Torture and Politics in South Africa and Iraq

By George Wauchope

In this first article, I compare my own experience in the apartheid era in South Africa with that of Iraq under U.S. occupation. My primary focus is to compare the methods of torture that I and other anti-apartheid activists suffered in detention with the treatment of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib. There may be differences in detail, but the aim and the reasoning behind them are the same.

The setting up of an internal Iraqi authority at the end of June also smacks of similarity to the “Bantustan” policy instituted by the apartheid regime in South Africa. And the consistent attacks taking place against the Iraqi leadership also happened in South Africa in the 1980s because these leaders were seen as puppets of the oppressive regime. But the United States of America wants to present itself as the doyen and beacon of democracy in the world.

This month, we marked the 28th anniversary of the Soweto Uprisings that took place on June 16, 1976. The colonial settler regime had deemed it fit to enforce Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in black secondary and high schools in Soweto. “Bantu education” in itself was demeaning and very inferior because, according to its architects, blacks “should not be encouraged to aspire to any positions in life beyond being hewers of wood and fetchers of water.” And to rub salt into an open wound, it was directed that blacks should also be taught that Afrikaans “is die baas se taal” (is the master's language). The pupils resorted to a peaceful protest, and the army and police were unleashed on them resulting in hundreds of deaths. The whole country was on fire.

Were there any punitive measures taken against the racist apartheid regime by the U.S. government? None. Was there any talk of regime change? None. . . Instead, a new term called “constructive engagement” was coined by Americans in order to support the racist colonial-settler regime.

Were there any punitive measures taken against the racist apartheid regime by the U.S. government? None. Was there any talk of regime change? None. The U.S. government used its veto powers in the Security Council of the United Nations with impunity. We in South Africa called for sanctions against our regime; we called for an arms embargo; we called for disinvestment; we called for the total isolation of South Africa – but to no avail. Instead, a new term called “constructive engagement” was coined by Americans in order to support the racist colonial-settler regime. This implicit support for the apartheid regime in South Africa led the liberation movement to seek for help elsewhere. The USSR and its Eastern Block allies, China and Libya, became the darlings of the liberation movement because of the intransigence of the West. In the current crisis, Iraq will also find comrades who will support her cause and these may not necessarily be acceptable to the U.S. administration.

In June 1976, I was chairman of the Johannesburg Central Branch of the Black Peoples' Convention (BPC). Steve Biko was the honorary BPC president because of the banning orders that had been imposed upon him. The BPC sought for a court interdict to restrain the Department of Bantu Education from enforcing Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. This happened on June 13, 1976. The eruption took place whilst the legal process was in motion.

As I was going to work on June 17, the army – which was patrolling Soweto and firing their guns at people – shot a lady who was standing next to me at the bus stop. (I often wonder if the bullet was meant for me.) “Images of a U.S. army helicopter killing three Iraqis who do not appear to be posing any threat have been screened on French television” ( Sunday Times , 5/13/04). Amnesty International said that scores of civilians have been killed, apparently as a result of excessive use of force by U.S. troops or been shot dead in disputed circumstances ( ibid ). Sounds déja vu, doesn't it? In South Africa, every black person was always seen as a suspect, and what blacks have in common with Iraqis is that they are not white. Of course, when the colour of a person determines whether they will be treated with respect and dignity, or not as a person at all, then racism comes into the picture.

I thought the best thing to do under the circumstances was to call an ambulance to help the lady who had been shot. At that time, telephones could only be found at a medical clinic, hospital or police station. The nearest to me was a police station, called Moroka. I went there to ask to use their phone. They asked who I was, and when I told them they jumped with excitement and locked me up. Apparently I was on the police wanted list, so the local police phoned the regional security police, who came and got me. Upon my arrival in their office, about 12 of them pounced on me and assaulted me without asking any questions. The idea was to rattle and intimidate me, and to put me off guard. They later told me that I could expect worse if I did not cooperate. I had to tell them what they wanted to hear: what they had conjured as the cause of the uprisings; and there had to be a Communist behind it. Who needs a Communist agitator when their behaviour would have driven the most humble person to extremes? That was my first spell of detention, but indeed, the worse was still to come.

Each time a truckload of corpses came, I was taken out of the cell and shown what “white power was doing to black power.” I remember the horror of seeing a mother with her baby on her back; apparently the bullet went through the mother to her baby and killed them both. The purpose was to soften me for interrogation.

I was taken back to the Moroka police station. Innocent civilians were being , wantonly killed by the army, and a big truck was used to dump the corpses into the yards in Soweto. Each time a truckload of corpses came, I was taken out of the cell and shown what “white power was doing to black power.” I remember the horror of seeing a mother with her baby on her back; apparently the bullet went through the mother to her baby and killed them both. The purpose was to soften me for interrogation. In most conflicts, women and children are the ones who suffer more than anybody else.

I was then informed that I was detained under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, which meant I was kept in solitary confinement for over a year. This is no different from what has been happening in Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib. I was moved from one detention center to another – the aim being to disorient and destabilise me. A person's sense of identity depends upon the continuity in his surroundings, habits, appearance, and relations with others, and detention is geared to cut one off from all feelings of the known to uncertainty and terror. According to Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, a guard at Abu Ghraib, detainees there were kept in isolation for up to three days in windowless rooms.

During interrogation I was kept naked and the police would comment on the size of my genitals with scorn and mockery. Electric shock was also used on my genitals to make me talk. Sexual humiliation was used as a form of breaking me, just as it was done in Abu Ghraib. The publication of naked prisoners being mocked by PFC Lynndie England was not only an insult to their manhood, but also a direct violation of their sacred religious beliefs. It also reminded me of what I went through during my detention. The use of a suffocating bag or hood around one's head, of dawn to dusk interrogation for days without a break, and of physical and psychological abuse are all forms of torture that are used with a variety here and there.

Two CIA interrogation manuals surfaced in 1997 after the Baltimore Sun obtained them under Freedom of Information laws. Reading them in the context of the pictures from Iraq and accounts from Guantanamo suggests that the advice they contain is still being applied. One dating from 1983 was written for use in Honduras. Entitled Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual, it states: “The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy.”

Finally, oil today is what gold [South Africa's key natural resource] was in the 20th century, as far as economic hegemony is concerned. The guise of weapons of mass destruction that was used to invade Iraq has been exposed for the fraud that it is. The institution of a U.S.-sponsored authority in Iraq will meet the fate that the Bantustan leaders faced in apartheid South Africa. The abhorred “necklace” [the placement of a burning tire around a suspected regime collaborator] has been replaced by the even worse suicide bombers. People who are perceived to be sympathetic to the invaders – whether they be in authority or aspiring police or soldiers – will incur the wrath of the Iraqi people. Imperialism and neo-colonialism will not be tolerated by the people of Iraq who seek peace. One brutal dictatorship should not be replaced by an even more subtle one though equally brutal foreign dictatorship. Peace comes about as the result of justice being seen to be done, and there can be no peace without justice.

Iraq: Whither the USA?

By George Wauchope

Was it a surprise that Iraq was granted its “independence” two days early? Where was the fanfare, pomp and ceremony that accompanies such occasions? Was it not a day of joy and celebrations?

Are you aware that the majority of the members of the interim government were not living in Iraq before the war? Most of them are perceived as stooges of the U.S. government. The fact that all this happened in a secret place sounds ominous. Maybe it will help to recap the past several months.

The Iraq war began on March 20, 2003. It was going to be a swift strike as part of the overall war on terror announced in January 2002 by President Bush in his first official State of the Union address.

On June 28, 2004, the Iraqis theoretically took control of their country once more, and one could – in light of Washington's propaganda – be tempted to conclude that Bush's “Saddam Hussein, anti-weapons-of mass destruction, anti-al Qaeda campaign” was a huge success. But, unfortunately, that is not true.

The American death toll in Iraq is now well over 800, the majority of whom died after the magic date identified by this world leader. The overall Iraqi casualty figure is well above 16,000, two-thirds of whom have been civilians. So, Bush wasn't really attacking terrorists.

Despite declaring an “end” to fighting in Iraq on May 1, 2003, Bush has had to watch how things have gone from bad to worse in that country. The American death toll in Iraq is now well over 800, the majority of whom died after the magic date identified by this world leader. The overall Iraqi casualty figure is well above 16,000, two-thirds of whom have been civilians.

So, Bush wasn't really attacking terrorists. He might initially have struck at a monster dictator, but what he was really doing was attacking a civilian population and its culture.

One of the consequences of this action has been that the ranks of the purveyors of terror have been dramatically boosted. Ironically, Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and their generals have not succeeded in curbing terror; they have merely spurred on a new breed of super-radicals.

In one of the most ghastly incidents related to Bush's imperialist war efforts, a South Korean was beheaded last week. His crime was being in Iraq. He also happened to be working as a translator for a firm supplying goods to the U.S. army. It didn't help, of course, that Seoul had just announced plans to send a further 3,000 troops to join the Coalition forces.

This act of barbarism must be condemned in no uncertain terms. But it should be noted that Kim Sun-Il ([the deceased South Korean] was last seen alive on TV wearing an orange tunic – one similar to the boiler suits worn by prisoners detained by America at facilities like Guantanamo Bay. There, people have been held without trial for over two years – no different from apartheid South Africa whose policies were declared a crime against humanity by the United Nations. There, prisoners, hoods on their heads and hands shackled, have been seen cowering behind barbed wire. The three youngest, now released, were between 14 and 15 (this sounds like déja vu for black South Africans, looking back to the 1980's). That is civilised behaviour, American style.

The response from Kim's killers was: “Your army is not here for the sake of the Iraqis but for the sake of cursed America.”

Questions are being asked about how successful the war on terror has been. The Americans – Bush's Americans – have not hesitated to distort every aspect of the war, and also the reasons for waging it. A U.S. State Department report issued at the end of April claimed a dramatic decline in significant acts of terror worldwide. That was not true. In fact, according to the corrected version, the number reached a 21-year high in 2003.

Last year was the year Bush brought peace to the world, or was it? The answer is that while Washington is holding people in orange boiler suits and torturing them, it really is not possible to claim a victory over the forces of evil. The hearts and minds of the peace-loving people of Iraq are alienated, nay, made easy prey for the propaganda and therefore recruitment purposes of those who are perceived to have the capacity to face the might of the USA and die in the process.

The U.S. has made another mess. It has appealed to the international community to bail it out of this mess under the guise of the reconstruction of Iraq, but has seen to it that the economic benefits go to the American corporate and industrial blue-eyed boys. And now NATO is going to train the Iraqi soldiers. Next up: the U.S. has unilaterally approved of Sharon's amendment of the Road Map in Israel/Palestine, and will again summon the international world to clean the mess. Will we ever learn?

The Rev. George Wauchope is a South African native who has lived in its bordering nations of Zimbabwe and Botswana for the past two decades. He serves as a representative from the Anglican Province of Central Africa (which also includes Zambia and Malawi) to the international Anglican Peace & Justice Network. George may be reached by email at mailto:gwauchope@botsnet.bw.