Cape Town, South Africa- Robben Island 2

Sadly, in the 1960s political and common law prisoners were held together in the general section of the 7 prisons we saw there and spent their days serving hard labor. Some of the prominent leaders of the different liberation organizations were held in the isolation block’s B section, where high walls were constructed to separate and prevent communication between political prisoners in the different sections.

The general and single cell sections of the Maximum Security Prison were designed to separate prisoners and prevent contact between them. The prisoners held in the single cells had far less contact (Mandela and his more influential friends) with their fellow prisoners and were locked in their cells for considerably longer hours. The food given to prisoners was generally insufficient in quantity and of poor quality. Additionally, prisoners of different races were given different food. White prisoners were fed 4 ounces of mielie meal or mielie rice and 7 ounces of fish or meat per day. Colored and Indian prisoners were given 14 ounces of mielie meal and mielie rice per day and six ounces of meat or fish four times a week. African prisoners were given 12 ounces of mielie meal and mielie rice per day and only 5 ounces of meat or fish four times a week. Daily, prisoners had to strip and jump around to dislodge any concealed object and bend over to prove it. Most of the brutality and physical abuse that prisoners experienced were associated with hard labor and beatings while they worked quarrying lime and stone, chopping wood, crushing stone, making, or repairing roads with picks and shovels, dragging seaweed from the beaches and the sea. Psychologically, over the years they were prevented from education, their letters were censored as were visits and they had little access to outside news. Prisoners were given minimal clothing with African prisoners getting short pants to separate them and were not provided with underwear. There were no beds and prisoners had to sleep on thin mats on a cement floor.

Between 1962 and 1966 prisoners were subjected to physical abuse, given poor food and were not allowed to participate in sport, recreational, cultural and other such activities. A mass “Hunger Strike” in 1966, by a thousand prisoners, caressed the tides of change and the gradual improvement of conditions surfaced. Conditions regressed again under Colonel Badenhorst, a commanding officer in charge of the Island between 1970 and 1972.

Robben Island had 20 quarries used to build all the buildings and road and many buildings back in Cape Town. Political Prisoners were forced to work the Bluestone Quarry (which we saw). Prisoners worked there every day for 6 month stints, many until exhaustion. When Mandela came back many years later, he and other Black leaders put up a stone monument there for those that had given their blood and guts and often their lives. Ironically, this is the site that much of the “revolution” plans to end apartheid was developed from leaders that may never have met each other and had different ideas and philosophies but shared out of desperation. It was the only place political prisoners were not isolated from others and where Mandela, Sobukwe, Biko and other leaders could discuss (as they worked) their ideas and share their thoughts as they developed plans to build a new World. The only other place they got to interact was the gardens (note: this is where they hid drafts of the Long Walk to Freedom).

To get a full understanding of all the years of Robben Island and what transpired there, see:

https://www.robben-island.org.za/timeline/Read more