WeekendAnalysis
Ataxi driver, who is a friend of mine, asked me a very pertinent question after receiving news of the murder of His Majesty’s Correctional Services (HMCS) officer Mbongiseni Thayi Dlamini yesterday morning. He asked me, “who will account for all the deaths of the officers?”
This question becomes the subject of my thoughts today, but before getting deeper, I had to ask him the roots of his question and his response was, “we know who should account for those that were maimed and killed in June 2021, but my concern is the ‘planned’ killing of innocent officers who were never part of the ‘planned’ June killings.” I played the devil’s advocate and asked him for proof that they were not and that all was ‘planned’, to which he retorted that I should provide proof to the contrary of his assertions. A deadlock right there!
The conversation got me thinking and I immediately realised that after all has been said and done, one day, someone will have to account for all the crimes being committed in the name of ‘calls for democracy’. In all underground wars, faces of the faceless come to the surface and no one remains underground forever.
No one has the right of taking another person’s life. I don’t care whether you are head of State, in government, leftist, militant person or a member of any underground force; no one has a right to kill another person. The right to life is protected in both godly principles and the Human Rights Charter.
Writing about this makes me afraid. Not afraid of writing but afraid of who might be offended by this innocent conversation between me and my taxi man friend and then decide to be God over our lives to declare an end to us.
SAFEGUARD
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 3, declares that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. This means nobody, including the government, can try to end a person’s life. It further means the government should take appropriate measures to safeguard life by making laws to protect human beings.
Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one should be intentionally deprived of his life save in the execution of a sentence of a court of law following his conviction of a crime for which such a penalty is provided in the law.
I am mostly frustrated by the silence of government in this whole mess, more importantly the Chairman of the National Dialogue Organising Committee, Prime Minister (PM) Cleopas Dlamini. My major concern in the silence of the PM is that he is the one holding the key to the dialogue process.
On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.
The deceased HMCS officer Bheki Mike Mtsetfwa (also inset), writhing in pain before he was rushed to the Mbabane Government Hospital, where he died while undergoing treatment.
delivered his first major speech on the war in Vietnam. In the speech, to a group called Clergy and Layman Concerned, King called for a “shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society” and insisted that the ‘demands of inner truth’ supersede the unquestioning loyalty to government.
He continued and said a time comes when silence becomes betrayal and I want to believe that the exact time has come for the PM in relation to the national dialogue issue.
The silence of the leaders of the mass democratic movement on the killings of State security officers is also a serious concern. At least let us hear them condemning or calling for calm like we all requested of the leaders of this country in June 2021.
Honestly speaking, the time will come where all shall be well beyond the river and we will look at one another and remember the pain and the hurt we have caused each other. I pray that the spirit of vengeance be subdued when that time comes so that we may be able to look at each other with love again.
INFLUENCE
The question posed by my taxi man friend might live long enough to influence, in the next 10 years, the thinking pattern of the 10-year-old son of Bheki Mike Mthethwa, a warder who was abducted at Sidwashini Correctional Services, beaten, killed and dumped at a field in Motshane. The two minors left behind by slain cop Zinhle Mavuso or the children who watched their father, a member of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF), die in front of them at New Village will definitely call for the same question to be answered.
The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa had to go through an accountability period where everyone who was involved in underground killings and dealings, through Umkhonto Wesizwe Military Wing and others, was brought before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to answer and seek forgiveness for their sins. That, in itself, was a desperate attempt by a nation made up of a population of 42.99 million and eleven tribes, at that time, to knit the people back together.
Imagine a country like ours, with a population that is slightly over a million, having to repair relationships. We are possibly related and somewhere down the line someone could be a relative of a member of the many emerging ground forces groups. Standing before a local TRC to declare that you killed a relative of a relative would possibly brew a civil war.
By the time we get to the TRC option, all of us would be affected one way or the other by the killings that are currently happening. I wonder which judge, or priest would agree to chair the TRC by then. At the end, someone will have to account for the murders, the reason behind will not count and the status won’t even matter when the time to account comes.
STRUGGLE
A time came for the TRC, in 1997, to begin public hearings, which focused on allegations against Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, estranged ex-wife of former President, Nelson Mandela. Her alliance with the ruling party did not help her in anyway. Her legacy in the struggle and fight against the apartheid regime did not count for anything. She stood before Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, an icon of the struggle himself, and was forced to justify her actions which she carried out in disguise of an underground force.
Being an ex-wife of a struggle icon and president of the new Republic of South Africa, at that time, and a mother of his two daughters could not stop the wheels of justice from grinding. The allegations against Madikizela-Mandela included thirteen counts of murder and numerous human rights abuses, which centred on the brutal killing of Stompie Seipei in 1988.
What caught my attention on the Madikizela-Mandela case was that even those who were close to her and those that assisted her in carrying out all the atrocities took the stand and testified against her. The TRC heard from a series of witnesses who testified that Madikizela-Mandela and members of the infamous Mandela United Football Club had assaulted and killed a number of people who were suspected of being spies for the security branch of the South African Police (SAP).
Her former driver and friend John Morgan, like my taxi man friend, testified that he saw Madikizela-Mandela torturing four youths and dismissed the claim that she was not in Soweto at the time of the said incident, whereas Katiza Cebekhulu, a former member of the Football Club, who disappeared on the eve of Madikizela-Mandela’s trial in 1991, repeated his allegations in his book, Katiza’ Journey, that he saw Madikizela-Mandela stabbing Seipei. Seipei was accused of being a police spy and Madikizela-Mandela ordered the assault on him.
The TRC also heard that Madikizela-Mandela ordered the murder of Dr Abu Baker Asvat, the physician who examined Seipei before his death and whom she feared would implicate her in the killing. Cyril Mbatha, who was serving a life sentence for Asvat’s death told the TRC, he was acting on Madikizela-Mandela’s orders and she supplied him with the murder weapon.
I am trying to bring all this to the context that someone will have to account for the brutal murders and killings of security officers in the country, whether its next year or any other year. Hear me well here, I am not only referring to the killings of security officers but all murders and killings that have been happening since the political unrest and all that happened dating back from then.
KILLERS
We can dialogue now and we can agree on reforms but the animosity is not guaranteed to end until someone accounts for such. I can already see a scenario where even those on political exile are called to come back and there is a need for us to make piece.
What will the families of the cop killed at Manzini Traffic circle say and the one who was gunned down on his way from work at Mathangeni say to the TRC? Menzi Dlamini and Sifiso Mthembu, the Manzini Police Station traffic cops, who were assassinated while on duty at Grand Valley will probably turn on their graves when their families come face-to-face with their killers.
The families of the 46 people who were killed during the political unrest in June 2021will also be looking for someone to account for the murders of their relatives.
The biggest problem about this issue is that the country has been rendered a free for all thugs. We cannot blame the security forces when they do not come to assist us or provide us the fundamental right of security of persons as stated in the Human Rights Charter.
As I was about to drop off from the taxi, I looked at my taxi man friend and said, “you are right, someone will have to account; we just have to pray that we live long enough to see our country going back to it safe and peaceful position.” He looked at me with sad eyes and said, “I will pray for you my friend that the Lord keeps and protects you ngoba nakini kubi.”