The LGBT community has seen many triumphs in the past few weeks, most recently new marriage equality laws and the coming out story of Jason Collins. However, there is always a downside to every upswing and this week’s downside comes with the tragic news that three allegedly gay men have died as a result of horrific torture at a South African gay “conversion camp.”
According to The Daily Telegraph, 15-year-old Raymond Buys suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and was struggling in school. His mother, Wilma Buys, sent him to the Alex de Koker’s Echo Wild Game Rangers in January 2011 to undergo a three-month training course that promised to “turn boys into men.”
However, that would be the last time she saw her son in good health as he spent the next two months being viciously tortured by de Koker and employee Michael Erasmus, who reportedly beat Buys with planks and sticks, chained him to his bed and even made him eat washing powder and his own feces.
“I sent my son on this course to make him a better man, to give him a better future,” said Wilma. “I trusted Alex de Koker with his life.”
Wilma says that she was only allowed to speak to her son three times on a speaker phone and that de Koker told her that Buys was harming himself.
“Raymond was only allowed to speak to me on speakerphone,” she said. “When I asked him why he was hurting himself, he told me ‘Mum, I’m not doing it to myself.’”
Sadly, things took a deadly turn for the worst on March 23, 2011 when de Koker called Wilma to tell her that her son had been admitted to a hospital for tests. When Wilma arrived, she found her son emaciated, brain damaged and dying in a hospital bed. Buys was also had two broken bones in his arm as well as cigarette burns and wounds all over his body.
Buys died in intensive care just four weeks later.
According to Gay Star News, Buys death is the third in a series of gruesome deaths that have occurred since the camp opened in 2006.
Eric Calitz, 18, and Nicolaas Van Der Walt, 19, who like Buys were described as “effeminate and gay,” both died in 2007 after being tortured at the “conversion camp.”
In 2009, De Koker was handed a suspended sentence over Calitz death, but escaped charges for the death of Van Der Walt, and the camp remained in business. De Koker and Michael Erasmus are now on trial for charges of murder, child abuse and neglect in connection with Buys’ death, though de Koker has plead not guilty.
Sadly, this isn’t the only case of people being tortured at “conversion camps.” Check out some other instances below. – nicholas robinson
