The violence that devastated kwaZulu/Natal in the early Nineties had a sequel in court as KZP members revealed their role in the killings. Ann Eveleth reports
PART 1
THE year is 1992. The ANC has been unbanned for almost two years. Political activists have emerged from the underground.
Labour union activity is in high gear, and the country’s transition is being negotiated in the corridors of power.
The place, Esikhawini township — labour pool to the mines and refineries of conservative white Empangeni in northern Natal.
Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu)-aligned hostel residents are pitted against their Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supporting neighbours on a homeground battlefield under the watchful eye of the all-pervasive kwaZulu Police (KZP). At least 84 people are dying every month in the province and Esikhawini is no exception.
In February the township makes its debut on the monthly massacre map with 21 deaths resulting primarily from two incidents coinciding with IFP gatherings. In April the township features again. Allegations are rife of KZP involvement in attacks on the hostels. The temperature is rising. Violence monitors beg for South African Police intervention, but the story is always the same: “It’s not our jurisdiction”
The violence does not stop. The fortunate flee for safety. The unlucky ones are still around when Esikhawini’s real terror lets loose in August: 31 people are slaughtered in a spate of attacks which wreak havoc on the lives of the estimated 17 000 local population. Calls for SAP deployment before an ANC march to the local KZP station are ignored: 11 ANC supporters are gunned down by balaclava-clad attackers in the ANC stronghold that night.
A half dozen other attacks follow, despite warnings. At least four of the victims are high-profile ANC/Cosatu activists; two others, including then National Union of Metalworkers official Bheki Ntuli, survived attacks. Violence monitors point to KZP involvement based on the presence of KZP-issue cartidges and teargas canisters at some scenes.
The local KZP leadership denies the allegations, as does the IFP.
The anger on the ground is at boiling point. ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa visits the war-torn township to prevent a backlash. KZP district commissioner Brigadier Patrick Mzimela welcomes him with open arms and swears to the neutrality of his force.
The killings continue. By August of 1993, at least 50 more people are dead.
PART 2
THE year is 1995. The ANC is in power, and the shadowy underworld of apartheid is slowly coming to light. The place, Durban Supreme Court — in an explosive courtroom drama where two convicted kwaZulu Policemen Romeo Mbambo, Gcina Mkhize and an IFP union employee, Israel Hlongwane, plead for lenience on the basis that they were only following orders when they murdered their victims.
Telling his sordid tale of life as a hit-squad member, 24-year-old Mbambo cuts a clean, suave image. Only the thin white scar on his hairline hints at his deeds. Calm, almost deadpan, Mbambo told Judge Justice van der Reyden he was recruited into a KZP hit-squad based in Esikhawini by Caprivi-trained Mkhize in early 1992 to fight against the ANC.
After receiving training in the use of AK47 rifles, RPG rocket launchers, Scorpion pistols and hand grenades on a remote Esikhawini beach, Mbambo said he was introduced to the inner circle where “hits” were planned. Mbambo’s testimony, besides implicating at least a dozen IFP and KZP officials, has laid bare an intricate network which allegedly made tragedies like Esikhawini possible — and difficult to expose.
A select group of local IFP leaders, headed by Women’s Brigade deputy chairman Lindiwe Mbuyaze (now a national MP), would meet periodically to identify ANC leaders and sympathisers as targets. A list of names was handed to the local Bureau of Security and Intelligence (BSI), who would open a file and forward it to BSI chief and then KZP deputy commissioner Major General Sipho Mathe in Ulundi.
Mathe would send the information to a highly-placed triumvirate: former Caprivi military instructor Daluxolo Luthuli, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s personal assistant Zakhele “MZ” Khumalo, and kwaZulu Legislative Assembly guard unit chief Captain Leonard Langeni. The three would decide which of the people listed were “dangerous” and then, Mbambo said, “We would be called to Ulundi and ordered to eliminate them”.
On one occasion, Mbambo testified, former kwaZulu minister of justice (now kwaZulu/Natal minister of safety and security) Celani Mtetwa brought a wooden box containing 20 AK47 rifles from Mozambique to the IFP’s Empangeni offices. On another, kwa-Zulu/Natal minister of social welfare Prince Gideon Zulu provided a car and promised his son would provide an AK47 to eliminate two suspected ANC supporters in Eshowe and to find victim number six, Nathi Gumede, in Durban.
Gumede was kidnapped and driven into KZP “jurisdiction” in Port Durnford, before he was shot dead and his remains burned beyond recognition to simulate “necklacing” and shift blame onto the ANC
Promised immunity, the squad members were encouraged to take complementary positions in the KZP: Mkhize would use his post in the KZP Internal Stability Unit to keep the ISU away from the scene of attacks, while Mbambo would go in later as the “detective” to mop up the evidence — bullet casings, teargas canisters — that could be traced to the KZP.
“At times I would book out IFP members arrested by the SAP for questioning, but instead I would brief them on how to defend themselves,” Mbambo added. If one of the members was arrested, a phoney IFP “lawyer”, Vusimuzi Gabela, would be on hand to arrange bail, sometimes with the co-operation of magistrates who would hear the case without a prosecutor.
Attempts to expose hit-squad members by reporting them to the SAP ended in failure and, for fellow KZP officer Sergeant Solomon Dlamini (victim number five), in death. Dlamini was already a target by the time he phoned the SAP in June 1993 to report Mbambo’s cache of weapons. When an SAP unit crashed into his house and discovered him sleeping with two AK47s, the senior officer failed to charge him and instead pointed out the snitch, Dlamini, who was parked outside. Mbambo, Mkhize and Hlongwane then proceeded to kill him at his home.