'I was paraded as white flesh'
2002-11-26 22:22
Pretoria - For more than 14 hours a young British tourist was hauled from one shebeen to the other and shown off as "white flesh", before being raped by one of the kidnappers who was "dirty and revolting and smelled horribly of beer".
Julie Stevens (29) told the British newspaper The
Mail on Sunday about her and her friend Tinus Opperman's (25)
nightmare experience earlier this month when five men
overpowered them at the scenic Long Tom pass in Mpumalanga.
They were held for 14 hours, during which Opperman was stabbed with a knife and she was beaten and raped.
When a Mozambican driver stopped to help them after the drunk kidnappers had overturned the car in which they were travelling,
he was shot dead.
Stevens is still recovering in Mpumalanga, but
decided to tell her story to "get back" at the criminals. She will only know in three months' time if the antiretrovirals she took did protect her against HIV.
Stevens worked in a Newport office in southern Wales before she and Opperman decided to visit South Africa for a working holiday. She was very excited about it.
They were staying with Opperman's parents in Sabie and
went for a drive to a look-out post in the scenic Long Tom pass.
"I got out first and stood at the edge looking out over the mountains. Suddenly five men appeared from behind the rocks. They pointed a gun at Tinus, demanded money and took our sunglasses and watches," she recalled.
Opperman realised they were in grave danger and hoped the attackers would settle for the car. But the men tied their hands behind their backs with a long leather belt. When other vehicles drove past, the couple was pushed over the side so that they would not be seen.
When the motorists had passed, the couple were hauled up and pushed into the vehicle and forced to crouch behind the front seats.
The attackers raced from one petrol station to another
where the men tried to draw money with the couple's credit cards.
The men were disorganised. They cursed and yelled and were furious because they were unable to draw money. They kept the gun against Opperman's head, saying "they had murdered in the past, and they would do so again".
Stevens kept praying quietly that she would not be killed or raped. Throughout the night they were driven from one shebeen to the other in various townships, where they were shown off as "white flesh" to the attackers' friends and family.
Their pleas for help fell on deaf ears.
The attackers were drinking heavily. At one shebeen they left Stevens and Opperman in the car. After a while one of them returned and drove to a deserted alley.
"I then knew I was going to be raped."
She was crying when he pulled her onto the backseat. When she resisted, he hit her.
"He was dirty and revolting and smelled horribly of beer.
It was quickly over. I passed out."
He drove back to the shebeen, where he again left them in the car.
But he returned to rape her a second time.
By that time she had managed to free one hand. She hit him with a beer bottle. It enraged him, and he hit her again, this time much harder.
After a while the four others drunkenly returned to the car and they drove off along the road between Badplaas and Barberton. The driver barely managed to keep the vehicle on the road.
At 04:30 the car overturned and landed on its roof in a ditch.
Opperman was hurled through the window, cutting his back. He later had to receive 100 stitches. Stevens was also
hurled out of the car by the impact.
A passer-by stopped and approached. Stevens whispered a warning that he should leave because the men were armed. She and Opperman managed to run away.
They heard a shot and realised that they had shot the man, killing him in an attempt to rob him of his vehicle.
Stevens said she was sharing her story because she hoped it would make her feel less isolated, not just another statistic.
She said she didn't want to hate South Africa or black people, because "there are reasons why people become hardened criminals.
"We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I thank God that we are alive".