thought that this was not yet enough to make me change my views and so they took me to place called Mtcnde
in Mocimboa da Praia region, where they took four
pregnant women and cut open their stomachs with a
knife, one by one. Then they took Sura Imani and shot
him with a pistol.
They made me witness these things because they wanted to make me afraid and therefore to stop me making
propaganda for the party.
1 was then taken from Mocimboa da Praia to Ibo Island
a heavy punishment prison for people from all over Mozambique. When we arrived there we were made to walk
for about twelve hours without food or water. On arrived at the prison we were made to walk through a line
of policemen armed with whips and rubber tipped sticks
First we were beaten by the whips, then the sticks, and
then both at the same time.
At that time Ibo was a new prison. For three months we
were fed only on dried, uncooked cassava, two pieces in
the morning and two in the afternoon. They also put
water in our cells in the evening and we were obliged
to sleep in water so that we do not sleep properly.
About three months later, in January 1965, they changed our diet to rotten cassava and rotten fish that would
otherwise have been thrown away, bought from Vila Cabral. After the cassava was cooked it was just placed on
the cement floor and we were forced to eat off the floor.
In January 1965 they decided to put in our cells four
drums in each corner which we had to use as a W.C.
When the drums were full they chose about eight people
to go put their faces in the drums. 1 was the first one
chosen for this along with other comrades including
Chitane and Antonio Cheira.
There was one section of PIDE stationed there especially
to interrogate the prisoners. When you were taken for
interrogation at the PIDE section there were three men
armed with a whip, rubber - tipped stick, and palmatoria
and you are beaten on the stomach an sides and made to
confess what you knew about FRELIMO guerillas.
About 160 men died of this kind of torture, and about
ten were killed with pistols, including a sheikh of the
Muslim religion named Fazeira Yusufi
Seeing these tortures, my hatred increased and I decided
to tell the Chief of PIDE that this way he might finish
off the Mozambican people, but that would not stop
people fighting for their independence. He said that I
was talking like a madman when 1 said that the people
were only fighting for their rights and ordered that I be
immediately punished with 20 strockes of the palmato -
ria.
At this point a member of the Group enquired whether the
number of people stated as having died was just a general
statement or whether this was an accurate number of those
who died in Ibo prison. Mr Shauri replied:
Those 160 men were killed on Ibo island. I saw them be
ing killed. There was an order from Administrator Cha-
mbino that I should be made to witness all the tortures
because I was susppected of having been politically active in Mozamhique. But on Ibo island many more than
160 died, and these are just the cases I witnessed myself.
The Chairman then asked why it was that he was made to
watch these things, and why he himself was not killed. The
witness explained:
My opinion is that the Portuguese thought that 1 was a
leader of the movement, as they knew 1 had been undertaking many political activities. Moreover, many legal
proceedings had been undertaken against me and it was
a well known fact that I was being held prisoner. They
feared to kill me lest this should cause even more
unrest among the people. Indeed Administrator Rot ha
from Mocimboa da Praia had once forbidden my execution for this very reason, and also that of my brother
Mohamed Shauri. (My brother is still in prison). There
had been no such legal proceedings against many of the
other prisoners and few people knew they were there.
They were just arrested, tortured and killed.
The bodies of executed prisoners used to he transported
in some kind of trailer pulled by a tractor. They used to
put sand in the trailer and the bodies on top. Then when
it arrived at the common grave the bodies would just be
tipped in and the sand would fall on top, covering everything. ■»
In the morning they used to open the prison and order
the prisoners to go for a bathe in the sea. On the way to
the sea they had covered the path with thorn branches,
which we were forced to walk over.
In March 1965 we were transferred by ship from Ibo to
Lourenco Marqiles, to Machava Prison. Here there were
small cells, some containing already 150 prisoners. They
did not even have enough space to sleep and some had to
sleep on top of each other. We were crowded into the
same cells with them. Even when we complained, they
refused to change this.
In January 1966 we were transferred to Mabalane. Limpopo, where we were put on forced labour opening up
new land, cultivating and planting cotton, rice, millet and
maize. The terrain was full of big trees and each prisoner
had to cut down one big tree. If he had to rest he was
beaten and forced back to work. We worked from six in
the morning until six in the evening under thc supervision of a Portuguese called Ribeiro.»
<(In 1967 a man named Ousman came to visit the camp
of Mabalane. It was said that he was from the United
Nations and was checking on our living conditions. He
saw that we were dressed in sacks because the one pair
of shorts and shirt given to us on arrival were already
torn, and that we slept on the floor without any cover
But nothing changed after his visit. Then in 1968 another white man, named Andrea, came to the camp. He
spoke French, Swahili and English and said that he was
not Portuguese. He was accompanied by the Governor
of Gaza Province, the camp commander and another
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