TRC records ‘put flesh on the bones’

Anton Lubowski's sister, Annaliese Lubowski, and his daughter, Nadia Lubowski, sift through TRC transcripts at the SA History Archive trying to find out more about his murder. Photo: Matthews Baloyi

Anton Lubowski's sister, Annaliese Lubowski, and his daughter, Nadia Lubowski, sift through TRC transcripts at the SA History Archive trying to find out more about his murder. Photo: Matthews Baloyi

Published Jul 3, 2015

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Johannesburg - Can’t remember. It wasn’t me. And detainees jumped from windows but one “unfortunately” survived.

These are some of the grim bits of history emerging from security police officers interviewed behind closed doors by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) two decades ago and now being released following a long fight by the SA History Archive (Saha).

The organisation has spent 11 years battling to get access to a range of TRC records, winning victories bit by bit. The transcripts obtained so far of the in-camera hearings, known as the Section 29 hearings after the section of TRC law enabling them, run to about 15 000 pages or about 140 records.

Some of those records are incomplete, there are difficulties establishing what exists and where it is, and some digital records are still blocked.

“There has been a terrible erosion of records,” said Saha director, Catherine Kennedy.

Saha staff received the records earlier this year and are still going through them, but have started offering public access to them.

“Our job as archivists is to make it available,” said Kennedy. “Our archives are open.”

Some are online, some accessible only by appointment with Saha in Joburg.

She said what’s revealed in the records is less about any “ground- shaking revelations” and more about an insight into the process of how the TRC carried out investigations and arrived at decisions. “They put flesh on the bones,” she said.

Some transcripts don’t give much new information on apartheid crimes, but provide unsettling insights into the apartheid-era mindset.

Much is confusing, as the basis of the TRC questioning or even a clear indication of which incidents are the focus of the inquiries is not available; some of this may be in the subpoenas.

Inability to remember or even notice key details is a recurrent theme.

“If I was a computer, I would have a memory disk where I would store my information therefore I would be accurate to retrieve all the information from 1974. Unfortunately, I am not working as a computer; I am a human being,” one security police captain told frustrated interviewers.

Another, who ended up as a commander, was questioned about why he didn’t seem to know about torture of detainees whose cases he was involved in.

“I can say sir, even myself, I can talk to a person and get the truth. I am not very good in assaulting but I just talk to a person and get the truth without assaulting him,” he replied.

A black security policeman from Port Elizabeth, who explained that he was non-political and just needed a job, said he was aware of torture but wasn’t involved.

“We used to hand over to some other people… Black policemen were not allowed to interrogate, it’s only the whites who were therefore questioning,” he told an inquiry.

“You used to hear the screams?” asked the TRC investigator.

“Yes,” he said. “You would bring people there in the Sanlam building and when you come back, you will hear them screaming because they are being tortured.”

That same policeman talked about detainees “jumping” from police office windows; this is a much-disputed scenario.

“Is there a period in time where there would be no one responsible for the detainee such that he can jump from a window?” asked the TRC.

“During the period I was working for the security police, he was not the first one who jumped from a window. There were three others. The one is still alive, he is in town. I am not saying that he said he jumped, I am saying he jumped. We had gone to make tea, he just jumped. Unfortunately, he didn’t die, he fell on a car,” said the policeman.

“You are saying ‘unfortunately he did not die’?” asked the TRC.

“Yes he is still alive,” said the policeman.

The detainee was not identified in the transcript.

The family of Swapo activist Anton Lubowski went to Saha to read through some of the records in their decades-long search for further details of his killers. Lubowski was shot dead in Windhoek, Namibia, in September 1989 in a still-unsolved killing for which the TRC did not receive any amnesty applications.

Lubowski’s sister, Annaliese Lubowski, and his daughter Nadia Lubowski read through transcripts of a former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) member. The CCB was the secret military hit squad generally believed to have killed Lubowski.

There were no major revelations or admissions of involvement, just explanations of how the members operated.

The officer, who said he was one of 400 CCB members, referred to Lubowski’s killing as a CCB operation. He also referred briefly to financial incentives to carry out attacks, and said anyone from the CCB could have shot Lubowski as they were “all instructed” to do such work. “We were told, ‘double up your production and you will get production bonus, in Namibia’.”

Annaliese said the transcripts provided more confirmation of what was suspected about CCB involvement. “I’m convinced it was the CCB,” she said.

Nadia has come to know her father through the ongoing search for his killers, and the more she learns, the prouder she is of him.

“He was so against the system that he was absolutely 100 percent prepared to give his life for it,” she said. “He said he could never look his children in the eye and say he did nothing.”

The information in the transcripts underlined the validity of her father’s opposition to the apartheid government, she said. “That’s the reason he stood up and said this stuff is atrocious.”

* See Saha’s website at http://foip.saha.org.za.

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The Star

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