Over the next days and weeks we got to hear of the details that had led to the killings, but not all of them. In the terse style of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 1998 report, following the series of public hearings into politically-motivated crimes, some of the missing parts of the puzzle were filled in. On the night of 17 June, at about nine o’clock, hundreds of Zulu men armed with rifles, pistols, spears, sticks and knives waited in KwaMadala Hostel across the main road from the township. They were waiting for policemen to clear Boipatong’s streets of the defensive barricades erected by nervous ANC supporting self-defence units. The same police ordered the self-defence unit members to get off the streets, and allegedly used teargas against those who refused. This was unusual, residents testified. At about 9.30 that night, Meshake Theoane, an attendant at the petrol station at the entrance to Boipatong, sounded an alarm connected to the police station when he saw a group of armed men enter the township. Two white men responded, presumably policemen, and asked why he had sounded the alarm. When he told them, they seemed to show no interest and left. The attendant was puzzled, but concerned about the armed men entering the township, and so he asked the security guard, who stood watch at the petrol station, to use his two-way radio to alert the private security firm for whom he worked about what was going on. Two white men from the security company arrived a few minutes later, conferred with white policemen and then took Theoane and the black security guard away ‘because it was not safe’. Theoane and the guard returned to the petrol station later and saw the same armed group leaving the township at about 10.30 p.m.
During the intervening time, late-shift workers at factories in the
adjoining industrial area claim to have seen police armoured vehicles dropping off men to the east and west of the shanty town adjoining the township. The attack started shortly after that. Residents, in the days after the massacre, told me that they had made several frantic phone calls to the police station during the attack begging for protection, but to no avail.
People later told me that police vehicles had been on the scene during the killings. Some claimed to have seen uniformed policemen taking part. Others told of hearing white men giving instruction during the attack. One survivor recalled hearing an Afrikaans male saying, ‘Moenie praat nie, skiet net ...’ (Don’t talk, just shoot).
Aaron’s father Klaas and many other survivors maintained that it had not been just Zulus who had attacked them, but whites too. When Klaas had run from the armed group, known in Zulu as an impi, he had heard a white man’s voice saying in Afrikaans: ‘Zulu, catch him.’ Seven shots were fired at him but he managed to hide in some bushes. From his hiding place, he listened to the attackers killing people. When it was all over, he returned home to find his wife lying on the ground with her intestines hanging out - she had been stabbed and shot repeatedly. She was near death, but told him to leave her and to go find their son Aaron instead. Klaas left his mortally wounded wife and went to look for the infant, but his child was already dead. The attackers had shown no mercy.
The days following the massacre were extremely tense, and I spent almost every day working in Boipatong; as did Ken and Kevin, along with almost every journalist. Joao was not there. He had been on assignment in the homeland of Ciskei until three days after the massacre - a holiday assignment to reward him for his hard work. On the morning of the massacre, he had boarded a plane out of Johannesburg, unaware of what had happened.
In the middle aftermath, survivors were interviewed by human-rights lawyers and they were consistent on two things: that the attackers had been Zulus and that the police had assisted them, as well as participating in the attack itself. Several surviving witnesses maintained
that the same policemen who had taken part in the attack had arrived the following day to investigate the killings. Boipatong was undoubtedly one of the worst incidents in the 1990-94 period and remarkable because police participation was undeniable. But deny it they did and they did their best to cover up their role, including erasing the police-log tapes of the night’s activities. Commissions of inquiry were launched, but they all found that the police had destroyed evidence that might point to their involvement either by accident, or through incompetence. But the people of Boipatong knew the truth. The levels of anger were unprecedented.
Two days after the massacre, I watched a group of residents form an impromptu street court, a people’s court, to hear evidence against a man who had been captured by self-defence unit members. The youths claimed that the Zulu man had participated in the massacre. I was inches away from the accused as dozens of bitter, angry men questioned him. It was all in the South African languages - seTswana, seSotho and isiZulu - and I could not understand more than a few words. The accused man was about 30 years old and I could see the muscles in his jaw jumping like worms under his sweaty skin as he struggled to control his terror. The questions went on for five or ten minutes, with several members of the community having their say. I was being completely ignored; it was as if I did not exist. Regardless of his guilt or innocence, I had no doubt that he was going to die-a sacrifice to communal anger. After hearing all the evidence, the leaders of the people’s court said that they could not prove his guilt, and that he was to go free. To my surprise, no one raised a word of protest and the man walked rapidly away, under the protection of the militants who might have been his executioners.
It was the days after the attack before the police raided the hostel from which the attackers had come, just across the road from Boipatong. Several other journalists, including Joao and me, sat for hours waiting for the police to negotiate the right to enter the hostel. When they eventually did, all the weapons had been put into a single pile. There was no way to link any one of those weapons to an individual. While I
suspected the police of helping Inkatha, I was astonished at just how brazen they were about it. No one knew then that police and senior Inkatha leaders had come to the hostel and planned the massacre. It was only years later that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission would get more of the truth, as it offered amnesty from prosecution to perpetrators who would tell all. It was also during these hearings that local Inkatha youth leader Victor Mthembu, when asked why the nine-month-old infant, Aaron Mathope, had been killed, would state: ‘You must remember, a snake gives birth to a snake.’
The Commission also found that ‘white men with blackened faces participated in the attack’. It went further and stated that ‘the police were responsible for destroying crucial evidence’.
‘The Commission finds the KwaMadala residents together with the SAP responsible for the massacre, which resulted in the deaths of forty-five people and the injury of twenty-two others. The Commission finds the Commissioner of Police, the Minister of Law and Order and the IFP responsible for the commission of gross human rights violations.’
Despite the overwhelming evidence that the massacre had been planned ahead of time, and that there was police collusion before and after the attack, many chose to believe that it was all ANC propaganda. Besides eyewitness accounts, and the tales from the survivors, one of the men arrested for the Boipatong massacre told of police involvement before he mysteriously died in custody. Victor Khetisi Kheswa was known as the Vaal Monster and he was responsible for many killings. This small-time gangster and car thief had been adopted by Inkatha and the police in 1990 and so began the reign of terror in the townships south of Johannesburg - the Vaal Triangle (a heavy-industrial area named after the Vaal River).
The first drive-by shooting was on 2 January 1991. ANC member Chris Nangalembe convened a people’s court that found Kheswa guilty of crimes against the community during a youth-led anti-crime drive in the townships. Kheswa was shot and wounded by the people’s court, but he escaped. The next day Nangalembe was garrotted by Kheswa’s gang. Many people attended the traditional all-night funeral vigil for
Nangalembe on 12 January 1991, but despite pleas to the police for protection, Kheswa and his gang attacked the vigil, leaving 45 mourners dead. I arrived the next morning, to find the ground stained by blood, and devastated survivors.
The drive-by shootings continued and the terrorized residents spent their nights digging trenches across their streets to try to stop the random attacks. ANC leader Ernest Sotsu’s family was attacked in Boipatong on 3 July 1991. Sotsu was in Durban attending the ANC’s first national conference since its unbanning, when the Vaal Monster and his gang came to his house. They shot dead his wife Constance, daughter Margaret, and two-year-old grandson, Sabata. But two of Sotsu’s sons, Vuyani and Vusi, survived and were able to identify one of the attackers as Victor Kheswa.
Kheswa was arrested and charged with the murder of Sotsu’s family, but released on R200 (then approximately $57) bail. A black policeman testified that when the gangster was arrested, he was given special food and privileges in the holding cell, and that he boasted of working with the police. People living in the area had often seen Kheswa in the company of the police, especially at scenes of violent conflict.
He was arrested again for the deaths of 19 people in April 1993 and for another 16 in June 1993, in addition to the charges about the 45 deaths as a result of the Boipatong massacre in June 1992. The police officer testified that Kheswa was angry that he had been arrested and that his police collaborators had not had the charges dropped. He threatened to reveal that he had been hired by the police to conduct the reign of terror in the Vaal Triangle. That same day, 10 July 1993, he died. The state pathologist’s post mortem claimed he had died of natural causes-a virus that had induced heart failure. A separate examination on behalf of Inkatha and the Kheswa family found he had died of ‘conditions including acute suffocation, electrocution, hypothermia and occult toxic substances’. The Vaal Monster had been just 28 years old when he died.
Sotsu, among others, claimed Kheswa had been killed by police because he could implicate them in third-force activities in the Vaal
Triangle between 1990 and 1993. But Kheswa was not the only person taking part in third-force activities: thousands of Inkatha members were trained in warfare by the police and the right-wing in secret camps. Inkatha leaders were given weapons and money by covert police units. White and black policemen or special forces members were repeatedly seen with Inkatha attackers, and one white policeman even gave testimony years later that he had taken part in attacks on commuter trains while disguised as a black person and would later return to the scene as the investigating officer.
It was into this atmosphere of suspicion about the police force’s role in the attack that South African President and Nationalist Party leader F.W. de Klerk made a belated sympathy visit to Boipatong, four days after the massacre. I had gone to Boipatong expecting there to be trouble, as the residents would have a target for their rage, and the police would be nervous about De Klerk’s safety. People greeted him with signs accusing him of being a killer. De Klerk smiled and waved from inside the thick glass, but it was obvious he would not risk getting out of the car. Despite a massive police presence, the enraged residents cursed and stoned his bullet-proofed limousine. The convoy accelerated away and I ran alongside, shooting pictures of De Klerk’s ignominious retreat. After he left, police shot and killed a man during a confrontation I did not see. By the time I got to the open field, a crowd had gathered - they wanted to identify the body, but a ring of riot unit policemen refused to allow them near. The angriest and bravest among the residents stood face to face with the heavily armed white policemen, screaming insults and spitting at them. Then the inevitable happened: the cops opened fire at point-blank range. I had stupidly been on the wrong side - with the residents - but somehow I got behind the police line and photographed them firing round after round at the fleeing people. Several people were killed and many injured. There would have been many more casualties but for the rough and broken ground that afforded people cover. Someone in the township then opened up on the police with an AK-47 assault rifle. A lot of bullets were flying in all directions. There were people, including a Nigerian colleague,
trapped between the two sides, calling for help. That was one of the times that Heidi showed us all up: she said she was going to help them get out. I had no choice but to follow, both of us holding our hands in the air and screaming for the shooting to cease while we got the wounded out. Somehow, both the police and the comrades stopped firing, and the trapped and wounded were taken out before the gunfire resumed. Despite the pictures and the television footage, the police and Nationalist politicians claimed the images had been fabricated, that the people had been faking death and injury.
On the day of the mass funeral for the victims of the original massacre, there seemed to be coffins everywhere I looked. Some in limousine hearses, others on the back of dilapidated pick-up trucks, yet others carried shoulder high by comrades. Aaron Mathope’s coffin rested on the floor of a darkened room as his family sat vigil over him. The only light came from two candles and in the open coffin lined with white tissue paper Aaron stared out with glassy eyes. He did not look real, it seemed more like a nativity scene of the baby Jesus in a manger than a murdered child in a cheap wood box, so small it could hardly be called a coffin.
There were dozens of coffins side by side, and a sad and embittered crowd filled the local soccer field. Clergymen of every conceivable denomination, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, came to pray for the dead. Joao watched as Tutu made his way through the crowd, beaming and grasping people’s hands at the dignitaries’ area. Tutu had been to too many such massacres, too many funerals, and his was a message of hope, not despair. But his mood was not reflected among many within the crowd gathered to mourn. All the politicians who counted were there, including Mandela, who announced that the ANC was pulling out of the negotiations towards a future South Africa as a result of government complicity and police involvement in the killings.