ALI MPHAKI
THE FAMILIES of 16 liberation fighters killed by apartheid forces in the 1980s were given the wrong bodies to bury by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The National Prosecuting Authority’s Missing Persons Unit head, Madeleine Fullard, said 50 exhumations were carried out by the TRC between 1996 and 1998, and in most cases, no forensic identification was done.
“The exhumations were done in haste, and bodies given to families after some had identified them using unscientific means like looking at the shape of the skull, etc,” said Fullard, whose unit is tasked to find the remains of liberation fighters unaccounted for and have their remains returned to their respective families in terms of a TRC recommendation.
Among people who worked closely with the TRC to identify unmarked graves was former askari Joe Mamasela and Captain Fanie Molapo. Several bodies were found at Vlakplaas, Thabazimbi and Boshoek, where more bodies than expected were recovered.
Fullard said it was a highly sensitive matter to approach families to tell them the wrong bodies had been given to them to bury.
Compunding the problem is that members of the 16 families have not been taken for counselling.
Fullard said they had exhumed the wrong bodies, and these were awaiting reburial.
The families of MK operatives Oupa Matthew Funani and Charles Matshidiso Tsatsi, both of Phiri, Soweto, were given wrong bodies to bury in 1998. Funani’s mother Rose, 73, said she was shocked that the person they had buried in one of the biggest political funerals in Phiri was not their son.
“We even erected a tombstone thinking we were closing a chapter – and now this. The murder of my son at the hands of the apartheid forces has created a pain that will never go away. I will never forget, nor will I ever forgive,” she said.
The remains of five liberation fighters – Funani, Tsatsi, Vusimuzi Nyembe, Vuyisile Tshabalala and Patrick Martin Mahlangu – were handed over to their families in a highly emotional service at Freedom Park in Pretoria on Saturday. The five were killed and buried as paupers between 1984 and 1988.
Fullard said they were “100 percent confident” that the remains they handed over to the families were the right ones. She said such mistakes happened in other countries, including Chile, where close to 70 incorrect remains were given to families.
Fullard added that when they went to locate Tsatsi’s remains, they had to open 29 pauper graves at the Mmabatho cemetery, where he had been buried by the apartheid regime. Tsatsi died in a skirmish with Bophuthatswana police in Mmabatho on January 5, 1985. A Captain Loubscher and a Constable Tlou also died in the skirmish.
It appears Tsatsi blew himself up with a grenade – injuries on the skeleton were consistent with that (loss of right hand and multiple explosive fractures), Fullard said.
There were no cemetery records, and they were able to locate the remains of another seven MK members who died in that area and were buried as paupers.
Fullard said they had received DNA results of some of the bodies they have exhumed at the Tshikota cemetery and would be visiting the affected families soon to inform them about the outcome.
“I know this is a traumatic process for families, but we are doing all we can to help them find closure,” said Fullard.
Funani, Tsatsi, Nyembe and Mahlangu will be reburied at Avalon cemetery on Saturday. Tshabalala will be buried in KwaZulu-Natal.