Leo katika kumbukumbu: R.I.P Patrick Mahlangu!

Kama humkumbuki ngojea ,...

... Nkepile Mabuse ...

... akukumbushe kiduchu ....

Au tu  pata kimaneno ambayo kwa bahati mbaya mkao wake ni wa kiung'eng'e hii ndude:

Pretoria, South Africa - Patrick Mahlangu is just one of several thousand South Africans who disappeared without a trace during the apartheid era. But after 25 years of searching, his body has finally been found.
Mahlangu, a member of the banned ANC's guerilla movement Umkhonto We Sizwe, or MK, was tortured and killed by security police in 1986. His body was then blown up, to make it appear he had been killed while planting explosives.


Passersby found the 28-year-old's scattered remains the next day. They were collected, buried, but never identified.

"It's very painful. The pain is made worse by the fact that you have never buried this person nor do you have a death certificate," explained Mahlangu's widow, Queen.
"Sometimes you imagine him just appearing from nowhere. Sometimes, when you are watching TV you see someone you think could be him. You never really accept that he is dead," she added.

The South African Missing Person's Task Team has been searching for Mahlangu's remains for years. Finally, they have found them.

As the task team changes the status of one more victim from missing to found, hundreds more families await their turn to uncover the truth.

Mahlangu is among nearly 500 missing persons the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has mandated that the team find and, where possible, hand their remains over to their families.
It's a difficult process as investigators uncover the past but for the families it's also a chance for final closure and the opportunity to give their loved ones a proper burial.

"What we have learnt is that in as much as getting the remains is important for the families, getting the story of what happened to their family member known is equally important," said head investigator Madeleine Fullard.
"No one has ever heard of Patrick Mahlangu ... but when you actually look at his case and what he went through he really went through the complete horror of death at the hands of security policemen," she continued.

Mahlangu's story reads like many others caught up in the unrest in 1980s South Africa. The year was 1986 and as the black majority demanded an end to white minority rule, township riots escalated.
Umkhonto We Sizwe was stepping up the pressure against the government. It was in this climate that Mahlangu became a hunted man and was taken away in the night. His family never heard from him again.
"In one sense he was problematic for the system because he had knowledge of training of arms intelligence and covert operations," investigator Tshiamo Moela said.


"But also he was an active member of society actively opposing the state as a trade unionist and as a member of the civic associations, so in a sense he became a knowledge base that they thought that they could extract information from," he continued.


It wasn't until 10 years later, with apartheid abolished and a new government in place, that details of Mahlangu's disappearance were finally heard.


At the TRC perpetrators of apartheid atrocities sought amnesty from prosecution in exchange for telling the truth. It was there that it emerged Mahlangu had been abducted by two black policemen pretending to be MK operatives.


"He was tortured -- after that it was felt that he had seen the black policemen that were operating with the security police so he could identify them then so it was easier to eliminate him. He was blown up after he had been killed," Moela said.

Authorities say he was among many "enemies of the state" to be killed and then later blown up.

Armed with confessions from the TRC, the Missing Person's Task Team was able to begin their search for his burial site.

Investigators say that after following the paper trial that was available to check through the police, they then went through cemetery records and finally a cemetery itself.



The probe pointed to a cemetery in Soshanguve Township, north of the capital, Pretoria. It was here that a team of anthropologists and investigators started looking for Mahlangu's remains.
It was a difficult and long process. The cemetery records didn't match what was underground and the team dug up six graves before they found the right one.



Claudia Bisso is a member of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology team that came to South Africa in 2005 to train local graduates and oversee the search.

She has done similar work in Argentina, Bosnia and Kosovo but says that the South African process is very different to what she has been exposed to elsewhere in the world.

"A very important point is here the South African government is doing it -- in other countries it's usually NGOs doing the search of the missing; it's only in South Africa where the government took the responsibility for the missing," she said.

After nearly 30 years, Mahlangu's family finally has some kind of closure, but for the Missing Persons Task Team, the work continues as this country tries to piece together a painful past.

For his wife, it is finally time to forgive her husband's killers.

"I used to have a lot of anger in my heart, especially towards white people, but now I have forgiven them because you can't blame the whole race for the deeds of a few," she said. "Today it is white people that have helped me find my husband's remains."

Swali:

• Si umecheki lakini kuwa waliokuja kumchukua enzi hizo za  UBAGUZI wa rangi na  kumtesa kulikuwa na WEUSI wenzake Patrick Mahlangu?

Ni kumbukumbu tu hii NJOMBA!:-(