DUNCAN, A

This episode focuses on the HRV Committee hearings held in Klerksdorp (23 to 26 September) and in Duncan Village (23 and 24 September). The latter focuses on the August 1985 Duncan Village massacre - when a wave of violence and clashes with security forces hit the region, following the funeral of ...

... Africa. But people refused to be put down. By August many townships were virtual no-go zones for the security forces. On the edge of East London, Duncan Village was simmering. The assassination of community leader and human rights leader, Victoria Mxenge was the spark that ignited a Powder Keg ...

‘State of emergency’. Three simple words that recall bitter memories in South Africa. This week East London’s Duncan’s Village relived the 14 days of war between residents and security forces after the declaration of the 1985 state of emergency. In tonight’s programme we’ll show you the ...

Monday August 12. The anger of the mourners sparked further outbursts all over the township. The revolt gained a momentum of its own that outstripped attempts by leaders to control it. // Most people were killed around the place where there’s Gombo community hall. There was a bottle store in that ...

The Duncan Village massacre,

Ten years ago Nomasonto Khumalo lived here in Duncan Village with her mother, Vuyelwa her older sister Nomakasasana and their two children. This week, after the commissioner had heard the story of the Duncan Village massacre unfold Nomasonto told a different tale of sorrow. She lost her mother and ...

When Tuesday dawned the death toll was almost 10, the battle was now at its height with the Duncan villagers pitting their sticks and stones and burning barricades against the tanks and guns of the security forces. // It was on 13 August. I was sitting outside my place with my girlfriend reading a ...

On each day of the war in Duncan Village there are new casualties. They land up at Frere Hospital where most find themselves victims again. They are under constant army guard, soldiers have access to their medical files; sometimes they get the wrong medical treatment. Noretsi Joyce Wili loses her ...

Summing up at the end of two days of submissions. Commissioner Bongani Finca requested that the officers in charge of those police and soldiers come to the TRC with an explanation of their actions during that terrible August in 1985.

... ill-disciplined youths who regarded anyone who did not toe the line as the enemy. // That time there was a misunderstanding between the youth in Duncan Village. So say they want to do something bad and you sort of ask them not to do it or stopping them they think you have AZAPO ideas and they ...

I was actually leaving for Germany on the day when the Commissioners were announced and Sheena Duncan actually phoned me to tell me and shoe! It was incredibly exciting because for me I think that you have law, you have the whole question of jurisprudence, but law doesn’t often bring justice and ...

At the end of the testimony on Duncan Village Truth Commissioner Bongani Finca insisted that those who treated victims of the massacre appear before the Truth Commission. We’ve all heard of the shameful role doctors have played in the deaths of activists like Steve Biko. But it is only now as the ...

black violence. The Truth Commission resumes its hearings this coming week with a sitting of the Human Rights Violations Committee in Klerksdorp and Duncan Village in East London. And our appointment with you is next Sunday evening at quarter to seven. ...

soldiers? // I think the nurses were scared of the soldiers also. They were just asking people concerning their injuries whether they got injured at Duncan Village or wherever. But I didn’t tell them, because all the people who were there were under the guard of the soldiers and after that ...

Sunday August 11th 1985. Residents of Duncan Village township in East London travelled in busloads to the funeral of Victoria Mxenge. // Victoria Mxenge and other leaders, even her late husband Griffiths Mxenge, meant a lot because they knew we were oppressed by the government of the day. We were ...

... lawyers based in Durban, but home for them was the Eastern Cape. During their short lives they worked with and for impoverished communities like Duncan Village. Griffiths was eliminated in 1981by security policemen Dirk Coetzee and Joe Mamasela. Victoria was assassinated four years after her ...

We came back from that funeral and we could see what was happening. We had councillors here in Duncan Village that we didn’t like. They were selling us out to the whites by arranging our removal to Mdantsane. At the same time they kept raising our rents. So when we came back from that funeral we ...