Robben Island

Robben Island is the location that Nelson Mandela was held for most of his time in prison.  We arrived to the island by ferry.  Our guide was a former political prisoner on the island.  He had been part of a group whose mission was to break down the ruling elitist government.  He had set off a bomb at a government building that injured 57 military personnel.  Our guide spoke about the conditions at the prison.  

Initially, all the prisoners were forced to sleep on mats laid on the cement floor of one room in the prison with no room to move.  When one person became uncomfortable sleeping on one side he would nudge his neighbor to roll over to his other side and in a chain movement each prisoner would roll over to his other side. They were not given blankets or anything to provide warmth.  In the winter the island gets to be quite cool and humid.  Pneumonia and other sickness was a big issue for the prisoners.  Our guide spoke about how the physician that examined them would have a stethoscope around his neck and would approach each prisoner and ask them to cough.  The prisoners realized that the doctor never put the stethoscope up to his ears.  Nelson Mandela negotiated with the prison administration to eventually give the prisoners bunk beds and a blanket.

Many things were done to the political prisoners here to try to keep their moral low.  Sometimes a prisoner was told their family had been granted a visit and the prisoner would be brought out to wait with the others to see their visitors, but the family would never show up because they had not been granted a visit.  It was a very lengthy application process for families to be granted permission to see those in the prison.  Often the application process was used as a way to track the family members to see if they had political ties.  The father of our guide was gunned down and became paralyzed shortly after a visit with his son in prison.

Political prisoners were first held with violent criminals which was hoped would negatively impact the political prisoners, but the opposite affect happened.  The political prisoners were so well disciplined and set an example for the violent criminals that they violent prisoners looked to assist the political prisoners where they could.  The violent criminals were eventually separated from the political prisoners and moved to a medium security facility.  The political prisoners remained in the high security facilities.