’40 years waited ‘: South Africa’s Cradock Four family wants justice | Human Rights News

Johannesburg, South Africa – On June 27, 1985 in South Africa, four black men, now in a car in the Southeastern city of Southeast Port, which is now in Cradock.

Police officers stopped the organization of society on the outskirts of the city when they stopped in a roadblock.

Four people – teacher Fort Calata, 29 and Matthew Goniwe, 38; School principal Sicelo Mhlauli, 36; And railway worker Sparrow Mconto, 34 – was abducted and tortured.

Later, the bodies were discarded in different parts of the city – badly beaten, stabbed and burned.

Police and Apartheid’s government first rejected any participation in the murders. However, it was known that when the black South Africans faced with the activity of the heavy conditions facing the heavy conditions.

After a while, the evidence of a death guarantee for some members of the group, then leaked and later appeared Their murders have long been planned.

Although there were two investigations for the crimes, both in 1987 and 1993 did not result in the mission or accusation of any sinner.

“The first investigation is completely in African villages,” Lukhanyo Calata, Ford Calata’s son, in the beginning of this month, told Al A. “I did not offer any opportunity to offer any opportunity in my mother and other mothers,” he said 43-year-old.

“These were a completely different time in separate apartments. It was a clear time that four people were killed, but the courts said no one was blamed for it.”

After the end of the apartheid in 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established. There, the hearings confirmed that the Cradock Four was actually targeted political activity. Although several former apartheid officials participated, the details will not disclose and the amnesty was rejected.

Now after the killings, a new investigation has started after four decades. Although justice is never approached, there was a long wait for the families of the deceased.

“We have been waiting for the justice for 40 years,” Lukhanyo gave local media this week. “We hope that this process finally gave them the commands that carried out and why the religions are outside the court of Gkeberha, said.

As a journalist in South Africa, it is almost impossible to think, taking into account the crimes committed in crimes committed in crimes committed in the crimes, the most violent and deadly.

Calata, Cradock has more stories like many sacrifices like four, and more families are still waiting to hear the truths of what happened with your loved ones.

Known victims

GQEberha reminded the Nokhutula Simelane, who participated in the court and watching families.

I went to Bethal in the province of Mpumalanga to talk to him with his family in 1983, more than 10 years ago.

Operational in a MK, what was the messages and parcels between South Africa and Svaziland.

Simelane trusted in a meeting in Johannesburg and stolen from there, and was tortured and disappeared in police control.

His family says they still feel the pain of not being able to bury it.

In TRC, five white men with a special arm of apartheid police, applied for an amnesty related to the abduction and probable murder of Simela.

The former police commander of the security police station Willem Coetzee, commanded he killed. However, this was killed by his colleague with a testimony and was now greeted with his certificate in the North West Province. Coetzee previously turned into Simelane’s knowledge and sent back to Svazilanda.

So far no one is responsible for the disappearance – apartheid is not security forces nor anc.

The work of the cradock four was tortured in 1971, Ahmet Timol, Mr. Ahmet Timol, forced to think about a member of the African Communist Party, killed in 1971.

Apartheid police, 29-year-old teacher, in Johannesburg, said that he fell from a 10th-storey window at the notorious John Vorster Square Police Center. The next year, a study came to the conclusion that the apartheid government was died at a time when the apartheid government was recognized.

For decades, in 2018, a second investigation next to the democratic government, Timol said that Timol could not jump in a window.

Only this was that the head of the former security department was officially charged with the murder of Joao Rodrigues Timol. The older Rodrigugues denied the charges and said that he was applied for a permanent test, he could not remember the events correctly during Timol’s death, he did not give the number of years. Rodrigues died in 2021.

‘A crime against humanity’

Apartheid was cruel. For people who are behind, unresolved trauma and unanswered questions are the salt in deep wounds.

Therefore, the fourth of Cradock is still in the courts seeking answers.

This month in front of the court, 73 year old Nombuyiselo Mhlauli, Sicelo Mhlauli’s wife, when he did not get his life, buried his husband’s body. Seven, seven in the chest, he said it was a hollow and a missing right hand in the throat.

I spoke to Lukhanyo a day before returning to court to continue their testimony in court.

He spoke about how emotionally dried the process – it is still vital. He also spoke about a journalist, the effect of growing without the father and in his life and outlook.

“There were crimes committed against our humanity. If you look at the state where my father’s body was found, it was a clear crime against humanity,” Lukhanyo “testified on the sixth day of the survey.

However, his disappointment and wrath do not end with the Government of Apartheid. From the end of the apartheid, the powerful ANC is responsible for a long time to take long enough to resolve these crimes.

Lukhanyo considers ANC to betray the Cradock four and this betrayal “cut the most depth”.

“Today we are completely illegal,” he said. “(This is the case) because in the beginning of this democracy we put the necessary processes to explain the necessary processes to think that the rest of the society is wrong.”

Fort Calata’s grandfather, Distinguished Canon Cames Arthur Calata, was an AN Mother Secretary General in 1939-1949. The Calla family has a long time for someone who has a long history with a long history with a freedom movement, for some time for someone like Lukhanyo, has been so long to give justice.

Looking for accountability and reconciliation

The South African Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, MMammoloko Cubay’s office, department, which are affected by the apartheid-period atrocities, show strengthening their efforts to justice and close efforts.

“These efforts signalize an updated commitment for restorative justice and national healing,” he said.

Cradock four of the crimes, Simelane and Timol, the horrors and stories we know.

But I often think about all the names, sacrifices and phrases that are hidden or buried.

Regardless of the normalization of countless mothers, sisters, sisters, brothers, sons, sons and daughters, not for the consciousness of South African society, not for the consciousness of the southern African Soys, but the normalization of the deaths.

It is not clear how much this new investigation will last. A few weeks are expected to last, former security police, political figures and judicial experts.

First, six police officers were applied in the murders. They all have been all since they die, but Cradock’s family members, high-ranking officials said they need to be liable.

The state may not want to pay the legal expenses of police officers in the murders, and this can slow this process.

Meanwhile, families try to reconcile with the past because they expected the answer to those who are responsible for their loved ones and responsibilities.

“I try to train my children – fatherless children – Nombuyiselo told Al Casira since the death of Sicelon.” The last 40 years have been very difficult for me – emotionally and spiritually. “