‘Timol inspired renewal of Struggle’
MAKING another emotional return to a place where his uncle, Ahmed Timol, so tragically died, Imtiaz Cajee is adamant about one thing: “My uncle is not a victim!”
Cajee was speaking yesterday on the 10th floor of the Johannesburg Central Police Station – a once infamous building known as John Vorster Square, where Timol suffered a horrendous death by falling 10 storeys in October 1971 after being detained by apartheid police.
Cajee was at the police station for an on sight visit, led by Judge J Mothle, in connection with the reopened inquest into his uncle’s death, which was ruled a suicide by magistrate JL de Villiers in June 1972.
Cajee contended that Timol and his friend, Dr Salim Essop, played a small but important role in trying to revive the anti-apartheid Struggle by distributing what was then banned SACP and ANC literature after the regime had “largely suppressed” resist- ance following the 1960s Sharpeville massacre and Rivonia Trial.
Essop was arrested with Timol after they were caught with the banned literature in their car.
“They were not victims, but freedom fighters. The apartheid regime had thought they had crushed all forms of opposition following Sharpeville. And here comes a cell distributing political literature. So, if the security branch thought they had crushed all forms of opposition they were mistaken because it (Timol’s death) only inspired a new generation of freedom fighters,” Cajee stressed.
Essop was also at the on sight visit, where he took the inquest’s presiding officer, Judge Mothle, to room 1013, where he said he was “brutally” tortured for roughly four days following his arrest, and room 1026 – the room from where Timol sup- posedly jumped to his death.
Essop also demonstrated to the judge what he said were Timol’s movements the last time he saw his friend alive, saying he saw him dragging his feet past room 1013 with a hood over his head and two police officers holding Timol on either side.
Essop said he was in the room 1013 vault when he caught sight of his comrade looking severely injured and in pain. He had given testimony at the high court in Joburg on Monday and yesterday.
Cajee said it was painful to hear this testimony, much like it was painful to return again to a building where he said his uncle had suffered untold brutality.
“Every time one comes here, it doesn’t get any easier – it becomes more difficult and painful,” Cajee said – the emotion in his voice tangible. “But my thoughts and prayers don’t just go out to Dr Essop and my uncle, but every political detainee who was tortured here.”
One of those political detainees was Phillip Dhlamini, a PAC activist and former trade unionist, who said it was his sixth time at the station – and the first he arrived without wearing leg irons.
Dhlamini said he was also familiar with the notorious vault in room 1013, which he said was referred to as “Die Waarkamer” (The Truth Room) due to what he said was the dreadful torture meted out in there.
“There is the money bag… where they will put a money bag over your head and pour water over it – because if the bag was dry, you could breathe,” he explained.
“When the bag was wet, they would close it around the neck area until you could not breathe – then you would be punched hard in the stomach.
“The other was electric shocks. There were various methods, but these two were the most dangerous.”