Our appearance in the Cape Town Supreme Court on the 1st of June was a bit of an anticlimax. We'd had our best clothes sent in, geared ourselves mentally for the start of the trial, and then nothing happened. No charges were read out, we were not asked to plead and the case was postponed to the 6th of June. Why, we never found out. The judge mumbled something, our advocates acknowledged him in some kind of bookies' code and we were led off to the cells below the court and then driven back to Pollsmoor. Quite clearly we were still remanded in custody.
On the 6th of June the same thing happened, but the court had an altogether different appearance. The spectator gallery was packed with people, many of them friends. At least 15 senior security police were present and at the front of the court a mountain of exhibits: the recovered leaflet bombs, the banner, piles of leaflets and envelopes all neatly tied together with string, steel trunks, toolboxes, banned 'communist' books, cardboard boxes, typewriters, the duplicator, and sundry items of furniture, bedding and kitchenware. A toaster took pride of place on top of the trunks.
Our parents were allowed to sit on the benches immediately in front of the dock, enabling us to chat to them before the trial started. My mother eyed the piles of exhibits and said: 'What's my bedspread doing there? And my kitchen chair? And my...? So that's where my other toaster got to.' She had forgotten that she had lent me the items or thought I had been using them in my 'above-ground' flat.
A fat charge sheet with two detailed schedules was made available. It listed the activities which comprised the 'offences' we had allegedly committed as well as each incidence of dissemination of leaflets - by post and leaflet bomb. Ten different leaflets distributed by post and seven spread by leaflet bomb were mentioned. Twenty six leaflet bombs were listed as well as one banner.
Again the charges were not put and we were not asked to plead. The State Prosecutor, Tielman Louw, applied for a postponement to the next day because, he said, there were matters to be 'straightened out' between the State and the defence. The defence agreed to the postponement. We were never told what these 'matters' were but the easy agreement between the two sides made us feel uneasy, as if they were colluding in our prosecution. The court was dismissed after a few minutes and we were taken back to Pollsmoor.
In London meanwhile - although not to our knowledge at the time - a picket organised by our Defence Committee was being held outside the South African Embassy to demand our release and the release of all South African political prisoners. Hundreds of leaflets were handed out to passers-by giving details of our case.
Such actions are widely appreciated by political trialists and prisoners. When they get to hear of them morale is raised to a high level as they are reminded that they are not forgotten and that people far away are concerned with their plight and fighting for them.
After breakfast on the 7th, as happened the previous times, they marched us out of the awaiting-trial section to a sort of internal garage in the prison where several armoured prison vans were parked ready to take the prisoners to court. The two of us were locked in a special compartment toward the front of a van and separately from the other prisoners - we were not to be allowed to contaminate the black prisoners.
At the court the procedure was the reverse. The van passed through a set of very solid gates into a yard at the side of the court. First the black prisoners were removed and then we were briskly led through a couple of sets of heavily barred grilles and into a small cell below the courtrooms.
The cell was without windows and a weak yellow light lit the room which was empty save for a slop bucket and a narrow bench along one wall. The walls reminded us of the interior of an Egyptian tomb, covered from floor to ceiling in graffiti, drawings, verse and nonsense. Since there was nothing else to do we scanned the walls: 'Fifteen years for rape - Mogamoet'...'I was here for shit'...'Sweet Lord have mercy'...'I love you Mary, I didn't mean it'... As we read this pitiful record left behind by countless victims of the racist legal system we spotted in a hole in the wall a tiny stub of a pencil. A trap! we thought. They must want us to write revolutionary slogans on the walls so they can charge us with more offences - we're not falling for that one, oh no! But what the hell! If they want to charge us further, that's OK. We're going to escape so it doesn't matter! Stephen extracted the pencil and with much delight drew a huge hammer and sickle above the door, urging the workers of the world to unite! Wherever else there were gaps we boldly wrote in ANC slogans.
After an hour in the dungeon we were driven upstairs and seated in the dock. When the judge entered an orderly shouted 'Staan in die hof!' - 'Stand up in court!' - but we had decided that there would be no standing for us: standing meant recognising the legitimacy of the court. Our tardy arousal was met with agitated prods in the back and angry shouts from another orderly: 'Staan op!, Staan op!' - 'Stand up!, Stand up!' Slowly we lifted ourselves, realising that it would not be productive to refuse to stand each time.
Along with the judge, Acting Justice Nel, entered two assessors - the South African equivalent of a jury. There is no trial by jury in South Africa and in most cases only a judge is present. Assessors are obliged to be present when the death sentence might be imposed. In our case this was a possibility and provided for under the Terrorism Act. At that time when assessors were present they were not allowed to decide on any questions of law but final judgements were based on a majority decision. This has now changed slightly. The reason that has been given for not holding jury trials is that in South Africa the bias of the jurors is so clearcut that the system does not ensure justice. In cases involving a black accused, white jurors would be more likely to judge against the person irrespective of the evidence, and if the jurors were black they would always judge the accused not guilty. There is probably some truth in this explanation, as blacks know that the judicial system is loaded against them and is part of the machinery of their oppression.
We looked at these honourable gentlemen as they occupied their positions on the bench and could not help wondering where South African courts had got their reputation for being impartial and independent? Here were three so-called legal experts about to interpret what we had done in terms of a law which was so obviously political and partisan and which overturned the normal legal principle that you are innocent until proved guilty. The onus was going to be on us to prove that our actions were not intended to have any of the effects of 'terrorism' (i.e. virtually any anti-state activity) - we were guilty and had to prove that we were innocent. By willingly sitting there these gentlemen were saying that they agreed with the law they were to apply, that they believed they were about to dispense 'justice'.
The charges were read out by the prosecution and we were asked to plead. Before either of us could respond to the judge's call our 'defence' leapt to their respective feet and declared that they would be doing the pleading for us. This seemed out of order to us, but how were we to know? My advocate managed to get the first word in, telling the court that the defence was 'purely technical' in that there had been an improper duplication of charges etc., and that therefore I was guilty on count one, namely, of 'taking part in terrorist activities', but not guilty on count two, which alleged contravention of the Internal Security Act. Stephen's advocate pleaded for him in much the same way. So that was it: we had no say. We looked at each other in disbelief but not knowing what we could do just shrugged our shoulders.
State Prosecutor Louw handed in a list of exhibits to the judge - 'because there were a rather large number of them' - and announced that he would be calling five policemen and a 'Mr X' for the State. Mr X was a person whose name 'for security reasons' should not be published.
Spyker van Wyk was the first state witness to be called. He told the court that his investigations began on 10 December 1975, being on that first occasion an investigation into the distribution of subversive pamphlets through the post. He went on to detail each pamphlet intercepted and each leaflet bomb his team had to investigate. He gave the number of pamphlets intercepted in the post each time and the number of leaflets recovered after each leaflet bomb.
This was of great interest to us as it gave some indication of the effectiveness of our distributions and of their counter-actions. Of the first three mailings only a handful of pamphlets ended up in their hands - in one case no more than two. Most of these were probably ones they had intercepted on the way to several banned people who were on our mailing list; others were handed in by people who had received them. Admittedly our mailing list held only a few hundred names on those first mailings but it showed that the police had no regular methods of detecting or intercepting the posted matter. After the first three mailings the number which they intercepted increased more and more rapidly until the last one, of which they intercepted about 80 per cent. Our conclusion was that our failure regularly to change our addressing system had made it easy for them to identify the envelopes and our failure to post from other centres permitted them to keep a small number of sorting offices in one area permanently on the alert.
The details also belied police claims that they had recovered most of the leaflets after leaflet bombings. The most that were ever recovered was 272; on average they only found about eighty. An 'expert' who later appeared told the court that a leaflet bomb - or 'ideological bombs' as they called them - could only lift 300 leaflets. We were sorry to disappoint them, but the number was always 500 - one ream.
Spyker claimed that the police had kept us under observation from 22 February 1978, the date of our last posting. This was highly unlikely as it would have been too much of a coincidence that they just happened to start watching us on the day we decided to do a posting. Our suspicion was that they had been watching us for much longer - what about all the strange phonecalls and suspicious characters? - and knew when we were about to do the posting. How otherwise could they have intercepted practically all the pamphlets of that posting?
Our defence responded to Spykers' testimony with some pathetic cross-questioning about the nature of 'real terrorists'. The point they were trying to get across to the court was that we were not 'terrorists' in the normal sense of the word and that our cell did not have the usual aim of 'terrorist cells' which is sabotage. Spyker responded that our activities during a period of unrest would, in his opinion, have had 'a helluva effect'.
The next day a police 'explosives expert', a Major J G van Tonder of the police bomb disposal unit, gave details of the components, construction and working of the leaflet bombs. The 26 'ideological bombs' were 'neatly built, the work of a perfectionist' and made by someone 'obviously proud of his work'. In a cool and informed manner he held up one of the 'bombs' and described to the court how the parts fitted together, how the timing mechanism worked and how the platform shot the leaflets into the air when the explosive was detonated. Anyone in the spectator gallery would have been sufficiently informed to go home and make their own. Van Tonder spoke about the books on explosives that had been found in our trunks. He was convinced, he said, that our knowledge of explosives and detonators had been obtained from these books. Why then had they interrogated us about our training, we wondered.
In characteristic manner our defence attempted to get the court to view the leaflet bombs not as 'real bombs' but rather as harmless little 'leaflet launchers' - kind of Jacks-in-the-boxes. Under cross-examination Van Tonder had to concede that the 'bombs' would not have damaged property or harmed anyone. One of the assessors awoke from his slumbers at this point and commented with raised finger that as far as he could see the leaflet bombs were not much more dangerous than a large firecracker. My advocate thought he had scored a major victory; we were not impressed.
And so it went on for several days. One state witness, a Lieutenant Deon Greyling of the police bomb disposal unit, told how one of the 'bombs' had gone off in his hands while he was attempting to defuse it. Unfortunately the point he was trying to make - that the leaflet bombs were dangerous and unpredictable devices - backfired on him as he was forced to admit to the judge that he had not been harmed. The monster Van Aggenbagh displayed to the court the mailing lists and addressing equipment that we had used. The police had printed out all the names using our addressing machine to confirm that they corresponded to the envelopes they had intercepted in the post. Sure enough they did. He proudly demonstrated the piles of letters that had been intercepted, intimating that he personally was responsible for stopping the material from spreading to its unsuspecting victims and thereby had prevented a revolutionary situation from developing.
On one of the mornings my parents brought my prison food parcel to the court and it was handed to me in the cell below the court before the day's proceedings started. The bottle of laced orange squash was there as usual so we thought we'd have a little swig before being called up. Of course the swig turned into a drinking party and in no time the entire bottle was polished off. Everyone must have wondered why we sat in court that day with contented smiles on our faces!
As the morning dragged on nature had its revenge, pressurising us to ask one of the court orderlies standing behind us for permission to visit the toilet. He reminded us that the accused had to be present in court and that if we wanted to leave the room the trial would have to be adjourned. Being too embarrassed to expose our simultaneous need before all those people, there was nothing we could do but cross our legs and hope they would not carry on for too long.
A big-shot from security police headquarters in Pretoria, a Colonel Broodryk, testified on publications of the ANC and South African Communist Party. He was the 'expert' on 'communism' and banned organisations such as the ANC and SACP, one of whom always appears in South African political trials. The racists are of the opinion, at least at the propaganda level, that every manifestation of resistance against apartheid is the result of a communist plot. Basically, they believe, blacks are happy with their lot and if they raise their voices against apartheid it is only because the Kremlin has sent its dupes to incite them for extraneous political purposes. Colonel Broodryk went to pains to stress the point that we were either witting or unwitting agents of 'Russia' - they've not heard of the Soviet Union - and that the ANC was no more than a front for the Communist Party.
He explained that our activities, most of which took place during the period of the 'Soweto uprisings' starting on June 16th 1976, could only have served to fan the fires of revolt. The implication was almost that we had been responsible for the events of that time and were a major factor behind the 'riots'. Our defence objected that he was exaggerating the consequences of our activities because the number of pamphlets we had disseminated increased many fold after 1976 and had in fact corresponded to a decrease in unrest.
Colonel Broodryk was called again by the State to support an application for the identity of the next witness, Mr X, not to be revealed. He said that in the past state witnesses testifying in similar trials had been threatened and in some cases assassinated. A quotation was read from one of our leaflets which supported his point: 'Smash the traitors and stooges - we shall harass the enemy, its police and its spies.' At least they were admitting that Mr X was a traitor and stooge. Stephen's advocate, surprisingly, opposed the application but mine, in his usual collaborating way, said: 'I just wish to say at this stage that I do not oppose the application nor have I ever done so.'
The courtroom was cleared of spectators, the press and our parents before Mr X was brought through a back door of the court to the witness stand. He eyed the court like a frightened dog to make sure no one would recognise him and then stood to attention to obey his masters' instructions. He began his pitiful tale of how he had gone to Maputo to seek work. There he had been press-ganged by the ANC to join its 'terrorist wing' (Umkhonto we Sizwe). From Maputo he was sent to Tanzania where he claimed he had fraternised with the ANC leadership. Oliver Tambo, the President of the ANC, and Joe Slovo, the alleged mastermind behind all communist plots against South Africa, he knew well. So far Mr X had got his lines right.
From Tanzania he claimed to have been sent to Russia where he was taught 'terrorism': how to make bombs and shoot with an AK-47 rifle. In Russia he had also learnt to speak Russian. We were surprised when he did not reveal that he was mates with Brezhnev. Next he was sent to Angola where he was given explosives, guns and money. From there he was infiltrated back into South Africa through Botswana, but as soon as he got into the country he realised that what he was doing was futile and that he could not beat the police. He suddenly 'saw the light' and as a responsible citizen gave himself up and handed in his weapons. Now he was working for the police and making life better for his people that way!
The story was so transparent and close to the usual propaganda tale that it was doubtful whether Mr X was taken seriously by the judge and assessors. It was no wonder that his testimony was given in camera as the press would have made mincemeat of it. However, the point of the appearance was merely to emphasise to the court the State's contention that the ANC was really just a gang of nasties and that all its operatives were acting in the interests of Russia and not in the interests of South Africa's black population.
I wrote on a slip of paper the words 'I do not understand Russian' in Russian and handed it to my advocate with a note asking him to give it to Mr X to test whether he could actually speak and read Russian as he'd claimed. But he was not prepared to co-operate. He felt that such a step would not be necessary as he believed the judge did not accept Mr X's story. This was probably true, for when the judge asked Mr X to tell him what the devices in front of him were used for (the leaflet bombs), Mr X, after contemplating the objects for a good few moments, replied that they were for 'demolishing installations'. He was promptly hustled out the door from which he'd appeared. I wonder if he was awarded the few pennies he'd been promised.
The day following Mr X's testimony there was a lot of whispering from the galleries below. Apparently some new 'evidence' had turned up and the State wanted to make another point before closing their case. Before announcing the new 'evidence' Prosecutor Louw summarised the State's case and argued for our conviction on the grounds that we had admitted to preparing the documents before the court, posting them and constructing and placing the leaflet bombs. He selected and read out the most juicy quotations from the leaflets to show that we had without doubt incited people to commit acts promoting the aims and objects of unlawful organisations. Needless to say he was not impressed by our 'literature' and considered it to be bordering on treason. One leaflet dealing with the defeat of the apartheid army in Angola in 1975 he called a 'poisonous bit of literature'. Clearly he was a victim of the propaganda which turned the racist army's defeat into a victory.
And then he announced the new 'evidence': a letter I had written (to Robin) had been intercepted in the post. The letter contained sure evidence that I was not the least bit remorseful for my conduct, pre-empting what they assumed would be the strategy of the defence which was due to present its case next.
The letter was one I had smuggled out in my prison washing and had been rewritten by my mother. I had written the letter in Robin's name because my mother had informed me that a friend of hers was going to Britain and would post it there. But at the last moment the friend had postponed the journey and could not take the letter. Not understanding the dangers of doing so and in good faith my mother put the letter in the post. It might not have been intercepted had she not also enclosed a bunch of press clippings of the trial.
My mother, naturally, felt terrible and started to blame herself for ruining my chances and for probably adding many years to my sentence. I tried to console her by explaining that the letter was but a mere pinprick compared to what I was being tried for and would not adversely affect the judge's opinion. It was just the State trying to score a political point. I'm not sure if she understood.
Having made its points the State closed its case. Our defence declared that it was not calling any witnesses to lead evidence in answer to the charges and thereby closed the defence case. Then followed a lot of legal nonsense. Something about duplication of charges, something else about the two charges being the same transaction showing the same intention etc., etc.
Stephen and I had indicated to our legal 'advisers' that we wanted to be called to answer the charges but they thought that our doing so would only worsen our case. They were not interested in political statements and were only concerned with ensuring that we received the minimum sentences. Politics, slogans and raised fists would only annoy the judge and add years to our sentences.
Instinctively both of us felt that it would look bad if we made no political comment at all. Although we knew that we were no longer allowed to make statements from the dock, we felt that they could have thought of some way to get us up front. It was not that we wanted our words recorded for posterity, it was just that we had the psychological need to say something. We could not go through a whole trial without uttering a single word as if we no more relevant to the case than the wood panelling on the walls.
Unfortunately, as I've already explained, our desire to escape left us insufficiently motivated to press the point and resist our lawyers' appeals for moderation. We should have known from our studies of political trials that length of sentence is not determined so much by what you say in court but mainly by legal precedent. If someone else before you got x years for doing more or less the same things and that had not served to deter you then your sentence was calculated by the formula x + 20 per cent of x.
The trial was postponed for a few days after the two sides had closed their cases. When the court reassembled, the State Prosecutor summarised the State's case: From 1st August 1975 to 2nd March 1978 the accused did 'wrongfully, unlawfully and with intent to endanger the maintenance of law and order in the Republic' commit certain acts. These were listed in detail: so many pamphlets sent through the post, so many leaflets disseminated by leaflet bombs, and the displaying of an ANC banner.
To prove that the pamphlets and leaflets had or would have had one or more of the all-embracing effects of 'terrorism' as defined by the Terrorism Act, long sections of most of our publications were read out in the court. This went some way towards helping us overcome our shame of not having said anything to the court - they were doing it for us. We felt proud of what was being read out to the large crowd gathered there, although we knew that it could not be reported in the press. Nonetheless, many people heard the message and that was what was important.
The State's object was to prove that by the dissemination of the documents, we had 'without doubt incited, instigated and encouraged others to commit acts to promote the aims and objects of the ANC, the SACP and Umkhonto we Sizwe'. This object they achieved, for immediately afterwards Acting Justice Nel pronounced his verdict: both guilty on count one and not guilty on count two. The not guilty verdict on count two was a purely technical matter relating to duplication of convictions, or something.
We were now statutory terrorists!
After judgement Prosecutor Nel took centre stage again and asked the court to impose a 'heavy sentence' on both of us but a particularly heavy sentence in my case as I was the 'leading figure' in the events that led to the trial. He described the offences as 'very serious indeed' and as amounting to high treason. Treason! Taking part in a struggle that has the support of the majority of the people and against a system of society that has been declared a crime against humanity, is treason? These servants of apartheid are the traitors; they're the ones who are really guilty.
The court was handed over to the defence to call witnesses to give evidence in mitigation. My advocate in his opening speech reiterated that we were not 'terrorists' in the 'ordinary sense of the word'. We had to be sentenced for what had been set out in the indictment, and 'this boiled down to pamphleteering and nothing else.' The pamphlets contained 'crude political claptrap' which did not call for specific acts of violence and for the most part 'fell on deaf ears'. The word 'bomb' was an emotive word and inappropriate to describe the devices exhibited.
While agreeing that he had to play down the significance of the pamphlets, this was going too far. We were proud of those damned pamphlets and took offence at the crude insults of someone who was supposed to be on our side.
The first witness to be called was a cousin of mine who was a psychiatrist at a Cape Town hospital. He was persuaded to plead on my behalf at the last moment because my lawyers thought it would not be a good idea to call my father in the light of the intercepted letter posted by my mother. Initially several people, including my boss from ISD, had offered to give evidence on my behalf but when it became clear what the charges were about they all got cold feet. That left only my father.
The cousin was a total embarrassment. He explained in his psychiatrist's jargon that my 'burning desire to help the underprivileged' was the result of a 'personality defect'. The 'extreme views' which I 'vehemently held' were common of insecure people who sought social security. As my personality needs changed so my views would 'settle' and, presumably, I would then be cured of this affliction and revert to being a 'normal', apathetic, racist white South African.
What an insult! So your beliefs and actions spring from dark psychic and emotional sources and have nothing to do with any genuine political motives; to throw in your lot with the oppressed and join the struggle against apartheid is an illness, a perversion, abnormal.
Thank goodness I only had one 'witness'. Poor Stephen had to contend with both his parents, a Roman Catholic chaplain and a family friend. The parental plea was shameful. Stephen's father explained that as a young lad Stephen was sent to boarding school because he was in danger of becoming a 'softy'. At university he was corrupted by the 'left-wing radical element' and his previously strong religious views were destroyed. The anti-capitalist tendencies he picked up there were expected to wear off and appeared to do so as he matured. But this never really happened as he merely began to harbour his views secretly. Stephen was 'over-anxious to please whatever group he found himself in and adopted the attitudes and mores of any group in which he found himself in order to be popular'. Stephen's normally ruddy complexion turned bright red; he could not lower his head far enough below the dock railing.
The very strong implication in his father's plea was that I was the ring-leader and had influenced Stephen to break the law. Mr Lee finished with an impassioned plea for leniency as a long sentence would turn his son into a 'hardened, bigoted terrorist'.
The other witnesses pushed much the same line: Stephen was basically a decent sort of bloke who used to attend mass regularly but who had been corrupted by others because he was an idealist and easily influenced. By the end Stephen's face had turned bright scarlet. The security police must have been laughing in their jackboots.
Sentence was passed on the 15th of June. The judge's summing up was brief: Accused number one had carried on his illegal activities for two years and seven months and accused number two for about two years; In that time they prepared and disseminated seventeen different pamphlets with the clear intent of undermining law and order; They were mindful of what they were doing and of what sentences others who had engaged in similar activities had received; There was no evidence that accused number two felt any remorse for his conduct while it was obvious from the intercepted letter that accused number one was wholly unrepentant. Without a pause or change in tone of voice he sentenced me to twelve years' imprisonment and Stephen to eight.
That was it. All over. The court turned to see our response, but it had not registered. I could hear the words 'twelve years' ringing in my ears but could not associate them with myself. I swore at the judge under my breath and looked at Stephen. He was looking at me. Suddenly we were grabbed from behind and jostled down the stairs by abusive orderlies; we were bandiete, prisoners, and cluttering the court. We had not even been able to raise our fists in defiance or shout a slogan. Our reticence was partly influenced by the adjurations of our lawyers not to do such things after being sentenced as they would only jeopardise our chances of appealing against the sentences.
In the cells below, the two of us felt sick. Not because of the sentences just imposed upon us, but because we'd failed to raise our fists and shout Amandla! - 'Power!' - as is fitting and proper for political prisoners to do when sentenced. Why had we succumbed to the appeals of our miserable lawyers? We'd been conned!
The security police graciously permitted us a few brief moments with our families to say goodbye. Weeping mothers were consoled and the hands of shocked brothers, sisters and fathers shaken. It was an unhappy scene as we all knew that it would be a long time before we'd be able to see each other again without physical barriers between us. It would also be a long time before the two of us would be able to have physical contact with a loved one. I tried to cheer my mother by saying that we'd soon be out because we were going to escape, but it was the wrong moment. She feared that we would be caught and then our sentences would be prolonged and she would not be able to bear the consequences. I assured her that it was only 'prisoner-talk'; I would do nothing foolish.
To make sure that our valuable 'chargers' stayed in place in case we were immediately carted off to Pretoria where we expected to be sent, I relieved my mother of her supply of aspirins which we swallowed to make ourselves constipated.
The cops called an end to the sad little party and cleared the cell. They handcuffed our hands behind our backs and led us out to the awaiting police cars - they were taking no chances that we would defiantly raise our fists to the eager press photographers waiting outside.
The security police accompanying us back to Pollsmoor feigned surprise at the severity of our sentences but couldn't refrain from remarking that we should have expected what we got. Why had we done it? Just look how we had ruined our lives now. Couldn't we see how much the government was doing for the blacks - more than the ANC could ever do!
The money-filled torpedoes in our guts gave reassurance at that heart-sinking time.
Now we were real prisoners and joining the more than one hundred and twenty thousand others who daily inhabit South Africa's prisons. It has been said that South Africa has the highest per capita prison population in the world. From corner to corner the country is crisscrossed by a network of prisons, filled mostly with the victims of apartheid. There are very few black South Africans who do not in the course of their lives visit one of these institutions for having infringed one of the multitude of apartheid laws that govern their lives.
Included in the one hundred and twenty thousand are the hundreds of political prisoners who officially do not exist. The regime claims that there are no political prisoners in South Africa, only what it calls 'security prisoners'. These it says are ordinary criminals who have been found guilty in the courts of law for crimes against the security of the state. In practice, however, they are forced to recognise the existence of a group of prisoners who are different from other prisoners. These prisoners are kept strictly apart from all others and have their lives governed by a different set of regulations from those applied to ordinary prisoners.
The attitude that met us in the prison reception office was completely different to what we had experienced up to then. No longer were we unconvicted prisoners who could demand a modicum of respect; we were now prison property and they were free to do with us as they wished. After signing our names in a register we were told to remove our clothes and hand in all possessions for safe-keeping. The warder in charge pointed to a pile of rags on the floor and told us to get dressed. The rags were our 'uniforms' and probably the cast-offs of some prisoners who had just been released. The shoes were four sizes too big, the shirt and trousers about double my size. Too bad, you'll just have to get used to them.
Fortunately they did not search us as they do black prisoners who become convicted prisoners: they are forced to dance the 'thawusa', an undignified naked leap into the air with legs apart to show that they have nothing concealed up their rectums. This does not happen to white prisoners, especially those considered to be 'respectable' prisoners as we were.
First task - haircuts. A large, brutal-looking convict found much pleasure running a pair of clippers through our hair. He left only stubble. Stephen's beard was shorn off like sheep's wool and he was made to remove the rest of it with an implement that he did not know how to use - a razor. When they'd finished he looked like a young boy.
We were shoved into large adjacent cells that were completely bare. In mine some workmen had been welding up the windows that looked onto the passage and the area surrounding the plumbing below the two sinks in the one corner. The workmen had obviously taken a break as their tools were still lying about and the job had not been completed. Out of curiosity I looked below the sinks to see why they were welding there. The space was ideal for hiding things and it appeared that they were removing the wooden panelling which formerly covered the area and replacing it with sheet metal. As I looked closer my eye suddenly caught sight of a glint from the pool of water that had collected in the concrete surround below one of the sinks. I put my hand through a gap in the panelling and grabbed hold of a heavy metal object. It was a large handmade dagger, complete with leather sheath. I put my hand in again and pulled out another, and another, and another - five in all.
The knives were beautifully crafted and had obviously just been hidden there by the prisoners who had been turfed out of the cell to make way for me. I quickly hid them in the metal lockers attached to the wall. The welders returned after a short while and completed their job. An hour later a bed, a real bed with a foam-rubber mattress, was brought in by a gang of 'Coloured' prisoners. They must have wondered who this lanie (posh guy) was who was getting a real bed, alone in a ten-person cell.
The next day when the head of the prison looked in on his inspection round I beckoned him toward the lockers. I opened one, took out a dagger and placed it in his hand. He stared at it speechless. The sergeant in charge of the two of us, who was standing behind the chief, stood there completely stunned with his mouth hanging wide open. The chief rebuked him for not searching the cell properly but he swore that he had checked all the lockers. I assured the chief that the cell had not been properly checked and to prove my point I went to the second locker and took out the second dagger. The sergeant's mouth dropped even further open. The chief became agitated and asked if there were any more. I opened the third locker and removed the next one and then the fourth and the fifth. The sergeant just stood there not believing what he was seeing. How could he have missed five large daggers in five separate lockers?
I gently reminded the chief that he had to be careful of us 'terrorists' as he could not tell what we'd get up to with a set of daggers. No, he assured me, they trusted us and did not believe we would use daggers in the prison, only skollies - delinquents - did that. To cap it all, the sergeant immediately launched another search of the cell and found a sharpened spoon hidden on a ledge inside one of the lockers which I myself had missed. I was surprised that he was allowed to keep his job after that.
The incident shook our minders so much that every day after that the sergeant came into both our cells and tapped every bar, window frame and pane of glass with a little hammer to check that we were not cutting our way out. Every hem of each sheet, blanket and item of clothing was checked and the lockers, especially, checked for dangerous weapons. They could not underestimate the deviousness of us 'terrorists'.
They kept us in those cells for about two weeks before transporting us to Pretoria. It was a lonely period much like being in solitary confinement. We saw each other for only half an hour a day when taken for exercise on the roof of the prison. Otherwise we could not communicate. Our toilet pipes did not connect and our outer cell doors were kept locked. We thought of developing a code so that we could tap messages on the wall between our cells like prisoners did during the war but then decided it was too romantic. In any case we would soon be together and then we could talk as much as we wished.
As newly sentenced prisoners we were allowed only one visit by one person for half an hour per month, which we both took in those two weeks. At his visit Stephen's father brought the bad news that the regime had just announced that it was to introduce a new set of currency notes. This meant that after a time the notes we had just smuggled in would no longer be legal tender. It was as if they knew we had the money and had deliberately decided to change it so that ours would be rendered useless!
There were of course no more food parcels and no way of smuggling in any more contraband. The only 'entertainment' permitted during those weeks was three books that were brought to us from the prison library each week. The rest of the time we spent having showers or just pacing madly round and round our oversize cells.
The trip to Pretoria was a nightmare that we'll never forget. Without prior notice they told us late one afternoon to pack our few things. This was no reason to suspect that we were about to be taken away; a move to other cells seemed more likely. The issuing of a blanket and a brown paper bag containing two pieces of dried-out chicken, two boiled eggs and a few slices of bread confirmed that something more significant than a change of cells was about to take place. They led us through the administrative section and, very curiously, out of the front door of the prison to an armoured prison van parked in the street outside.
Each of us had a long chain shackled between our ankles and then they pointed to an open door at the rear of the van. We looked through the door and thought that they were pointing to something they wanted us to get out of the tiny compartment behind it. No, we were to get in. We looked at them disbelievingly, thinking that they were playing a game with us. No human being could surely be expected to travel all the way from Cape Town to Pretoria in a tool locker! 'Nee! Dis jou plek. Klim in! - 'No! It's your place. Get in!'
Against the back wall of the compartment was a narrow ledge on which we were meant to sit and at neck height a square metal tank with sharp edges protruded beyond the ledge, making it impossible to sit up straight. The door was slammed shut and we could hear them locking padlocks on the outside. There was barely sufficient space to turn around and to make matters worse there were two large milkchurns on the floor: one containing fresh water and the other nothing. Presumably the empty one was for relieving ourselves. From the main compartment of the van we could hear the voices and chains of other prisoners.
The van set off immediately and through a small chink in the door we could see that we were being followed by a small Prison Service panel van. The sun was beginning to set but against the red winter sky we could still see the beautiful outline of Table Mountain. Both of us sadly acknowledged that it would be a long time before we saw that sight again.
As it grew darker it became colder. It was midwinter and we knew that our route to Pretoria, if indeed that was where we were being taken, passed through the Karroo, the dry central plain of South Africa, which becomes bitterly cold at night. Temperatures often drop to well below zero. We sat close to each other for warmth and wrapped ourselves in the single blankets we'd been given. They were not very effective in keeping out the cold as above us in the roof was a ventilator that blew a stream of cold air directly onto us. To make matters worse the water in the milkchurn splashed over the brim every time the van braked, cornered or accelerated and in no time our blankets and clothing were dripping wet. The problem was partially solved by removing some of the water with the metal dixies we had been allowed to bring along.
The cold became so intense that I felt like vomiting. Stephen developed diarrhoea and was forced to use the churn directly in front of me. With one hand he had to prevent his 'charger' discharging into the depths of the churn and with the other he had to grip onto the cabin's framework to prevent himself falling over. He was most embarrassed but I assured him I was out of the room under my blanket.
The van travelled very fast and stopped a number of times at distant police outposts, but the prisoners were never allowed out to stretch their aching limbs. Several times I almost knocked myself unconscious on the sharp edge of the water tank above our heads as the van lurched from side to side. On through that icy night a van-full of frozen prisoners were crying out.
It didn't warm significantly for a long time after sunrise. By that time our bodies were racked with the intense pain of sitting in that cramped space coiled up in a ball to conserve warmth. The van stopped for an hour at a prison somewhere where the drivers and guards got out - probably to stuff their pot-bellies with hot breakfast and morning coffee. The prisoners got nothing. Then on and on it went and Stephen's stomach grew worse and worse. He began to worry if he would ever get his 'charger' back in place.
After midday the van passed through Johannesburg and sped on to Pretoria. We wondered where they would eventually deposit us. All long-term white male prisoners usually first went to Pretoria Central Prison for assessment. From there they were sent to other prisons depending on the nature of their crimes. Would they send us there or would we be dropped off immediately at the special prison for white male political prisoners?