock last year. I didnteven have an office.

When is enough enough? South Africasfailure to criminalise torture, the shoot tokill rhetoric, culture of impunity and mil-

itarised police force all contribute to theproblems police face.

Yet Jordi believes our judges and mag-

istrates are equally to blame: They dealwith individual cases where torture isalleged and ignore the evidence staring

them in the face.

When is enough

enough? South

Africas failure to

criminalise torture

contributes to the

problems police

face, writes

Carolyn

Raphaely

Raphaely is a member of the Wits JusticeProject, which probes miscarriages of

justice. The WJP is located in the WitsJournalism Department. Names of

members of the Organised Crime Unitimplicated are known to the WJP.

Apartheid tactics stand the test of time

SHOCKED: David Seleke was tortured athome in front of his neighbours, he says.

PLACE OF PAIN: The Bloemfontein Tourism Centre where inmates claim they were tortured.One says he was dangled from the balcony by his police interrogators.

BITTER END: A frame grab from a video shows protester Andries Tatane being killed during a service delivery demonstration in Ficksburg twoyears ago. The seven cops accused of his death were acquitted in March. PICTURE: MEQHELENG CONCERNED CITIZENS (MCC)

HORROR DEATH:Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia is bound to the back of a police car and dragged for more than 400m behind it. He laterdied in police cells at Daveyton station. Nine policemen are facing charges for Macias death. PICTURE: DAILYSUN

MASSACRE: Apoliceman gestures infront of the bodies ofsome of the deadminers after they wereshot outside a Marikanamine last August. Acommission of inquiryis investigating.PICTURE:SIPHIWE SIBEKO/ REUTERS