THE GOOD BAD GUYS

BAD GUYS

By Roger Friedman

After years of working with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison, three prison wardens began to build relationships with their captive and reveal humanity where there was thought to only be brutality.

The period of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment, from 1963 to 1990, was no time for the flowering of liberalism or progressive thought in South Africa’s prison service. It was an oppressive, militarised environment in a fascist country, with most jobs reserved for whites but hardly attractive to the more educated or sophisticated echelons of white society.

In 1959, parliament had approved new legislation aligning the country’s prisons with its grand apartheid project. The new Prisons Act accorded military ranks to prison warders and afforded them many of the same powers as the police. From then on, separate races (and where possible, different cultures or language speakers) would be separately confined – preferably out of earshot or eyesight of each other. It followed that the separated races would be housed, clothed and fed on a hierarchical scale of mediocrity, depending on the colour of their skins.

At more or less the same time, the state’s criminal justice system, including prisons, was being weaponised to control increasingly militaristic anti-apartheid forces.

The population of political prisoners underwent rapid growth in response to events such as anti-pass law demonstrations, the Sharpeville Massacre and Langa shootings, and the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe and Poqo.

As a collective, the group of political prisoners held on Robben Island were older, better educated and significantly more worldly than their captors, many of whom were, by their own descriptions, country bumpkins. These dichotomies were sharpened by the prisoners’ commitment to use the time of their incarceration to further develop their knowledge and studies.

Much has been written, including by Mr Mandela, about the conditions in apartheid prisons and the brutal ways of the warders, physical and psychological.

Eight men, among them anti-apartheid leader and African National Congress member Nelson Mandela, sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia trial leave the Palace of Justice in Pretoria 12 June 1964 with their fists raised in defiance through the barred windows of the prison car.

But because this is a story about Nelson Mandela’s warders, it can’t help but be redemptive.

The redemption can partly be attributed to the concessions the prisoners earned through their disciplined and principled challenges to some of the systemic excesses. Although the warders held the keys and the guns, and their uncles had written the rules, the prisoners were better chess players.

Time was another important factor. After the first five or six years of extreme nastiness, the attitude of the warders appears to have settled down for the long haul. The state had sentenced Mr Mandela and his fellow Rivonia Trialists to life imprisonment; perhaps it was realising that its efforts to disavow them was not sustainable. Most critical to the redemption narrative, however, is the fact that all the players were human. It is hard to imagine anyone who worked in close proximity to characters of the calibre of Nelson Mandela’s, Walter Sisulu’s, Ahmed Kathrada’s and the others’, failing to learn and develop personally.

Three former warders said to have been particularly closely associated with Mr Mandela emerged into public view after his release: James Gregory, Christo Brand and Jack Swart. Gregory worked with (or on) Mr Mandela for 22 years, including a seven-year stint censoring his letters while based in the Censor’s Office in Cape Town. Brand worked with Mr Mandela for 12 years, on Robben Island and at Pollsmoor Prison. Swart first came across Mr Mandela on Robben Island,

(Top to bottom) Former prison guards James Gregory (1941 - 2003) and Christo Brand. Formerly Nelson Mandela’s guards at the prison on Robben Island. but worked as his private chef – and his butler, although that was not a rank in the prison department – during the last years of his imprisonment in Paarl.

The three warders would have been very carefully selected by their bosses for these tasks, for in their hands was placed the day-to-day wellbeing of the world’s prisoner of conscience.

Their records of long service indicate that they were perceived to have done a good job. Indeed, on his bookshelf at home, Swart has a dictionary received as a prize for excellent service signed by the former Nazi-sympathising Minister of Justice BJ Vorster and the architect of apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd.

Yet, in the warm afterglow of Mr Mandela’s release, his astonishing magnanimity and the path of restorative justice on which he led the nation, the three former Warrant Officers emerged not as villains but as symbols of humanity and possibility in the belly of the beast. Perhaps they were; among Mr Mandela’s greatest gifts, after all, was the ability to acknowledge the humanity in others.

Five days after his release, in an interview with Time magazine, Mr Mandela was asked if it was true that he had formed close bonds with some of his warders. “There were three. There was Major Marais. He was in charge of the premises [at Victor Verster Prison Farm]. Warrant Officer Gregory was his assistant. And Warrant Officer Swart was the man who actually lived with me in the house from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon, when he left until the following morning. I got on very well with all of them. We became very close friends.” (Perhaps Brand wasn’t mentioned because he remained at Pollsmoor when Mr Mandela moved to Victor Verster Prison.)

This is Mr Mandela’s description of his final prison meal, from Long Walk to Freedom: “There were dozens of people at the house, and the entire scene took on the aspect of a celebration. Warrant Officer Swart prepared a final meal for all of us and I thanked him not only for the food he had provided for the last two years but also the companionship. I embraced him warmly. In the years that he had looked after me from Pollsmoor to Victor Verster, we had never discussed politics, but our bond was an unspoken one and I would miss his soothing presence. Men like Swart, Gregory and Warrant Officer Brand reinforced my belief in the essential humanity even of those who had kept me behind bars for the previous twenty-seven-and-a-half years.”

Gregory cemented the “good and friendly warder narrative” in 1995 with the publication of Goodbye Bafana – Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend (later released as a film). His story is one of an extremely warm, deep and trusting relationship with Mr Mandela – which those in the know, including Mr Mandela himself, described as embellished. Gregory is regrettably no longer around to defend his version of events, having passed away in 2003.

In 2014, Brand stepped up to the publishing plate with a memoir of his own, Doing Life with Mandela: My Prisoner, My Friend, co-written by a British tabloid journalist.

Here is a potted biography of Brand from the publisher Jonathan Ball’s website: “Raised in a multi-ethnic farming community, Afrikaner Christo Brand was confused and saddened when he first confronted the realities of South African apartheid. Conscripted into the military at 18, Brand chose to serve as a prison guard rather than embrace the brutality and danger inherent in the work of soldiers and policemen. Assigned to the maximum-security facility on remote Robben Island, Brand was given charge of the country’s most infamous inmate: Nelson Mandela.

“For 12 years Brand watched Mandela scrub floors, empty his toilet bucket, grieve over the deaths of family and friends yet remain as strong as any freedom fighter in history. Won over by Madiba’s charm and authentic concern for the well-being of others, Brand became Mandela’s confidant and at times accomplice…”

Compared to Gregory’s My Prisoner, My Friend, Brand’s attracted considerably less criticism. No less a figure than Ahmed Kathrada vouched for Brand’s integrity in a foreword to the book, noting that his lasting impression of Brand was “he’s a very good human being” and his book was “unique in that it is the most honest account I have read by a warder relating their interaction with Nelson Mandela”.

Brand is a personable man, easy to converse with and easy to like. After his ascension to the presidency, Mr Mandela demonstrated his regard for the man by arranging a job for him at the Constitutional Assembly. And, when the constitution-making process was complete, Kathrada arranged for Brand to return to Robben Island – now a heritage site – to run the tourist shop. What a bonus for unsuspecting tourists when it dawns on them that the guy they’re buying postcards from had such an intimate relationship with Mr Mandela!

Of the three warrant officers, least is known of Jack Swart, who assumed the roles of Mr Mandela’s personal prison guard/ chef/shopper/cleaner/butler in the final years of his imprisonment at Victor Verster Prison. Of course, by then, Mr Mandela was imprisoned in a comfortable house, one of several built on the farm adjoining the prison for senior prison officials. The conditions in which he was held were very different to his early short-pants days on Robben Island. Now, his captors knew that their famous prisoner would soon be their boss. He was receiving regular visits from senior apartheid government officials and comrades, and being treated with respect.

Mr Swart is a discreet, taciturn, self-effacing man who has not produced a book, does not claim Mr Mandela as “my friend” and seldom grants interviews. Prevailed upon to disclose details of his relationship with Mr Mandela, he makes no effort to portray it as anything other than two professional and respectful men thrown together by the circumstances of their times. And he is careful to acknowledge his superior officer, Major Charl Marais, rather than depict himself as having been the sole master of Mr Mandela’s universe.

When my colleague Benny Gool and I had the opportunity to interview Swart a few years ago, he made himself the butt of the first story he told, about the first time he and Mr Mandela spoke. He had been posted to Robben Island and found himself driving the truck bearing prisoners to work in the lime quarry. Informed by his peers that the culture of truck driving among warders involved making the journey as unpleasantly rough as possible for their charges, Swart duly delivered a torrid ride – only to be berated by Mr Mandela when they reached their destination.

“He came and knocked on the window and asked if I thought the prisoners were bags of mielies. I didn’t say anything; I just wound up the window. Later, at Victor Verster, when I asked Mr Mandela if he remembered those events, he replied: ‘Oh, it was you. I hope you are a better cook than a driver.’”

This is clearly not a story designed to endear Swart to anyone, or to position himself as a nice guy who happened to wear an apartheid prison warder’s uniform. He does not say that he immediately altered his truck driving style, but the humility with which he tells the story reveals his understanding of how much he had to learn – and how much he has since grown.

Nelson Mandela revisits Victor Verster Prison outside Paarl and meets with Jack Swart, his former warder. Swart was Mandela’s driver on Robben Island as well as his cook at Pollsmoor Prison

Nelson Mandela re-visited Robben Island on 20 March 1997, stopping off at the infamous lime quarry where prisoners were forced to work. Despite his proximity to some of the most significant political events and politicians in South African history, Swart says he has never been interested in politics. The son of a butcher, he claims to have been unaware of apartheid until he joined the prison service. He was raised on farms and never questioned the fact that all the workers were coloured people (bruinmense), while the farmers, shopkeepers and teachers were all white. He left school after completing Standard 8 (now Grade 10), joining the prison service at the age of 17.

After completing his training at Kroonstad, he was posted to Robben Island in 1965, starting out as a lowly guard. “They were all just prisoners (bandiete) to us. I had no idea who Mr Mandela was. It was only later that we were told that the library had a book about the Rivonia Trial written in Afrikaans that we should read.”

Swart managed to graduate from lowly guard duties to a relatively decent position in the transport department on Robben Island, but when he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison there was no transport position available and he found himself back on guard. He felt it was a poor career move and volunteered for training to become a cook. By 1988, when Mr Mandela was transferred to Victor Verster Prison, Swart was the district head of the prison’s catering department and considered the ideal candidate to cook for him.

Swart is the first to concede that he’s no Michellin-starred chef. He did a three-month catering crash course after leaving Pollsmoor Prison, learning to cook for masses of people – and absorbing the rules of racially discriminatory diets, such as sugar for coloureds but none for Africans… He upped his game through trial and error, and reading recipe books.

Mr Mandela was on a strict low-cholesterol, high-protein diet prescribed by his doctors, and Swart was instructed to provide it. Initially, a cleaner was also assigned to Mr Mandela’s house, but after prison authorities learned that Mr Mandela had bought tobacco for the cleaner, Swart took over the cleaning duties, too. Mr Mandela made his own bed, tidied his bedroom and insisted on sharing the dishwashing duties.

Gregory’s son, Brent, was also a prison warder, and was assigned to Mr Mandela’s house to facilitate the coming and going of visitors, but when Brent died tragically, Swart took over his duties, too.

In the beginning, Swart said, he called Mr Mandela, “Mandela”. He believes that Mr Mandela must have raised this issue with his superiors, because he was later instructed to call him “Mr Mandela”. At one point, Mr Mandela said he’d be happy for Swart to call him “Madiba”, but Swart did not do so after being advised by Gregory that “Madiba” was a “big word” to be avoided.

According to Swart, he and Mr Mandela quickly developed an easy routine. He’d arrive at the house around 7am, by which time Mr Mandela had tidied his bedroom and completed his exercises. He’d make breakfast, and then Mr Mandela would read the newspapers in the garden, under a tree, if the weather was fine.

“I think he was very comfortable, given the circumstances. He said that he would not leave before Mr Sisulu and those other people were allowed to leave. He wanted to be the last to leave. He was so used to being alone; he seemed most content when he had his newspapers.”

There were plenty of visitors: family members, comrades, prison officials, government leaders and lawyers. Swart got permission from his bosses to cater for them, too. Mr Mandela loved baked fish, with very little seasoning – and trifle for desert. Swart tells an amusing story about wine that reveals more about his relationship with Mr Mandela than Mr Mandela’s evidently unsophisticated or disinterested palate. Against Swart’s advice, Mr Mandela insisted on purchasing semisweet wine to serve his guests – but eventually conceded that Swart could also buy a bottle of dry. When the guests arrived, Swart offered them the choice, and none of them wanted the semi-sweet wine. “Although Mr Mandela didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t show any signs of my victory, I knew he’d get me back in his own way.”

Sometimes Swart brought treats from his kitchen at home to share with Mr Mandela, and Mr Mandela expanded Swart’s culinary repertoire by teaching him to make umngqusho. They also brewed their own corn beer. He insists this was not breaking any rules. “No, this is legal, I got the recipe out of a cookbook. I went to fetch the corn from my friend’s farm, fresh corn. You make it with yeast, a few raisins and brown sugar, and you let it stand for a day or two. Mr Mandela said this was our homebrew.

He helped me to strain it. He said it was our beer.”

Mr Swart is a meticulous man, with a meticulously trimmed moustache, who kept meticulous records. He kept records of every meal that Mr Mandela ate, besides for a week when he took leave – he even kept the little notes Mr Mandela sometimes left him in the kitchen, such as breakfast requests, and the note informing him, in Afrikaans, that “our friend, Mr Mouse” had made a return.

While he felt he got along relatively well with members of Mr Mandela’s family, Swart makes no claims of any special relationships. “I had my place and they had their place. I felt they needed their privacy. It was his family and they wanted to be together.” A few hours after Mr Mandela’s iconic walk to freedom, a group of his former captors, security police and intelligence operatives gathered for a braai to mark the momentous day. Among them were the three prison officials who had worked closely with him at Victor Verster: Swart (in charge of the braai), Marais and Gregory.

“He invited the three of us and our wives to the inauguration in Pretoria; he gave us our air tickets. And with the first opening of parliament, he invited us again, again the three of us with our wives. Afterwards, we were invited to drink tea with him. Then he invited us to his wedding; my wife could not go and I went alone. On two other occasions we went to have tea with him at Bishopscourt.”

Swart credits Mr Mandela for improving his English. He and Mr Mandela had struck an agreement from the start that Mr Mandela would speak Afrikaans to Swart, and Swart would speak English. “When I made a mistake he would immediately correct me. I, on the other hand, would let his mistakes slide. In the beginning I would say, ‘I will learn you’, and he would immediately correct me: ‘Not I will learn you, but I will teach you.’”

More profoundly, though, Mr Mandela taught Swart to acknowledge and value the humanity in others. When warders entered the house Mr Mandela never failed to look them in the eye, extend his hand in greeting and inquire after their health.

“You could tell that he was aware that we were not only prison guards but also human beings who wanted to do our best for him, who were not there to do him any harm.”