Friday Feature: The Mystery of the Cradock Four

Photo Retrieved from the South African History Archives website.

Goniwe usually went to Port Elizabeth every Wednesday to report to the United Democratic Front (UDF) leadership. As UDF organiser, Goniwe travelled a lot, mostly in his Honda Ballade, registration number CAT 8479, which had been given to him by the UDF for his work. On 24 June he called Derrick Swarts in Port Elizabeth (PE) to say he would come down a day later because he had to address a rally in Cradock on the Wednesday 26 June. The Security Police knew about his changed travel arrangements, they transcribed the call. It was Security Police practice to inform PE Branch if Goniwe was going to PE. Snyman or Hermanus du Plessis would be informed. Cradock Security Police chief Eric Winter and two other white Security Policemen left the office on the morning of the 27th, and did not say where they were going. They returned the following day, seeming anxious and secretive.

On 27 June 1985, Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkonto and Sicelo Mhlauli, left for Port Elizabeth at about 10am. Sicelo was an old childhood friend of Matthew’s. He was a school principal in Oudtshoorn, and was in Cradock for the holidays. He decided to go with Matthew “to catch up on old times”. The car was spotted at Cookhouse by police there, at around lunchtime. In the afternoon, Matthew attended meetings with his comrades.

His last meeting, at the house of UDF activist Michael Coetsee, finished at around 21h00 and the four left at about 21h10, after Matthew refused the invitation from his friend Derrick Swarts, to stay over and not travel at night. He told Derrick he didn’t spend enough time with his family and wanted to get home. He would only stop for the police.

It was the last time they were seen alive. The four were abducted from a car in which they were driving, and assassinated. Mystery surrounded the finding of the burnt-out car, with two different sets of number plates, and then, in two different areas, burnt bodies were found (Sparrow and Sicelo). The police could not explain how, if the activists had been under constant and intensified surveillance, and travelling together, they could have disappeared and been murdered. Days later, the bodies of Matthew and Fort were found, also burnt, stabbed and mutilated.

Two inquests failed to get to the truth, the second inquest opened after a newspaper, New Nation, on 8 May 1992, published a copy of a top-secret “signal message'” sent to the State Security Council on 7 June 1985 from the Eastern Province Joint Management Centre. The message detailed a telephone conversation between Brigadier CP “Joffel” van der Westhuizen and a General Van Rensburg, a senior member of the SSC secretariat. Three names, Matthew Goniwe, Mbulelo Goniwe and Fort Calata were targeted to be “permanently removed from society, as a matter of urgency.”

The second inquest in 1992 found the Security Forces responsible for their deaths, but could not make the crucial link between the actual killers who applied to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Amnesty, and the people who ordered the murders.

General Nic Janse van Rensburg, second in command of the Eastern Cape security branch at the time, told the TRC’s amnesty committee in 1998 that he had planned the operation, and believed it was the right thing to do. Janse Van Rensburg said he was surprised to hear other government officials in Pretoria, including the State Security Council, were considering reappointing Goniwe. Janse van Rensburg said he would have voted to eliminate Goniwe. Nic Janse Van Rensburg also quoted statements made by political leaders at the time, including president PW Botha and defence minister Magnus Malan, to the effect that "we must fight fire with fire" and "we are facing a total onslaught". Janse Van Rensburg said he, Du Plessis and Van Zyl had identified Goniwe and other UDF leaders as being behind the unrest in the region.

Van Rensburg admitted to trying to make the murders look like the work of vigilante groups or rival political groups such as the Azanian People's Organisation. He insisted the order to kill the activists came from his superior, Harold Snyman, who in turn received instructions from higher up. Snyman did not attend the hearings as he was receiving treatment for cancer (which later killed him).

Advocate George Bizos, for the families, said it appeared from documents produced at the hearing that one arm of the state regarded Goniwe's reappointment as a way to curtail unrest in the Cradock area, while the other was planning to kill him.

Nelson Mandela, when he visited their gravesite of Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkonto and Sicelo Mhlauli at the 10th anniversary of their death, said: “The death of these gallant freedom fighters marked a turning point in the history of our struggle. No longer could the regime govern in the old way. They were the true heroes of the struggle.”


This Information was accessed on The Cradock Four Website. For the full story please visit http://www.thecradockfour.co.za/Matthew_Goniwe.html

Friday Feature: A Youth Leader: Tsietsi Mashinini

Names: Mashinini, Teboho "Tsietsi" Macdonald

Born: 27 January 1957, Central Western Jabavu, Soweto, South Africa

Died: 1990, Guinea

In summary: Student leader,in the Soweto student uprising of 16 June 1976

Tsietsi Mashinini was born on 27 January 1957 in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto. Mashinini was the second son of Ramothibi, a lay preacher in the Methodist Church, and Nomkhitha Mashinini, and was one of 13 children (11 boys and twin girls). He was active in his local Methodist parish and chairperson of the Methodist Wesley Youth Guild at the age of 16.

His education started at the Amajeli crèche in 1963. He went on to Seoding Lower Primary, after which he proceeded to Itshepeng Higher Primary. In 1971 he became a student at Morris Isaacson High. He was a passionate reader.  This was spotted by his History and English teacher, Abram Onkgopotse Tiro, who taught at Morris Isaacson after was expelled from the University of the North (Turfloop) for his political activities. Tiro had great influence in shaping Mashinini's political thinking and subsequent adherence to the ideology and philosophy of Black Consciousness. He mentored him and supplied him with reading material. Through Tiro, Mashinini started reading about the history of Africa’s struggles, American slavery, the Human Rights Movements in the USA and about the evil of apartheid. Mashinini was the chairperson of the debating team at his school, and his excellent academic performance became the basis for his influence among his peers.

Mashinini’s energy, creativity and sportsmanship became evident through his recreational activity, which included theatre, baseball, ballroom dancing, martial arts, swimming and tennis. Former teacher Mrs Benadette Mosala said of him: “He had real potential in the theatre and asked for assistance for his productions. He had high aims for himself and would refuse to play second fiddle. He was a very attractive and handsome young boy. I know the girls loved him and he was very confident.”

As a teenager of his time, he preferred African-American fashions, especially drawn to hippie culture.

He sported an Afro and wore bell-bottomed trousers and high-heeled shoes, and had a vibrant social life.
Mashinini joined the South African Students Movement, a student body established to assist students with the transition from Matric to university.

On 13th June 1976, about 500 Soweto students met at the Orlando Donaldson Community Hall to discuss ways and means of confronting and challenging the Department of Bantu Education.
 The students decided to stage a peaceful protest march on 16 June against the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

An Action Committee was set up to prepare for the campaign. Mashinini was elected chairperson of the Action Committee, which was later renamed the Soweto Students Representative Council (SSRC), with Mashinini as its first president (until he was succeeded by Khotso Seatlholo from Naledi High School). Mashinini and Murphy Morobe were the two representatives from Morris Issacson High School serving in the Soweto Student Representative Council.

During assembly on the morning of 16 June at Morris Isaacson High School, Mashinini climbed onto the podium and led students into song, and out of the school grounds towards their assembly point for the planned student demonstration.

After June 16,the intense scrutiny compelled Mashinini to flee the country. He left the country for Botswana in August 1976, living there for few months before he proceeded to the West Coast of Africa. Heads of states, notably Sekou Toure of Ivory Coast, and African parliamentarians received him. He resided in countries like Nigeria where he was briefly hosted in the presidential guest house in Lagos. While in exile Mashinini was interviewed by many media organisations and he addressed students at universities, revealing the realities of the South African political situation.

Mashinini finally settled in Liberia, where he married Welma Campbell, the daughter of a parliamentarian, in 1978. The marriage was blessed with two daughters, Nomkhitha (named after his mother) and Thembi. However the marriage ended after a few years.

Mashinini later visited the United Kingdom and the United States, where he addressed the United Nations on the brutalities of the apartheid regime. By many accounts, Mashinini did not join any of the established liberation movements in exile.

One of Mashinini's admirers was his compatriot, Miriam Makeba, who was in exile in Guinea. She had offered Mashinini a place to stay in her home in Conakry shortly before his death. Mashinini died under mysterious circumstances in 1990. He was hospitalised for multiple injuries, aparently the result of an attack.  He died a few days later. Mashinini's body was terribly disfigured: his left eye had fallen out into his coffin; his left ear was bleeding and he had deep bruises on his face, including a large scar on his forehead.

At his funeral service, held at the Amphitheatre Stadium in Jabulani, Soweto, former Azanian People’s Organisation  President Professor Itumeleng Mosala said: “The students of 1976 took the struggle from the classroom to the streets; the students of today take the struggle from the streets into the classroom.” Leaders of the June 16 uprising spoke in praise of Mashinini, saying he had made an indelible mark in shaping the history of the country.

The epitaph on his tombstone reads: “At the height of struggle, he gave impetus to the liberation struggle.” His tombstone at Avalon cemetery in Soweto was twice vandalised, and the marble stone was removed.

On 27 April 2011, the State President, Jacob G Zuma honoured Tsietsi Mashinini, posthumously, with the Order of Luthuli in Gold for his inspirational leadership to young people, for the sacrifices he made while leading students against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, and for his role in the struggle against apartheid.

Accessed on http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/teboho-tsietsi-macdonald-mashinini on 13 June 2014.

Battle of Bhambatha and the Death of Bhambatha Zondi

In 1906, following the Anglo-Boer War, the Colony of Natal was plunged into rebellion when several tribes refused to pay a Poll Tax that was introduced by the Colonial Government, headed by Prime Minister The Hon Charles Smythe, to help reimburse the somewhat depleted Treasury.

There were, of course, several other factors that contributed towards the uprising.

One of the amakhosi (chiefs) who had thrown his weight behind the resistance to the payment of the Poll Tax was Bhambatha Zondi. Bhambatha, son of Mancinza Zondi, was born in the Mpanza Valley between Greytown and Keate's Drift, KwaZulu-Natal, in about 1865. A somewhat controversial character, he had been convicted on several occasions for debt, cattle theft and, early in 1906, for participating in a faction fight .

When the time came to pay the tax on 22 February 1906, Bhambatha was faced with a dilemma; he was apparently prepared to pay, but one of his indunas (Nhlonhlo) informed him that the majority of the tribe refused to do so, and would resort to armed resistance if necessary. The magistrate in Greytown, Mr Cross, received a report informing him that he would be killed if he went to Mpanza, so he instructed Bhambatha to travel to Greytown.

On 22 February, the tribal elders arrived in Greytown while Bhambatha remained in a wattle plantation overlooking the town, apparently trying to persuade Nhlonhlo to change his mind, but, according to the elders, he was suffering from a stomach ailment (which could have been a case of 'butterfly nerves', which we have all experienced in difficult circumstances).

The result was that Bhambatha was deposed as inkosi of the amaZondi, and he fled to the Usuthu umuzi (homestead) of King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo. According to Bhambatha's wife, Siyekiwe, King Dinuzulu ordered Bhambatha to return to Natal and carry out an act of rebellion, a claim that was subsequently vehemently denied by the King at his trial.

Bhambatha then readied his tribesmen for combat. His inyanga (war doctor), Malaza, prepared some muthi (medicine) at an umuzi on the late Mr George Buntting's farm, Fugitive's Drift. According to tradition, body parts of a child were used in the recipe, resulting in immunity to the white men's bullets (which would turn into water). The site of this umuzi is quite close to Mzinyathi Cottage on Mr David Rattray's farm, Fugitive's Drift.)

On the first occasion that the muthi was put to the test, the action at Mpanza on 4 April 1906, none of the Rebels was killed or wounded, lending credence to Malaza's claim. Four members of the Colonial forces were killed  and three were wounded . Those killed were buried on the farm, Burrups between Mpanza and Greytown. This action resulted in Bhamhatha and the amaZondi hecoming totally involved in the uprising and his name being given to the Rebellion.

The back of the 'Bambata Rebellion' was broken on 10 June 1906 in the Battle of Mome Gorge, in the heart of the Nkandla area of Zululand. According to official sources, Bhamhatha was killed while walking up the Mome stream Shortly before the shelling of the Dobo Forest by the Natal Field Artillery, a 'native levy' on the left bank of the Mome noticed a solitary unarmed rebel making his way upstream, walking in the water. On the right hank, just behind the rebel, was another 'levy'. The rebel left the water to move along the right bank having observed the former 'levy', but not the latter. The latter, then on the same bank as the rebel, thrust his spear into the rebel with such force that the blade was bent and could not be removed. The rebel collapsed and the 'levy' was joined by the other, who raised his spear to finish off the victim. Then the rebel suddenly grabbed the spear with both hands and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Both 'levies' were attempting to overpower the rehel when a member of the Nongqayi (the Natal Native Police) arrived and shot him in the head.

It was only on 13 June - three days after the battle - that a party under Sgt Calverley was sent back into the gorge to obtain proof of Bhambatha's death. This same rebel's hody was found, already in an initial stage of decomposition, and identified as that of Bhambatha. The head was removed, placed in a saddlehag and taken to Nkandla, where it was identified. Official reports emphasise the respect shown for the head, and only a selected few were permitted to view it.

Identification in the gorge was based upon a description of Bhamhatha's features beforehand - a gap between the two middle upper teeth; a slight beard rather under than in front of the chin; a scar immediately below one eye and another on the cheek opposite; a high instep. According to Capt J Stuart, these features were confirmed by the two Zulu informants at Nkandla, and also by two of Inkosi Sigananda Shezi's tribesmen, as well a prisoner who had linked up with Bhambatha. All confirmed that it was Bhambatha's head .

This Article was written by Ken Gillings and was accessed on The South African Military History Society website on http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol124kg.html on 6 June 2014.