Phillip helped me in another way too. After months of heroic resistance to torture and solitary confinement, Shirish’s interrogators delivered a cruel and inhumane blow. They told him that his wife, Ruweida, had suffered a miscarriage as a result of his detention. This was a deliberate lie. Because of the echo chamber created by the corridors, I heard his screams of torment. They went beyond endurance. I panicked. In a remarkable display of courage, Phillip risked all by taking me to see Shirish.
He was emaciated, clearly in need of urgent medical attention. Yet again Phillip came to the rescue. He quickly contacted Dr Sagie Naidoo, the appointed district surgeon, and arranged for him to see me. I begged the doctor to attend to Shirish, which he did, by immediately hospitalising him. Under medical care, Shirish could no longer be interrogated. He was safe from the hands of Lieutenant Botha and this gave me more time.
Botha was livid, incensed. He knew he had been outmanoeuvred and soon enough discovered my part in the matter. Accompanied by a Lieutenant Colin Peckham Robertshaw, he barged into my cell yelling and swearing in anger. His rage was such that I feared he would attack and kill me. Robertshaw cautioned him in Afrikaans to control himself. The rebuke stopped Botha but I could see in his eyes his frustrated hatred for me, ‘the easy Indian’. I was then informed by Lieutenant Robertshaw that he was now in charge of the investigation and we would talk soon.
I was so shaken by this confrontation that I demanded to see the district surgeon. This time I convinced him to hospitalise me for psychiatric observation. I had to get out of CR Swart because I feared death at the hands of Lieutenant Botha. I must have cut a pretty crazed individual because Dr Naidoo insisted I spend at least two weeks under psychiatric care at a hospital.
In true apartheid fashion, I was taken to a private Indian hospital in an Indian area and kept under guard by Indian police officers. None of them was remotely interested in maintaining the strict no-contact rule. On the contrary, they spent hours with me lamenting the ills of apartheid police life. I took comfort in our common disdain of the racist policies.
During this time the Bathroom Officer paid me a few visits. It was from him that I learnt that the Security Branch had discovered that Ebrahim was back in Swaziland.
After two weeks I was returned to CR Swart somewhat refreshed.
The interrogation sessions with Lieutenant Robertshaw now began. Robertshaw was taller and stockier than Botha, square-faced with intense blue eyes behind his spectacles. He was the epitome of the outdoor man in the Camel cigarette advert. His furrowed brow gave the impression of harshness. In truth, he was far from that. In a sense he was an oddity, an English-speaking South African in a conservative Afrikaner institution. Afrikaners had a deep-seated mistrust of their English-speaking counterparts. Partly this was inherited from British colonial rule compounded by the atrocities committed during the Anglo-Boer War. Memories of how Afrikaner families had suffered in the concentration camps were still very much alive.
Many Afrikaners believed that their English-speaking compatriots enjoyed the benefits of apartheid but were ever ready to abandon the country in the event of a serious challenge to white minority rule. Afrikaners had a word for them: ‘sout-piel’, meaning ‘salty penis’. A term of mocking disgust implying that English speakers had one foot in Africa and the other in England with their penises dangling in the salty Atlantic Ocean.
Afrikaners were similarly disparaged by English South Africans; viewed as unsophisticated ‘Dutchmen’ – uncouth, rural, backward.
Despite these underlying prejudices, Lieutenant Robertshaw was well regarded by his Afrikaner superiors. He spoke fluent Afrikaans, was a good investigating officer, thorough in his work, his curious intelligence serving him well.
Once he had control of the investigation, he decided to re-arrest Yunis. He did so in an unusual way by contacting Yunis’s legal team and indicating that he needed Yunis for further questioning and would detain him under Section 29.
In response Yunis did various things: he wrote a statement giving the details of his torture during his previous detention; he cleaned all fingerprints off Ebrahim’s car which had been abandoned in a parking lot; then he anonymously called the owner of the car lot and informed her that the car was sought by the police in a major investigation. He suggested that she notify them so that the car could be impounded. Finally he met with his lawyer, Yunus Mahomed, an ANC activist who worked closely with MJK.
That month, August 1985, South Africa went into economic freefall. President PW Botha gave the most damaging speech of his political life, defying the West’s calls for reform and vowing to defend apartheid with the full might of the state. The consequences for his government were devastating. The South African currency crashed against all others, especially the dollar. International organisations, outraged at the arrogance of the National Party government, renewed their efforts to impose sanctions. Disinvestment from South Africa mounted. Resistance to apartheid increased at all levels. People had lost their fear of the state’s repressive machinery and were taking on the might of the state with sticks, stones and petrol bombs.
Against this background, Yunis handed himself over for detention. He met with Mohamed for a final review of his statement. In part this read: ‘I am the leader of the unit. I find it difficult to leave my comrades behind and for me to go into exile. If we are to face the music, then it is better we do so together. The struggle is here at home not in exile. I do not want to go into exile. I choose to stay.’
Mohamed scanned the document of defiance and asked, ‘Are you sure about this?’
To which Yunis shot back, ‘Yes, I am. Besides if there is to be a trial, we can use it for propaganda purposes. It will show that minorities are also members of the ANC and that the ANC is a truly non-racial organisation. I think we will gain more this way. Apartheid cannot sustain itself against this opposition.’
They both knew that Ebrahim had escaped to Swaziland – in fact Mohamed had helped with that operation – which left the Security Branch with hardly any information should they want to mount a trial.
They shook hands. ‘I am ready,’ said Yunis. ‘I think it is best if you take me to CR Swart.’
Immediately after Yunis’s re-arrest and based on the testimony of his torture at the hands of Lieutenant Botha, lawyers acting on behalf of my father filed an application in the courts to interdict the Security Branch from any further assaults on us. The application succeeded to the extent that the physical assaults stopped but solitary confinement did not. Also, the head of the Security Branch, Colonel Ignatius Coetzee, gave an undertaking that we would not be assaulted or subjected to prolonged interrogation.
Despite this, Lieutenant Botha was not done with me. Even though he had no further role in my interrogation, he elected to escort me from the cells to the interrogation rooms each day. In the small public holding room en route, he would make me strip naked. Under the pretext of upholding Colonel Coetzee’s undertaking, he then inspected my body for marks and scars, often in the presence of others, including female police officers. He made me bend over to see if I had objects hidden in my rectum. Throughout he commented derisively about my marks and scars. Most especially, with jeers and laughter, he delighted in mocking the size of my penis. This inspection was then repeated when I was returned to my cell. Day in, day out it continued until he grew bored and ceased.
Initially, I bore this shaming with grit and grimace. But the insistent nature of the ordeal lodged a destructive inadequacy in my psyche that would haunt me for years afterwards. His shaming came to occupy the spaces in between my bedsheets.
Lieutenant Robertshaw, on the other hand, treated me with respect. He informed me of Yunis’s re-arrest but he took the precaution of detaining Yunis at a different police station so that we had no contact.
Robertshaw was never antagonistic, on the contrary, he accepted that we were on opposite sides in this conflict. Because of this pragmatic and philosophical approach, he tried to understand my motivations. Consequently, I never felt fear in his presence, rather, I felt challenged. In a strange way,