Wonder Hlongwa
Against police denials that there was a political motive in the killing of two women in KwaZulu-Natal’s volatile Richmond area, the families of the deceased insist they were indeed political.
The two women, Zantu Ndabezitha (40) and Babongile Dlamini (43), were gunned down in separate incidents eight hours before Wednesday’s elections. The families have denounced the police’s version that the killings were “purely criminal”.
“Richmond police are useless, they were less than 500m away when Thulani [a survivor] was crying loudly for their help, but they didn’t come. They came about an hour later to take statements,” said Mary Ndabezitha, who lost 11 of her family members after the assassination of United Democratic Movement strongman Sifiso Nkabinde.
A family member who declined to be named for fear of her life said Dlamini was murdered because she was seen distributing African National Congress pamphlets in Ndaleni.
“The people who came to kill her said they wanted to talk to her because they met her somewhere during the day when she was distributing the pamphlets,” said a relative.
Ndabezitha’s killers came to her door and demanded a box of matches, and when they were told there were none inside, they kicked the door in.
“After that they demanded money. We said we don’t have it. They started shooting,” said Thulani Ngubane, Ndabezitha’s fiance. “They broke my rib, as you can see. My girlfriend was standing by the window, she told me to block the door with a wardrobe and then they heard her saying that to me, they shot on the window where she was standing, I just saw her falling, I tried to lift her up, but she was injured badly.”
The ANC has dubbed the murders as a carefully calculated attack to scare its supporters on the eve of the polls.
“The main motive of this attack is to create fear and anxiety in Richmond in general and Ndaleni in particular in an endeavour to prevent people from casting their votes,” said the ANC’s Zweli Mkhize. “This is in line with information we have received which associates this with the UDM.”
The UDM’s Henry Gwamanda said his party does not want to involve itself in political mudslinging with the ANC.
“We can only send our condolences to the bereaved families, but we certainly don’t want to involve ourselves in this,” said Gwamanda.
Meanwhile, the police are following strong leads in the area. “We have circumstantial evidence of who did this, but it’s not enough. The evidence that we have is fully convincing that the whole thing was political,” said a source within the police.