TRC Final Report

Volume 6

Section 4

Chapter 1

Subsection 5

ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES

43. Enforced disappearances include persons last seen in the custody of the security forces, as well as those forcibly and unlawfully abducted by other known or unknown parties.

44. Sixty-four people who were last known to have been in the custody of the security forces remain missing. While the majority of these disappearances occurred during the 1980s, twenty-two disappeared between 1960 and 1979 and nine went missing in the 1990s.

45. A number of these disappearances appear to have been Security Branch abduction operations, targeting specific individuals believed to have been members of the African National Congress (ANC) or Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) both inside and outside South Africa. The case of Moss Morudu (described above) is an example of such an abduction.

46. A similar abduction operation involved members of the Orange Free State Security Branch. MK operatives Joyce Koekanyetswe ‘Betty’ Boom [KZN/JRW/051/BL], Nomasonto Mashiya and Tax Sejaname – all based in Lesotho – disappeared in December 1986. Unknown persons delivered the infant of Ms Mashiya to the home of her parents in the Orange Free State at about that time. In early 1987, another MK operative, Mbulelo Ngono [EC0330/96PLZ], was forcibly abducted from Maseru. Three members of the Orange Free State Security Branch, based at Ladybrand, applied for amnesty for the abduction of the ‘Ladybrand Four’, but claimed that they had all had been recruited as sources and had disappeared after being returned to Lesotho.⁵ This version was strongly contested by the families, who pointed out that none of the four has been seen since their abduction.

47. Another pattern that emerged was the disappearance of persons formally arrested or detained by the Security Branch or other arms of the South African Police (SAP). One example of this is the disappearance of four Zimbabwean citizens: Mr December Ncube [JB00303/01GTSOW], Mr Mncedisi Helper Nkiwane [JB02648/01GTSOW], Mr Mac Makathini Ncube [JB04064/01GTSOW] and Mr Gideon Ncube [JB02408/01GTSOW]. The Commission came to the conclusion that they were probably apprehended and detained in Johannesburg in the late 1970s. The four are believed to have been part of a group of eighteen Zimbabwean citizens – members or supporters of ZAPU⁶ who were working in South Africa at the time.

48. Another such disappearance is that of Ms Nombulelo Thelma Nkosi [JB00175/01ERKAT]. Ms Nkosi, who was detained several times between 1976 and 1984, was taken into custody after police surrounded her home in Sebokeng on the West Rand at 03h00 one morning. She has not been seen since.

49. While the above were all known activists and specifically targeted by the Security Branch, a number of people went missing after being arrested during township unrest. These include Mr Ndlanganyana Mvunyisa [EC1794/97ETK], Mr Maqhilane Solomase Nodosha [EC2064/97ETK] and Mr Mhletywa Silangwe [EC2152/97ETK], who were arrested during the 1960 Pondoland revolt and were never seen again. The Commission received a number of statements from victims who were arrested and severely tortured during the Pondoland revolt.⁷

50. Similarly, Mr Ramatua Nicholas ‘Boikie’ Thlapi [JB01185/03NW, JB0118/03NW, JB01187/03NW, JB01452/03NW] disappeared following his arrest in 1986. ‘Boikie’ Tlhapi and his friends left Ikageng near Potchefstroom on 20 March 1986 to attend a funeral wake in Klerksdorp for those killed by police during unrest. The group was a r rested at a roadblock and taken to Stilfontein, where they were allegedly subjected to beating and electric shock torture. One of those arrested later told Mr Thlapi (Snr) that he had last seen ‘Boikie’ lying on the floor of a cell, bleeding from the mouth and nose. Police later conceded that ‘Boikie’ Thlapi had been arrested, but claimed that he had been released. Despite extensive investigations by, amongst others, the Independent Board of Inquiry and Lawyers for Human Rights, as well as an inquest hearing, the fate of ‘Boikie’ Thlapi remains unknown. None of the police officers involved in his arrest and detention applied for amnesty. The facts of this particular case warrant a new investigation and possibly future prosecutions.

51. A number of amnesty applications from security force members confirm the above patterns. For example, security force members sought amnesty for no fewer than eighty specified abductions, four of which were among the sixty-four persons listed as still missing following arrest or abduction by the security forces.⁸ Of the eighty abductions specified by amnesty applicants, some forty were MK operatives, of whom twenty-one were killed. The fate of eight remains unknown (including Moss Morodu and the ‘Ladybrand Four’), while possibly six or seven were recruited by the Security Branch. All those recruited worked as askaris for the Security Branch and were based inside South Africa. Not one was re turned to the ANC following their abduction and recruitment, as was claimed in the case of the ‘Ladybrand Four’.

52. Another pattern that emerged from the amnesty applications was the killing of detainees whom the Security Branch did not wish to release, but had insufficient evidence to bring before the courts; or the disposal of bodies of detainees who had died as a consequence of torture .⁹ In several of these cases, the Security Branch had signed release papers to suggest that they were not responsible for the disappearance,¹⁰ or, as in the case of Maisha Stanza Bopape,¹¹ had claimed that the detainee had escaped.

DISAPPEARANCES THROUGH THE INSTANCE OF OTHER PARTIES

53. Forty-nine persons remain missing following their abduction by members of rival political organisations or unknown persons. The overwhelming majority of these disappearances (75%) took place in areas of KwaZulu /Natal during the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s; and to a lesser degree in the PWV¹² area (22%) during the early 1990s. Most of these disappearances related to the ongoing conflict between the UDF/ANC and IFP in these regions – a conflict the Commission has proved was fuelled by the former apartheid government . Fourteen per cent of missing persons in this category were female and, where political affiliation was specified, 19 per cent belonged to or were supporters of the IFP. This is higher than the proportion of female or IFP supporters in the overall disappearance category.

54. The following are some examples of these abductions.

55. Mr Eric Khumalo [KZN/ZJ/042/DN] lived in an area of Shongweni, Pietermaritzburg, that was deemed to be a UDF area. In February 1987, he went to collect his matriculation results from school. In order to get there, he had to pass through an Inkatha stronghold. He was abducted by a named IFP member and not seen again. The KZP, in whose jurisdiction Shongweni fell, provided no assistance in searching for him. Although the family eventually reported the case and the SAP in Pietermaritzburg conducted a search, the investigation yielded no results. His family appealed for the Commission to find ‘even just a bone’ of Eric Khumalo.

56. UDF supporters abducted Mr Petros Nqobile Mazibuko [KZN/NN/106/PM] inChurch Street, Pietermaritzburg, on 28 April 1990. He was suspected of defecting to Inkatha. His girlfriend witnessed Mazibuko getting into the car of some UDF supporters. Later the same men returned his clothing to his girlfriend and told her that they had ‘killed a dog’.

57. Mr Nzimande [KZN/NN/253/PM] told the Commission that IFP members who were waging a war on him attacked his home at Landskop, Pietermaritzburg . His two wives and a daughter were killed and his four-day-old baby was abducted.

58. A small number of disappearances in this category involved abductions by persons involved in street justice or people’s courts initiatives. Included in these are the disappearances of three youths, Lolo Sono [JB00188/01GTSOW], Sibusiso Shabalala [JB00189/01GTSOW] and Kuki Zwane [JB05784/01GTSOW] in Soweto in November and December 1988. The three were last known to be in the custody of the Mandela United Football Club and/or Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.