TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 5

Subsection 52

Mass Campaign against the Lingelethu West Town Council

341 On 4 August, a mass march by several thousand residents called for the immediate resignation of all town councillors and presented the town clerk with a memorandum. Police opened fire on the demonstrators with shotguns, tear gas and rubber bullets.

342 Shortly afterwards, two actions were taken that were directly contrary to the demands of the memorandum. Firstly, Khayelitsha was given full city council status by the Cape Provincial Administration (CPA), becoming the first Black Local Authority in the Western Cape. This action further entrenched the permanent status of the Lingelethu West Town Council at a time when its legitimacy was being fundamentally challenged. Secondly, having been granted legal city status, the town clerk was now able to levy service fees for the first time. A retrospective service charge, constituting a 100 per cent increase on the amounts paid earlier, was imposed on all Khayelitsha residents and sparked fury. A rent and bond boycott was called for, and the housing offices of the Lingelethu West Town Council were torched by arsonists.

343 On 18 October, Ms Nomsa Mapongwana, the wife of civic chairperson Mr Michael Mapongwana, was killed in a night-time attack on their home. The house had allegedly been circled repeatedly by councillors in a LW vehicle and police the previous day.⁴⁹

At approximately 12h30 they awoke to the sounds of shots being fired from the front and back windows of their bedroom. Petrol bombs were thrown through the windows and the furniture started to burn. Mr Mapongwana dragged his children and wife into the kitchen where they sheltered under a table until the shooting stopped. Mr Mapongwana then found that his wife was dead.

344 According to an Urban Monitoring and Awareness Committee (UMAC) report, neighbours had apparently seen four balaclava-clad men run from the burning house and jump over the back fence, from where they escaped in a white combi. A man who worked at the Lingelethu West council vehicle depot reported that a Lingelethu West security guard had delivered a Lingelethu West minibus to the depot at 04h00 on 18 October and told the person concerned to put number plates on the vehicle. The UMAC report concludes:

In view of the repeated threats by Lingelethu West councillors to Mr Mapongwana, the unsuccessful attempt by three councillors to assassinate him in March 1990, and the threatening behaviour of a group of councillors and police on the night before the attack, UMAC strongly suspects that the assassination attempt on Mr Mapongwana and the resultant murder of his wife are the work of Lingelethu West councillors. 19/10/90’ ⁵⁰

345 Despite these attacks, Michael Mapongwana was charged with possession of an illegal firearm. He himself was subsequently shot dead on 31 July 1991 while returning from court for these charges (see below).

346 The killing of Ms Nomsa Mapongwana precipitated furious outrage in Khayelitsha. A mass protest march to the Lingelethu West offices was planned for 25 October. The night before the march, the Lingelethu West offices were damaged in an explosion.

March against the Lingelethu West Town Council, 25 October 1990

347 The march of 20 000 people on 25 October was kept waiting for permission, which was denied. Defiant marchers regrouped repeatedly under fire while lengthy negotiations between police commander Brigadier Frik Kellerman, Riot Unit head Chris Loedolff and civil-rights lawyer Mr Dullah Omar took place. It was decided to call off the morning march.

348 The march broke into sub-groups as it dispersed. By the end of the day, at least eight people were dead and up to eighty wounded. Some of the sub-groups were fired on by police, killing at least three people. Sporadic incidents occurred throughout the day in which at least another five people were killed. In several of the incidents, it was alleged that balaclava-clad men in a vehicle had opened fire indiscriminately at people on the street. Those killed that day included Mr Manityi Madoda, Mr Petrus Molefane, Mr Mthetheleli Mtitshana, Mr Themba Sokutu, Mr Phumzile Nyindeni, Mr Nomkhayelo Khwaza [CT01312] and Mr Lundi Gaga. Before he died of his wounds, a thirteen year-old-boy told a journalist that he had been shot by an unknown gunmen wearing balaclavas who had fired at him from a passing car. Mr Mpumelelo Manityi Dyantyi [CT03708] was shot and killed and his brother Melford shot and wounded in Site C by three men including Lingelethu West councillor Michael Gubayo, who allegedly told them to get off the streets and then shot them. The vehicles and residences of police personnel were also attacked.

349 On 1 November, Minister of Law and Order Mr Adriaan Vlok declared Khayelitsha an unrest area and placed it under curfew. After these events, UMAC and Democratic Party MP Jan van Eck sent an extensive dossier to Mr FW de Klerk, detailing abuses by members of the Lingelethu West town council. Van Eck, who had played a prominent role in highlighting the activities of the Lingelethu West town council and the police in Khayelitsha, was then banned from entering the area for several weeks.

Attacks on town councillors and Lingelethu West staff

350 In the wake of the murder of Ms Nomsa Mapongwana, several staff and councillors of the Lingelethu West council were attacked. A senior Lingelethu West administration official Mr Harold Ntlangwina was abducted from his home, tried by a ‘kangaroo court’ and ‘found guilty’ of murdering Ms Mapongwana. He was hacked to death and set alight, after he allegedly produced a hit list of twenty local activists headed by Michael Mapongwana. In an apparent counter-attack, men in a councillor’s vehicle shot at and killed a member of a community patrol, killing Mr Rogers Ngxumza.

351 In other incidents, a number of Lingelethu West council employees were injured in a petrol bomb attack on their vehicle on 15 November; another employee, Mr Wiseman Mdube, was ambushed and shot dead while driving in Site C, and town clerk Graham Lawrence received death threats and was placed under police protection. On 1 December, councillor Mr Alfred Nqoboka was chased and stabbed to death, though newspaper reports expressed uncertainty if the killing was politically motivated.

352 After 1990, this period of public revolt and open conflict between the liberation movements and the Lingelethu West town councillors subsided into persistent skirmishes between the groups and more covert forms of attack.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT MEMBERS OF THE LINGELETHU WEST TOWN COUNCIL WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING A CLIMATE IN WHICH ATTACKS ON MEMBERS OF THE LIBERATION ORGANISATIONS TOOK PLACE, IN AN EFFORT TO RETAIN THEIR POSITIONS. IN PARTICULAR, THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE KILLING OF MS NOMSA MAPONGWANA TOOK PLACE IN THE CONTEXT OF AN ATTEMPT TO KILL HER HUSBAND MICHAEL, AND THAT THIS WAS DONE BY INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED WITH THE LINGELETHU WEST TOWN COUNCIL. THE ABSENCE OF CONVICTIONS FOR THESE ATTACKS CONTRIBUTED TO A CULTURE OF IMPUNITY AND LAWLESSNESS IN KHAYELITSHA. THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE IMPOSITION OF INCREASED LEVIES AND THE GRANTING OF TOWN STATUS TO KHAYELITSHA IN 1990 WAS A SIGNIFICANT CATALYST FOR THE OCTOBER CONFLICTS.

THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT THE MILITANT CAMPAIGN ADOPTED BY THE ANC AGAINST THE LINGELETHU WEST TOWN COUNCIL CONTRIBUTED TO THE ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE. THE FAILURE OF THE ANC TO DISTANCE ITSELF FROM OR TO CONDEMN ARSON AND PHYSICAL ATTACKS ON INDIVIDUALS AND PROPERTY ASSOCIATED WITH THE LINGELETHU WEST TOWN COUNCIL, CREATED A CLIMATE THAT ENCOURAGED AND ALLOWED SUCH ACTIONS.