Disappeared but not Forgotten
A 23-year-old university graduate at the time, she was a courier for Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the ANC’s armed wing, moving between Swaziland and South Africa. She was betrayed by one of her own. Instead of a scheduled rendezvous with a comrade, she was met by members of South Africa’s hated security police, who shoved her into the boot of a vehicle.
My sister’s death was not swift and it was not painless. The security police drove her to the police barracks in Johannesburg. There, they tortured her. After several days, she was moved to an isolated farm in the north of the then Transvaal, where her abuse intensified. It lasted for some three weeks. Her torturers were convinced that with enough force this young, inexperienced woman would break and become an informant.
The black police officers who testified before the Amnesty Committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) reported that after weeks of torture, my sister was unrecognisable. Her face was an appalling mess of bruises and swelling. She was too weak to walk. The last time they saw her was when she was being pushed into the boot of one of the white officer’s vehicles.
