Every morning several residents of Slovo Park in Boipatong sling plastic bags over their shoulders and make their way to a rubbish dump half a kilometre from their settlement. They sift through the dump for plastic to sell. And for food.
They are forgotten victims of the Boipatong massacre, who have been waiting 10 years for reparations from the government in terms of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) mandate.
About 20 000 South Africans are awaiting reparation, besides those the TRC acknowledged did not have the resources to apply for reparation.
Ten years after the fateful night that Inkatha Freedom Party members shot dead 45 sleeping residents, Samuel Latha can still hear the AK-47s that killed his two children and brother while he cowered under his bed.
Latha has been mentally unstable ever since. Sometimes he forgets whether he had two children or three.
The Mail & Guardian spoke to 10 of the Boipatong victims this week. All said that this year they would boycott the annual commemoration of the massacre, organised by the African National Congress on June 17 in the area.
”The ANC is in power because of the Boipatong massacre. And they have forgotten us,” says Johannes Mbatha, whose wife Paulina was paralysed after being stabbed all over her body.
South African Institute of Race Relations analyst Anthea Jeffery wrote that the Boipatong massacre ”was accorded an importance far outweighing that of numerous other mass killings at the time … This was because it was immediately depicted by the ANC as a ‘carefully planned and executed strategic operation’ that had involved the police and army working with IFP attackers, and doing so at the behest of the National Party government.”
The ANC outcry over the massacre, which prompted its withdrawal from the Codesa talks, led the United Nations Security Council to convene a special hearing on Boipatong. Jeffery notes that as violence escalated after the incident ”a seriously weakened” NP government signed a record of understanding with the ANC, with the balance of power heavily in the latter’s favour.
ANC Boipatong chairperson Peter Skosana said he was unaware of the victims’ boycott decision. He expressed his helplessness over financial assistance, saying that this was the prerogative of the government.
Former ANC chairperson Sinnah Makati, a schoolteacher who has been working with victims for many years, is disgruntled with the efforts of the ANC and the government. ”They could at least have provided counselling services.”
Through the Anglican Church, Makati organised a reconciliation seminar some years ago, to which IFP members were also invited.
Mbatha was forced to stop working to look after his wheelchair-ridden wife, who cannot even move her hands. Several politicians, including Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, have knocked at their door pledging food and assistance, but life has not changed for them.
Samuel Manzani still has a bullet lodged in his spine, as does Princess Pumla Marangxa and Mary Mashinini, who lost her brother and sister-in-law and is now looking after their seven orphaned children. None of them has received interim relief of between R2 000 to R3 000 designed to give victims access to services such as free education and medical help.
They blame Khulumani, an organisation set up to help victims. Many were not aware they were eligible for interim relief.
Piers Pigou, acting chairperson of Khulumani, points out that Khulumani is a voluntary body with limited resources and skills: ”It is not possible for us to cover all the victims.”
A former truth commission official said she had stopped visiting massacre scenes such as Boipatong and Pietermaritzburg-Edenvale ”because you feel so helpless. After so many years, we are still promising [the victims] money.”
TRC sources have long lamented that no action has been taken on the commission’s 45-page recommendation to the government on reparations made in 1998. It had recommended that the 17 000 victims that testified before it each be paid reparations of between R17 000 and R22 000 a year for six years.
The President’s Trust, established to secure money for reparation, has about R809-million — R800-million of which has been provided by the government. TRC sources have consistently argued that this amount is too little and have cited R3-billion as a more reasonable figure.
Ministry of Justice spokesperson Paul Setsetse said the Cabinet was considering a draft report on reparations, but could only act on it after the TRC submitted its final report later this month.
The government will have two months to finalise the reparations process, with Parliament drawing up regulations.