Neil Aggett and Liz Floyd thought internal activism was safer than joining ANC's underground struggle

23 January 2020 - 13:23 By Naledi Shange
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
Judge Motsamai Makume is presiding over an inquest into the 1982 death in detention of medical doctor and trade union organiser Neil Aggett, which is expected to run until February 28 2020.
Judge Motsamai Makume is presiding over an inquest into the 1982 death in detention of medical doctor and trade union organiser Neil Aggett, which is expected to run until February 28 2020.
Image: Naledi Shange

Dr Neil Aggett's commitment to openly fight for workers' rights inside SA while dodging compulsory military service, instead of joining the ANC underground structures, made him vulnerable to apartheid-era police atrocities.

Dr Elizabeth “Liz” Floyd, who had been in a long-term relationship with Aggett since they were medical students at the University of Cape Town, testified on Thursday before the fresh inquest into Aggett’s death.

The 28-year-old doctor and trade union organiser was found hanging in his prison cell on February 5 1982 at John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg. He was the 51st person, and the first white person, to die in detention under apartheid.

On Thursday, Floyd told the Johannesburg high court that before they were both arrested on November 27 1981, they were constantly under surveillance by the security branch.

Floyd said while they were supporters and sympathisers of the then-banned ANC, they had chosen not to become members of the party or join its underground structures. They had thought this would be safer but, Floyd said, it actually proved to be worse.

“We chose to work for public organisations and not go underground for the ANC. We didn’t take instruction or report to ANC structures,” she said.

Once they were arrested, they were interrogated vigorously and it made it worse that they did not have any ANC secrets to share. She told the court that their inability to provide information about the ANC meant that they were “in danger”.

“You were safer if you could give information. We thought because we didn’t know secrets to reveal, we would be safe,” she said.

Aggett had wanted to be a surgeon, but this goal was put on hold as he was a conscientious objector.

Ironically, being detained by the security branch police would have essentially worked in Aggett’s favour, had he survived, said Floyd, as after his release from police custody, he would no longer have been conscripted into the army.

“After being detained, the army would not have wanted him, therefore that would have allowed him to pursue his medical career,” said Floyd. “It would have cleared the way for him to return to his medical profession,” she said.

Taking on a full-time medical job would have resulted in Aggett having a tax number and being traceable by the military, so up until then, he had avoided the army by not practising as a full-time doctor. Instead, he took on two shifts a week at the casualty ward of the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, where he earned enough money to sustain himself.

Floyd told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996 that, “before detention, Neil had received very intensive security police attention and for about six months before he was detained he was being followed 100% of the time, and followed regularly by five cars at a time. So he was well aware of the pressures building up and one of the possibilities at that stage was to leave the country, although that was not really an option for him, and we were well aware of what we were up against. A cruel, a dirty and an unjust system ... ”

Aggett had spent 70 days behind bars where, besides solitary confinement, he was allegedly subjected to torture by his police interrogators.

He was also allegedly subjected to interrogation for 62 straight hours between January 28 and January 31 that year.

The inquest is probing whether he committed suicide in detention, as determined by a previous inquest, or whether he was killed by his captors.

During his detention, Aggett had written to the magistrate responsible for overseeing detainees, AGJ Wessels, informing him that he was being tortured. However, his complaint was only investigated several weeks later. He also told a policewoman and a fellow detainee, Auret van Heerden, of his ill-treatment.

The Foundation for Human Rights, which helped the Aggett family with presentations to the minister of justice for the reopening of the inquest, noted in a statement before this week's testimony that despite Aggett's attempts to report the torture, the inspector of detainees, Abraham Mouton, was denied access to him. On a day Mouton was on site, he was told that Aggett was “unavailable for an interview”. A few days later, the foundation said, “magistrate Wessels would be given the same excuse when he visited the police station”.

Aggett and Floyd had been part of a large group of activists detained in 1981. His detention and death contributed to the establishment of the Detainees’ Parents’ Support Group. This organisation dedicated itself to challenging the government’s policies on family access to detained activists. They also monitored the conditions of prisons, and collected evidence of torture and murder at the hands of the police. Aggett’s sister, Jill Burger, became an active member.

Floyd, on being informed of Aggett's death, was transferred to hospital as a precaution for a while. Subsequently, she was released from detention two months after Aggett's death.


subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now