TRC Final Report

Volume 5

Chapter 9

Subsection 7

Exoneration

29 A particularly complex healing process is involved in restoring trust where someone has been falsely accused of being a spy or an informer. In a number of cases, the Commission helped to restore the dignity of those who were thus falsely accused. This is illustrated by the testimony of Ms Evelina Puleng Moloko on the ‘necklacing’ of her sister, Maki Skosana, after the latter was suspected of being involved in the killing of a number of youths when booby-trapped hand grenades blew up in their hands. Ms Moloko told her story at the Duduza human rights violations hearing:

Maki was a Comrade. She was politically active. We woke up, and we saw quite a number of corpses around the place lying on the ground. Maki went to have a look at these bodies because we were preparing to go to work on that particular morning. Maki came back, and she was in tears when she came back, and she was in shock. She also mentioned the names of the people or the bodies that were lying around on the ground. She said they were Ngungun Yani, Lucky and others. After that incident, we heard that there were rumours around the location, and it seemed it was common knowledge that Maki had a hand in the killing of those youths...

I spoke to Maki as a sister, and I told Maki that it was better for her to run away, and she told me that she was not going to run away because whatever they said she had done, she had not done. She was innocent. Maybe they will realise later on that they were making a mistake. That is when Maki decided to stay at home and not hide…

We knew that Maki was an innocent victim, and today it has come to the surface. Mamasela [former security police agent/askari⁷] has also spoken that he was involved in giving the youths hand grenades. Now it has surfaced that Maki also took part, and she was also politically active. I also spoke to some of the survivors of the hand grenade, and they told me that they never, ever had Maki in their meetings, and Maki did not know of their plans on that particular day. There was absolutely nothing that she knew, and they were also surprised as to why Maki was killed. Now, this is a very painful situation because there were a lot of rumours flowing around, they branded us a family of informers...

We were hearing rumours that informers have a lot of money, but Maki did not have any. There is quite a number of rumours as well as lies that were disseminated with regard to my sister. They said that the Government had bought us the coffin. We collected our own money in order to conduct the funeral. The Government did not help us in any way… after Maki’s funeral there were also rumours that were circulating that they had killed the wrong person...

Chairperson: Puleng Moloko and the family, we would like you to note that the death of Maki was a national shame. South Africa was looked upon internationally, more especially those who were fighting against apartheid, as beasts, as carnivores and that the family managed to stand by Maki even at a time when everybody was saying, away with that family. We salute you… Maki and the family have emerged, after all these disclosures, as heroes. I would say this hearing and this hall have witnessed, who have witnessed this testimony, are witnesses of how noble Maki was, and I will, without shame, request this house to stand and observe a moment of silence. Can we all rise. Thank you.

Exhumation and reburial

30 Victims regularly requested the Commission to help them find loved ones who had disappeared or to locate the bones of those who died in the conflicts of the past. The Commission was, through intense investigation, able to uncover the truth in more than fifty cases.⁸ For example, the body of Ms Phila Portia Ndwandwe (MK alias, Zandile) was exhumed on 12 March 1997. Ms Ndwande

was the acting commander of Natal MK activities initiated from Swaziland. She was abducted from Swaziland by members of the Durban Security Branch but refused to co-operate with the police. It seems that the police did not have admissible evidence against her, but felt they could not release her. She was kept in custody and tortured. Eventually she was killed and secretly buried on a farm in the Elandskop area, near Pietermaritzburg. When she was exhumed, her pelvic bones were covered with a plastic supermarket packet with which she had tried to protect the dignity of her naked body.

31 The Commission provided financial and logistic assistance to the relatives of those victims whose remains were exhumed, so that dignified reburials could take place. These exhumations and reburials were sad occasions, but the families expressed their relief at the end of many years of uncertainty.

32 There were, sadly, still at least 200 such cases outstanding when the Commission’s work ended in June 1998. There were also requests and demands that the programme of exhumation be extended to neighbouring and other foreign countries.