TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 3

Subsection 23

The Killing of Philemon Khanyile

Chesterville community leader Philemon Khanyile was stoned and burnt to death in his car by an angry crowd of residents when he attended the funeral of Mr Harrison Dube. The crowd had been led to believe that he was a police informer. Khanyile was a member of JORAC and a teacher at the Chesterville High School.

Bennetts told the Commission that the Riot Unit had deliberately framed Khanyile as an informer. Bennetts and a colleague had visited Khanyile’s sister and handed her an envelope containing R500 in cash, which they asked her to give to her brother.

146 According to Bennetts, this tactic was used on numerous occasions. Another tactic used by Riot Unit members was to pick up an activist, keep him for half an hour, and then take him along to uncover a firearm they already knew about. This would be done in full view of the community. The Riot Unit members would then release the activist, who would in all probability be labelled as an informer and possibly be killed. Bennetts admitted at his section 29 hearing that “a hell of a lot”, “a couple of hundred” people had been framed in this manner, and that “quite a few” had died as a result: “I’d say about five. But a lot just vanished, never to be seen again.”

The Killing of the Mdluli Family

On 8 January 1987, the A-Team petrol-bombed and burnt down a number of houses belonging to UDF supporters. Mr Musa Mdluli [KZN/GW/006/DN; KZN/SELF/113/DN], a Chesterville resident, was at work when he received a phone call telling him that members of the A-Team were attacking his house. He rushed home to find his five children inside the burning house. One of them (Nokwazi, aged twenty-five years) was already dead. Three other children died in hospital. They were Bongi (5), Brenda (2) and Sithabile (6 months). A-Team member Bheki Mdlalose was sentenced to twenty-seven years’ imprisonment for his part in the attack (Durban hearing).

147 Bennetts said that, in 1987-88, some members of the A-Team moved out of Chesterville and operated from a house in Umlazi and Ntuzuma. The Riot Unit would escort them into Chesterville, where they would carry out a ‘hit’, after which they would be escorted out again. The community came to fear and hate the Riot Unit because of its demonstrated partiality towards the A-Team. Bennetts told the Commission:

We were shot at on a regular basis. We had wires put up, telephone wires, washing-line wires put up just at the perfect height that an oke [guy] could come round a corner and take a shot at the police van. Jump out and chase him. He runs round the corner. He knows where the wire is. He put it there. He would duck and take you out in the throat. I had soldiers there with throats almost cut off with wires.

It became a war in Chesterville, if I can call it that, involving numerous little parties, no one actually maintaining some sort of control as to what was going on. You had the UDF/ANC conflict on the go. You had the police – the Riot Unit in there and the army. I’m talking about your – just your down to earth, uniformed guy who was there to go and patrol. They were getting shot at on a regular basis. Every road in that location basically, bar [Road] Two, is a dead-end road. Drive in there some time and try and turn a row of two or three Casspirs around. Guarantee you’ve got things thrown at you.

The situation for us as the members working inside there came to the point there when you went to work tonight you didn’t know whether you were going home tomorrow. You just had no idea … We became hardened to the extent that eventually it just didn’t matter whether that person burning lived or died. It didn’t matter what side he was on. My interest there was to go home tomorrow morning and that was it.

148 In KwaMashu, the AmaSinyora gang, a group of Inkatha-supporting vigilantes based in K Section, KwaMashu, north of Durban, was set up in 1987 to oppose UDF-aligned activists in the township. The gang was allegedly responsible for attacks on many non-aligned residents of the township and was described as carrying out a reign of terror from the late 1908s through to 1991, resurfacing temporarily in 1994.

149 In 1991, one of the founder members of the AmaSinyora gang, Mr Bheki Mvubu, made an affidavit to the LRC in which he implicated himself in burning at least eight to ten houses and in participating in attacks in which about forty UDF supporters were killed. All these took place in KwaMashu K Section. During house raids, the relatives of UDF supporters were sometimes killed. Another founder member, Mr Dumisani Zondo, a member of the SADF, allegedly assisted in training the gang members and supplying weapons and ammunition.

150 According to information handed to the Commission, the group was supported by the KZP stationed at KwaMashu. Detective Zondi, now deceased, of the KwaMashu KZP, was the father of one of the AmaSinyora members and allegedly kept the group informed of complaints laid against them at KwaMashu police station. Another KwaMashu KZP member, Mr Khetha Shange, also worked with the AmaSinyora, providing them with bullets and occasionally joining in attacks.

151 According to Bheki Mvubu, in 1988 the AmaSinyora gang was introduced to Lindelani IFP leader Thomas Shabalala (see below), who supplied them with three shotguns and several boxes of bullets and praised their activities. They met with him several times to request money, guns and ammunition.

152 In January 1988, the AmaSinyora began collecting ‘protection money’ from residents of K Section. The gang began reporting to the local councillor and Inkatha chairman in K-Section, Mr Zwane, who took control of the ‘protection money’.

153 According to Mvubu, the KZP stopped charging the AmaSinyora members for killings or other criminal activities once they joined Inkatha. For example, Mvubu was arrested after killing a young UDF supporter by the name of Jomo in mid-1989. He and a few others were still standing around the corpse when the KZP arrived. They were all arrested and taken to the police station, where they denied the killing. They were released after about four hours and dropped off in K Section.

154 The LRC received affidavits from up to twenty KwaMashu residents in which allegations of serious criminal activity were made against the AmaSinyora and the KZP. The LRC noted:

As a result of the perceived bias and non-responsive attitude of the KZP, most victims of AmaSinyora attacks have stopped reporting incidents to the KZP. On several occasions, K Section residents have attempted to secure the assistance of the SAP, either in the form of immediate protection or investigative action and arrests. Invariably the SAP have refused all requests on the basis that as KwaMashu falls in KwaZulu, the SAP have no jurisdiction to operate in the area.²⁸

155 Mvubu said that, to his knowledge, no AmaSinyora members were convicted as a result of KZP investigations. In July 1990, a joint SAP–KZP investigation team launched an investigation into the activities of the AmaSinyora, which resulted in a few arrests and convictions.

156 According to the LRC and the Human Rights Commission²⁹, the AmaSinyora were implicated in 291 attacks in 1989–90, including approximately 100 killings. During the same period, approximately 400 homes in K Section were abandoned.

157 During 1989, the AmaSinyora joined up with one Mr Shozi, an Inkatha leader from Z Section, Umlazi, who allegedly provided them with weapons from time to time and used some of the stronger AmaSinyora members to fight for him in Umlazi, transporting them in his vehicle and accommodating them in his Umlazi home.

158 The term ‘warlord’ first came into common currency in the late eighties as an analytical, though initially pejorative, description of a number of ‘vigilante’ and Inkatha leaders who had risen to prominence in the growing party conflict in the province. It is believed that the appellation was first used by academics involved in unrest monitoring, and was soon taken up by the media. This suggests that the term strove to denote something more than simply a leader in violent activities, seeking to describe the nature of the relationship of such leaders to other forces in society.

159 In the KwaZulu-Natal context, a warlord is a powerful local leader who gets and keeps political power in an area by paramilitary or military force and who has an ambiguous or only nominal allegiance to a higher authority. During the period under review, this authority was usually Inkatha but also, in a sense, the police, who represented the central government and demonstrated its tolerance of such unofficial local or district ‘government’. The warlord tends to gather a group of professional strong-arm men around him and pay for their services by extracting fees, fines and protection money from the local populace. Though self-interest and the acquisition of personal wealth often play a strong role in the seizure or maintenance of the warlord’s power, political allegiance plays a significant role in his rise to power.

160 The Commission heard that some ANC leaders also behaved in a warlord-like way. Mr Harry Gwala, the Natal Midlands ANC leader, gained considerable notoriety as a warlord, though he did not derive particular material benefit from his position of authority. Gwala’s popularity with the militant ANC youth in the area derived from the uncompromisingly aggressive line he took towards Inkatha leaders and members. At an ANC rally in April 1992, Gwala said he would not discourage people from attacking IFP warlords: “Make no mistake”, he said, “we will kill [Inkatha] warlords”.³⁰

161 Gwala gathered around himself a group of ‘strongmen’ who intimidated and threatened people who clashed with him within the ANC and SACP. On occasion, he ordered assassinations, though they were not always carried out³¹. He had the charisma associated with warlords and his confrontational leadership style resonated with ANC supporters in the Natal Midlands who had borne the brunt of Inkatha and police attacks for years.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT MR HARRY GWALA, NOW DECEASED, FUNCTIONED AS A SELFSTYLED ANC WARLORD IN THE GREATER PIETERMARITZBURG AREA, AND THAT HE ESTABLISHED SELF-DEFENCE UNITS IN THE AREA UNDER HIS CONTROL. GWALA’S POLICIES AND PUBLIC UTTERANCES ACTIVELY FACILITATED A CLIMATE IN WHICH GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS COULD TAKE PLACE. THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT IN CALLING FOR THE KILLING OF PERSONS OPPOSED TO THE ANC, GWALA INCITED HIS SUPPORTERS TO COMMIT GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, INCLUDING KILLING, ATTEMPTED KILLING, SEVERE ILL-TREATMENT AND ARSON, FOR WHICH HE IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THE ANC CONSISTENTLY FAILED TO REPROACH, DISCIPLINE OR EXPEL GWALA FROM ITS RANKS, AND THEREBY ENCOURAGED A CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY WITHIN WHICH GWALA CONTINUED TO OPERATE. TO THIS EXTENT, THE ANC IS ALSO HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED VIOLATIONS.