Mail & Guardian reporter
Chief land claims commissioner Joe Seremane is threatening to take the government and the African National Congress to the International Court of Justice in a desperate attempt to solve the murder of his younger brother, Timothy Seremane, at the infamous ANC Quatro camp in 1982.
Seremane’s latest salvo against the ANC was sparked by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s inability to clarify the ANC’s submission on his brother’s death.
Last year, Seremane wrote to truth commission chair Desmond Tutu querying a two-page “summarised report” on the killing. He claims he has not heard from the commission since – “not even an acknowledgement of receipt of my letter”.
Worded in typical mid-1980s police language, the ANC submission is tightly summarised, and refers to people involved by their initials only.
“Kenneth Mahamba [Timothy Seremane’s Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) name] was sentenced to death by an ANC tribunal and executed in 1982 together with other fellow enemy agents,” reads the document.
It alleges Seremane was an apartheid agent who smuggled information to his police handlers.
“Seremane was recruited by Sergeant M of the SB [security branch], Mafikeng, whilst … residing at Mafikeng. Sergeant M offered Seremane immunity from criminal charges of destruction of government property. Was also to earn several thousands of rands. Seremane’s personal and family safety was to be guaranteed. Was also to receive a house and a car.”
Joe Seremane wrote to Tutu: “The ANC response merely read like further vilification of my late brother and similar victims of Quatro camp who cannot defend themselves now.
“Furthermore, the reasons raise further questions to me, my family and relatives. The questions are also as a result of the truth commission furnishing me with an edited version of the response and protecting the identities of other people mentioned therein …”
Seremane this week repeated his plea to get the truth: “All I want is the truth – where my younger brother is buried, after which I want his remains, access to the records of the trial, how he was tried, what kind of a trial it was and who presided over the trial. That is all I want.
“Even if they had hanged him for rape, I would still need his bones.”
The ANC claimed apartheid agents trained Seremane between October and December 1976 before he joined the movement in exile.
“Training included espionage, communication, assassinations, engineering, firearms, photography and counter-insurgency activity.”
The ANC document claims Seremane reported to a “TM” while in exile. “He [TM] was already the chief as far as enemy operations were concerned. Another six persons are mentioned by name. All information was to be passed on to Sergeant M through one or other of the above contacts.”
In its attempts to brand Seremane an apartheid agent, the ANC sketches incidents in which he supposedly handed information and arms to his handlers.
“In 1979, together with C and two others mentioned by name, Seremane stole weapons from the camps which were then taken to Luanda and then hidden at JD’s girlfriend’s place. These weapons, first disassembled, were ferried to Luanda using travelling or shopping bags.”
Seremane and his unit also allegedly destroyed a Land Rover and an ambulance, “embezzled funds on personal luxuries, stole and sold army property including a service pistol – which was sold through GP, a commissar at Quibaxe”.
While a camp commander, Seremane also allegedly ordered the beating of a soldier who later died.
But Joe Seremane has stuck to his guns, questioning the entire ANC report. Central to his questions is why no names are mentioned in it.
“To my knowledge Timothy was never employed by the West Rand Administration Board. Timothy was never a Mafikeng resident.”
Seremane asked the commission who Sergeant M was. He wanted to know what government properties his brother destroyed and, if he was charged, where the police docket was.
Three of Seremane’s alleged killers – now high-ranking military generals and intelligence officers – last week appeared before the truth commission.
One of the officers, the National Intelligence Agency’s Gabriel Mthunzi Mthembu, was last year named in affidavits by two former MK guerrillas as part of a group that tortured Seremane’s brother.