One of Madiba's greatest comrades Laloo 'Isu’ Chiba tells Janet Smith about the torture he endured at the hands of police after he was arrested for sabotage.
As we prepare to mark Mandela Week from Monday, one of Nelson Mandela’s greatest comrades and a true South African revolutionary hero, 86-year-old Laloo Isu’ Chiba, talked to Janet Smith about his life in a three-part interview. This is the second part. His lifelong friend Ahmed Kathrada, took part in the interviews.
A nerve-racking cocktail: pain, torture and sabotage
Says Laloo “Isu” Chiba: Madiba was arrested on August 5, 1962. We then got instructions that each one of us must establish a sabotage unit of four people, so I started recruiting people. Paul Joseph did, Reggie Vandeyar did and so on, and the four units were now known as a platoon, and that platoon was answerable to the Joburg Regional Command of MK, of which Kathy (Ahmed Kathrada) was part.
Wolfie (Kodesh) put me in charge of that platoon, so I am the commander, and others in the platoon were Reggie, Indres Naidoo, Sirish Nanabhai, Solly Vania and a police informer, Gamat Jardine.
The idea was that we reconnoitre possible targets and I would report it to Jack Hodgson, and when Madiba gets arrested, Jack calls me and says, without telling me why, that a massive act of sabotage must take place within the next 36 hours.
I found that rather strange. I wondered: what’s actually happened? But that was the style, the security and discipline we worked under. We obeyed instructions. End of the story. Don’t ask questions, hear no lies.
So I told Jack, I don’t know. None of the units under me are for standby, but I would try my best. I told Jack we have to select a target, we have to select the necessary bomb for it. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I’ll try.
But I can be very convincing because I was passionate, and so we agreed on a unit, and a target we had in mind. It was a transformer set-up on a bridge in Fordsburg. Now we had to select a bomb.
Fortunately, Elias Motsoaledi was also on the Joburg Regional Command and had prepared a bomb for use some time or another before that, and that bomb was kept in a store room in (comrade) Essop Jassat’s spare room next to his surgery. We used to store all our stuff there: our dynamite, Molotov cocktails, fuses, Cordtex; all the raw material for the bombs.
He gave us the spare keys for that room and he was aware of what was being stored there. So we went there and selected a 4.5kg dynamite bomb, and we go to the site.
We had to cut a fence, which was Solly Vania’s job, then Charlie (Abdullah Jassat) must be ready with the getaway car.
We go inside and we found a drum of transformer oil, and we place the bomb on top of that. The bomb was going to be detonated electronically.
We were using a parking meter, so when the two hours were up, the Cordtex would set it off, and it would take 10 seconds before the bomb goes off. We knew that was going to take place in two hours, so we were hanging around in the vicinity just to hear the explosion, but the bomb doesn’t go off. We wait for another hour... still nothing happens.
Now, we’re very concerned. The job had to be done. So I said, look, can we go and retrieve the bomb and see what’s going on.
We weren’t supposed to go back, but I say, in for a penny, in for a pound, and then we all agreed to go back.
I tell Solly to cut the hole bigger, and I went in with a plan to disconnect the timing device and come out quickly. I know it’s crude to say, but I was s**t-scared. But once I had gone inside, I had to do the job, so I disconnected the timing device. Then I lit a cigarette and tapped it on the fuse for about eight or 10 seconds and ran like hell. Before I reached the car, the whole thing (clicks fingers) blows up! So that’s what we’re talking about. Ten seconds.
It was one of the most successful jobs, but we could have lost our lives. If I had to go back, and I had two or three days to think about it, I don’t think I would have taken the decision or tried to get anybody to go back.
But Jack was very, very happy this job had been done under his jurisdiction. He was elated, but I also reported what I had done and he gave me hell for violating standing rules. I knew that I was wrong, and if I was a soldier or a member of a conventional army, I would have been court-martialled.
Ahmed Kathrada: I had no formal contact with him at that time, because the units had their own contact, but I could have reported him when I heard of his irresponsibility (laughs).
Chiba: Between the establishment of MK in December 1961 until my first arrest in 1963 - a total of about 15 months - we carried out a number of jobs. Some were highly successful. Others were miserable failures.
Kathrada: Let’s talk about the night of your arrest.
Chiba: Shirish Nabahai and Indres Naidoo went to blast a relay box at Riverlea, and that’s where they got arrested because their unit had been infiltrated by a police informer, and after their arrest at midnight, they were taken to Langlaagte and smashed up there, and then afterwards taken to Marshall Square.
Abdullah Jassat and myself were arrested a few hours later, but at home, and we were also taken to Marshall Square. From there, the same night, we were then taken to railway headquarters in Braamfontein because this relay box at Riverlea Station was on railway property. We were called in one by one. Shirish, then Reggie, then Indres.
He had been shot and they took him to Coronationville (hospital) and removed the bullet. Then Abdullah. Then I was taken in last. Abdullah was badly tortured.
Kathrada: We knew Abdullah was tortured and Reggie. But talk about you, man.
Chiba: When I went in there, there was “Rooi Rus” Swanepoel, a Lieutenant Van Wyk and Major Brits from the railway police, and they wanted to know who is my contact. I said, I think you people are making a serious mistake. You’ve got the wrong guy here.
Then they started assaulting me. They formed a little arc - about half-a-dozen railway police and security police. They punched, hit and pushed me. Kicked me. I’m telling them they’ve made a mistake, and all of a sudden I felt a wet Hessian bag being thrown over my body. So I’m now straitjacketed and they throw me on the floor, remove my shoes and socks, and I could feel they were tying electric wires on my toes and on my knuckles.
They ask me a question, and I say I know nothing. I can hear a dynamo, a handle being turned, which I assumed to be dynamo, and violent electric shocks start passing through my body.
What actually happened, of course, was that I couldn’t help but scream: you people are making a mistake! Please stop! I’m begging for mercy. I’m appealing to my bloody enemy to stop torturing me.
It’s very difficult to assess for how long it went on. It could have been half-an-hour or 45 minutes. After a little while, they started pouring water on the electric wires, and when you do that, your electric shocks become even more intense, but there was nothing I could do about it. I collapsed, then they lifted me.
I couldn’t walk and they carried me three flights down the stairs to a car where the other comrades were waiting. They chucked me into the car and took us back to Marshall Square, then carried me up the stairs and shoved me in the cell.
That was the first day and then, of course, after 48 hours, we appeared in court and we were not asked to plead, but the magistrate ruled that we should be kept in jail for the next 10 days. We were detained until we were charged and we were divided into two parts - those who were caught at the site and us. They were charged and found guilty in what was the first political trial in the then Transvaal province, and sentenced to 10 years.
They withdrew the charges against us when we appeared. But instead of allowing us to go home, they slapped a 90-day (detention order) on us, a brand new legislation, and put us back inside.
In 90 days, we developed a working relationship with one of the warders. He was a lovely, friendly young Afrikaner; a happy-go-lucky sort. We had a good relationship with him and when he was on duty he opened up our cells so we could speak to each other.
At that stage Wolfie Kodesh and Leon Levy were also being held for 90 days, and we discussed how we wanted to leave the country on an exit permit. After a little while, another two joined us, Harold Wolpe and Arthur Goldreich, who had purchased Liliesleaf Farm on his name. Because of the wonderful relationship with Greeff (the warder), we started making plans to escape.
We set a date. It would be August 7, 1963.
Wolpe’s wife, Anne-Marie, had smuggled in a saw with food, but it was going to be a laborious job sawing, and it wasn’t going to work.
On August 6, Lieutenant Van Wyk came with a warrant officer by the name of Labuschagne. They came into my cell and said, look, we are prepared to release you tomorrow on condition that you don’t lay any charge whatsoever against the police for having tortured you - we want to know now what your answer is.
Now how do you answer? You need to debate, discuss it, analyse it and then take a decision.
I said to myself, what do I do? And then I thought I’ll accept and when I’m out I’ll refer the matter to the political leadership and if they say I must lay charges, I will. And so I was released, but in the meantime I told everyone we can’t escape. I’m leaving.
Greeff contacts me at home on the Friday to tell me they’re going to escape. I said, that’s okay, and I left for Rustenburg. I wasn’t going to be sticking around Joburg. But it happens to be Friday; people are drunk, and Greeff finds himself with a larger volume of cases he has to handle, so it doesn’t happen.
Arrangements had been made that he would collect R4 000 from my house on the Saturday as payment. I got the money, but Greeff doesn’t turn up.
Then, on the Sunday, they decide they’re definitely going to escape. Greeff keeps the promise and releases them.
On Sunday morning, the police come to my place. They want to know where I am and my dad tells them I’m in Rustenburg, so they set off, but by that time I’m on my way back. When I get home, I go into hiding and the rest manage to escape.
Greeff confessed. Of course, he didn’t get paid and he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. He served two years and three months. But after the advent of democracy, Mosie Moola and Abdullah (Jassat) motivated with Walter Sisulu that he should be paid. They put the matter to an actuarial scientist to calculate what R4 000 be worth today, and he was paid out R110 000. He had no grudge.
But what happened was that whenever I thought about the whole thing, I felt bad inside, because I had asked, while they were torturing me. I pleaded with them.
I begged them to stop. Now that is pleading with an enemy, and revolutionaries don’t plead with enemies. I shouldn’t have done that.
But (when I testified at the TRC in 2006), commissioner Yasmin Sooka said they could totally understood. The more important thing was that they didn’t get the information from me.
Kathrada: I saw him in court with the bruises.
It was terrible. On the night of their arrest, his family phoned me. I was under house arrest and I could only leave my place at 7am, so immediately when I could I went to Wolpe and told him.
Chiba: The second time I was arrested, in July, the Rivonia Trial had already taken place.
A few days later, the high command had been smashed and the political leadership decided that the national high command had to be reconstituted and they gave the job to Wilton Mkwayi.
He comes to me and tells me I must serve. I said I haven’t got the skills, the vision, the wisdom and I refused. And he said no and insisted. Later, I caved in.
When they were sentenced, we had already decided that we shouldn’t engage in any sabotage activity in case there were accidents. There was a strong suspicion they were going to be sentenced to death and if something went wrong with anything we did, it would aggravate the situation.
So, in January 1964, we took the decision to place a moratorium on all sabotage activity until the day they were sentenced. Within a matter of two days after that, many acts of sabotage took place. Two or three weeks later, I was arrested with Babla Saloojee. I’m taken to Special Branch headquarters. They put a piece of paper on the floor. Now, they had a different strategy.
I was arrested at about 9 to 9.30 on the Monday morning. They took me to 7th floor of Gray’s Building. They put me on that piece of paper and they say, you stand there, but we won’t touch you at all. I stood there from 10am on Monday until Wednesday afternoon. Fifty-eight hours, I stood there.
The idea was to weaken my resistance, to make me frustrated, hoping that in a moment of frustration, I would weaken. Of course, I admitted that I was a member of the SACP and of the second national high command, and I took the blame for some acts of sabotage. But I never gave away any other information.
Then, our trial started.
*The interview was conducted at the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in Lenasia.
Saturday Star