PAUL HLONGWANE
I greet the Commission.  My story is quite long and so much that in the 1960 affairs I wouldn't be able to give you the dates, it's quite long.  As you see this is my last born. It's quite long.  But then the reason that got me into jail it was the Sharpeville affairs.
 We went to Orlando Police station to protest against the innocent children and women who were shot and killed at Sharpeville.  I remember very well it was a few days, few months after Verwoerd had ordered ten Saracens, and those 
JOHANNESBURG HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
3 P HLONGWANE
very ten Saracens were used in Sharpeville to mow down people.  So we were busy campaigning and fighting against the influx and pass laws.  So we decided to protest and we got to Orlando East.  Thereafter we were locked in.
 In fact we were the first to be sentenced for three years.  Before that it was three months with the defiance campaign, two months, so forth.  We got to Leeuwkop where we dug sand and all that.  Now in this final sentence we were 300, three years option of 300, 300 ...(indistinct).  We were together with Robert Sebuko.  He's the first man to get that severe punishment.  We were sentenced to hard labour.  We had to go to Pretoria ...(indistinct) for classification because we were over one or two years.  From there transferred to Stone Yard where we lost one of our men who was a carpenter.  Well he died due to food which was not correct for him.
 In the meantime for six months we were at Stone Yard preparing to be transferred to a destiny which was Stoffberg where we had to build and dig a lake which was 75 feet deep.  I remember one of our men there, the late Mr Mtuping who was bitten by a snake whilst we were in prison.  And what we required seeing that we were sentenced, we wanted to improve the life of prisoners in jail.  We ordered many - you know in the first place we wanted prison regulations and we were punished for demanding prison regulations because the food was not normal, it was inhuman, and sleeping we would sleep on concrete with mats that people use outside for cleaning their feet. So life was really unbecoming.
 At one stage whilst we were digging that heavy dam the White warders from Free State, all over, were summoned to come and ill-treat us or thrash us with pick handles.  We 
JOHANNESBURG HEARING TRC/GAUTENG
4 P HLONGWANE
call that battle, it was the Battle of Pick.  We got, some of them unfortunately, the people who were badly hurt, they are now late.  Now that is the first instance which I wouldn't embark on it for a long time.  We did our sentence.  By the way during that period Sebuko Robert number four, he wrote a letter with a toilet to Kwame Nkrumah appealing to him to send us 45,000 pounds by then.  And then Verwoerd declared a state of emergency.  So the money was transferred to Basutoland, to Msimghtele.  All the same we had to continue with our sentence up to the last.