BY SUBRY GOVENDER
At
a time when South Africans are observing the 43rd anniversary of the
tragic death in police custody of the founder and leader of black consciousness
in South Africa, Steven Bantu Biko, there seems to be a vital need today for
leaders of his calibre.Biko,
who was the courageous leader of the Black Peoples Convention (BPC), died on
September 12 1977 after being brutally battered and assaulted by the then
notorious apartheid security police. Veteran journalist, Subry Govender,
recalls the tragic incident in an attempt to inform South Africans today of the
cowardly, brutal and callousness manner in which the former regime dealt with
opponents who operated outside the racist system.
"I've
got no doubt in my mind that there are people, and I know people in terms of my
own background where I stay, are not revengeful or sadistic. Now the black man
has got no ill intentions for the white man. The black man is only incensed at
the white man to the extent that he wants to entrench himself in a position of
power to exploit the black man." – Steven Bantu Biko.
STEVE BIKO AND PETER JONES
On
September 12 1977 the majority of South Africans and the world at large were
shocked into silence and disbelief when one of the country’s brilliant young
black leaders met an untimely and gruesome death at the hands of the former
Pretoria regime’s security police.The
young man was Steven Bantu Biko, the 30-year-old leader of the black
consciousness movement. He died of head wounds and brain damage 25 days after
being detained along with a close comrade, Peter Jones, at a road block on
August 18 1977.Biko
at this time became the 43rd South African political detainee to die
under mysterious circumstances while in police custody.At
the time of his unfortunate death, Biko, who was the banned president of the
BPC, was reportedly involved in moves inside the country to unify the forces of
the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan African Congress (PAC) in an
attempt to co-ordinate the struggles against white minority rule.It
is understood that he and Peter Jones were on this particular mission when they
were stopped at a road block between
King William’s Town and East London and detained under the regime’s security
laws.But
what was reported to be merely an arrest for breaking his banning orders turned
out to be one of the saddest events in the history of South Africa.He
was held in solitary confinement with no proper washing facilities at a cell in
the headquarters of the security police in Port Elizabeth. And later he was
kept naked and hand-cuffed and leg-shackled to the iron bars of his cell.On
September 11 1977 when he was found to be in a state of collapse in the cell,
he was transported lying naked in a land rover to a Pretoria prison more than
1 200km away. This the apartheid authorities said was done out of
compassion for Biko because the medical facilities in Pretoria were far better
than those in Port Elizabeth.But
the next day Steve Biko died a miserable and lonely death on a mat placed on a
stone floor.
JIMMY KRUGER - "IT LEAVES ME COLD"
Immediately
after his brutal death reverberated throughout South Africa and the world, the
then South African Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, made small talk of the
tragedy when he told a cheering meeting of the then ruling National Party in
the then Transvaal that Biko had starved himself to death.He
echoed the callousness and satisfaction of the apartheid authorities when he
announced:
“I
am not sad, I am not glad, it leaves me cold.”His
insensible attitude knew no bounds even when it transpired that Steve Biko died
of brain injuries.Kruger’s
response was typical:“A
man can damage his brain in many ways.”He
went onto imply suicide by saying: “I don’t know if they were self-inflicted.
But I often think of banging my head against a wall.”Even
the security police in charge of Steve Biko at the time of his death, Colonel Pieter
Goosen, tried to absolve himself and his men from any blame by saying that he
had taken all measures to ensure the safekeeping of detainees, and to make sure
that they did not escape or injure themselves. But in trying to find excuses he
made a gigantic slip that really landed him in the soup.He
said: “I am proud that during Biko’s interrogation, no assault charges had ever
been laid against my ‘ASSAULTING TEAM’.” He later changed the phrase to
“interrogating team”.But
the truth of the matter was that Steve Biko died of at least five brain lesions
caused by the application of external force in the head.The
inquest into his death in 1978, however, found that no one was responsible and
cleared the security policemen of any blame.
DOCTORS ALSO DID NOT LIVE UP TO THEIR ETHICS
What
was even more distressing was that the two doctors, Dr Ivor Lang and Dr
Benjamin Tucker, who were called by the security police management to attend to
Biko, failed to live up to their medical ethics. It was found that when Drs
Lang and Tucker had seen Biko on September 7, he was manacled to the bars of
his cell; they found him on a cell mat soaked with urine; and his blanket and
clothing were also soaked with urine.They
examined him by the light of a torch and issued a certificate declaring him to
be without evidence of pathology.The
next day the doctors again found Biko to be soaked in urine, but could not make
a diagnosis.Three
days later the doctors found Biko to be in a semi-coma condition and was
frothing at the mouth. Despite the fact that Biko was obviously seriously ill,
Dr Tucker could again make no diagnosis. He merely repeated that Biko be taken
to a provincial hospital.According
to the evidence, Biko had been exhibiting various symptoms consistent with
possible brain damage. His gait was irregular, he was foaming at the mouth, was
confused, hyperventilating and bed-wetting, and had swollen feet and lesions on
the forehead and lips.
A
neuro-surgeon recommended that Drs Lang and Tucker keep Biko under observation,
but instead they arranged for him to be taken to a provincial hospital in
Pretoria.On
September 11 1977, Biko was bundled into the back of a police van and driven
1 200km to Pretoria. He was kept naked throughout the trip, given no food
and forced to use the back of the van to urinate. The only medical attention he
received was a vitamin injection when they reached Pretoria. He died six hours
later on a dust-covered floor in the back-yard of a police station.Despite
the disgraceful manner in which the two doctors had conducted themselves, the
South African Medical and Dental Council at that time refused to take action.
The Council was only forced to take action in 1985 after the Supreme Court of the
then Transvaal Province found that there was evidence to suggest “improper and
disgraceful” conduct on the part of the two doctors. The application to the
Supreme Court was made by six leading medical people – Professor Timothy
Wilson, Professor Frances Ames, Professor Trevor Jenkins, Professor Philip
Tobias, Dr Yousuf Variava and Dr Dumisani Mzamane.An
inquiry by SAMDC in July 1985 found Dr Tucker guilty of 10 counts of
disgraceful conduct and three counts of improper conduct. The inquiry
recommended that he be suspended from practice for three months, this itself
suspended for two years.The
inquiry found Dr Lang to be guilty of eight counts of improper conduct but only
recommended that he be cautioned and discharged.
MRS HELEN SUZMAN
Mrs
Helen Suzman, who was the veteran opposition leader in the all-white parliament
at that time, was one of the many leaders who reacted with shock and anger at
the recommended sentences.She
said at that time: “It is reprehensible that the council had to be forced to
take action and furthermore that these doctors should get so lenient sentences
for acts which brought South Africa into disgrace.”
BORN IN THE SMALL TOWN OF GINSBERG
Today,
43 three years later, when South Africans once again remember Biko, it is worth
recounting the short life of the man chiefly responsible for conscientizing and
politicising the young people during the 1970s.Biko
was born to humble parents in the small town of Ginsberg in the Eastern Cape
where he completed his early schooling and his matriculation examination.He
proceeded to Durban to do a doctor’s degree at the University of Natal Black
Medical School where he soon became involved in the activities of the
multi-racial National Union of South African Students (NUSAS).But
his association with NUSAS led to disillusionment when he and his friends found
that the black man could never gain liberation by joining the debating chambers
of white-controlled organisations.It
was against this background that Biko and his colleagues established the South
African Students Organisation (SAS0) and later the Black Peoples’ Convention
(BPC) to cater for non-students working outside the apartheid system.Biko
set the two organisations on their course when he outlined the philosophy of
black consciousness by saying that blacks had to shake off all forms of imperialism
– cultural, economical and psychological – in order to win physical freedom.But
his leadership was short lived. The apartheid
authorities, sensing that he was a force to be reckoned with, slapped
him with a five-year banning order in 1974 and restricted him to his home
district of King William’s Town. However, inspite of the restrictions and
security police harassment, Biko continued to harness the thinking of the young
people at that time and to be in the forefront of international spotlight.
He
was such a charismatic and vociferous opponent of apartheid that scores of
diplomats and international personalities used to literally search him out in
the backdrop of Ginsberg for his views and opinions about a future South
Africa.Biko,
who had started a fresh “revolution” and who had outmanouvred an almost Nazi
system, is remembered for his actions and socio-economic and political ideals.
His philosophy and idealogy still lives with us and they will certainly not
disappear.
For
when Biko the man on September 12 1977 at the young age of 30, Biko, the martyr,
was born. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com SEPTEMBER 7 2020
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