At about 4pm on Tuesday afternoon a casual observer might have thought things were back to normal in Refenkgotso, a small township in Deneysville, just south of the Vaal river. The previous morning’s rioting by a mob numbering a few hundred people had left a local ANC councillor dead and a municipal building partially burnt and vandalised. But by the next day, children were playing pick-up soccer games or huddling around braziers as usual. The entrance to the defaced building, however, was guarded by two police vehicles, a symbol of how too little had been done too late.
Across the R716 in Phomolong, an older section of the township, the coal stoves were not the only reason a sooty stench engulfed the atmosphere. The shack that Masechaba Makuni had shared with her husband and two children for the past three years, was still smouldering, having been burnt in the wee hours of Tuesday morning by an unidentified mob.
By that time, Makuni had already sought refuge in her mother-in-law’s house in Holomisa, the informal settlement on the western edge of Refenkgotso that is named after United Democratic Movement (UDM) leader Bantu Holomisa. The arson attack, she said, was revenge by ANC members for the murder of Ntai Morris Mokoena, the ANC chief whip in the Metsimaholo municipality who was killed by a crowd allegedly made up of UDM supporters.
Earlier that Monday Makuni had been beaten, bundled into the boot of a vehicle and taken to the Deneysville police station by people she says she recognised as ANC members. There, she was questioned and released for lack of evidence tying her to Monday’s gruesome events. She and her husband, who is one of 16 people who were arrested in connection with the violence, had reportedly participated in the march.
UDM councillor and provincial chairperson Isaac Mokgatla, who also sits on the parliamentary portfolio committee on housing, apparently organised residents to protest against disputes over the allocation of stands. The march turned violent after the protesters found the municipal offices in Refenkgotso empty and locked that morning. They proceeded straight to Mokoena’s house, where they first shot him and then hacked him to death. Mokgatla was arrested on Tuesday morning in nearby Everton.
”Why are they still talking about the initial incident [in the news] and not saying that UDM houses are being burnt,” asks Makuni as she transfers shortbread biscuits from a plastic bag into a bucket to sell at her stall. It is Wednesday morning. Her belongings and her stock of generic snacks were destroyed in the fire, but life goes on. ”Not one of the ANC youths that are burning houses here have been caught.”
As Makuni tells it, five houses belonging to UDM members have been set alight in revenge attacks in the aftermath of Mokoena’s death. The Mail & Guardian could only confirm three — two shacks and Mokgatla’s new yellow house, which stands out among the rows of nondescript reconstruction and development programme houses and shacks in Holomisa.
Sixteen people have been arrested in connection with the destruction of property during the march. Four, including Mokgatla, were charged with murder; the other 12 were charged with public violence. They are due to appear in court on July 13 for their bail applications.
The speaker of the Metsimaholo municipality, William Bulwane, says his colleague’s death was ”orchestrated” by Mokgatla as he is the one who organised the march, which had not been approved by the municipality.
Mokgatla and Mokoena, Bulwane claims, had been locked in a personal power struggle since 1995, when Mokgatla, a former ANC member, was mayor of Deneysville’s transitional local council. At the time the council awarded a tender in violation of procedure, and Mokoena blew the whistle. After being expelled from the ANC, Mokgatla joined the UDM, of which he is a now provincial chairperson and councillor.
Bulwane says that Mokgatla was able to mobilise hundreds of people this week around the issue of land, not lack of service delivery. Refenkgotso consists mostly of RDP houses which were built between 2000 and 2006. Not everyone in the community was allocated a new RDP house however, as there was a lack of available land.
In 2004, Mokgatla unilaterally, and without the approval of the municipality, mobilised people to settle on privately-owned farm land at the edge of the township — in the areas known as Holomisa — under the pretext that they would be allocated stands there soon after settling in. They have been living there ever since, but have never been allocated official stands.
In an attempt to address this problem earlier this year, the ANC-led municipality purchased land in Amelia and Mooiplaas, several kilometres from Deneysville, with the intention of resettling people from Holomisa. ”We’ve just purchased farmland so that people without stands can be located there,” says Bulwane. ”Right now other processes are taking place like surveying the land. Thereafter, we will put services on that land.”
But the residents of Holomisa are wondering whether or not to move to the new area. Many, like Evelyn Makume, would prefer to stay, as they work in the nearby town of Deneysville and can walk to and from work. Their children, too, can attend schools in the township and close by. Those opposed to the resettlement participated in the march on Monday.
Malerato Molapo, a 69-year-old pensioner whose shack in Holomisa is adorned with ANC mementos, says Mokgatla is urging people to stay for his own political reasons. ”He doesn’t want the people to go to Amelia and Mooiplaas,” she reasons. ”He wants them to stay here so he can rule over them.”