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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 3 of Episode 17
| Time | Summary | | | 15:51 | From the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal. The Umlazi Cinema used to be a lot more than a bioscope. Here the community had school concerts, community conferences, meetings, vigils and memorial services. It was during a memorial service for assassinated human rights lawyer, Victoria Mxenge that Inkatha members attacked and killed 15 mourners. The police and the military did nothing to intervene. Nantie Steyn tells the story. | Full Transcript and References | | 16:21 | During August 1985 the townships around Durban were in flames. Umlazi was no exception. Here, on the night of 8 August in the Umlazi Cinema a memorial service was held for Victoria Mxenge. A human rights lawyer and community leader, she was loved and respected until she was shot and hacked to death by four unknown men outside her house a week before. David Gasa knew Victoria and her husband, Griffiths well. | Full Transcript and References | | 16:46 | He was a great man and Victoria Mxenge as well, because they were both attorneys. They were just attorneys of the people. Money was not a first thing to Mrs. Mxenge but her duty was to complete and help that poor somebody, and number two, she thinks about the money. I mean they were very unique, very very, both of them, very very unique. But all of a sudden she was brutally killed by unknown men as the papers are saying. | Full Transcript | | 17:44 | David Gasa was the chairman of the Umlazi residence association at that time and organized a memorial service at the Umlazi Cinema. The cinema was managed by Josiah Dlamini. They told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Durban this week what happened at the prayer service. | Full Transcript | | 17:58 | There were people along the road from the Executive Hotel down to this space. These people were armed; I didn’t know why they were armed. When I came in here I found a crowd of people. // When we gathered there in thousands the police and soldiers were there in hundreds. Now, we didn’t know who called them. And we didn’t know why they are here, because this is just an ordinary memorial service. // We were here, the people noticed that Sabelo was here, the member of the government of Inkatha. He was here, instructing these people to come and bombard us. // The leader of Inkatha came inside the hall with three guns, one this side, one that side and he was holding a big one …came inside the hall and his people were following him. Then they started hitting everybody with knobkieries, their spears, poking. Man, I saw a terrible thing, I saw people dying like flies in front of my eyes. // They hit him, after they hit him, then he tried to stab me inside, and fortunately he could ...more | Full Transcript | | 20:28 | Today the cinema is a bricked up cavern. Bits of glass on the ground recall that there were once windows and doors reflecting the throng of people arriving for an evening’s entertainment or discussion. Now it stands empty as a monument to horror. 15 people died and the police made no attempt to prevent their death. Those that survived to tell the story think perhaps the police and the military have done even worse. | Full Transcript | | 20:53 | No police came to help us in any way, even after the event no one came. // They were deliberately and intentionally giving Inkatha a chance to kill us. | Full Transcript |
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