Amnesty International Report 1995 - South Africa

After months of political uncertainty and violence, the country's first non-racial national elections were held successfully in April. At least 2,683 people were killed in political violence during the year – some of whom were extrajudicially executed. At least two thirds of the deaths occurred before the elections. Further evidence emerged of collusion by the security forces in past political killings. Torture of detainees by the police and army was reported; at least 32 died in police custody in suspicious circumstances. Twenty-five people were sentenced to death and 450 remained on death row. There were no executions. The African National Congress (ANC) won the April elections, with over 62 per cent of the vote. The National Party (NP) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) secured sufficient votes to be allocated cabinet posts in the government. On 10 May Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President. The new National Assembly and Senate opened in late May, and in the following months nine new provincial governments began operating. On 24 May the National Assembly and the Senate, sitting jointly as a Constitutional Assembly, began reviewing the interim constitution, which must be adopted in final form by May 1996. The interim constitution guarantees certain "fundamental human rights", including the right to life and the right not to be tortured. It also provides for institutions to protect these rights, including a Constitutional Court. The new parliament approved the establishment of a Human Rights Commission to promote and protect "fundamental rights", monitor legislative and executive measures which may affect these rights, and investigate alleged violations. In July the Ministry of Safety and Security published a bill intended to reform the Police Act. Its proposals included the establishment of an independent "mechanism" to investigate complaints against the police. The bill had not gone to parliament by the end of the year. In November the Ministry of Justice published the draft Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Bill, providing for the establishment of a commission to investigate past human rights violations, to consider requests for amnesty for politically motivated acts, and to recommend compensation for victims of human rights violations. In October South Africa signed a number of human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Further evidence emerged through court proceedings and commissions of inquiry that members of the security forces had colluded with paramilitary groups to foment political violence, resulting in thousands of deaths since the late 1980s, and to commit serious human rights violations. In March the judicial commission of inquiry chaired by Judge Richard Goldstone released an interim report confirming that three senior police generals had authorized the illegal supply of weapons to and the training of IFP members by a unit of the South African Police (SAP), which had also organized violence through IFP-dominated hostels against township communities and commuters on trains. The report implicated, among others, Colonel Eugene de Kock, the former commander of a security police counter-insurgency unit based at Vlakplaas. In early May the Transvaal Attorney General confirmed that there was prima facie evidence linking certain members of the police to "crimes [including] murder, bombings, and the unlawful possession and supply of arms and ammunition". Later that month, Colonel Eugene de Kock was arrested and was subsequently denied bail. He was due to stand trial in 1995 on 121 charges, including one for the 1991 murder of human rights lawyer Bheki Mlangeni (see Amnesty International Report 1993). A number of other former Vlakplaas operatives were also facing charges in the same trial. Between 1 January and the elections, at least 1,600 people were killed in political violence, the majority in Natal Province, the East Rand near Johannesburg and in the Bophuthatswana "homeland". In Natal province the death toll rose dramatically from mid-March with at least 429 people killed in the following four weeks. Paramilitaries trained in a camp set up by KwaZulu "homeland" government officials, the IFP and members of the security forces attacked ANC-aligned communities and individuals involved in preparing for the April elections, which at that stage the IFP was boycotting. Hundreds of residents fled the Ndwedwe area near Durban, for instance, following repeated attacks by heavily armed men supported by KwaZulu police officers. In one incident, 11 employees of a private company who were distributing voting procedure pamphlets in Ndwedwe were abducted on 12 April by the local IFP-aligned chief and others. They were tortured for several hours, including with hot wires, and then shot. Eight died and three escaped. The level of killings in Natal decreased substantially from late April as a result of the increased presence of the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the IFP's 19 April decision to contest the elections. On the East Rand, the withdrawal of the sap's Internal Stability Unit (ISU), which had been implicated in torture and extrajudicial executions, and the presence of SADF patrols also led to a marked decrease in the number of political killings. However, some SADF members committed human rights violations, including the extrajudicial execution of Jeffrey Sibiya, an IFP member and National Peace Accord worker. At least 53 people were killed and several hundred wounded when shooting erupted in central Johannesburg during an IFP anti-election campaign rally on 28 March. Investigations by the police and the Goldstone Commission failed to clarify who was responsible for the majority of the deaths, which occurred when snipers fired on the marchers as they reached Library Gardens. Eleven people were killed when ANC security guards fired on a group of the marchers outside the ANC's Shell House headquarters. Police investigations into the latter incident continued throughout the year. Members of the new parliament criticized the ANC for failing to cooperate promptly with the investigation. In the Bophuthatswana "homeland", repression intensified as the government of Lucas Mangope resisted participating in the national elections. On 12 February, for instance, 19-year-old Mary Keitumetse Gaolaolwe died when she was shot in the face by a police officer who was dispersing ANC supporters in the village of Mareetsane, southwest of Mafikeng. Dozens of black civilians were killed and a number of journalists were assaulted by white right-wing paramilitaries who entered the "homeland" at the behest of its government on 10 March. The following day two paramilitaries were extrajudicially executed by the police after sections of the "homeland" security forces joined the popular rebellion against the "homeland" government. After the national elections, the level of political violence subsided in most parts of the country, except in Natal. Towards the end of 1994 the death toll in this province rose sharply, with at least 75 people killed in December. In many incidents the police failed to protect ANC-supporting communities, trade unionists and IFP leaders involved in peace initiatives. In some cases the police appeared to have supplied arms and ammunition to the killers. In one incident, 15 people were killed when approximately 100 men armed with traditional weapons and guns attacked the village of Gcilima, south of Durban, on 27 October. The ISU based in the area failed to intervene despite having been warned days before that an attack on Gcilima was imminent. In November the Minister of Safety and Security summoned senior provincial police officers to Pretoria to account for their failure to arrest the perpetrators of political killings. There were also some political killings in other areas after the elections. On 29 April, in Driefontein in the Eastern Transvaal Province, the body of Lazarus Yende, the ANC Youth League Chairperson, was found floating in a reservoir. He had been abducted from the local ANC office several days earlier. The police had been warned that named people were planning to kill Lazarus Yende and other prominent ANC members, but they took no steps to protect them. On 31 July Hendrietta Nkabinde, an executive member of the South African Rural Women's Movement, was shot dead outside her home in Driefontein. Other prominent members of the community received death threats. By the end of the year no one had been brought to justice for these crimes. Several cases involving past political killings were resolved. In May Judge Neville Zeitsman ruled that four Eastern Cape political activists had been murdered by the security forces in June 1985 (see Amnesty International Report 1986). In November a Cape Town magistrate ruled that six police officers from Nyanga police station had unlawfully killed a former member of the anc's military wing, Khaya Simani, in April 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Both cases were referred to the Attorney General. In December the Circuit Court in Mtunzini convicted three people, including two members of the KwaZulu Police, of extrajudicial executions committed in the Esikhawini area of northern Natal in 1993. Reports by the pre-election multi-party Transitional Executive Council's (TEC's) Task Force on the KwaZulu Police concluded that senior members of the KwaZulu Police, including the acting commissioner, had aided assassins within the police force and obstructed investigations into alleged political killings by IFP members. The Task Force called for the suspension of several senior police officers, but those named were still on duty at the end of the year. However, the new Minister of Safety and Security ordered further investigations into the allegations. Torture of political detainees and criminal suspects was frequently reported. The allegations implicated in particular members of police murder and robbery squads and other special investigation units, and the ISU. For example, in January teenagers Petrus Nyamande and Michael Mathe were arrested by ISU members in the East Rand township of Katlehong. Both were assaulted during arrest and tortured during interrogation. They were kicked and beaten, attacked by a police dog, and repeatedly subjected to partial suffocation with rubber tubing pulled over their faces. All charges against both were later dropped. On 19 February Thebiso Lephoto and seven others, including two 14-year-olds, were arrested in Thokoza township by soldiers and taken to Steenpunt army base. There, they were stripped, beaten and tortured with electric shocks while being interrogated about the activities of self-defence units in the township. One of the detainees was threatened with being buried alive and had a gun forced into his mouth. In August the national Minister of Safety and Security ordered an independent investigation into persistent reports of torture by members of police special investigation units based in the Vaal Triangle area south of Johannesburg. The victims were predominantly criminal suspects. The investigation was precipitated by the discovery by visiting Dutch police officers in May of torture equipment in a police station. By the end of the year more than 100 investigated complaints of torture had been referred to the Attorney General for possible prosecution. On 16 September one complainant, Don Molebatsi, was shot dead by the police officer whom he had alleged had tortured him. In a number of cases, criminal suspects died in circumstances suggesting extrajudicial execution. For instance, on 7 November Nazeem Jacobs was shot dead in the custody of the Bellville murder and robbery squad. The police said that they had shot him when he attacked a police officer with his handcuffs. The previous day Nazeem Jacobs had told his family that he had been tortured and feared he would be killed. In a few cases perpetrators of past violations were brought to justice. In August the Graaff-Reinet Regional Court convicted Detective Sergeant Willem van Heerden of intent to do grievous bodily harm, common assault and defeating the ends of justice, for the torture in 1993 of six farmworkers. During interrogation the farmworkers had been handcuffed, blindfolded, suspended from a pole under their knees and subjected to electric shocks or partial suffocation with rubber tubing. In October a prison warder was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment on conviction of murdering an ANC security official, Msizi Mchunu, by shooting him in the back at Ulundi police station on 23 April. At the end of the year the trial was continuing of seven men, including an ANC security guard, who were charged with the abduction and assault of six people, including a 14-year-old boy, in the ANC's regional headquarters in Johannesburg in April. Twenty-five people were sentenced to death. President Mandela's government maintained the moratorium on executions. Prior to the elections, Amnesty International campaigned to expose continuing human rights violations, particularly those affecting the prospects for free and fair elections. The organization lobbied bodies responsible for conducting and monitoring the election process, including the government, TEC, Independent Electoral Commission, and the UN and other intergovernmental organizations' observer missions. In an oral statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights in February, Amnesty International highlighted the positive post-election prospects inherent in the new constitution, but stressed that these could be jeopardized unless firm steps were taken before the election to curb political killings and other human rights violations and to restore public confidence in the police and criminal justice system. Amnesty International issued two reports in March addressing the human rights crisis in Bophuthatswana and issues of justice and accountability left outstanding after the "homeland" government collapsed. Amnesty International delegates visited South Africa during the election period to gather information about long-standing human rights concerns. After the elections, Amnesty International called on the government to ratify international human rights instruments, abolish the death penalty and to bring to justice perpetrators of human rights violations. It appealed to the new national and provincial authorities to investigate new reports of extrajudicial executions and torture and to provide safeguards in law and practice against further abuses. In July Amnesty International submitted comments to the government on the proposed complaints investigation mechanism in the draft Police Bill. In November Amnesty International delegates met the Minister of Justice in London to discuss the proposed Commission for Truth and Reconciliation. On request, Amnesty International also provided documentation on the abolition of the death penalty.