Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO
This book by Paul Trewhela, uncovers some of the exile history
(savagery) of the ANC and SWAPO that both organisations would prefer not
to remember. Here is a first-hand account of the ANC's Quatro prison
camp and of the mutiny in Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in Angola in 1984;
articles on the SWAPO 'spy drama' of the 1970s and 1980s; an analysis of
a death in exile with implications relating to Jacob Zuma; and a study
of the responses of both the ANC and SWAPO to these episodes of
intolerance, repression and excess. In all his essays, Trewelha analyses
problems of the liberation struggles with a former insider's knowledge
and a journalist's ability to ferret out the facts.
In this edited extract from his book, Inside Quatro: Uncovering the
Exile history of the ANC and Swapo, Paul Trewhela sheds light on a past
that the ANC would prefer to forget.
The ANC's Quatro was best described in a terse statement by Zaba Maledza, when he said: "When you get in there, forget about human rights."
This was a statement from a man who had lived in Quatro during one of the worst periods in its history, from 1980 to 1982.
Established in 1979, Quatro was supposed to be the rehabilitation centre
of the ANC, where enemy agents who had infiltrated the ANC would be
"re-educated" and would be made to love the ANC through the opportunity
to experience the humane character of its ideals.
Regrettably, through a process that still cries out for explanation,
Quatro became worse than any prison that even the apartheid regime -
itself considered a crime against humanity - had ever had.
However harsh the above statement, however disagreeable to the
fighters against the monstrous apartheid system, it is a truth that
needs bold examination by our people, and the whole of the ANC
membership.
To examine the history of Quatro is to uncover the concealed forces that operate in a political organisation such as the ANC.
Quatro, officially known as Camp 32, was renamed after Morris Seabelo
(real name Lulamile Dantile), one of the ANC's first and trusted
commanders. He was a Soviet-trained intelligence officer, a student at
the Moscow Party Institution and a publicised young hero of the South
African Communist Party. In late 1985 he mysteriously lost his life at
an underground ANC residence in Lesotho, where none of those he was
with, including Nomkhosi Mini, was spared to relate the story.
Located about 15km from the town of Quibaxe, north of Luanda, Quatro was
one of the most feared of the secret camps of the ANC, and only a
selected few in the ANC leadership, (Mzwandile Piliso, Joe Modise,
Andrew Masondo and also the then general secretary of the SA Communist
Party, Moses Mabhida) had access.
The administration of the camp was limited to members of the security
forces, mostly young members of the underground SACP. Such were most of
its administrative staff - for example, Sizwe Mkhonto, also an East
German-trained intelligence officer and former political student at the
Moscow Party Institution, who was camp commander for a long time; Afrika
Nkwe, also Soviet intelligence and a politically trained officer, who
was a senior commander and commissar at Quatro, with occasional relapses
of mental illness; Griffiths Seboni; and Cyril Burton, all falling
within the same categories, to name but a few.
The security guards and warders were drawn from the young and
politically naive fanatic supporters of the military leadership of Joe
Modise and Oliver Tambo, who kept to strict warnings about secrecy. They
were not allowed to talk to anyone about anything that took place in an
"ANC rehabilitation centre".
The prisoners themselves were transported blindfolded and flat on
the floor of the security vehicle carrying them. Upon arrival in the
camp they were given pseudonyms and were strictly limited, allowed only
to know their cellmates, and not to peep through the windows.
From whatever corner they emerged, or whatever turn they took within
the premises of the prison, they had to seek "permission to pass". Any
breaches of these rules of secrecy, whether intentional or by mistake,
were punishable by beatings and floggings.
To crown it all, when prisoners were released they had to sign a
document committing them never to release any form of information
relating to the conditions of their stay in the prison camp, and never
to disclose their activities there or the forms of punishment meted out
to them.
The place had seven communal cells, some of which used to be
storerooms for the Portuguese colonisers, and five isolation cells,
crowded so much that a mere turn of a sleeping position by a single
prisoner would awaken the whole cell. With minimal ventilation,
conditions were suffocating, dark and damp even in the dry and hot
Angolan climate.
Even (then ANC president) Oliver Tambo was forced to comment, when he
visited the place for the first time in August 1987, that the cells were
too dark and suffocating.
In every cell there was a corner reserved for five-litre bottle-like
plastic containers covered with cardboard, which served as a toilet
where, in the sight of all cellmates, you were expected to relieve
yourself. With a strong stench coming from the toilet area, and
lice-infected blanket rags that stayed unwashed for months or even years
on end, the prison authorities would keep the doors wide open and
perhaps light perfumed lucky-sticks before visiting ANC leaders could
enter the cells.
Outside, the premises of the camp were so clean from the beaten and
forced prison labour that Tambo found himself commenting: "The camp is
very clean and beautiful, but the mood and atmosphere inside the cells
is very gloomy."
The life activity of the inmates at Quatro was characterised by
aggressive physical and psychological humiliation that could only be
documented by the efforts of all the former prisoners and perhaps honest
security guards combined.
Botiki, one of the former detainees, who lived through camp life in
Quatro during its worst period, said of the place: "What I've seen there
is frightening and incredible."
For a long time, Quatro had been a place of interest to many cadres,
and it was very difficult to learn details of the place from
ex-detainees. The ANC security had instilled so much fear in them that
they hardly had any hope that the situation could be changed.
The meek behaviour and fear of authority shown by ex-detainees, the
intimidating and domineering posture of the security personnel,
attempted and successful suicides committed by ex-prisoners such as Leon
Madakeni, "Mark", and Nonhlanhla Makhuba when faced with the
possibility of re-arrest, and the common mental disturbance of the
guards and personnel at Quatro, and what they talked about in their
deranged state, threw light on what one was likely to expect in this
"rehabilitation centre".
In Quatro the prisoners were given invective names that were meant to
destroy them psychologically, names "closely reflecting the crimes
committed by the prisoners".
Among the mutineers, we had Zaba Maledza, who was named Muzorewa,
after a notorious traitor in Zimbabwe; Sidwell Moroka, named Dolinchek,
after a Yugoslav mercenary involved in a coup attempt in the Seychelles;
and Maxwell Moroaledi, named Mgoqozi, a Zulu name for an instigator.
There were many other extremely rude names that cannot be written
here. Otherwise, generally, every prisoner was called umdlwembe, a
political bandit.
The daily routine started at six with the emptying of toilet chambers,
during which prisoners would run down to a big pit under whipping from
"commanders" (security guards). After this, prisoners would be allowed
to wash from a single quarter-drum container at incredible speed. The
whole prisoner population had to wash from a single container, with
water unchanged, taking turns as they went out to dispose of the
"chambers".
The occupants of the last cells out would suffer most, because they would find very little water, which was very dirty.
The very activity of prisoners washing was a big concession, because
before 1985 it was not even considered necessary for the prisoners to
wash and they were infested with lice. Each group of prisoners was
required to use literally one minute to wash and any delay would lead to
serious beatings.
Back to the cell after washing in the open ground, the prisoners of
Quatro would be given breakfast, which would either be tea or a piece of
bread, or sometimes a soup of beans. They were normally given spoiled
food that was rejected by the cadres of the ANC in the camps, and it was
normally half-cooked by the beaten, insulted and frightened prisoners.
The two other meals, lunch and supper, were usually mealie meal and
beans, or rice and beans, sometimes in extremely large quantities, which
prisoners were forced to eat. To make certain that everything had been
eaten, there was an irregular check of toilet chambers.
Alongside the emaciated prisoners there were security guards who
lived extravagantly, drinking beer every week: privileges unknown in
other ANC establishments.
During periods of extreme shortages of food for the prisoners, those
who were working banked their hopes on the leftovers from the tables of
the security officers and guards. Simultaneously with the taking of
breakfast, those who wished to visit the medical point would be allowed
out.
The clinic at Quatro was one of the worst places to visit,
usually manned by half-baked and very brutal personnel. A visit to the
clinic usually resulted in beatings of sick people and extremely
inhumane treatment for the prisoners.
"Errol" who had problems with his swelling leg, was subjected to
such inconsiderate treatment and beatings whenever he visited the clinic
that he finally lost his life. Some prisoners would be forced to go to
work while sick, for fear of revealing their state of health that would
land them in the clinic.
Even reporting your sickness needed a very careful choice of words.
For instance, if you had been injured during beatings by the
"commanders", you were not supposed to say that you had been beaten.
In Quatro, "commanders" didn't beat prisoners, they "corrected"
them; this was the way the propaganda went. A prisoner received a
"corrective measure".
After the prisoners had polished the boots of the commanders and ironed
their uniforms, at eight o'clock the time for labour would begin.
In Quatro there were certain cells earmarked for hard and hazardous
labour. During this period, the cells that contained mainly mutineers
were subjected to the hardest tasks.
Lighter duties, such as cooking and cleaning the surroundings, were
given to other groups of prisoners, while the mutineers carried out
other work, such as chopping wood and cutting logs, digging trenches and
constructing dug-outs, and - most feared of all - pushing the water
tank up a steep and rough road.
Every kind of work at Quatro was done with incredible speed.
Prisoners were not allowed to walk: they were always expected to be on
the double from point to point in the camp.
The group that was chopping wood would leave the camp at eight to
search for a suitable tree to fell. Everybody had to have an axe. With
work starting after eight, chopping would continue without a break until
12, and the prisoners were not even expected to appear tired. "A bandit
doesn't get tired," went the saying.
Whipping with coffee tree sticks, trampling by military boots, blows
with fists and claps on your inflated cheeks (known as ukumpompa)
became part of the labour process.
The work quota that prisoners were expected to accomplish was
totally unreasonable, but they were liable for serious punishment for
any failure to fulfil it.
Many prisoners at Quatro had their ears damaged internally because
of ukumpompa, which was sometimes done by using canvas shoes or soles of
sandals.
The same situation prevailed in other duties. Unreasonably heavy logs for dugouts had to be carried up the slopes.
Every prisoner tried to get a piece of cloth for himself to cushion
the logs so as to protect his shoulders, but prisoners still did these
duties with patches of bruises incurred as a result of this labour.
The most feared duty in Quatro was the pushing of the huge water
tank, normally drawn by heavy military trucks, by the prisoners
themselves for a distance of about three or four kilometres from the
water reservoir to the camp.
Like cattle, they would struggle with the tank and the "commanders",
wielding sticks, would be around whipping prisoners like slaves
whenever they felt like it or when the pace was too slow.
Prisoners in Quatro behaved like frightened zombies, who would
nervously jump in panic just at the sight of commanders, let alone at a
rebuke or a beating.
In the process of these beatings during labour time, prisoners who could
not cope with the work were sometimes beaten to death. Such was the
death of one prisoner, who died from blows to the back of his head from
Leonard Maweni, one of the security guards.
Two others were unable to carry some heavy planks from a place far
away from the camp, after the truck that had been carrying them broke
down. Upon arrival in the camp they were summoned from their cell, under
instructions from Dan Mashigo, who was the camp's chief of staff, and
were taken for flogging at a spot near the camp. One never came back to
his cell, and the other one died a short while after returning to his
cell.
This was in complete conflict with what Dexter Mbona - the security
chief in Quatro and later ANC regional chief of security in Angola -
told the mutineers (who had challenged the leadership and demanded to be
sent home to fight in South Africa rather than be kept in exile) when
addressing them on their very first day of arrival.
On that occasion, he said: "This camp is not a prison, but a
rehabilitation centre, and it has changed from what you portrayed it to
be during the time of Mkatashingo (the mutiny)."
Quatro was still a place of daily screams and pleas for mercy from physically abused prisoners. Saturday was the worst day.
It was a day of strip and cell searches; the commanders would enter each cell with sticks and the search would commence.
If a single prisoner made even a slight mistake as a result of
panic, the whole cell would be in for it, and to drown the noise of
their screams, other cells would be instructed to sing.
As already mentioned, the whole story about this camp needs to be
investigated to establish who were the masterminds behind these gross
violations of human rights.
Both psychologically and physically, the camp has done a lot of damage to those who found themselves imprisoned there.
Some have become psychological wrecks, while others have contracted sicknesses such as epileptic fits.
What is certain is that Andrew Masondo, Mzwandile Piliso and Joe
Modise were heavily involved in these sinister political machinations.
But was the topmost leadership of the ANC unaware?
