|
Robben Island was said to be Hell, a place of desolate banishment from which few returned.
Oliver Tambo (former ANC leader), 1980:
"The tragedy of Africa, in racial and political terms, [has been] concentrated at the southern tip of the continent - in South Africa, Namibia, and, in a special sense, Robben Island."
Robben Island has been victorious over Apartheid and other human rights abuses. To many, it is the sign of the nation's maturity, of the Rainbow Nation having reached a democratic nirvana.
Robben Island has come a long way since the oppression in Apartheid years, but many, especially those who suffered on the island, will never forget the horrors experienced...
Conditions during the early years of the Apartheid era:
- Each day the prisoners were searched:
They had to strip naked, and bend down, in order to touch the floor. A doctor would then insert his gloved finger into the prisoners' rectum, and twist it (warders would beat them with pick handles if the men did not bend low enough). This search was said to be a "check for hidden items", but it was clearly an act merely in order to humiliate and degrade prisoners.
- Another humiliating medical order was that the men had to leap across the yard completely naked. They were ordered to jump up and down.
- Prisoners were woken up at 5:30 each morning, if not earlier, and had to be asleep by 8:00 that night.
- Prisoners were ordered to hurry, otherwise racist comments like "Kaffir, you are breathing on me," were screamed by the warders.
- Over 60 prisoners were crammed into a cell made for 20.
- Breakfast consisted of a cup of bitter coffee and cold, lumpy porridge. The men ate squatting on their haunches. Warders were instructed to beat any bottom that touched the floor.
- If prisoners were sent to Cape Town for the day to do hard labour, upon arrival they were thrown off the aging Robben Island ferry, making their handcuffed hands a bloody mess. The journey there was horrid: the stench of sweat, faeces and urine dominated the air.
- During the day, prisoners were forced to endure hours of hard labour. This resulted in painful blisters forming on their hands, making the work a double nightmare. No first aid kits were provided, so the prisoners had to apply urine to their wounds to sterilize them.
- They were made to do pointless jobs, such as spending three weeks digging a mountain of sand in one place, moving it to another place, and then being ordered to transport it to it original position. This took hours of effort, and was a degrading project.
- Prisoners were raped and abused by warders.
- Coloured, Indian, and African prisoners were all treated differently. The Africans had the least privileges.
- Visits from family and friends were severely restricted.
The memories of prisoners on islands, especially on Robben Island, are ones of pain and struggle.
When Robben Island ran a General Infirmary, from 1846 to 1931, it was recorded that the 'misfits' were treated with no respect whatsoever. They were cut off from society, banned from luxuries and scarred with insults. Robben Island was meant to 'cure' the lepers, as sea bathing improved their skin-condition, but instead it was a hostile place. Lepers said they were "left on the island as people who are dead." Their food was poorly prepared and their clothes inadequate. Men and women were not allowed to communicate with each other as it was feared that they would conceive leper children.
When the island became a prison, ordeals worsened. Racist warders dominated the cold halls. They were abrupt, sour and cruel, their actions brutal and bloody. The prisoners were isolated from family—visits were seldom allowed, and when they were, were strictly monitored—and doomed to the endless routine of the day-to-day life on Robben Island.
The prison was cold, dull and uncontrollably hostile—some prisoners would fake stomach ulcers, in order to be sent to the mainland hospital for treatment. Their main reason was to view the colours of the city...—work on the island was hot and exhausting, and men laboured all day in the quarries. The pale limestone wall reflected the glaring sunlight into the eyes of the prisoners, causing severe cases of blindness. The warders watched, spitting insults, and whipping lazy prisoners. Food was cold and bland. It was a pretty unpleasant life for the prisoners.
|
