Steve Biko, and how torture remains a problem in SA

By Clare Ballard

Many South Africans remember well the story of Steve Biko’s death on this day in 1977. He died from massive head injuries, which, it was ultimately revealed, had been sustained during his 22-hour interrogation. The death of this extraordinary man exposed the brutality of the apartheid regime, particularly the ruthless and violent interrogation techniques employed by the security police.

Thirty-four years on we look back on such practices with condemnation and disgust. And indeed, we have come a long way. We have a Bill of Rights that prohibits torture and cruel and inhuman punishment and requires that evidence collected in violation of this prohibition be rendered inadmissible, state oversight mechanisms such as the Office of the Judicial Inspectorate and the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the South African Human Rights Commission’s Section 5 Committee on Torture and a vibrant and vigilant media and civil society ready to investigate and expose acts of state-sponsored brutality.

But there are good reasons to — always — be vigilant against torture. People, we have been told time and time again, have the potential to act unspeakably, be they torturers themselves or indifferent bystanders. Moreover, this potential is not confined to a select group of “bad apples”. The nature of group behaviour is such that actions, even barbaric ones, can become normalised very quickly. Nothing illustrates this more starkly than the pictures that emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. Smiling, ordinary-looking American reserve soldiers were photographed giving the “thumbs up” next to the tortured, traumatised bodies of Iraqi prisoners as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be doing. The “Abu Ghraib” perpetrators are no more inherently good or evil than you or I. The same goes for the Zimbabwe security forces that, it has recently been revealed, have been running “torture camps” in the Marange diamond fields. What matters in these circumstances, are what American psychologist Philip Zimbardo refers to as “situational forces: the legal, political, economic and cultural background” of an organisation.

State secrecy, unsurprisingly, is a crucial enabling factor when it comes to torture. Indeed, the Abu Ghraib prisoners were tortured and abused for more than three months without their perpetrators being noticed or apprehended. Similarly, it took months of investigation before the real cause of Biko’s death was revealed. What incidences like these tell us, is that power, without oversight, is a prescription for abuse, and threatens the foundations of any democracy purporting to value justice, due process and human rights.

Torture is most likely to occur in places holding persons deprived of their liberty, removed from the public eye and where the state is in a position of ultimate authority. South Africa, in having established oversight mechanisms over the prison and police services, has taken the right approach to the prevention of torture. The more recent of these is the passing of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) Act, aimed at addressing systemic problems within the police service and recommending appropriate interventions. The mandate of the IPID is considerably more extensive than that of the ICD. With greater power to monitor conditions of detention in police facilities, it is no longer serves only “reactive” type function. The United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT), which South African ratified in 1998, places a number of obligations on the government, including the criminalisation of torture. Recent indications that the Combating of Torture Bill will be tabled in 2012, is therefore good news.

There is still more to be done if we are serious about preventing a practice which, is not only an international crime, but, in certain circumstances, like genocide, a crime against humanity. This is especially true given media reports in the last couple of months of the alleged torture of prisoners, police suspects and of corporal punishment of children in schools. Were South Africa to ratify the already-signed Optional Protocol to UNCAT, places of detention would be subject to the international inspection system that the protocol has established. In addition, UNCAT also requires member states to educate its officials on the absolute prohibition of torture, review regularly interrogation rules and methods, promptly investigate allegations of torture, protect witnesses and victims of torture and enable redress for victims of torture.

Unlike Biko, victims of torture rarely emerge as heroes. More often than not, they are very ordinary people suspected of very ordinary crimes. The Constitution does not, however, discern between those deserving of its protections and those who are not. We have no choice, therefore, but to strive towards a democracy that guarantees its citizenry freedom from all forms of state-sanctioned violence, where torture is not, “business as usual”.

Clare Ballard is a researcher with the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape.