4 October 2021
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

All Charges Dropped Against Mqapheli Bonono, Maphiwe Gasela and Siniko Miya!

Moments ago, on the 16th anniversary of the founding of our movement, the farcical charges of conspiracy to murder brought against Mqapheli Bonono, Maphiwe Gasela and Siniko Miya were, as expected, dropped in the Durban Magistrates Court.

In March this year Lindokuhle Mnguni, Landu Tshazi and Ayanda Ngila, all leaders in the eKhenana occupation and its development into an impressive working commune, were arrested on what have now been shown to have been trumped up charges of murder. Shortly after their arrest Bonono, acting as a responsible leader, called an open meeting, held at the Diakonia Council of Churches, to establish the facts of what had happened. After this meeting he, Gasela and Miya were arrested and charged with planning a conspiracy at this meeting, a conspiracy to murder a witness against Mnguni, Tshazi and Ngila.It was immediately clear that these charges were farcical. Miya was not even at the meeting, and the participants in the meeting were willing to give an account of what had happened to anyone that was interested in asking them. When the Bonono, Gasela and Miya first appeared in court the prosecution didn’t even have the date of the meeting right let alone anything remotely approaching actual credible evidence.

Bonono and Gasela spent more than two weeks in the notorious Westville Prison before they were able to win bail. Gasela was separated from her seriously unwell sixteen-month-old baby while she was in prison. Miya was denied bail as he has a pending case dating back to before the occupation was formed. He was finally released today after the charges against the three were dropped.

On Wednesday 29 September – which was the 7th anniversary of the assassination of our leader Thuli Ndlovu by two ANC councillors – all charges against Mnguni, Tshazi and Ngila were dropped and they were able to walk out of the court and into freedom.

On Friday 1 October a wonderful celebration was held to welcome the three back to eKhenana with hundreds of comrades from other branches participating. We were expecting to also be able to celebrate the dropping of call charges against Bonono, Gasela and Miya who appeared in court that morning in the expectation that the charges against them would be dropped.

To everyone’s surprise this did not happen, and Miya was sent back to prison. The prosecution was already aware, and had been for quite some time, that there was no case against the three. It is outrageous that Miya was forced to spend the weekend in prison when everyone knew that he was innocent of the charges that had been brought against him. There needs to be a serious investigation into the conduct of the magistrate and the prosecutor.

It is important to note that after being released on Wednesday 29 September Mnguni was supposed to be back in the dock the following day as he is one of 24 people who were arrested on a charge of ‘public violence’ in November 2018. These charges remain open despite the state’s failure to be able to prosecute.

Since our movement was formed in 2005 the police have used this tactic of arresting activists on the charge of ‘public violence’, detaining them – and often assaulting them and sometimes torturing them in the holding cells – then releasing them on bail and forcing them to come to court six or seven times before the charges are finally dropped. There has never once been a conviction in sixteen years because these charges are just a form of harassment against activists. It is often local councillors and their committees who point out the people to be arrested. The court appearance on the public violence charge scheduled for Wednesday last week was postponed but the fact that an activist can come out of prison after being detained for six months on one bogus charge and then be scheduled to get straight back in the dock on another bogus charge the next day shows just how threatening the self-organisation and political autonomy of the poor is to the gangsters in the ANC.

It is now clear to the whole world that the arrests of the eKhenana six was a gross misuse of the criminal justice system to try and crush the eKhenana Commune. However, urgent questions remain.

Why were six people arrested on bogus charges? Why were Bonono, Gasela and Miya taken to prison and then, after Bonono and Gasela were bailed out, left with charges hanging over their heads for six months when it was immediately clear that there was no case against them?
Why was Miya left in prison for six months when it was made clear immediately after the arrests that he was not at the meeting that the state claimed, farcically, had been used to conspire to murder? The police could have confirmed this within an hour if they had any interest in establishing the facts.

Why were Mnguni, Tshazi and Ngila repeatedly denied bail and kept in horrific conditions in Westville Prison when it was clear that the state had no case against them?

Soon after the arrest of Bonono, Gasela and Miya our lawyer Jimmy Howse, a highly respected advocate known to be a measured man who carefully follows the evidence, said in open court that the case ‘stinks to high heaven’, that it was ‘a travesty’ and showed very clearly that there were ‘serious anomalies’ in the argument made by the prosecution. Why was this ignored when it was clear that Howse’s statements were entirely justified and that the state had no credible evidence? All that the prosecutor could say in response to the plain fact that there was no evidence was that the police required more time to find evidence. Surely there should be credible evidence before arrests are made, rather than arresting people and then keeping them in prison while looking for credible evidence.

On the 21st May Mabongi Luthuli, a witness for the state, confessed in the Family Court to having borne false witness by lying in her witness statement. Her confession is on the court record. Why were the charges not immediately dropped after this?

A few weeks ago, Luthuli and Ntokozo Ngubane, the second witness for the state, both made sworn statements admitting that they had lied in their original statements. Ngubane, whose father is a powerful person in the local ANC, admitted that she was in fact in central Durban at the time at which the murder for which Mnguni, Tshazi and Ngila were arrested and imprisoned was committed in Cato Manor. Luthuli has admitted that she was also not at the scene when the murder happened but was phoned by ‘a man’ and told to go to the scene and to then make a false witness statement. We strongly suspect that this man may have been Mazwi Ndwandwe. His role in the misuse of the criminal justice system to repress the occupation has been explained in a previous statement. Again, why were the charges not immediately dropped after this?

We have had serious concerns about KwaKito – the Cato Manor police station – for many years. Our members have been insulted, threatened, assaulted and tortured by officers from that police station. If they try to report criminality by the municipality – such as illegal and violent evictions – or local ANC leaders they are threatened and thrown out of the police station. In 2013 Nqobile Nzuza was murdered by an officer from that station. The Cato Manor police station does not even pretend to follow the law. They openly take instruction from the local ANC politicians – the ward councillors and people on their branch committees. There needs to be a serious inquiry into this police station and serious action taken to address the rot.

We also need to note that our comrades have received open threats from the police. When the first three arrests were made in eKhenana on 17 March the officers were not in uniform and, as a result, one of the three, Tshazi, fled when confronted by threatening men with guns. The police shot at him while he was running away (unarmed and with his back to the police) and one of the police officers accidently shot off his own finger. Tshazi suffered a broken leg during the arrest and on 18 March, when he was in hospital, Detective Subramoney threatened to force an unlicensed gun on to his hand and then arrest him for shooting the police officer who had shot off his own finger. Also in the hospital, Constable Shandu told Tshazi “If you come out you are committing suicide”. This was clearly a death threat. There needs to be a specific investigation into the threats made by Subramoney and Shandu.

There also needs to be serious action against the pervasive corruption in the criminal justice system. At every point in the process following the arrests of the six the police requested bribes from the accused and their families and comrades. Bribes were demanded for bail to be recommended and for charges to be dropped. Bribes were demanded for people in the cells to receive visitors or food. Bribes were demanded for people to enter the court room and witness the proceedings. Everything in the prison is corrupt. Prisoners have to pay to be safe, to have a place to sleep, to have proper food, etc, etc.

Serious concern also needs to be expressed about the article on the arrests published in Ilanga in March. It repeated lies, was full of inaccuracies and did not give the people slandered in the piece a right to reply. It is unacceptable for the media to uncritically repeat propaganda for the ANC, as News24 recently did for the police when they murdered one of our former leaders, Zamekile Shangase, a 33-year-old woman from Asiyindawo in Lamontville, on 29 July during a ‘show your receipt’ raid.

The arrests of the eKhenana Six were a politically motivated farce, nothing more or less than a brazen, crude and cynical misuse of the criminal justice system to repress activists. If anyone can make an evidently dishonest and malicious allegation against activists that results in arrest and imprisonment it will be open season on our movement, and other organisations and struggles. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.

The police and the National Prosecuting Authority must be compelled to answer for their outrageous actions. We cannot tolerate a situation where local ANC thugs can misuse the criminal justice system to have activists arrested and jailed. We will be instructing our lawyers to sue.

We are also calling for serious and effective reform of the criminal justice system which has routinely functioned as a mechanism to repress activists since the emergence of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in 2000. There needs to be a full enquiry into the sustained abuse of the criminal justice system to repress activists over more than twenty years.

If Shamila Batohi, as the head of the prosecuting authority, and Khehla Sithole, as the head of the police, are people of integrity we expect that they will, at a minimum, come to eKhenana, meet with us, offer their apologies and discuss ways to put an end to the abuse of the criminal justice system to repress activists.

We would like to thank all our comrades in the organisations of the poor in Durban, across South Africa, Africa and around the world who have shown such powerful solidarity with our movement during this time. It is deeply appreciated. Solidarity has always been a key foundation of our movement and just as you were here when we needed you we will be there when you need us.

The struggle continues, but today we celebrate again.

Thapelo Mohapi 074 774 4219
S’bu Zikode 083 547 0474
Nomsa Sizani 081 005 3686