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The Langa Massacre: 21 March 1985 170 in March 1985, Tensions In

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The Langa Massacre: 21 March 1985 170 in March 1985, Tensions In ACTIONS IN ATTEMPTING TO BREAK THE BOYCOTT AND FORCE PEOPLE TO USE BUSES LED TO THE COMMISSION OF WIDESPREAD GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, INCLUDING KILLING, ATTEMPTED KILLING, AND SEVERE ILL TREATMENT, FOR WHICH THE CISKEI POLICE AND CDF ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. THE COMMISSION FINDS THAT PRO-CISKEI GOVERNMENT VIGILANTES ALSO PARTICIPATED IN THE UNLAWFUL ATTACKS ON COMMUNITIES, AND ARE HELD EQUALLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT RESULTED. The Langa massacre: 21 March 1985 170 In March 1985, tensions in Uitenhage townships reached boiling point. Between 8 and 10 March, police reported twenty-three incidents of arson and eighteen of stone-throwing, causing damage estimated at R220 000. The Minister of Law and Order, Mr Louis le Grange, had visited Uitenhage with the commissioner of police, General Coetzee on 19 February. They had been told that ‘soft’ weaponry was no longer effective for riot control purposes. On 14 March, Uitenhage’s most senior police officers, the ‘Order Group’, decided to take stronger action to regain control. As from 15 March, police patrols were no longer issued with teargas, rubber bullets and birdshot; instead they were given heavy ammunition. 171 Meanwhile, police action against militant youth resulted in six black people being killed by police. The funeral of four of the six was to be held on Sunday 17 March and a stay away was called for Monday 18 March as part of the ‘Black Weekend’. Police said that three petrol bombs were thrown at a police vehicle in Langa during this weekend, and that they shot and killed a young man. The houses of two police officers in Langa were destroyed by fire. On 17 March, Black Sash leader Ms Molly Blackburn burst into the Uitenhage police station where a youth, Mr Norman Kona, was being tortured by police. She halted the assault and saw that charges were brought against the police officers responsible. 172 The week before the funeral, Captain Goosen of the SAP applied for two different and conflicting orders relating to funeral prohibitions. Both were granted, resulting in confusion over the dates on which funerals were to be held. 174 On 21 March 1985, a large group of people from Langa township assembled at Maduna Square and began to march to KwaNobuhle to attend the funeral. The police blocked the road into the centre of Uitenhage with two armoured vehicles and ordered the crowd to disperse. When the crowd failed to comply immediately, police opened fire on the crowd, fatally shooting twenty. The incident became known as the Langa massacre. VOLUME 3 CHAPTER 2 Regional Profile: Eastern Cape PAGE 85 175 The Kannemeyer Commission was appointed the day after the shooting with Judge Donald Kannemeyer as chairperson and sole member. The Kannemeyer Commission found that twenty people were shot dead and at least twenty-seven were wounded, and that the majority had been shot in the back. He found that, in the circumstances, the police could not be blamed for issuing orders to open fire. Police were armed with lethal weapons rather than standard riot control gear because of a deliberate policy adopted by senior officers, and the police should thus have foreseen that an order to open fire would result in fatalities. Police evidence of the weapons carried by the crowd was exaggerated. 176 Charges of public violence laid against thirty-one people following the Langa massacre of March 1985 were dropped a year later. Of the thirty-one charged, twenty-one had been injured by police gunfire. 177 A year later, an inquest at the New Brighton courts in Port Elizabeth found that the deaths were not the result of any act or negligence constituting a crime on the part of anyone. The inquest findings were based on the evidence heard by Kannemeyer and it was considered unnecessary to call any of the witnesses to give their evidence to the inquest. As a result of this decision, the families of the deceased withdrew from the inquest proceedings. Magistrate JS Knoesen said that, if any blame were to be attributed for police actions, the responsibility should lie with Lieutenant JW Fouche, who was in command of the Casspirs (armoured personnel carriers) and who gave the order to open fire. However, Knoesen found that Fouche had done his duty in dispersing the crowd which was on its way to kill white people in town; that every effort made by Fouche and Warrant Officer JW Pentz to halt the marching crowd had failed, and that Fouche and Pentz had seen objects that they believed to be petrol bombs among the crowd. Knoesen said: The court is satisfied that the amount of violence used was that which was required and justifiable under the circumstances. 178 The Commission received statements in connection with more than twenty victims of this incident – about half relating to deaths, the rest to injuries. Part of one of the Uitenhage hearings in August 1996 was devoted to the Langa massacre. Those who gave evidence at this hearing included two men who had been working as ambulance drivers at the time. The dead included Mr Kenneth Thobekile Mahuna [EC0057/96PLZ], Mr Buyile Gladstone Blaauw [EC0555/96UIT], Mr Gugulethu Mzwabantu Gavu [EC0558/96UIT], Mr Aubrey Vuyo Nobatana [EC0559/96UIT], Mr Phakamile Nicholas Solomon [EC0562/96UIT], Mr Mgcineni Vusani [EC0615/96UIT], Mr Mzimkulu Penzana [EC0708/96UIT], Mr Phumzile Gladwell Plaatjies VOLUME 3 CHAPTER 2 Regional Profile: Eastern Cape PAGE 86.
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