1 March 2013
Unemployed People’s Movement Press Statement

Thandiswa Qubuda has Died

Dark clouds are not strangers in our patriarchal society. They are gaining momentum. On Thursday night, 28 February 2013, Thandiswa Qubuda passed from this world. She had spent six weeks in hospital, brain dead, after she was savagely raped and beaten.

We ask ourselves why her story, such a painful story, is not getting media coverage and creating an uproar. The lives of poor people count for nothing in this country. There is no democracy for us.

After Andries Tatane, Marikana and now Mido Macia the whole world knows that we are oppressed by a police force every bit as savage as the police force under apartheid. But the evil is not only in the state. It is amongst us too. This is the truth that we must face. Our struggle to build a society in which every person counts is with ourselves as well as with the state and the capitalists.

The will be a commemoration service for Thandiswa Qubuda on the 07 March 2013 at BB Zondani, Grahamstown at 16:00 to honour the life of the noble daughter of the soil.

Our country must bow its head in shame, all of us! We are leaderless and futureless.

We can not continue on this route, there has to be change, revolutionary change. The new struggle cannot start with men waving guns. It must start with the recognition of the dignity of every person.

Xola Mali – 072 299 5253 – UPM Spokeperson
Sbongile Jonas – 079 780 3928 – UPM Secretary for Women
Ayanda Kota – 078 625 6462