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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 43
| Time | Summary | | | 05:56 | It was the late 1980s and in the burning townships the battle lines had been drawn: you’re ally or enemy. In this culture the young lions ruled the terrain, you displayed your colours clearly, 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 has spent time on death row for these killings is now asking for amnesty for what he argues was politically motivated murder. | Full Transcript and References | | 06:38 | 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 they were fighting. People’s courts and necklacing became a shameful part of the cause of the comrades. In July 1987 Phinias and five other members of the Daveyton Youth Congress burned down the Masupa family home, because they thought that one of its members, Hendrik Masupa was an informer. | Full Transcript and References | | 07:25 | We decided that it was time that we taught Hendrik a public lesson, that first he cannot live with us and yet work for the other side. It is then that we decided to go and purchase fuel and we came back with that fuel. And as it was the culture then we decided to go and burn down where he laid his head, meaning his home. | Full Transcript | | 08:00 | Four people were burnt to death and four others were badly injured. // Our intention was to burn down the house, but however things didn’t go as we anticipated and as a result of our actions people died, but never there was any agreement between us to kill anyone on that sad day. It was never our intention to kill. | Full Transcript | | 08:30 | The six young men got life sentences for these gruesome deaths. Phineas spent two years on death row before his sentence was changed to 18 years imprisonment. This week he asked for amnesty in a bid to start a new life. // I’m sorry it ever happened. I can’t sleep ever since, there is something in my conscience that says, but the cause was just, but in the process people lost their lives. I cannot walk up tall with my head high. Whatever achievements I have, there’s still something hanging in my back and I ask of you to please, please consider forgiving me. Asking forgiveness from you would be something else, but I here now plead with you. I know it’s difficult, but I plead with you to please consider forgiving me. // I will never forgive Mr. Ndlovu. If it were possible for him to raise my dead sisters I would forgive him, but I’m not in a position to forgive him now. // I would have forgiven Ndlovu, if when he rendered his testimony he told the truth, but he gave such a ...more | Full Transcript | | 10:33 | Forgiveness does not come easy, neither does freedom. For Phineas, this amnesty application is a last attempt to walk free. All of his co-accused has been released on the basis of indemnity agreements between the former government and the ANC. The only reason why he is still in prison is because of an administrative error. When Phineas returned to his prison home at Leeukop, Medium C he was less concerned about his freedom than he was about a sense of justice. He wants South Africans to accept that people like him had played a necessary part in the war that had engulfed the country. | Full Transcript | | 11:15 | There has been this concept rather, that has been created in our people’s mind that the war that we were fighting had rules, the war was pure, and it was a war that was … in the end, there’ll be no loss of life, it would be an easy war. And that concept has destroyed to a large extend the pride and heritage that people like ourselves took up arms against the regime. I was a kid then, but I could understand what was happening. I lived there, I felt it. And when it happened I was there. So, I cannot raise my head high today and tell you that I was a comrade during this and this era. You know today people who are benefiters of our actions are the people on top there and they are looking down on us, as criminals, hoodlums, whatever term they want to choose, tsotsi or what have you, it suits them, and it suits their position. | Full Transcript |
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