'Permanently Removed from Society': the Cradock Four
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HAOL, Núm. 7 (Primavera, 2005), 135-142 ISSN 1696-2060 ‘PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM SOCIETY’: THE CRADOCK FOUR, THE TRC, MORAL JUDGMENTS, HISTORICAL TRUTH, AND THE DILEMMAS OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY Derek Charles Catsam University of Texas of the Permian Basin, United States. E-mail: [email protected] Recibido: 17 Marzo 2005 / Revisado: 21 Abril 2005 / Aceptado: 13 Mayo 2005 / Publicado: 15 Junio 2005 Resumen: On 27 June, four men from the South never arrived. Indeed, they never made it out of Africa town of Cradock left the coastal city of the greater Port Elizabeth region1. Port Elizabeth. Among the four was popular Matthew Goniwe was a prominent activist in the teacher and anti-apartheid activist Matthew eastern Cape, and was a community leader in Goniwe. The only people who would ever see Cradock. He had been active in leading various the again would be their killers, members of the elements of the anti-apartheid movement that South Africa Police (SAP). The identities of the had heated up in South Africa in the wake of the killers would remain hidden for well more than Soweto uprisings in 1976, and especially in the a decade, when the killers applied for amnesty months after September 1984 when mass through the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC), protests hit the country. Those protests began in which the Government of National Unity had the Transvaal and quickly spread to the eastern established after the apartheid government gave Cape, a traditional hotbed of black activism. way to a multiracial democracy. This article Goniwe was a popular teacher in Cradock. He focuses in particular on a culture of deniability had helped to organize and support a school that emerged during the 1980s. In the course of strike in the community, a strike that served as a the investigations of the killing of Goniwe and symbol and catalyst for the small town's his colleagues, journalists uncovered “Die Sein” unexpectedly strong ongoing resistance to South (Afrikaans for “The Signal”), which called for Africa's racial caste system. The State had “the permanent removal from society” of responded by attempting to transfer Goniwe, but Goniwe. When pressed, officials of the state and he refused the assignment. Then they attempted security forces insisted that there were many to fire him outright --again, this tactic did not ways to interpret Die Sein and that the document work, and in fact it merely served to heighten did not necessarily call for Goniwe’s death. This the resolve of the striking children who were at followed a pattern in which South African the forefront of the protest movement. Goniwe officials had stretched the limits of credulity in was also instrumental in helping to form asserting that similar words and phrases did not CRADORA, the Cradock Residents' mean what the security forces nonetheless Association, which helped to provide an always took them to mean. organized structure for black South African Palabras clave: anti-apartheid, Cradock, protest against the State and the municipality. Matthew Goniwe, South Africa. Finally, Goniwe was a respected and tireless _____________________ field organizer for the United Democratic Front (UDF) an organization that for all intents and n June 27th, 1985 Matthew Goniwe, purposes took the place of the banned African Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkhonto, and National Congress (ANC). In sum, Goniwe O Sicelu Mhlawuli left Port Elizabeth, a represented a serious threat to the apartheid coastal city on South Africa's eastern Cape, and state, all the more as time went by and it became headed toward Cradock, a small community clear that the ANC/UDF plan to "make South approximately 120 miles to the north. They Africa Ungovernable" was coming to fruition. © Historia Actual Online 2005 135 ‘Permanently removed from society’ Derek Charles Catsam Thus the four men left Port Elizabeth knowing to the day after the Sharpeville Massacre, began that they were vulnerable. While not as visible as a clash between funeral marchers and police. as the forceful and charismatic Goniwe, Calata The heightened sense of indignance, protest, and had a history of activism that extended deep into anger that the anti-apartheid masses felt, coupled his family's roots, as did Mkhonto2. The four with State fears that the ANC and UDF were would never arrive in Cradock. After they had indeed fulfilling their promise to "make South been missing for several days, which greatly Africa ungovernable" helped to fuel a crisis that alarmed and disturbed the black community up would lead one newspaper to call 1985 "the and down the eastern Cape, their charred worst year of our lives."3 In timing that was too remains were discovered. close to be a coincidence, on the eve of the Badly burned, their bodies each bore numerous funerals, state President P.W. Botha declared stab wounds; and although it would take a most of the country to be under a State of coroner to determine as much, their bodies also Emergency. After a brief respite, a Second State revealed numerous other signs of physical harm. of Emergency would follow in 1986. Some distance away stood their car, which also had been burnt almost beyond recognition. Eventually two inquests would attempt to clear Curiously, the license plates on the car were not up the issues surrounding the killings. Each only still affixed, they also appeared to be would merely serve to create more questions untouched by the effects of the fire that had than it could possibly answer. After the first otherwise gutted the car. The license plates were inquest, held in Port Elizabeth in 1989, Judge E. not those of the original car in which the four De Beers announced his findings. He declared, had been travelling. Those license plates had after establishing the obvious --namely that the been found in yet another location. Clearly Four had indeed been murdered-- that there was someone was trying to hide the true nature of the "absolutely no evidence before me that any crime. The question quickly became "who was member of the Force had anything whatsoever responsible, and why?" For many South to do with the killings."4 Not surprisingly, few in Africans, the answer was self evident. The the African community believed the truth of the problem lay in the fact that the evidence to finding. But it was not really the fault of De justify that answer was as yet nonexistent. The Beers. Based on the evidence before him, it is murders bore all of the signs of a political clear that he decided in the only way that he killing. That being the case there were two real could. The Security Forces covered up their possibilities. One was that this was the result of actions well. They left no paper trail; no one a conflict between the UDF and another anti- who knew anything was speaking; there was no apartheid group. In the eastern Cape, that would physical evidence, no witness. Any involvement most likely mean AZAPO, the Azanian People's of the police or other agents of the state Organization. But most observers envisioned a seemingly went up in the smoke that charred the far more likely scenario. That tableaux involved bodies of Matthew Goniwe and his fallen the State, and thus what was known as the comrades. Security Forces, an unofficial agglomeration of the South African Police (SAP), South African The killing of the Cradock Four provides a ripe Defence Forces (SADF), Railroad police, and case study for the examination of modern South other groups the existence of which many South Africa, not just its history, but also its present. Africans knew so little. These were the "Third The murders mark a signature event in arguably Force." Of course the South African Police and the most tumultuous year in the tumultuous state officials denied complicity in the killings. history of the struggle against apartheid rule. Findings of the Truth and Reconciliation The death of the Cradock Four quickly became Commission (TRC) have opened up doors to an major news across the country, and of course it understanding of the past that could not have hit hardest in the eastern Cape, and especially in been imagined twenty years ago. And yet the the veld community of Cradock. In subsequent TRC had its limitations. Furthermore, by weeks and months, an already overheated understanding what the TRC revealed (and of situation would increase in intensity. Cradock equal importance, what it was unable to reveal), would continue to stand as a strident symbol of we can understand some of the limitations as resistance. The funeral of the Cradock Four well as the strengths of studying, researching, would become a major political event as had so and writing contemporary history. Furthermore, many funerals before it. The Langa Massacre of as an examination of a few cases, the Cradock March 1985, which had occurred twenty years Four chief amongst them, will quickly show, the 136 © Historia Actual Online 2005 Derek Charles Catsam ‘Permanently removed from society’ uses and misuses of language can make apparently not clear. At least this is what some understanding, knowing, and seeking the truth of the lawyers for the State would argue. incredibly difficult indeed. Aside from questions of objectivity, the South African example calls Although on its face it would seem obvious that into question some of the basic tenets of history. permanent removal from society, especially in And yet at the same time, the example of South the context of the South African case, and with Africa can help to reveal why history matters, special attention to which the state had paid why contemporary history can be effective, and Goniwe, meant that Goniwe and his colleagues why fears of the impossibility of true objectivity were to be killed.