S. Africa Police Tortured Him, Priest Asserts

The general secretary of the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops Conference charged in an affidavit presented to the Supreme Court here Thursday that he has been tortured repeatedly during the 11 weeks he has been held without charge by the police under the state of emergency.

Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, 47, said that in an interrogation session last week he was kept standing, handcuffed and blindfolded, for 30 hours while five men, apparently members of the security police, questioned him in relays.

He said they gave him nothing to drink and prevented him from sleeping. He has been detained at the Hercules police station in Pretoria since the state of emergency was imposed on June 12.

Mkhatshwa’s lawyers, after failing to secure his release, had gone to court seeking an order preventing the police from torturing him. But after his affidavit was introduced as evidence, the government agreed, without admitting he had been maltreated, that there would be no police assaults on the priest.

‘Strict Instructions’

Law and Order Minister Louis le Grange told the court that he had “taken note of the allegations made by Father Mkhatshwa, and without admitting to the correctness of such allegations, . . . issued strict instructions that in no manner unlawful actions may be taken against Father Mkhatshwa by any member of the force.”

The court ordered the government to pay the costs of the legal action.

The handwritten affidavit put on the record some of the mounting charges by political detainees of frequent police torture.

Mkhatshwa, a longtime political activist who has been detained several times under South Africa’s severe security laws, said he had been taken from his cell at the Pretoria police station Aug. 20 and driven nearly an hour to a small building in an open field where he was to be interrogated.

His pants were pulled down around his ankles, he said, and a watery substance was smeared on his legs, causing them to burn with intense pain.

“A creepy creature or instrument was fed into my backside,” he said. “From there, it would move up and down my legs, thighs and invariably ended up biting my genitals. When I cringed with pain, they would laugh.”

Twice, shots were fired from behind and just above the back of his head, Mkhatshwa said.

Punctuated by Insults

The interrogation was “punctuated by a string of insults, most of which would be too unprintable,” Mkhatshwa said, and the questioning “was not a dialogue but hostile rhetorical questions.”

He said: “The exercise went something like this: ‘Mkhatshwa! What changes would you like to see in South Africa? Why do you take part in politics as a priest? You promote the free Mandela campaign--why? You know he (Nelson Mandela, jailed leader of the African National Congress) is a Communist and has refused to renounce violence. . . . ‘ I was not allowed to explain, only answer yes or no.”

Opponents of the government are Communists and are plotting a revolution to overthrow it, Mkhatshwa quoted the interrogators as telling him, and all “progressive organizations,” including the Catholic Bishops Conference, are part of this conspiracy.

When the interrogation was finished, Mkhatshwa said, he was returned on Thursday afternoon to the police station, where he has been held since his detention June 12 at the start of the state of emergency.

“I was limping badly because the soles of my feet were painful and my feet were swollen,” he said, adding that after his blindfold was removed, his eyes would not focus properly for more than an hour and a half.