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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 22
| Time | Summary | | | 12:29 | There’s a story that sums up the reign of the self declared president for life of Venda, the late Patrick Mphephu. When he asked why he wanted his homeland to be independent he said ‘Mangope did it, Kaiser Daliwonga Matanzima did it, why can’t I do it?’ A funny tale about a man with a standard two education who had a simple answer to all opposition: crush it. This week’s Truth Commission hearing in Thohoyandou proved just how well he did it. Human rights abuses in the Bantustans were carried out mainly by its police and army. Tales of severe torture to deaths in detention spanned more than a decade from the late seventies to the early nineties. Jann Turner and Gail Reagon explore why residents called the Venda Bantustan a place of horror. | Full Transcript and References | | 13:18 | The history being told and made by the Truth Commission is not without its ironies. Here in Thohoyandou the Venda came to tell their stories in what was once the Venda homeland’s Parliamentary assembly room. This was the seat of power for the regimes of Mphephu, Ravele and Ramushwana, rulers of the Bantustan from independence in 1979 to reincorporation in 1994. Throughout the seventies and eighties political issues in Venda mirrored the issues current for its big brother, the Republic of South Africa. Black consciousness and the UDF focused above ground opposition, while Venda’s proximity to the borders of Mozambique and Zimbabwe made it an area of semi-underground activity too. This week the Commission heard how the methods used to counter opposition during Patrick Mphephu’s reign also echoed those methods popular amongst the security forces in the Republic. | Full Transcript | | 14:21 | And they said you kidsaround this village like to strike too much. And they said we don’t want to ask any questions any more. And all of them came to me and hit me. The time that they were hitting me, the last person who hit me, the sjambok went into my eye and my eye was splitted. | Full Transcript and References | | 14:54 | In 1976 Simon Farisani became the first black dean of Beuster House, established by white Lutheran missionaries a century before. // The message was simple, that apartheid was seen … it came from the devil and all serious people must pull their resources to support the freedom struggle of our people. This place used to be the heartbeat of that mobilization. // For churchmen like Farisani and his friend Tshifhiwa Muofhe mobilization involved more than hearts and minds. // Now, one time I had gone to Johannesburg to attend a church council meeting. When I came back from that church council meeting, past Phosiwa- who was then director of the church centre, I was dean and director of this church centre - informed me that two or three freedom fighters came here and asked for help. He called pastor Mahamba and they came and discuss with the freedom fighters. The freedom fighters had hidden equipment and ammunition somewhere on the mountains. And they wanted the pastors here to use the ...more | Full Transcript and References | | 16:34 | In the course of 1981 there were a series of bomb explosions all over the republic. The ANC soldiers were operating from Pietersburg to Cape Town. Venda was one route into and out of the republic. But MK didn’t see the homeland as merely a safe corridor. In October 1981 guerrillas hit the Sibasa station in the heart of the Bantustan capital itself. Three policemen died in the attack. When someone informed the police that the bombers had been harboured by the local church their reaction was wide reaching and harsh. | Full Transcript | | 17:13 | I remember two days before that fateful day my wife and I and another couple were driving to Natal where I was going to address a graduation function at the Lutheran Theological College. And on our way out we got word that Ike had been detained the night before. We thought it was one of those detentions that would not end up in Tshifhiwa’s death. Next day in the morning, Saturday, just before I went to deliver the graduation lecture I got a call from pastor Mahamba telling me that they got a reliable report from a doctor who came to inform the family that Ike had died. It was after his death that many more people were detained including myself. The security police came and it was my turn. They collected me and the first question they raised in that security police car was: if we had not come to detain you what kind of dangerous sermon were you going to preach at Tshifhiwa’s funeral. Of course that was a funeral I would never attend. | Full Transcript | | 18:42 | Vendaland was ideal guerrilla territory, close to the border countries friendly to the ANC and PAC. Mountainous and clustered with orchards of bananas and avocadoes. But it was the support of Vendaland’s people that made the difference for liberation armies. Willie Mudau, a former black consciousness and church activist, was one such person. // This is the room where those guys used to sleep. At this stage, it’s now demolished because we now have a new structure. My mother here used to cook for those guys for a period of 2 weeks or so and it was not only once. When things were bad we used to come and hide here and when other guys were being hunted down by the security police, we’d come and accommodate them here and when other guys come from outside - then, according to the terminology of the system, terrorists, in our language freedom fighters – when they come in from their mission, we’d hide them for a day or two or for whatever period was needed. | Full Transcript | | 19:55 | As members of the community slipped into more covert forms of resistance the Venda regime switched to open terror. Ntshundena Tshivasi’s husband Mugivhela Tshivhasi was beaten to death in detention. He was accused of storing arms at his farm. Mafhungu Denga lost his mind after severe torture which included being fed food mixed with faeces. He was accused of harboring terrorists. Mubvathi Radamba spent a 108 days in solitary confinement. His prison, a corrugated shack. His crime, which he confessed to, giving food to MK soldiers. | Full Transcript and References | | 20:39 | Reverend Simon Farisani had some explanation for the support the Venda community gave to the liberation armies. // Many of them did operate in this area. It was hospitable, people accommodated them. There were few instances where they were reported to the security forces. But generally people harbored them, people covered them, people fed them, people looked after them, because they shared the same goal. The only dividing thing was the fear, the harsh consequences that came to one if one was found to be involved in that kind of activity. As far as I know no pastor was directly involved in that. But the fact that we knew about movement of freedom fighters, occasionally they got help from the clergy in this area, that made us very very unpopular with the regime of the day. More so because they thought our gospel, the kind of message we preached in the churches, sort of fertilized this area for the activities of the liberation struggle. But our defence as a church, as Christians, were ...more | Full Transcript |
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