Conversations with Myself (12 page)

11. FROM A CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL ABOUT THE ASSASSINATION ON 6 SEPTEMBER 1966 OF PRIME MINISTER H F VERWOERD
¹³

Well, the death – the assassination – of any individual is never anything pleasant. We would prefer that the community should convey its disapproval of his policies without using methods like assassination. Because that can leave scars which we would find very difficult to remove for generations to come. Today, in this country, the Anglo-Boer War, which was fought in 1899 to 1902, you would think when you listen to Afrikaners
and
English speaking, that the…war is still raging today. Because of the scars of the past. Even…the present cabinet is drawn completely from Afrikaners. Englishmen are two or three, but the entire cabinet is of Afrikaners, and that is because they failed to…use peaceful methods of resolving their problems…Although Verwoerd was one of the most
insensitive
of prime ministers in this country…who regarded Africans as animals, worse than animals in many cases. Nevertheless, one didn’t feel happy that he was assassinated. What is even more, is the way the prison authorities retaliated for his assassination, as if we were responsible for that. They brought Warder Van Rensburg from another prison…and he was most brutal. He was a very untidy chap in his habits. When – just by way of illustration – we would be working in the quarry…he would stand on a particular spot. And when he felt he should urinate, relieve himself, he would just urinate where he was standing, instead of going away, you know, to urinate a bit privately, secretly from us. He would urinate where he was standing. In fact, we lodged a
very
strong complaint against him because one day he was standing next to the table where we dish our food, and then when it came, when the time came for him to urinate, he just urinated where he was standing, and although he didn’t urinate on the table itself…but it was just next to the leg of the table…we lodged a very strong protest…He was not a man of clean habits and he was also very insensitive. What happened was that they would decide in the morning before we [went] to work, that today so-and-so and so-and-so should be punished. And once they took that decision, it did not matter how hard you worked that morning; you would be punished at the end of the day.

12. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL ABOUT TRUMPED-UP CHARGES ON ROBBEN ISLAND
¹⁴

STENGEL: Didn’t you have to retain lawyers?

MANDELA: Yes, we did…We took up lawyers, you see, for all these charges…But we were convicted nonetheless…Isolation and being deprived [of] certain diet, certain meals…Rice water, that’s all. Sometimes when the sentence is long, you fast. I’m not sure now whether it’s for two days, and then you have a break, you eat, and the next day you continue fasting and then on the fifth day, they give you food again.

STENGEL: How do you deal with the hunger?

MANDELA: It’s relatively easy. You
feel
it the first day, but the second day…you get used to it. Third day, you don’t feel anything except that you are not as energetic as you used to be. But it’s something…You get used to it. The human body has got enormous capacity for adjusting, especially if…you can coordinate your thinking, your whole spiritual approach to the physical one. And if you are convinced that you are doing something right, that you are demonstrating to the authorities that you can defend your rights and fight back, you don’t feel it at all.

13. FROM A LETTER TO THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, DATED 22 APRIL 1969

My colleagues have requested me to write and ask you to release us from prison and, pending your decision on the matter, to accord us the treatment due to political prisoners. At the outset we wish to point out that in making this application we are not pleading for mercy but are exercising the inherent rights of all people incarcerated for their political beliefs…Prior to our conviction and imprisonment we are members of well-known political organisations which fought against political and racial persecution, and which demanded full political rights for the African, Coloured and Indian people of this Country. We completely rejected as we still do, all forms of white domination, and more particularly the policy of separate development, and demanded a democratic South Africa free from the evils of Colour oppression, and where all South Africans, regardless of race or belief, would live together in peace and harmony on a basis of equality.

All of us, without exception, were convicted and sentenced for political activities which we embarked upon as part and parcel of our struggle to win for our people the right of self-determination, acknowledged throughout the civilized world as the inalienable birthright of all human beings. These activities were inspired by the desire to resist racial policies and unjust laws which violate the principle of human rights and fundamental freedoms that form the foundation of democratic government.

In the past the governments of South Africa have treated persons found guilty of offences of this nature as political offenders who were released from prison, in some cases, long before their sentences expired. In this connection we refer you to the cases of Generals Christiaan De Wet, JCG Kemp and others who were charged with high treason arising out of the 1914 Rebellion. Their case was in every respect more serious than ours. 12,000 rebels took to arms and there were no less than 322 casualties. Towns were occupied and considerable damage caused to government installations, while claims for damage to private property amounted to R500,000. These acts of violence were committed by white men who enjoyed full political rights, who belonged to political parties that were legal, who had newspapers that could publicise their views. They were able to move freely up and down the country espousing their cause and rallying support for their ideas. They had no justification whatsoever for resorting to violence. The leader of the Orange Free State rebels, De Wet, was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment plus a fine of R4,000. Kemp received a sentence of 7 years and a fine of R2,000. The rest were given comparatively light sentences.

In spite of the gravity of their offences, De Wet, was released within 6 months of his conviction and sentence, and the rest within a year. This event occurred a little more than half a century ago, yet the Government of the day showed much less intransigence, in its treatment of this category of prisoner than the present Government seems prepared to do 54 years later with black politicians who have even more justification to resort to violence than the 1914 rebels. This Government has persistently spurned our aspirations, suppressed our political organisations and imposed severe restrictions on known activists and field workers.

It has caused hardship and disruption of family life by throwing into prison hundreds of otherwise innocent people. Finally it has instituted a reign of terror unprecedented in the history of the Country and closed all channels of constitutional struggle. In such a situation resort to violence was the inevitable alternative of freedom fighters who had the courage of their convictions. No men of principle and integrity could have done otherwise. To have folded arms would have been an act of surrender to a Government of minority rule and a betrayal of our cause. World history in general, and that of South Africa in particular, teaches that resort to violence may in certain cases be perfectly legitimate.

In releasing the rebels soon after their convictions the Botha Smuts Government acknowledged this vital fact. We firmly believe that our case is no less different, and we accordingly ask you to make this privilege available to us. As indicated above, there were 322 casualties in the Rebellion. By way of contrast, we draw attention to the fact that in committing acts of sabotage we took special precautions to avoid loss of life, a fact which was expressly acknowledged by both the trial Judge [and] the prosecution in the Rivonia case.

An examination of the attached schedule shows that if we use De Wet’s case as the standard, then every one of us ought to have been released by now. Of the 23 persons whose names are listed therein, 8 are doing life imprisonment, 10 are serving sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years, and 5 between 2 and 10 years…The only way to avert disaster is not to keep innocent men in jail but to abandon your provocative actions and to pursue sane and enlightened policies. Whether or not evil strife and bloodshed are to occur in this country rests entirely on the Government. The continued suppression of our aspirations and reliance on rule through coercion drives our people more and more to violence. Neither you nor I can predict [what] the country will have to pay at the end of that strife. The obvious solution is to release us and to hold a round table conference to consider an amicable solution.

Our main request is that you release us and pending your decision, to treat us as political prisoners. This means that we should be provided with good diet, proper clothing outfits, bed and mattresses, newspapers, radios, bioscope [and] better and closer contact with our families and friends here and abroad. Treatment as political prisoners implies the freedom to obtain all reading material that is not banned and to write books for publication, we would expect to be given the option to work as one desires and to decide the trades one would like to learn…In this situation the Government regards the prison not as an institution of rehabilitation but as an instrument of retribution, not to prepare us to lead a respectable and industrious life when released, and to play our role as worthy members of society, but to punish and cripple us, so that we should never again have the strength and courage to pursue our ideals. This [is] our punishment for raising our voices against the tyranny of colour. This is the true explanation for the bad treatment we receive in prison – pick and shovel work continuously for the last 5 years, a wretched diet, denial of essential cultural material and isolation from the world outside jail. This is the reason why privileges normally available to other prisoners, including those convicted of murder, rape and crimes involving dishonesty are withheld from political offenders…In conclusion we place on record that the years we have spent on this Island have been difficult years. Almost every one of us has had [our] full share in one way or another of the hardships that face non-white prisoners. These hardships have at times been the result of official indifference to our problems, other times they were due to plain persecution. But things have somewhat eased and we hope even better days will come. All that we wish to add is that we trust that when you consider this application you will bear in mind that the ideas that inspire us, and the convictions that give form and direction to our activities constitute the only solution to the problems of our country and are in accordance with the enlightened conceptions of the human family.

14. FROM A CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL ABOUT BEING PUT IN ISOLATION
¹⁵

To be
alone
in prison is a difficulty. You must never try it. So what they did then was to
isolate
me without actually, you know, punishing me in the sense of depriving me of meals. But they made sure that I did not see a
face
of a prisoner. I saw a warder all the time; even my food was brought in by a warder. [
chuckles
] And they would let me out for thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the afternoon, and when the
other
prisoners were locked up.

15. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL ABOUT THE BUCKET SYSTEM IN PRISON

MANDELA: Yes, you had a bucket, you see, for your room…We didn’t have a water-borne sewerage in each cell. In the big cells, you had water-borne sewerage, but in the actual single rooms themselves, you didn’t have that, yes. You just have these buckets which you used for the night.

STENGEL: I don’t remember who it was, but someone who was new on the Island, who was very fastidious, said that you once helped him clean out his bucket because he didn’t want to do it?

MANDELA: Well, no, I…There
was
a chap, one of our fellows, a trained member of Umkhonto we Sizwe; he was to go to…to Cape Town and…they used to leave very early, sometimes about five o’clock…before the cell was actually opened for us to go and empty our toilets [buckets]. So he then asked the chap opposite and he left for the city. Now he was next door to me. So the fellow opposite him, I reminded him, you see: ‘Please, so-and-so has asked you to clean his bucket.’ He says, ‘No, I’m not prepared to do that. I will not do that. I will not clean a bucket for another man.’ So I then cleaned it for him because it meant nothing for me; I cleaned my bucket every day [
chuckles
] and I had no problem, you see, in cleaning the bucket of another. That’s what happened, you see. And it was just to help a friend, you know, who was let down by his own friend.

16. FROM A LETTER TO FRIEDA MATTHEWS, DATED 25 FEBRUARY 1987
¹⁶

A visit to a prisoner always has significance difficult to put into words. Routine is the supreme law of a prison in almost every country of the world, and every day is for all practical purposes like the day before: the same surroundings, same faces, same dialogue, same odour, walls rising to the skies, and the ever-present feeling that outside the prison gates there is an exciting world to which you have no access. A visit from your beloved ones, from friends and even from strangers is always an unforgettable occasion, when that frustrating monotony is broken and the entire world is literally ushered into the cell.

17. CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD STENGEL ABOUT VISITS IN PRISON

STENGEL: How long were the visits?

MANDELA: At first, thirty minutes. So you have to wait for six months and only to speak for thirty minutes. Then they extended it to an hour, but they made thirty minutes your right, and the other thirty minutes a privilege. They could refuse if they wanted to. For example, whilst we were getting an hour, I was – they used to tell you beforehand, ‘You are going to have so-and-so visiting you.’ But one day they just said, ‘You have a visit.’ And I asked, ‘Now who is it?’ They said, ‘No, we don’t know.’ Then I said, ‘Well, ask the Commanding Officer; I want to see the Commanding Officer’ and the Commanding Officer came and I said, ‘Well, I’ve got a visit. I’ve asked the warders to tell me who the visitor is, and they say they don’t know.’ He says, ‘Well, I’ll investigate and see who your visitor is.’ He never came back and I was taken to the visiting booth without knowing who it was.
Suddenly
, Professor Fatima Meer came. So they didn’t want to tell me because Fatima Meer was
marked
already and was [on] a black list, their black list. And they didn’t want to tell me beforehand, but they were
forced
to allow her to come and see me. So, and then I thought it was [going to be for] an hour. After thirty minutes, they said, ‘No, visit up!’ and so I said, ‘But you are supposed to give me an hour.’ He said, ‘No, you are entitled to thirty minutes. The other thirty minutes is discretionary; it’s at our discretion. The visit is over.’ And they were very, quite tough, quite abrupt. And so that was the position at the beginning, but…that hour, they continued, they never exceeded it. It was not until I went to Victor Verster, where I was kept…under conditions which were between a prisoner and a free man.
¹⁷
I was put in a cottage. I stayed in this cottage alone. It was not locked and I could stay outside until midnight. And I was provided with a warder who cooked my food; but we’ll come to that a bit later.