Shadley Nash: Port Elizabeth
THE Cradock community, still reeling from shock at recent revelations that three Port Elizabeth civic leaders were brutally murdered by the security forces, believe the bodies may be buried at the site of their torture and murder.
A privately-owned holiday farm now stands where the Pebco Three were allegedly tortured and murdered in the mid- 1980s.
Before, it was a police station about 25km outside Cradock on the road to Graaff-Reinet and, according to local activists, many detainees were taken there for interrogation.
They believe the three are buried on the smallholding.
“Although detainees were blindfolded when they were taken away for interrogation, many believe they were taken to the old police station,” says a veteran Cradock activist.
The source said they had read news reports that a former security force member had admitted the three were tortured and murdered there.
“They believe that the bodies of Qaqawuli Godolozi, Sipho Hashe and Champion Galela, all Pebco office bearers, may be buried on the ground.”
Press reports allege the Pebco Three were murdered by a security force hit squad in May 1985 were made by a former security policeman named as Sergeant X.
According to Sergeant X the men were abducted from Port Elizabeth’s HF Verwoerd Airport and driven more than 150km to the remote police station where the men were held in a garage and tortured and murdered.
All the families of the three know is that they went to the airport to meet foreign diplomatic staff and were never seen again.
A visit this week to the remote smallholding, which former Cradock activists pointed out as the former police station, revealed a deserted farm with a padlocked gate, windows shut and curtains closed.
The heat waves shimmered in the 38 degree heat and a windmill near the front of the farm, probably the only witness to past horrors, turned lazily.
The garage where the men were allegedly held, and which Sergeant X referred to, is a long shed with whitewashed walls and double swing doors.
It was here that Sergeant X said the three men were tortured, interrogated and finally murdered while members of the security forces drank beer and braaied meat outside.
The only evidence that indicates the building was once a police station is the thick bars, evident at any old rural police station, which cover the windows.
A huge sign saying “Post Chalmers Holiday Farm” is stencilled on a wall facing the national road between Cradock and Graaff-Reinet.
“This place used to be a police station for many years, but this is the first time that I see it has changed,” says Alex Goniwe, brother of the murdered Cradock activist Matthew Goniwe.
The Minister of Justice, Dullah Omar, has sworn that the matter will not be left until the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He also promised the families of the Pebco Three that an intensive investigation would be launched.