WITNESS: STEVEN BIKO BEATEN IN INTERROGATION
PAT REBER, The Columbian09-10-1997
PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa -- Anti-apartheid activist Steven Biko's beating death 20 years ago was a police interrogation that got out of hand, a former policeman testified today.
"It was not our intention to kill him," said former Maj. Harold Snyman, who admitted authorities tried to cover up the slaying.
The testimony by Snyman, one of five former policemen implicated in Biko's death, opened one of the most anticipated hearings before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The five men are seeking amnesty, which Biko's family opposes.
South Africa's apartheid government labeled Biko a terrorist for declaring that blacks should take pride in their culture and fight to control their country. His killing at age 30 provoked international outrage and mobilized the anti-apartheid movement at home.
Biko had been regarded as a black leader with new ideas to fill a vacuum created when the African National Congress was banned and its leadership, including now-President Nelson Mandela, was imprisoned.
Biko's friendship with journalist Donald Woods was the subject of the 1987 film "Cry Freedom," with Denzel Washington portraying Biko.
Snyman's amnesty application, which was introduced at the hearing, said police questioned Biko in hopes of getting enough evidence to imprison him for inciting violence."As a leadership figure, he would in this way be neutralized to (allow) the South African police to normalize the situation in black residential areas," Snyman's statement said.
Snyman claimed a scuffle broke out as the interrogation became increasingly confrontational.
"I am not sure who hit him and who got hit," Snyman's statement said. "We knew of a previous occasion in which Biko had assaulted a member of the police and knocked his teeth out. He was a big and strong man."
He said that as police tried to handcuff Biko, one officer fell on him, sending his head into a wall.
"He fell to the ground," Snyman said. "It was clear that the knock on his head had left him dazed and disoriented. It was clear that further interrogation in these circumstances would be fruitless. He was slurring.
"I was not exactly sure that he was really injured. I kept in mind that he might be trying to deceive us in order to escape further interrogation."
The thin, bespectacled Snyman, now 69, testified that Biko spent at least a day in an apparently semi-conscious state, shackled to a grill with his arms and legs spread.
That brought whistles and gasps of shock from the 2,000 people at the Centenary Hall in New Brighton, a black township outside Port Elizabeth.
Biko died Sept. 12, 1977, after being transported 750 miles to Pretoria Central prison from Port Elizabeth in the back of a police Land Rover.
Snyman admitted taking part in a cover-up of the killing at the direction of police chief Col. Piet Goosen, who has since died.
"Goosen told us that the death of Steve Biko would be a great embarrassment to the police and the South African government, that it could have a negative impact on the image of South Africa from abroad, and we could lose investments from abroad as a result," Snyman testified.
The Truth Commission, set up in 1995, can grant amnesty to people making full confessions of politically motivated crimes during apartheid.
Biko's family has hired lawyer George Bizos to fight amnesty for the five policemen.
"Torturing helpless detainees ... for the purposes of extracting information from them ... to the point that they finish up dead is not a political objective in any civilized society," Bizos told the hearing.
"Whatever (the policemen) say, I am sure they are going to lie," Biko's widow, Ntsiki, said.
PAT REBER
Copyright 1997 The Columbian Publishing Co.