comrades

Phinias Ndlovu was fifteen years old when he joined the struggle. He and his fellow comrades, consumed by the call to create a people’s war organized protest marches, stay-aways, school boycotts. But part of their fight for freedom meant turning on those they saw as collaborating with the system ...

‘Fighters then, forgotten now: Laaitie comrades of the Cape Flats, Report by Gail Reagon.’ // In Cape Town last week young adults gathered to speak about human rights violations against them as teenagers. Three were partially blinded, victims of random police shootings. This story is about the ...

... me, because he felt I was his political opponent and he actually said at a police station, at the KwaThabela police station that he would allow the comrades, he would let the comrades loose and I might not live on the next ten days. Within ten days they would kill me. Reconciliation is possible, ...

... the new National Defence Force in a democratic South Africa. For these men and women it’s a day of achievement and celebration, but many of their comrades who fought and trained with them in the ANC camps did not return home. Some were killed by the South African security forces. Many died or ...

... plans to undergo plastic surgery so that he would be able to live a new life after his killing orgies, unrecognizable to his victims and former comrades. Later in the programme we look at the question of symbolic rehabilitation of our nation, monuments, walls of remembrance, healing rituals. ...

... or the impimpi tag would decide your fate, often a horrific one. As were the Masupa family in Daveyton, whose house was burnt to ashes after comrades decided that one member, Hendrik Masupa was an informer. Four inhabitants burnt to death and four others were injured. Phinias Ndlovu who ...

... that would probably engineer or facilitate this; the very clergy people were the people in the past whom we find that they were assisting the very comrades who were actually necklacing the councillors and they were actually providing them with attorneys, providing them with finance. Now where ...

While many young men skipped the country during the 1980s many others stayed behind. Sipho Mutsi was one of hundreds of students from the Welkom area detained by police. But unlike most of his comrades Sipho never made it home.

‘Thank you comrades, can we settle down please.’ // The last word however belonged to the workers of COSATU. They were not amused by the apologies, explanations and sometimes fancy footwork of big business.

... versus justice. The need for the truth, white fears and the role of the Truth Commission. On Wednesday night we joined Siphiwo Mtimkulu’s former comrades and friends to debate and discuss these issues. They are all former or current members of the South African Congress of Students of which ...

... the previous night, the 27th of June, 1985 at about 9 pm. You can imagine the shock, and I shivered to think what might had happened to these comrades. I kept the news secret for a while, from all the family, except for one person, my brother-in-law who was planning what to do next. On ...

Now this group of killers left and the Comrades came thereafter. When they arrived they called us all back. They said ‘please come back from your hiding place there …’ I searched all over the shack area for my wife and my child, I couldn’t find them and another person told me that ‘I’ve ...

... will always be a hero. // This week at the Truth Commission it was a mother’s turn to speak of her son who had disappeared. And for his former comrades to remember him. // The picture that I have in my mind is exactly the picture of a promising young leader then, who could have been a ...

... State President FW de Klerk makes his dramatic speech in Parliament, unbanning the liberation movements and the release of Nelson Mandela and his comrades. For the majority of South Africans this meant the beginning of freedom and democracy. To right wing whites it was their worst nightmare ...

... and all those kinds of people. I remember when I first raised the question about necklacing on the death of Maki Skosana everyone who spoke, my comrades, spoke about it as commenting on it. And they made it clear to me, you should stop commenting to condemn, right, because we are not ...

... had no idea what had happened to them, but five weeks after the remains were exhumed the families of Phila Ndwandwe and her ‘Butterfly Unit’ comrades were granted the wish of many families who have appeared before the TRC: the opportunity to reclaim their children’s bones and lay them to ...

... And then what happened was some Boers told people in my organisation they’re not really looking for me, because I was the informer. // And then comrades dealt out their own rough justice. // The first thing that happened, my own brothers hit me over the head with a very heavy object. I still ...

four special constables and myself. // Who gave you the instruction to kill? Was that Major Terreblanche? // Yes the orders came from him that these comrades must be taken out. The whole operation went wrong, where the wrong people became ...

... around the older traditionalist headmen or ‘fathers’ and younger militant activists or Maqabane. The ‘fathers’ controlled Crossroads, the Comrades held the satellite camps. By 1986 the pass laws were scrapped, but at this moment of victory for the township and squatter residents ...

By the 15th of June, 1986 many of the experienced activists were in detention or in the underground. But across the valley a group of young comrades had gathered on a hill to prepare for the next day’s June 16 commemoration. Again the enemy came in the night. When they had finished their job six ...