established 01/04/00 Sustaining the principles of love in action : ubuntu /sharing
PORTFOLIO OF CULTURAL JOURNALISM : the doors of culture and learning shall be opened
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Chapter Nine
DRIVEN BY MY ANCESTORS

I went into Umlazi everyday for nine years. This was how I came to know Sibonelo. I used to visit Sibonelo in the old age home. Sibonelo Mtshali’s late father used to work at Umkomaas, ‘Pulp and Paper’. He used to know me very well. They called me Satan because I was always having a go amongst the whites. They called me ‘Dennis the devil amongst the whites.

   

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Sibonelo Mtshali STATES:

“In 1985 education was more disrupted than any-thing. Magubane is a township. Here the chief has got the say. The old people have got that mentality of supporting the I.F.P. They trained Inkhata youth at Umandleni to rebel against ANC. These people were coming from rural areas and disrupting us from school. Even the principal had the same attitude as the older people in the area. I lived there three years.
In my second year, I didn’t write my exam, because these people who were supporting I.F.P. chased us from the school. They came with guns. They shot people. They threatened us. I have buried so many people who were my friends who were with me in the struggle. It was hard. We went to Diakonia and asked for donations for funds for funerals. People had no money for food because of this violence.




We didn’t see eye to eye with the youth with guns in their hands. They threatened and killed us un-knowingly.
As youth we organized a meeting. When we attended this meeting, the police came and distracted us. They said we were having an unauthorized gathering. We were demonstrating by hands, by pamphlets and picketing in a nonviolent way to air our views. We made a roadblock in our area to secure the place where we were having the
meeting. We made the first roadblock in the chief and the police area. In that area the chief used to come to the police station and beat the police. He was the one telling the police what to do. When we made the second roadblock, we met this white car with one guy. There was a steep road. He saw us in a very short distance. We did not know this guy was an enemy because he had no uniform. He was wearing civilian clothes. We told him: “my brother you can’t go past this area because the other side of the road is blocked. We are trying to make a roadblock here. You cannot pass here.” That guy was very foolish not to listen to us. He insisted that he wanted to go there. We told him, “no, we know what we are saying to you. You can’t go there.” I was playing the marshal role there. People became annoyed trying to turn him back. His intention was not to go there. He had two guns: one rifle and a pistol. When we were trying to talk to him calmly we lost attention to his hands. One of my cousins noticed he was pulling a gun. Luckily he couldn’t shoot anybody before my cousin opened the door and grabbed the gun. On the dashboard he had a tray of about

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45 9mm bullets. His magazine was loaded and the spare magazine was in his waist. They held him without doing any harm. I came in at that moment. I was chasing people away from him. I had a sjambok. I had to beat other people who were trying to attack him. I said: “no no this is not the way we planned.” I had to get a few guys who were more understanding. I said let us talk to this guy and ask what is his intention now. We were talking to him asking him not to go in this area.He said he was working for Huletts and was going to his home place in Meshyamname. If he was going to go there he’s supposed to go in the Port Shepstone area. We asked him why he chose this part of the road. We asked him why he’s trying to shoot us. And he said he was trying to defend himself. And I said: “from who because we are not attacking you. You pulled the gun. You were trying to kill us.” And then one guy from the mob came and said that he recognized this guy. This is a bodyguard of the chief. He’s got those cuts all over his body to protect him from bullets. He was still in the car. I couldn’t let him out the car because people were going to kill him or assault him. After he noticed that guy he reached back and brought another gun from the back seat. That was an R4 rifle. That was a problem. He was trying a bad move. He couldn’t kill us. We were more than 200 people gathering there. I don’t know what he was trying to do. He tried to grab the rifle but it was not cocked. In the time trying to cock it, my cousin’s brother, Mkhize, got the first hand on the second gun. People were more unruly now. I had to beat so many people with the sjambok trying to protect

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this guy. We had no other ways of communicating with him. There was violence now. He tried to come out the car. But they pushed him back in. I said: “explain to us what is your aim and who you are working for?” He said: “I come from the chief and the other people are trying to attack you from the other side so we come from both angles.” He was a trustee of the king. They knew that we were not armed and we were not trained for any war. Our aim was to launch the branch and air our views
to the community. He managed to come out of my protection and went into the field. I was trying to save him. I was trying to take him to the A.N.C. lawyers to confess that the chief had sent him to kill us for no reason. I could not control the mob. People were angered. He came out of my protection. And he ran in the field. People stoned him. And he was dead. From then I was the first target. From that day they attacked my house. I was lucky to escape on Monday night. They shot at my house during the day. All the families in our area heard that the chief was going to attack the whole area and people went and hid themselves in caves in the jungle. When I came to my house I met my brother’s cousin. He said: “have you heard the chief is going to attack the whole area.” By the time I was in the kitchen trying to make something to eat my cousin came and said: “there is a car parked at the upper gate, you must switch off the light.” I blew out the candle and went down to the kraal where the cattle were sleeping. We lay down on our stomachs where we saw seven guys come passed the kraal. They approached my house. One had a gallon of petrol. I saw him spraying

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something on my door. I had a small 16 shot handgun. They set the door alight and these other people surrounded my house and started shooting at my house with automatic rifles. I crawled behind them and made some flimsy action. I just shot at random. They were distracted and ran away. I managed after fifteen minutes to go round the house and get some buckets and stop the door from burning. That door was a meranti door and was burning very slowly. I saw the car lights going back to the main road. Whilst I was talking to the elder people we heard another gun shot. They were attacking another house. One guy was shot, the older guy was killed and one uncle survived a gunshot.
On Friday the police came to attack us. The chief had told the police they must bring me dead or alive. He wanted to see me. They came early that morning of Good Friday. They surrounded my house. We were monitoring my house in shifts. My shift was from six up to twelve o’clock. I rested 3 o’clock because there was so much noise. I was woken up by gunfire and people were scattered in the veldt. I was the last to come out of the house. And I was running, following those people who were attacking us. The others were at my back. I managed to come to a small ditch with water. I hid myself there. I heard the gunshot and footsteps going past me. I was worried about my house. I wanted to see my house. I stayed in the ditch about thirty minutes. When I heard the area was quiet I crawled out the ditch to see my house. When I came to another steep area, I recognized the police-men. I couldn’t run away and I had no crime

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against them. I called the cops and said: “Baba, here am I,” and I lifted my hands. When I tried to approach him I saw he had two guns: a shotgun and a revolver. I lifted my arms. The other police were lying on their stomachs aiming their guns at me. When I looked up I saw the policeman dropping his rifle and holding his pistol with two hands
aiming at me. The other policemen were shouting: “shoot him, shoot him.” Four shots were fired and one shot hit me in my back and put me down. The other shots never hit me. When I was on the floor, they all came to me. They put guns in my ears. They were arguing about me. They stripped me naked and grabbed me putting my clothes on my shoulder. They dragged me from that terrain to the upper area where they parked their vans. I had bruises on my nose and heals from being dragged in the gravel. They went to the other areas chasing other comrades. When they saw other comrades they said: “Here’s your king at the back. Your ring leader is dead.” They were talking all those sarcastic things. They went to the police station left their guns and changed their shift. I was injured and my body was lying at the back of the van. The place was hard and I couldn’t turn. I was bleeding from inside. My chest was congested. I could not breathe. I had to collapse so many times before I got into the hospital. The driver was refusing to take me to the hospital. He didn’t know what to say the reason was for my being shot. They were arguing and not agreeing about what had happened to me. I had to hit the door van to get attention from the police. I don’t know what convinced one of the guys to agree to drive

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me to the hospital. From the police station to the hospital was more than thirty minutes drive in a gravel area. In my way of seeing things they were trying to kill me. I was tossing and turning at the back of the van. I came to the hospital injured. I collapsed. I woke up the next morning, I had the oxygen and I couldn’t move. Every time I called
the nurses they ran away. They didn’t want to help me. I had one nurse who was more kind. I told her I wanted to use the toilet. She said: “you cannot go to the toilet. You are disabled.” I stayed there two weeks. My father had medical aid. He transferred me to St. Augustine’s. I stayed there for seven months. The first week I was there I developed a terrible pressure sore from the neg-ligence at the hospital. They were not taking care of me.”