Justice for apartheid victims

The remains of political prisoners executed at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre are to be exhumed and handed to their families for a proper send-off.

Pretoria - More than 50 years ago, five members of the same family were hanged in the gallows at Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre by the apartheid regime.

The Vulindlelas - Bhekaphantsi, Shilegu, Bonase, Malize and Sadunga - were executed in 1964 after being convicted of the murder of a family of five whites who were camping near the Bashee River in the then Transkei homeland.

It was the first and only time in South Africa’s dark past that relatives were hanged at the same time.

Their remains are among those of executed political prisoners to be exhumed and handed to their families for a proper send-off, after positive identification.

At least 130 political prisoners were hanged for political related offences between 1960 and 1990.

Those sentenced to death were transferred to Kgosi Mampuru II, then known as Pretoria Central Maximum Security prison, for execution.

Apart from the Vulindlela family, Solomon Mahlangu, Benjamin Moloise, Michael Lucas, Thelle Mogoerane and many others were hanged there. The Vulindlelas did not plead guilty to the murders, but because of their affiliation to the PAC, they were handed the death sentences.

During their final weeks, the condemned were measured in terms of height, weight and thickness of the neck to prepare their execution.Once their families were notified of the impending execution they were given third-class train tickets to travel to Pretoria to visit the prisoners on death row. These were non-contact visits - the last being on the afternoon before the execution.

Once executed, their bodies remained the property of the State and were never handed over to the families for burial. Instead, they were buried as paupers, usually three to a grave, in racially-segregated municipal cemeteries.They were buried in unmarked graves at Mamelodi West and Rebecca Street cemeteries.

Of the 83 human remains, 69 are buried in Mamelodi West and 14 at Rebecca Street. The 47 other bodies were exhumed at various stages over the past years.

“Starting from April 4, the missing persons task team in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will be conducting exhumations of the remains of these gallant fighters,” Minister of Justice Michael Masutha said.

“Our Truth and Reconciliation Unit and various provincial governments will arrange for the remains to be formally handed over to their families for dignified reburials.

Masutha was launching the gallows exhumation project at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre on Wednesday.

“Let this remind us of the huge task ahead of ensuring a better life for all as these heroes did not die in vain.

“Our department has taken steps to provide some form of reparations to the affected families.”

About 70% of the families of the political prisoners being exhumed are in the rural Eastern Cape, while the remaining 30% are scattered between Gauteng, Limpopo, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. The 83 still to be exhumed were mostly PAC and ANC members.

Madeleine Fullard, head of the NPA’s missing persons’ task team, said they had partial records of where the bodies were buried. It would therefore not be too difficult to locate them.

“However, in cases where three bodies were buried in one grave, the DNA would have intermingled, and it would be a challenge to identify them timeously.”

The exhumation is expected to last between three and six months.

KGOSI Mampuru II Correctional Centre, where the gallows are located, was named after “a man who relentlessly resisted colonial rule at a time when doing so was met by death through hanging”.

Justice Minister Michael Masutha said Mampuru was led naked to the jail yard in the presence of 200 white people, and the first attempt to hang him was unsuccessful because the rope snapped.

“From 1985 to 1988, South Africa had the second highest execution rate in the world, second only to Iran. In 1987 South Africa executed more people than China and the US, countries with much higher population figures.”

Despite describing seeing the gallows as a harrowing experience, he said it was important for South Africans, especially the youth to see them.

“Exposing South Africans to their own history is an important nation-building exercise. If you look at some of the tendencies manifesting in the country, they reflect that we cannot take this freedom for granted.”

nomaswazi.nkosi@inl.co.za

Pretoria News