Wally Mbhele
A former African National Congress member who was convicted in 1988 of the gruesome murder of four women considers himself abandoned by his party.
Of the six people convicted in the case, four – including the ringleader – were given political amnesty in 1991. Another, Absalom Kobela, was released on parole last year.
Yet Phineas Ndlovu languishes at Leeuwkop prison in northern Johannesburg. He is bitter about being left out of the government’s gestures to his co-accused. All he got was the commutation of his death sentence to 18 years in jail.
What pains him most is that, as an official of the Leeuwkop political prisoners’ committee, he assisted many other political prisoners in processing amnesty applications to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Most of them have been pardoned, but his amnesty hearing was postponed last year in April and he has had no indication of when it is going to resume.
Ndlovu claims more than 10 ANC leaders have visited him in jail, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Deputy Minister of Defence Ronnie Kasrils, former ANC chair Walter Sisulu, former Gauteng premier Tokyo Sexwale, Gauteng provincial secretary Obed Bapela and provincial deputy chair Paul Mashatile.
“I feel sacrificed. Whenever they come, it is lip service and not delivery. In 1995 we were told after our hunger strike in prison that we will not spend another Christmas in jail, but how many more have I spent here since then? I am very, very angry with both the ANC leadership and the truth commission. Nobody seems to care.
“People who were causing havoc in our communities, like security policemen, go before the commission wearing suits and ties while political prisoners who suffered for this democracy go there and are ridiculed.”
Ndlovu says he was a student at Daveyton Senior Secondary School when he became involved in politics. “There were countrywide uprisings against apartheid at the time. There was also an issue of gangsters who were working against the nation. I was part of the fight to uproot gangs from our community. In such instances there were people’s courts that were manned by us, the youth … We were brave, but maybe we could not have been aware that in the struggle there will be imprisonment and death. We did not really think about the consequences.”
Through underground structures of the then banned ANC, Ndlovu says, a call for rendering the country ungovernable and apartheid unworkable was received from Lusaka.
“That call in itself entailed an order from comrade Oliver Tambo that we must get rid of stooges, collaborators and informers, among others. That included security policemen. That would also include the burning of their houses and their property.”
It was under these circumstances, he says, that he and his comrades burned down the house of Hendrick Matsupa, suspected of being an informer. Four women died in the flames. “The relationship between Matsupa and the security policemen was so strong that he boasted we could not do anything to him as he was friends with the police. The attack happened on the spur of the moment. Those people were not intended to be targets. I thought I would evacuate them first from the house.”
The Matsupa family is opposing Ndlovu’s amnesty bid.
In minutes of a meeting held in December 1996 between prisoners and Ahmed Kathrada, parliamentary councillor in the office of the president, and then ANCMP Carl Niehaus, it is recorded that both Niehaus and Kathrada would seek a solution to Ndlovu’s case. The two undertook to report on the meeting to the minister of justice, explore the possibility of parole and report to the national working committee of the ANC.
Paul Setsetse, representative of Minister of Justice Dullah Omar, says he is not aware of Ndlovu’s situation and promises to seek an explanation from the minister. Sources in Kathrada’s office say he had telephonic discussions with Ndlovu “more than a month ago”, although it is not known what was discussed. Kathrada could not respond to inquiries from the Mail & Guardian this week.
Truth commission representative John Allen said Ndlovu’s application was adjourned on request from his lawyer, Brian Currin, who wanted more witnesses to be called.
Allen says Currin phoned the commission in August to enquire about Ndlovu’s application. Allen referred further enquiries to Currin, who could not be reached for comment.