“I waited for 40 years”: The four families in South Africa want justice Human Rights News star-news.press/wp

Johannesburg, South Africa – On the night of June 27, 1985 in South Africa, four black men were traveling together in a car from the southeastern city of Port Elizabeth, now gqebera, to Cardoc.

They have just finished carrying out a community organizing community on the outskirts of the city when the apartheid police officers arrested them at a road barrier.

Four – Teachers Fort Kalata, 29, Matthew Gunaiwi, 38; School principal Sicelo Mhlauli, 36; MKonto railway worker, 34 – were kidnapped and tortured.

Later, their bodies were found lying in different parts of the city – they were hit badly, stabbed and burned.

The police and racist government initially denied any involvement in the killings. However, it was known that men were being wiped for their activity against the arduous conditions facing South Africa at the time.

Soon after, evidence of a death note was leaked to some members of the group in an unknown way, and then, back Their killings have been planned long ago.

Despite the presence of two investigations into murders – whether under the apartheid system in 1987 and 1993 – did not lead to the name of any perpetrator or charges.

“The first investigation was carried out completely in Afrikanis,” Lakhanio Calatala, Ibn Ford Calata, told Al -Jazeera earlier this month. “My mother and other mothers have not been offered to any chance in any way to make data on it,” the 43 -year -old expressed.

“These were courts in the apartheid in South Africa. It was a completely different time as it was clear that four people were killed, but the courts said that no one could be blamed for it.”

Shortly after the end of the apartheid in 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) was established. There, the hearings confirmed that “Cradock Four” was already targeted by their political activity. Although some former apartheid officers confessed to participation, they will not reveal the details and deprived the pardon.

Now, four decades of killings, a new investigation began. Although justice was never closer, for the families of the deceased, it was a long wait.

“For 40 years, we waited for justice,” Lakhanio told local media this week. “We hope that this operation will finally be brought up from the one who presented the orders, who they did, and why,” he said outside the court at GQEBerha, where hearings are taking place.

As a South African journalist, it is almost impossible to cover the investigation without thinking about the extent of crimes committed during the apartheid – crimes by a system committed to support its criminal and racist agenda that he took it to the most violent and deadly.

There are many stories like Calaata, and many victims like Cradock Four, and many families are still waiting for the truth of what happened to their loved ones.

Well -known victims

The court’s procedures mentioned me at GQEBerha and watching the families of Benkotola Similan.

More than 10 years ago, she traveled to Bethal in Mbumallanga Province to speak with her family about her disappearance in 1983. Similan joined Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), which was the armed wing of the African National Conference (ANC) – the liberation movement turned into the majority of the party in South Africa.

As MK, it worked as a control of messages and parcels between South Africa and Swaziland was then.

Similan was seduced to attend a meeting in Johannesburg, and from there she was kidnapped and detained in the police seizure, and they were tortured and disappeared.

Her family says they still feel the inability to bury her.

In TRC, five white men from the Special Branch of the Apartheid Police submitted a request to obtain the Amnesty Organization related to the kidnapping of Similan and the supposed killing.

Former police chief William Kotzi, who headed the security police unit, denied her killing. But this was confronted with a testimony from his colleague that she was brutally killed and buried somewhere in the northwestern province. Kotzi previously said that Similan turned into a laboratory and was returned to Swaziland.

Until now, no one has assumed responsibility for its disappearance – not the apartheid security forces NOr the African National Congress Party.

The Cradock Four case also made me think about the anti -schizophrenic activist and a member of the Communist Party in South Africa, Ahmed Timol, who was tortured and killed in 1971 but the killing was also installed.

The Apartheid Police said that the 29 -year -old teacher fell from a tenth floor window at the notorious John Forster police headquarters in Johannesburg, where he was detained. The investigation concluded in the following year that he died due to suicide, while the racist separation government was known for its lies and covering it.

After decades, a second investigation under the democratic government in 2018 found that Timol was subjected to severe torture in reservation to the point that he was not able to jump from the window.

Only then, the former security branch officer, Joao Rodriguez, was officially accused of killing Timouol. The elderly Rodriguez rejected the charges and submitted a request for permanent residency from the prosecution, saying that he would not receive a fair trial because he was unable to remember the events correctly at the time of Timol’s death, given the number of years that passed. Rodriguez died in 2021.

“A crime against his humanity”

The racist separation was brutal. For the people who were left behind, the shock that has not been resolved and the questions that were not answered are salt in the deep wounds that remain.

This is why families like Cradock Four are still in the courts, in search of answers.

In her testimony before the court this month, Numbuzlo Molouli, 73, The wife of Sicelo Mhlauli described her husband’s body when she received his remains for burial. She said that he had more than 25 wounds in his chest, seven in the back, and a constitution through his throat and the lost right hand.

I spoke to Luchanio a day before he returned to the court to continue his testimony in his father’s hearing.

Talk about how to deplete the process emotionally – but it is vital. He also talked about his work as a journalist, grew up without a father, and the influence he caused on his life and expectations.

“There were crimes committed against our humanity. If I looked at the country that was found by my father’s body, this was a completely clear crime against his humanity,” Lakhanio witnessed on the sixth day of the investigation.

But his frustration and anger does not end with the apartheid government. It holds the African National Congress Party, which has been in power since the end of the apartheid, is partially responsible for taking a long time to tackle these crimes.

Lukhanyo believes that ANC has betrayed Cradock Four, and this betrayal is “deeper cut”.

He said in the court: “Today we are sitting with a society completely without law.” ((This) Because at the beginning of this democracy, we did not put the appropriate operations to tell the rest of society that you will be a tribute to the things that you made wrong. “

The grandfather of Fort Kalata, Reverend Canon James Arthur Kalata, Secretary -General of the African National Congress Party from 1939 to 1949. The Kalata family has a long history with the liberation movement, making it more difficult for a person like Lakhanio to understand the reason for taking it for a long time in achieving justice.

Search for accountability and peace

The Office of the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development in South Africa, Mamuluko Cubai, says that the ministry has increased its efforts to provide the long -awaited justice to families affected by the tests that belong to the era of apartheid.

“These efforts indicate a renewed commitment to restorative justice and national recovery,” the ministry said in a statement.

Cradock Four, Simelane and Timol murders are among the horror and stories we know.

But I often wonder about all the names, victims and certificates that are still hidden or buried.

The murders of countless mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and girls by the apartheid regime are not only for those who care about them but the awareness of the South Africa society as a whole, regardless of the extent of normalization of the dead balance.

It is not clear how long this new investigation will take. Several weeks are expected to last, with the former security police, political figures and forensic experts.

Initially, six police officers were involved in the killings. They have all died since then, but family members of Cradock Four say that senior officials who have provided orders should take responsibility.

However, the state is reluctant to pay the legal costs of the apartheid police officers involved in murders, and may slow this process.

Meanwhile, while families are waiting for answers about what happened to their loved ones and holding the officials, they are trying to make peace with the past.

“I was alone, and I am trying to raise children – children without a father,” Numpewizlo told Fazira outside the field. “The past forty years have been very difficult for me – emotionally, and spiritually.”