Description
This was the fifth and final day of key state witness Bruno Mtolo’s examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar. Dr Yutar handed in a number of exhibits concerning ANC and MK propaganda and acts of sabotage. He asked Bruno Mtolo to identify photographs from Exhibits B and D. Bruno Mtolo concluded his testimony by explaining that he had become disillusioned with the leadership of the High Command and his heart was no longer with the MK at the time he was arrested. It was for this reason that within 24 hours of his arrest, Bruno Mtolo decided to make a statement to the police, which contained the most damning evidence linking all of the accused (save for Lionel Bernstein and James Kantor) to acts of sabotage and plans to overthrow the apartheid government by means of armed struggle.
Following Bruno Mtolo, the state called Mrs Frances Wessels as its next witness. Frances Wessels was the secretary at Sun Gold Products, the company where, between 1960 and 1962, Vivian Ezra was employed as a travelling sales-man. The examination is comparatively brief and followed by another key witness for the state, Cyril Davids, who, like Bruno Mtolo, also gave his evidence in camera.
Cyril Davids was a key witness for the state because he gave evidence on the Mamre Camp in the Western Cape, which the state alleged had been organised by Accused No.3, Denis Goldberg, and others, for the purpose of training people for guerrilla warfare. What is particularly interesting about Cyril Davids’ testimony is his responses to questions about his experience in detention put to him during his cross-examination. For, Cyril Davids told the court that he rather enjoyed his time spent in solitary confinement at Cape Town Central Prison as a 90-day detainee.
Cyril Davids was named as an accomplice in the Rivonia Trial and was thus duly warned by the court that his evidence had to be satisfactory for him to avoid prosecution. Judge De Wet considered his evidence substantially truthful. However, when it came to his cross-examination, this witness had to be asked simple questions several times by Mr Berrange before giving very uncertain and, at times, contradictory answers.
Witnesses Called
14th State Witness: Bruno Mtolo – Saboteur, Natal. (Recalled).
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar continued.
Dr Yutar began where he left off the previous day with a discussion of the property called Little Rivonia, which was purchased in the name of Ronnie Kasrils’ girlfriend, Eleanor Anderson. Bruno Mtolo claimed to have stayed there in secret with Ronnie Kasrils and Ebrahim – an Indian man whose surname Bruno Mtolo could not remember. Dr Yutar hands in a number of exhibits to the court, all of which were publications – such as issues of the African Communist and pamphlets issued by the ANC External Mission in Dar es Salaam – which were send to the Regional Command at Little Rivonia for studying and distribution.
Dr Yutar read aloud to the court an extract from an article in an issue of the African Communist entitled “Umkonto We Sizwe” (Page 48 of Exhibit Y). Amongst other things, the article included details of the acts of sabotage committed by MK since 16th December, 1961, and a prediction that armed struggle would soon be the principal mode of resistance in South Africa.
Dr Yutar presented Bruno Mtolo with Exhibits B and D and asked him to point out from the photographs any people or places that he recognised when the police questioned him. Thereafter, Dr Yutar questioned Bruno Mtolo about the relationship between the Communist Party and the ANC in Natal, to which Bruno Mtolo responded that the Communist Party encouraged its members to join the ANC – particularly during the period in which there were tensions between the ANC and MK.
Bruno Mtolo was not asked to explain what he meant by his reference to the supposed tensions between the ANC and the MK during his examination-in-chief. This topic is returned to during cross-examination only when Bruno Mtolo complained that communists had taken over the MK and the organisation was thus no longer working in service of the ANC.
In his concluding remarks, Bruno Mtolo told the court that he decided to testify as state witness because, as he had indicated during the previous week, his heart was no longer with the MK. He also insisted that he was not threatened or coerced by the police into becoming a state witness.
Cross-examination reserved.
15th State Witness: Frances Wessels – Secretary, Sun Gold Products.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
Mrs Frances Wessels was secretary at Sun Gold Products, where Vivian Ezra was employed as a travelling salesman between 1960 and 1962. Frances Wessels described Vivian Ezra as a man with very little money. Despite the fact that his monthly salary averaged between R450 and R500 a month, he always wanted to borrow money from the petty cash or receive his salary in advance. On one occasion, he borrowed R700 from Sun Gold Products in order to buy a car. Frances Wessels informed the court that a court case was still pending on the issue since Vivian Ezra had never repaid this loan to the Company.
No cross-examination requested.
16th State Witness: Cyril Kenneth Davids – Mamre Camper.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
Cyril Davids was a labourer and qualified joiner with experience in electronics, having also completed a correspondence course in radio and electronics. Accused No.3, Denis Goldberg, introduced himself to Cyril Davids in mid-1962 when he was installing lights at the residence of Cardiff Marney in Claremont.
In December, 1962, Denis Goldberg approached Cyril Davids and invited him to attend a camp established to “help teach young guerrillas”. Denis Goldberg did not reveal the location of this camp but told Cyril Davids that it would be for a three-week period after Boxing Day. Cyril Davids agreed to attend this camp for the first three days but not the entire period. The purpose for his attending would be to give lectures on connecting telephone wires with call-up systems to be used as field telephones in the case of armed revolution in South Africa.
On 26th December, 1962, Cyril Davids met Denis Goldberg and others at Cardiff Marney’s house in order to be transported to the Mamre Camp. When Cyril Davids arrived, he saw a truck carrying a number of Africans leaving for the camp. Upon the truck’s return, Cyril Davids and three other individuals loaded it with equipment and food and went to the Mamre Camp location. The equipment taken to the camp included a petrol engine, a duplicating machine, a carton of empty bottles, charts of the human body, a radio, a tape recorder, a blackboard, and telephones.
According to Cyril Davids Denis Goldberg, who was known as Comrade Commandant, supervised the camp. Looksmart was appointed Comrade Sergeant and acted as interpreter for Denis Goldberg. On the first day, Denis Goldberg informed the group that the camp would be run on a strict military basis and members would be given training necessary for conducting a campaign of guerrilla warfare and revolution in South Africa.
On the first evening, the campers gathered around a bonfire and listened to freedom songs from across the world. Denis Goldberg introduced the group to a book by Che Guevara and said it would be a primary textbook used at the camp and sections would be read from it every evening as part of their training. One of the first points stressed to the campers was that it was necessary to gain the sympathy of people in the rural areas so that they would provide food, shelter and other assistance for guerrilla forces. In order for this to happen, comrades would need to educate, politically, rural people for this purpose.
Cyril Davids then gave an explanation of his activities on day two of the Mamre Camp programme. The day began with physical exercise followed by a lecture, both led by Denis Goldberg. This first lecture was about human anatomy, medical procedures, and first aid training which guerrilla’s would need to be familiar with in order to deal with injuries in the field. The second lecture, given by Cyril Davids, was on the field telephone, an instrument required to enable fighting groups to remain in contact with each other. Cardiff Marney gave the third lecture, which was on the repair and maintenance of petrol engines used for transporting guerrillas and supplies.
Denis Goldberg delivered the final lecture of the day on the duplicating machine. Its function was to spread political news and enable guerrillas to quickly circulate political developments and communicate successes.
The third day of the camp started with Cyril Davids giving the class instruction in Judo, an ancient art of self-defence and attack developed in China, with a particular focus on defensive techniques. Thereafter, Comrade Albie Sachs gave a lecture on political economy and security in South Africa. During this lecture, two police officers came to the campsite and demanded to see the person in charge. The police spoke to Denis Goldberg and Albie Sachs. A short while later, Denis Goldberg returned to the group and told them that their tents had to be shifted because they were currently on private property.
Denis Goldberg then told Cyril Davids to go and tell the police that the telephone equipment was his own and had been brought to provide entertainment in the evenings and, crucially, that this was “a health and spiritual camp”. Cyril made these statements to the police but told the court that he had never actually received any spiritual training at the camp. After the police left, Denis Goldberg told the entire group not to tell anyone about the camp at all.
Cyril Davids then described the physical composition of the Mamre Camp as he remembered it with reference to Exhibits Z and AA. The charts used for giving lectures on petrol engines, Exhibit BB, were found in the house of Denis Goldberg at the time of his arrest.
Cross-examination by Mr Berrange.
The main issue raised in Cyril Davids’ cross-examination concerned the various statements he made to police about the Mamre Camp. Two or three weeks after his visit to Mamre Camp, Sgt Sauerman of the Special Branch interrogated Cyril Davids. On this occasion, Cyril Davids told Sgt Sauerman that the camp he had attended was established for the purpose of heath and spirituality. Sgt Sauerman did not believe him, and called Cyril Davids a liar. Months later, on the 3rd July, 1963, Cyril Davids was taken into custody by Sgt Van Wyk under the 90 day detention law.
During his 90-day detention, Cyril Davids asserted persistently that Mamre Camp was a health and spiritual camp. He was first interrogated after five days detention, and was laughed at by Sgt Sauerman and told that unless he gave “the truth” he would be kept for 90 day ad infinitum. A few weeks later, W/0 Huggett interrogated Cyril Davids for a second time, during which he was informed that he would be kept in jail for life unless he told them “what they called the truth”.
Cyril Davids gave certain responses to questions about his experience in detention during his cross-examination, which were both distinctive and extraordinary when compared with the testimonies given by other 90 day detainees in the trial. In particular, Cyril Davids told the court that he rather enjoyed his time spent in solitary confinement at Cape Town Central Prison as a 90 day detainee. Cyril Davids said that, despite having a wife and children he was fond of, he did not miss them in prison and rather enjoyed the opportunity to be alone.
Between July and September, 1963, Cyril Davids was interrogated by members of the Security Branch on five separate occasions. He described the attitude of the various officers who interrogated him, their increasing anger and impatience at his persistent “lies”, and the moment in which he finally decided to change his statement. According to the notes of the defence:
The change occurred at a time when his main concern was boredom and he had been threatened by the police that they would not come to see him again but would leave him to rot in goal.
Although Cyril Davids denied that the police had made any suggestions to him about Mamre Camp being used to train young guerrillas, Mr Berrange exposed that the police had used threats and inducements to extract a statement, which correlated with their preconceived notion of Mamre Camp. The defence also argued that the latest statement from Cyril Davids was the same as that of Accused No.3, Denis Goldberg, except for the introduction of such words as “for the purposes of training young guerrillas”.
The defence also tried to make Cyril Davids’ version of events seem improbable by highlighting that he had no political affiliations and was a comparative stranger to Denis Goldberg at the time when he was requested to go to Mamre Camp. Because of these and other facts, the defence argued that it was highly unlikely that Denis Goldberg would have ever disclosed such incriminating information to Cyril Davids. Nor was it likely that Cyril Davids, a supposedly non-political and law-abiding man, would have agreed to attend and give lectures at a camp dedicated to the training of guerrilla soldiers for an armed revolution in South Africa.
Finally, in Cyril Davids’ cross-examination, the defence attempted to expose the witness’s lack of memory of things, which could directly link the Mamre Camp with guerrilla warfare and argued that it was a validation of the view that he was adopting suggestions made to him by the police or other persons.
Further cross-examination reserved.
Sources
Dictablets: (Vol.49/5A/80b) (Vol.49/5A/81b) (Vol.49/5A/82b) (Vol.49/5A/83b) (Vol.49/5A/84b) (Vol.49/5B/85b) (Vol.49/5B/86b) (Vol.49/5B/87b) (Vol.49/5B/88b).
Percy Yutar Papers:
Evidence by Bruno Mtolo (MS.385/2).
Continuation of evidence by Bruno Mtolo (MS.385/3).
Extracts of evidence by Bruno Mtolo (MS.385/5).
A duplication of Bruno Mtolo’s evidence-in-chief (MS.385/29), already in (MS.385/2).
Evidence of Cyril Kenneth Davids (Ms.385/2).
WITS Historical Papers:
Defence Team’s record of Witnesses (AD1844.A6.2).
Memorandum re specific acts of sabotage – Durban, handwritten, (AD1844.Ba10.14).
Bruno Mtolo background and personality (AD1844.Ba10.7).
Bruno’s Johannesburg trips (AD1844.Ba10.9) NOT ACCESSABLE ONLINE.
Bruno notes on disillusionment (AD1844.Ba10.6).
Memorandum on evidence by Mtolo, extracts cut out of pages (AD1844.Ba10.2).
Evaluation of evidence: Notes on Mtolo (AD1844.Ba10.1)
Notes by Bernstein (AD1844.Ba10.11).
Kathrada’s notes (AD1844.Ba10.12).
Goldberg’s notes (AD1844.Ba10.13).
Record of State witness, Bruno Mtolo, page 21 missing (AD1844.A15).
Exhibits, numerical list (AD1844.A5.3).
Evaluation of evidence: Cyril Davids (AD1844.Ba2).
Key Words
Bruno Mtolo, Cyril Davids, Key State Witnesses, Mamre Camp, Guerrilla Warfare, MK Recruits, Denis Goldberg, Albie Sachs, police interrogations.