Former askari Joe Mamasela said the human remains exhumed on Human Rights Day are not those of the ”Mamelodi 10”, as claimed by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
According to Mamasela, the bodies of the 10 Mamelodi activists assassinated by apartheid hit squads in 1986 had been incinerated by the security forces.
”I was there when their bodies were blown to pieces and their bones burnt to ashes,” Mamasela said. ”I want them [the NPA] to convince me that what I saw did not happen.”
He blamed the anxiety to close the chapter on missing bodies on President Thabo Mbeki’s directive to the NPA in 2003 to finalise the cases of missing anti-apartheid activists so that the country could move on.
Mamasela said that when television coverage revealed that one of the bodies comprised only a torso, he suspected the remains were those of another group of Mamelodi activists known as the Mamelodi Three.
Mamasela said he was present at the killings of both sets of activists.
NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said that in trying to identify the bodies, the agency was using information gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and police documents.