TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 4

Subsection 9

Invasion of homes

80 The invasion of homes by the police and security forces in house-to-house searches affected families badly. Homes were neither private nor secure and parents were unable to protect their children.

81 The police displayed flagrant disrespect for homes and families in their quest to suppress opposition. Ms Edith Mjobo, whose children were activists in 1985, described the regular invasion of her home at the Gugulethu hearing:

In 1985, the police were after my twins, Zandisele and Zanisele. They were looking all over for them. They would come to my home looking for them and they would be all around the house searching for them, and they would keep the doors with their guns, and my twins would go out of the backdoor and run.

82 The police had a sense of their own omnipotence and sometimes even seemed to view other people’s homes as their own territory. Ms Mjobo told the Commission:

Sometimes they used to come in the morning and they stayed in the house for the whole day ... and my husband couldn’t even go to work because of this.

83 Even families where activists had gone into exile were not free from harassment by the security forces. Mr Leon Meyer was an MK activist who was killed in Lesotho in a South African Defence Force (SADF) cross-border raid in 1985. At the Mdantsane hearing, his brother, Mr Christian Meyer, told the Commission about the harassment his family endured before Leon’s death:

He was definitely regarded as an enemy to the apartheid regime. My late parents’ house was frequently visited and on some occasions searched by the East London Security Branch policemen.

84 After Leon’s exile, “the harassment of my parents, who were both suffering from cancer at the time took on a new dimension”. In 1985, Christian’s mother passed away. Five months later, his brother and sister-in-law were assassinated during the raid in Lesotho.

85 Vigilante attacks also affected entire families. Many of these attacks were conducted in and on people’s homes. Mr Modisi Elias Moyhilwa (see above) testified:

On that very same night, they attacked my aunt’s home and my brother was there. When they were asked what the problem was, they said they were looking for comrades. My aunt never wanted to open the door; she refused. Thereafter they kicked the door. They bored holes into the door. It was no longer a door... when my brother came out, they chopped his head with a panga²⁰ .