Cradock Four: Families launch fresh legal bid to reopen case

Known as the Cradock Four, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli, Sparrow Mkhonto and Fort Calata may not have thrown a stone at a police van or taken up arms in a struggle against apartheid to deserve being assassinated.

Being at the forefront of a peaceful people’s revolt against separate development was enough to trigger their brutal elimination by apartheid security forces from the Eastern Cape town of Cradockand society, 36 years ago.

Successive ANC governments have failed to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for those behind the killings to be prosecuted.

Bereaved families have now launched a fresh legal bid to reopen the case.

A human rights lawyer and a former anti-apartheid activist who worked closely with Goniwe and his comrades at the height of state repression, told Saturday Citizen of the Eastern Cape’s leading anti-apartheid struggles in the 1980s, when it became a cauldron, hard to handle by the National Party-led regime.

With apartheid-era president FW de Klerk, former finance minister Barend du Plessis and former SA National Intelligence Service head Neil Barnard cited as respondents in legal papers, the ANC, which formed a government of national unity with the National Party (NP) after the 1994 polls, showed signs of being reluctant to pursue the Cradock Four matter.

De Klerk, Du Plessis and Barnard sat on the state security council at the time, with bereaved families believing the three NP leaders bore the ultimate responsibility for failure to intervene in state-sanctioned murders.

The killing of the Cradock Four was done in an official police operation, sanctioned by state security.

Human rights lawyer and former member of the TRC Yasmin Sooka said security forces perceived the Cradock activists as “a real threat to the regime, because there were protests in Cradock initiated by Matthew Goniwe”.

“The Cradock Four were young, black, active opponents of the government, who were able to mobilise the masses and oppose the apartheid state. The government saw them as a threat.

Nelson Mandela University academic Janet Cherry, who worked closely with Goniwe and other Cradock local leaders, concurred: “They were assassinated because they were extremely effective in organising the Cradock community, Matthew being the regional UDF organiser.

“They created structures of popular power, which undermined the legitimacy and functioning of black local authorities in that part of the Eastern Cape.

“Their message to communities was spreading rapidly, with the security police and authorities realising it was a fundamental challenge to apartheid rule. That is why they had to be assassinated.”

Cherry said 1984 to 1986 saw the Eastern Cape being “in a state of heightened popular mass mobilisation, with some structures of localised people’s power taking control of their own townships – effectively overthrowing the black local authorities”.

“As the resistance mounted, there was violent reaction from the state attempting to control resistance through repression”, a cycle of violence with people being killed at funerals, councillors being killed and people being detained, assaulted and tortured.

“The state identified what they saw as the ringleaders and planned to assassinate them. As an activist, my experience was in assisting with mass mobilisation and in empowering people through grassroots organisations, initially through running education projects, working with civic, youth, trade union and women’s organisations in the townships of Port Elizabeth, Cradock, Grahamstown…

“When the situation became really oppressive, with the first state of emergency being declared, I set up the PE Crisis Information Centre, which … assisted people who were detained and helped families find people who had gone missing after the Langa Massacre of March 1985.”

She said: “Matthew was never involved in the armed struggle, but in building people’s power at grassroots level.

“Their legacy was that of building the strongest organs of popular power – empowering people to challenge their local conditions; being tactical in taking on the authority in a nonviolent way.”

On the reluctance to pursue the case, Sooka explained: “In 1994, the second inquest under Judge [Neville] Zietsman found there was prima facie evidence that the murderers were members of the security forces.

“A case of suspicion was made out against police officers colonels Harold Snyman and Eric Winter and SA Defence Force members brigadier Joffel van der Westhuizen, colonel Lourens du Plessis and major-general Nic van Rensburg. Notwithstanding these findings, no steps were taken against them.

“Of this group only Joffel van der Westhuizen is still alive. The TRC amnesty committee denied amnesty to Eric Taylor, Gerrie Lotz, Nic Janse van Rensburg, Harold Snyman, Sakkie van Zyl, Hermanus du Plessis and held them responsible for the murders … no steps were taken [and] only Hermanus du Plessis remains alive.

“Authorities could have acted in the early ’90s or after the suspects were denied amnesty, but chose not to.”

– brians@citizen.co.za