Eddie Daniels interviewed by Ruendree Govinder May 27, 2005 Cape Town, South Africa.
"I believed that my arrest had killed my mother. It was all hallucinations because of the psychological pressure." [6:07]
Eddie Daniels describes how the police used torture during detention to try to break people and get them to turn state's evidence against their comrades. Daniels was detained because of his acts of sabotage in the non-racial African Resistance Movement.
Eddie Daniels, who was classified as Coloured, was born in District Six in Cape Town and worked on a whaling vessel and in the mines in Namibia. He joined the Liberal Party because it was a nonracial and anti-government organization. He joined the African Resistance Movement (ARM), which began sabotage actions a little before the African National Congress’ UmKhonto we Sizwe armed wing. Daniels was found guilty of sabotage and was imprisoned on Robben Island for 15 years. He joined the African National Congress after he was released from prison. He has written about his imprisonment in There and Back: Robben Island 1964-1979.
