A Change is Gonna Come
The Death Throes of a Hated System
They were extraordinary times. Apartheid, described by the United Nations, as a Crime Against Humanity, was on its last legs. It was in every way unsustainable. Political prisoners had been freed, including the international symbol of the fight against Apartheid and national icon, Nelson Mandela, but the the political process that would replace the abomination that was Apartheid had yet to be completed. The National Party of then South African President F. W. de Klerk had no choice but to negotiate with long time enemies the African National Congress (ANC).
Nevertheless, this process had opposition from both sides of the political spectrum too. The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) had been weakened by infiltration and the systematic use of the death penalty by the National Party's government and courts over many years. The criminal justice system had been used by the government to punish opposition. The PAC did not support the process as it was unfolding at that time. It viewed all white people as legitimate targets because it believed that they had benefited from Apartheid and its armed wing continued its operations, including an attack that would send shock waves around the world. Atrocities were still being committed by the security services as elections loomed. But while the PAC wanted to smash Apartheid and the hated system of racist privilege that it stood for, the process had opposition from those who benefited from it and wanted to keep Apartheid, or even extent white power, such as the late Eugène Terre'Blanche and his Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB).
The Eikenhof Attack
Just over three years had passed since Mandela's release. The elections that would propel Mandela to the Presidency of South Africa were just a year away, but the nitty-gritty still had to be agreed for the revolution to be completed at the ballot box. There had been plenty of pain over many years and it had been disproportionate against the black majority. Many martyrs had given their lives – the living still bore the scars of a bestial system that had to be opposed not only through peaceful means, but also through armed struggle.
The Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) – the PAC's military wing – had not given up the armed struggle in March 1993. It would do so before long, but not before an operation that shocked South Africa to the core. On March 19th 1993 Norman Mitchley was driving his Volkswagen Passat along the Vereeniging road, near Eikenhof, Johannesburg. Craig Lamprecht, Norman's wife, Zandra, their son Shaun, and Shaun's friend Claire Silberbauer were passengers when they encountered a green BMW. It belonged to Mziwamadoda Mpunga, but he had been forced out of it at gunpoint by members of APLA. They opened fire on Mitchley's car. Lamprecht and Norman Mitchley survived but Silberbauer and Zandra and Shaun Mitchley were killed.
The PAC's President, Letlapa Mphahlele, expressed surprise and shock that despite APLA quickly contacting media claiming responsibility for the attack, a dreadful miscarriage of justice was allowed to occur. Opposition to the political process that would dismantle Apartheid was not limited to political parties. State terrorism and political assassination had been used to cow resistance and the judicial process was not immune either.
The ANC had given up the armed struggle and was organising as a political party, but elements within the South African Police Force at that time saw their opportunity to discredit and undermine the ANC by pinning the Eikenhof attack on them. ANC members Siphiwe Bholo, Titi Ndweni and Sipho Gavin were targeted, despite APLA's admission that it was their operation. A shameful and politically motivated and orchestrated miscarriage of justice was allowed to occur.
Confessions were coerced from the Eikenhof Three, who had also been misidentified by Mpunga. Those are two of the commonest forms of evidence that result in miscarriages of justice. South Africa was on the verge of emerging from the shadow of Apartheid, but its criminal justice system remained in the dark ages. Sadly, despite the eventual vindication of the Eikenhof Three, which occurred in an unusual manner over a decade ago, the lessons of their vindication have yet to be learned by the South African criminal justice system.