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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 60
| Time | Summary | | | 16:12 | The Caprivi group hearings continue tomorrow and we will again have a full report the week after next, but we stay in KwaZulu-Natal for our next report. During the past 18 months the families of missing anti-apartheid activists have urged the Truth Commission to uncover the truth about the disappearances. Were they dead or alive? If they’re dead, who killed them and where are their remains? Pieces of the grizzly puzzle are slowly falling into place as police killers confess to the murders in their amnesty applications and lead the Truth Commission to the secret graves. On Wednesday this week we accompanied a small team of Truth Commission investigators in their search for yet another grave, this time to Ixopo as they search for the remains of missing ANC member Blessing Ninela. | Full Transcript and References | | 17:07 | It was not the first time that TRC investigators had to dig for the truth in the killing fields of KwaZulu-Natal. The first secret graves of murdered anti-apartheid activists were discovered on the Elandskop Dairy farm near Pietermaritzburg in March this year. The skeletal remains of Bheki Mkwamasi, Mbova Mzimela and Phila Ndwandwe were discovered in unmarked graves; all of them were members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe cell, the ‘Butterfly Unit.’ They’d all been murdered by policemen in 1988. For years their families 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 rest with love and dignity. Wednesday this week TRC investigators searched for the remains of ANC activist Blessing Ninela after the amnesty applications of notorious security ...more | Full Transcript and References | | 18:34 | Like Phila Ndwandwe, Ninela was also a member of MK’s ‘Butterfly Unit.’ He too was kidnapped, tortured and slain by security branch members in 1988. // He was abducted with the aid of askaris and then taken to the Bulwer area where he was shot at a railway line and his body was then blown up and specifically his hands and face were blown off thereby making it impossible to identify him. He was then given a pauper’s burial. | Full Transcript and References | | 19:08 | Another reason that Ninela’s security branch killers blew his body to pieces with a limpet mine was to create the impression that he’d kill himself while trying to blow up the railway track, here at Bulwer station. At the time the deceased was found at Bulwer, a thorough investigation was launched by the police in the belief that in fact a terrorist was blowing up the railway line. As a result, a number of photographs were taken, including photographs of the deceased and his clothing etcetera. | Full Transcript | | 19:35 | As the exhumation gets underway the photographs and post mortem report provide vital clues in the search for Ninela’s grave. State pathologist doctor Sagran …Aha and the TRC investigators know that the skeletal remains they’re looking for will have no left arm, no hands, a shattered skull, badly torn clothes. The digging goes on for hours as one unmarked grave after the other is opened and inspected. The Ninela family watch and wait patiently. After inspecting nine graves there’s still no sign of the young activist’s remains. TRC investigators are ready to call it a day. Then they decide to open a tenth grave. // …our man I think, are we going to take this thing out intact? // Finally, after six hours of digging and more than eight years of waiting Blessing Ninela’s relatives are confident that they finally uncovered the truth. Like pieces of a puzzle found in this anonymous grave they immediately recognize bits of Ninela’s hair, his soiled shirt, his torn sheepskin ...more | Full Transcript | | 21:27 | Everything is according to the description on the picture, so based on that I think they can stop the digging. // The clothing seems to have been damaged in a way which would be consistent with the injuries that the deceased sustained. // Send it to ballistics and test for any trace of … // Getting his remains is the most important thing for us. We’re still going through … it’s not an easy thing, that I can say, so we’re still going through the whole thing. | Full Transcript | | 22:05 | Blessing Ninela’s family will soon reclaim his remains and give him a dignified burial but for numerous other families of murdered or missing activists there are still many mysteries to unravel, many skeletons still buried in the pages of policemen’s amnesty applications, haunting questions about South Africa’s past. Just how many graves, how many skulls, how many dark secrets are still waiting to be unearthed from this country’s unmarked graves or so-called death farms? | Full Transcript |
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