A day when a family’s dream was shot dead
Ramaphosa to relive fateful day at rally
WHAT was intended to be a peaceful march to Bhisho to demand that Brigadier Oupa Joshua Gqozo be removed as Ciskei leader led instead to a massacre.
Today, 23 years later, the impact of the event which resulted in 29 deaths is still being felt by those who were left bereaved. One of them is the mother of victim Headman Nontshinga.
Every September 7, his mother, Nomutile Nontshinga, brushes the dust off his academic gown, drapes it over a hanger and hangs it on a wall. She stacks his books close by and pages through a photo album, dominated by pictures of Headman.
The 82-year-old Nontshinga stays in a dilapidated farmhouse which is collapsing around her in Frankfort near Bhisho. Some 30km south of her lives Gqozo, also on a farm.
Although she says she has forgiven Gqoza, Nontshinga still has one question: “Why did he order our children be killed? I want to look straight in his eyes when he answers. Otherwise I have long forgiven him.”
Nontshinga is one of many who lost loved ones in the anti-apartheid struggle that fateful day when Gqozo’s soldiers opened fire on the 70 000-strong ANC-alliance protest march in 1992.
Twenty-eight protesters and a soldier were left dead and hundreds injured in the hail of more than 425 bullets. “I miss my son very much; I can only dream of what life would have been were he alive,” she said.
Headman, then 29, had started studying for his Higher Education Diploma at Fort Hare University after graduating with a BSc degree just two months before. His mother believes he could easily have become a politician, farmer or teacher.
In order to raise money to send him to Fort Hare, she sold home-made brooms, grass mats and chickens while her husband, Dalagubha, sold two cows. Headman’s brothers also contributed to his education. Dalagubha died in July 2005, never having come to terms with his son’s death.
Nontshinga said: “To have a graduate was the wish of all the family members. We spent our last penny on his education. Now we are left with only the academic regalia Headman wore to his graduation and the certificate as testimony of the sweat.”
Another day is also seared into her memory – September 4, the last day she saw Headman alive. “He had spent almost the whole Friday ploughing the fields, fixing the fence and checking the livestock,” she recalled.
“At times he would parade around the house in his academic gown as if encouraging his nieces and nephews to take education seriously. He always said he wanted lots more academic gowns in the family.”
At about 6pm that Friday, Headman left home for Mdantsane where he joined comrades to prepare for the march three days later.
On the day of his death, Nontshinga and her husband Dalagubha were seated on a log outside their old German Settler’s house when they heard news of the shooting on the radio.
“I prayed for his safety. But that evening, Robert Desi, one of Headman’s comrades, came to tell us that my son had been shot dead.”
Headman was buried at the monument in Ginsberg next to 12 of his 28 comrades who died on that day. His mother did not attend the mass funeral. “I obeyed the African custom which prevents women from witnessing the burial of those who died violent deaths.”
Nontshinga says the government does not look after them as her home is the only one not electrified in Frankfort. “What was Headman fighting for if I cannot get government services,” she lamented. — TODAY marks exactly 23 years since the Bhisho massacre when 28 ANC protesters and a Ciskei Defence Force soldier was shot dead during a peaceful march.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was one of the ANC and SACP top brass who led the 80 000-strong march from King William’s Town to Bhisho, will be reliving the events of that fateful day at a rally in the town today.
On September 7 1992, thousands marched full of hope for a better tomorrow. Dozens did not return.
Ramaphosa, who owes his life to a security guard who acted as his human shield during the shooting, will address the families of the victims who died in a hail of bullets.
Ramaphosa, who was then ANC secretary- formed the human chain leading the march along with other senior leaders, including the late SACP secretary-general Chris Hani, Steve Tshwete, Ronnie Kasrils among others, “to remove the pig from pigsty,” according to Tshwete.
Soldiers fired 425 live rounds of ammunition from assault rifles and 28 marchers and one soldier were killed, and more than 200 people injured in and near the Bhisho Stadium.
Earlier that week, on September 3, ANC leadership had sent a memorandum to then apartheid South African president FW De Klerk demanding that he replace Ciskei military leader Brigadier Oupa Gqozo with an interim administration to permit free democratic activity in Ciskei.
But De Klerk refused on the grounds that Ciskei did not fall under SA’s jurisdiction.
As a result of this the ANC began a campaign of mass action, organising a protest march to occupy Bhisho and force Gqozo’s resignation.
The fateful march was to demand free political activity in Ciskei and the removal of Gqozo whose rule, which began in 1990, had been characterised by massive violence against communities, the banning of ANC and the re-imposition of unpopular pseudotraditional leadership structures.
Gqozo only stepped down after the 1994 general election.
Sports, arts and culture spokesman Andile Nduna said the commemoration march would start from the Victoria Grounds in King William’s Town at 8.30am today and proceed to the Bhisho Massacre Memorial Site along the the N2 near Bhisho Stadium.
The day will end in a rally addressed by Ramaphosa at the Bhisho Stadium.