Murdered activist honoured with truth
Panel exposes police lies about Lenny Naidu
NEELA Naidu, the mother of slain anti-apartheid activist Lenny Naidu, stared straight ahead as former Constitutional Court Justice Zak Yacoob described the death of her son at the hands of apartheid police in 1988.
Naidu and Yacoob were among a group of people on a panel titled Beyond the Inquest, which was convened at the Chatsworth Youth Centre on Friday. Other panellists included high court Judge Daya Pillay and Naidu’s former fellow comrades, Richard Vallihu and David Madurai. The panel discussion was hosted by the Lenny Naidu Development Institute in a bid to explain “what really happened to the Golela Nine” on their 25th death anniversary.
In June 1988, Naidu, 24, and Nontsikelelo Cotoza, 21, Lindiwe Mthembu, 17, Makhosi Nyoka, 31, Sifiso Nxumalo, 25, Jabulani Sibisi, 19, Joseph Mthembu, 27, Nkosinathi Thenjwayo, 26, and Bongani Gaza, 26, were killed in Golela, a South African town bordering Swaziland.
Addressing the 200 people in attendance, Yacoob said criminal charges should have been pursued at the time. “The inquest ought to have been a criminal trial. It was only an inquest because the police were investigating the police.”
He also launched a scathing attack against the current police force, saying that the system had not been transformed.
“Police of today are not better than the police of yesterday,” he said, referring to the deaths of Marikana miners last year.
“They still resort to torture . . . there is a disrespect for humanity that still exists in the police force.”
The retired justice said the initial story by police after the deaths of the Golela nine had been sketchy. “The police version had been carefully crafted. We had nothing to go on.”
He said it was only when the car in which the nine were travelling was discovered that cracks began to show in the police version.
“Bullet holes were all around the car. There were more firearms, more personnel and more bullets involved than the police said. Now we can say without a doubt what happened . . . It is clear that these were murders — well-planned, well-organised murders.”
During the Truth and Reconciliation Committee amnesty hearing, it emerged that several policemen acting under former Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock had ambushed the nine.
Vallihu, who is the chief executive of Transnet Rail Engineering, said he last saw Naidu in Swaziland. He said the nine were unarmed, had no identification on them and were due to make contact within 24 hours. He knew that something had happened when he did not hear from them after 48 hours.
From the state of Naidu’s body, Madurai said, he and Vallihu believed that the nine had been taken out of the car and beaten for more than two days before the police shot them in the head.
He said the Naidu institute would one day be able to offer a full reconstruction and maybe document it in a film.
The meeting accepted a suggestion by former deputy eThekwini municipal manager Derek Naidoo, who chaired the meeting, to name the youth centre hall the Lenny Naidu Hall.