NDABEZINHLE SIBIYA
The untimely departure of well respected attorney John Wills has refreshed my memory and those of others.
There are many ANC leaders – members, ordinary members of society and professionals across all sectors who are telling their personal stories about John Wills.
They are narrating stories on how he saved them from being arrested by the apartheid regime. Others are heaping praises on him for having rescued them following their detention without trial.
Between now and his funeral on Friday, I will also tell my own story about my interaction with John Wills.
The question is – how safe is the future of our freedom and democracy if contributions and sacrifices of its heroes are allowed to evaporate off the face of our public discourse?
At every given moment, when I reflect on my upbringing in eSikhawini Township (eSikhaleni) near Richards Bay, I always point out that God allows each of his children the freedom to do evil or to do right.
Of course, whatever we sow we reap, but to be given the freedom to make those choices is amazing. This is what I always state.
When I received the news of the sad passing of John Wills, who has been described by the African National Congress in KZN as a champion for human rights and a fighter for access to justice, I was reminded of the brutal murder of my father in eSikhawini Township.
Apart from the fact that we once worked together in the Office of the Premier, I met Wills in Richards Bay for the first time in 1998.
He represented members of the hit squad who had come forward to confess about their involvement in the murder of ANC and United Democratic Front activists between the late 1980s and the early 1990s – mainly in Empangeni and Esikhawini.
The hit squad members shocked the world when they revealed how they were trained by the South African Defence Force in the Caprivi Strip in Namibia – which was called South West Africa. They went on to kill ANC activists who threatened Inkatha's political dominance in this province.
John Wills’s ability to extract the truth from the hit squad members convinced me that I was closer to knowing who had killed my father. He worked as a court interpreter and spoke many languages fluently including Afrikaans.
John Wills, was enormously tall with a very intimidating look.
During those days, it was common to hear white and middle-class Afrikaner men publicly stating: “Ek hou nie van swartmense nie” – ‘I don't like black people.
However, behind Wills’s intimidating look was a very amiable personality. This is what I found when I met him for the first time.
He was always ready with assuring words – especially to political activists who ran to him seeking justice.
I was no exception. Shortly after the murder of my father, my mother moved from eSikhawini to Empangeni to be closer to Ngwelezane Hospital where she worked.
She eventually turned her back on Empangeni and moved to Durban. She wanted to erase the pain that remained in her mind, heart and soul.
It is the same pain expressed by Mam’ Sibongile Hadebe, the wife of Reggie Hadebe, shortly after the murder of the late deputy chair of the ANC in the Natal Midlands. I posted old footage from the archive in which Mama Hadebe explained the pain of living in the area where her husband was murdered. In the same footage, Wills’s long-time friend, John Jeffreys, gave account of the Reggie's murder after a meeting with the IFP in Ixopo.
In Part 2, I will elaborate how John Wills unravelled the thread that had woven Reggie Hadebe's death.
The ongoing violence involving Inkatha, UDF and ANC activists in the late 1980s and early 90s changed the socio-economic landscape in this province.
It ravaged families and pit brother against brother. Relations between neighbours who had been friendly for years were disrupted and they became bitter enemies.
UDF and ANC leaders, who operated underground as the party was banned, were hunted down. About 10 family members of the late MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison, Bheki Ntuli, were brutally murdered. He survived by walking 74km from eSikhawini to Mtubatuba.
There are many leaders – too many to mention, who survived assassination attempts, such as the late vice-chancellor of Mangosuthu University, Professor Mseshi Ndlovu, and former premier and SACP leader Willies Mchunu, who was a trade unionist at that time.
Political activists from eSikhawini, Empangeni and many other townships were effective in organising mass opposition to the apartheid regime.
There was labour unrest, rent strikes, consumer boycotts, worker stayaways and intensive warfare, which resulted in mass killings, torture and arrests.
In the suburbs, life was normal. That’s where Wills belonged.
However, he relentlessly defended freedom fighters and innocent members of communities.
He was in Ulundi, the Natal Midlands, Empangeni, eSikhawini, KwaMakhutha, KwaMashu, uMlazi, Lamontville, Richmond, Hammersdale, Mooi River, and Newcastle defending political activists who were arrested under the state of emergency and many other discriminatory policies.
He represented a generation of lawyers behind the wave of legal activism that made it difficult for the apartheid regime to administer its discriminatory policies.
He was an engineer of a silent but effective legal uprising that was a source of inspiration to many political activists who were thrust in the jaws of apartheid and were expected to free millions of people from the brutal system of apartheid.
For a very long time, I grew up witnessing and hearing horror stories of shootings because one was a member of Inkatha and the other UDF.
But for many African families during that period, it was the physical boundaries rather than conflicting personal loyalties that divided them.
Families were not able to attend funerals of family members killed as the borders between political parties and their areas were rigidly enforced.
Love affairs and friendships were broken. Everyday routines and tasks were altered. It was not only daily routines that were affected by the political violence – human rights were violated everyday and there was no access to justice.
This is what the apartheid government wanted. On the other hand, this was what John Wills fought against.
Ndabezinhle Sibiya is a Government Communicator. He writes in his private capacity.
Daily News