The poor rise to rage against an unjust system
Coligny father has just one wish: to see justice for son
FIVE-year-old Onthatile Mosweu stands in his family’s desolate yard holding the remains of a roasted sunflower.
Just over three weeks ago, these flowers cost his brother, Matlhomola, his life.
The two Coligny men accused of murdering the 16-year-old say he fell off their bakkie when they were taking him to the police station to report him for stealing sunflowers.
Prosecutors say Pieter Doorewaard‚ 26‚ and Phillip Schutte‚ 34‚ murdered him.
And residents of Scotland, the informal settlement outside the town — named, say residents, after a saying that “they live so far away, it might as well be Scotland” — say it was just the latest ugly incident in a community existing in an apartheid time warp.
To harvest the sunflowers, residents of Scotland have for years played a cat-and-mouse game with guards employed by the likes of farmer Pieter Karsten, who says crop theft has been a big problem.
But since Matlhomola’s death, patrols by farm bakkies have stopped and Scotland residents have been allowed to collect sunflowers unimpeded.
Elsewhere, there are constant reminders that things are still on a knife edge in this farm community, torn by unrest in the past 24 days.
A police helicopter circles, a Nyala armoured vehicle prowls the streets and the white neighbourhood watch is operating armed patrols. On Voortrekker Street, which cuts through the heart of the North West town, shopkeepers are replacing shattered windows with brick walls.
“This used to be such a nice town,” says supermarket owner Francisco Fernandes, who has lived here for 42 years. Now many white residents talk of leaving, saying they don’t see it returning to how it was.
In Tlhabologang, the township next to Coligny, the spectre of an uncertain future takes on a different shape. “This is about the death of one of us,” fumes Kamogelo Mnyakama. “What happens if I go to the ATM at night and I meet a group of armed white men, what is going to happen?”
Itumeleng Jabane adds: “They are just trying to defocus us from the real issues.”
On Wednesday, Mnyakama and Jabane’s anger was directed towards the reconciliation, healing and renewal forum that the North West government was trying to set up.
Tebogo Ramashilabele, the director of the programme, explained that they wanted to get the community to elect leaders to stand in the forum, which would discuss issues affecting the town.
“We don’t even know who these people are,” says Mnyakama, but Ramashilabele says they have made progress since the unrest that followed the granting of bail on Monday to Doorewaard and Schutte.
“Tensions have eased but misinformation is a problem,” says Ramashilabele. Rumours fly daily, spread through social media.
Also caught up in the unrest were foreign shopowners, who had businesses in Tlhabolo- gang. “I can’t go back, because I am worried about my safety,” says Bangladeshi national Shahadat Shahadat.
“What is worse is that the people who robbed my shop were my everyday customers.”
Over the last couple of days church leaders from both sides of Coligny’s racial divide have been trying to reach common ground.
Dominee Tewie Pieters, however, says he was disappointed when a meeting at nearby Lichtenburg became polarised between black and white. “We as church leaders need to sort this out, we need to take hands,” he says. “We need to pray, to get rid of this devil thing that is destroying our town.”
Pieters believes that what politicians say in the next couple of days will be crucial in easing tensions as the community awaits the next court appearance of Doorewaard and Schutte on June 26.
For Matlhomola’s father, Saki Dingake, the wheels of justice can’t turn fast enough.
Sitting in his yard in Scotland, without sewerage, electricity or potable water, he says: “All I want to see are the men behind bars, then things will go back to normal.
“But I won’t get any peace because the white people who killed my child, they are having fun.”
This week, protests in settlements, including Ennerdale, Eldorado Park and Finetown in the south of Johannesburg, and in Laudium in Tshwane, resulted in scores of people being arrested and injured, and at least one person being killed.
Since the start of the week residents in these areas have taken to the streets in protest over the slow pace of service delivery, including the slow pace of the provision of housing for back-yard dwellers.
I want the men behind bars, then things will go to normal