Minus Mashinini Lecture

Ruse Minus was knocked down by a car near University of Zambia Ruse Minus was killed by unknown apartheid assassins Ruse Minus was slaughtered as a result of ritual murder Ruse Minus' private parts and left eye were harvested for muthi Ruse Minus was murdered because he knew a lot Ruse Minus was slayed because they wanted to know where the Death Letter Bomb (Armoury) were hidden. Ruse 27 years ago, in 1990 October 22, I received a cold call from Cde Audrey. At the time the ANC internal headquarters was located at Shell House, Plain Street Johannesburg. Cde Audrey was a family friend, and over years I had had worked with her. Cde Audrey was hysterical, in a breaking quivering voice she delivered a devastating news. "Minus passed on in a car accident in Lusaka!" The line went dead. It was as though the world has come to an end. I had spoken to Minus a few days ago. In his words he assured me he was not coming back home. Instead he said he was going to settle in Mozambique. Was this a premonition? Only Gods knows! The political climate in the country was exuberant. African majority were excited. Three hundred years of slavery was drawing to an end. Our streets were alive with toying toying children, youth and adults from morning to midnight.   Citizenry were for the first time proudly brandishing colours of their favourite outlawed political parties. No longer were majority afraid of the consequences of openly supporting liberation party of their choice. Prime Minister Willem De Klerk's own perestroika had set the tone for a political negotiation. Political prisoners from across the liberation divide from ANC, PAC, AZAPO, and AZANLA were set free. It were still early days, however in some ways, a trickle of some political exiles were already repatriated back home. The fanfare was spoiled by the continued extermination of indigenous people by those hell bent on keeping the status quo. As much as the internecine violence and third force were at play with Boipatong becoming a killing field we remained optimistic. KwaZulu Natal was also at a boiling point with Inkatha battling it out with the ANC. In the Reef, commuter train massacres were the order of the day. Kathorus in the East Rand experienced a low intense war. Hostel dwellers were attacking residence they lived side by side with for many years. Many families were displaced with many more people dying. The atmosphere of despair, death and destruction was way, way unpalatable. Amid all the sad macabre having a grip in the country, people from all walks of lives were in unison clamouring for peace. In the midst of hardened attitude from verkrampte, rays of hope was showing in the background. Funeral dirge were laden by compatriot's reunion celebrating thrown by families welcoming their loved ones. For the life of me, I can't recall my reaction after Cde Audrey had broken the gloom news.  The picturesque I had conjured up before the phone call were images of my family, friends and neighbours in jubilation.  Some crying, others overcome by joy reunited with an anti-apartheid cadre who left the country as a teen of fifteen to fight for freedom. It was going to be fifteen playing itself twice. Fifteen years at home, fifteen year out of home. During the period South Africa was crossing the Rubicon numberless of freedom fighter were dying mysteriously at a staggering rate inside and outside the country. In the same way the enemy was targeting the Eastern Front, the modus operandi continued unabated during our long march to a democratic dispensation. It was not easy in the Frontline States. Combatants there were living on borrowed time. Cross boarder raids were the name of the game. Operatives were ambushed and killed wilynilly. Minus once said to me: "in war they don't blow kisses, in war they blow killer kisses. Equally worrisome the Frontline were teeming with spies. It was easy for the Pretoria regime to plant at every given space individual who were collecting reconnaissance, as such it was not uncommon to die easy in places where assassination of guerillas were common place. So ... one of our own had died. The family reconciled with the inevitable. Minus Khosing as he was popular known in the underground was born Saul Sibusiso Mashinini. Sibusiso left the country on the 08 August 1976, with a group of other comrades from Phuti Junior Secondary School in Orlando West. He was the member of the South African Student Movement (SASM). Sibusiso had appeared in the morning edition of the Rand Daily Mail wearing a shirt emblazoned with the slogan: “We don’t want to learn English in Afrikaans! For many years, the rumour mill claimed Sibusiso had passed on. Then that was the story repeated over time to families of activists. Most families mourn and unmourned their children. It was that time. Most families walked wounded physical, emotionally and spiritually. At the same time countenancing with visitors in the wee hours of the night searching for their relatives who were anti-apartheid activists. In 1977 Minus went to Russia (Ukraine) Kiev and enrolled for military training. He was selected along with his other comrades after a military training stint in Mozambique and Angola. After completing his training in USSR he became an integral part of the June 16 Detachment working as an artilleryman. From thereafter, he worked between Somalia, Angola, Mozambique and Lusaka as Ordinance Department operative. He travelled wide and far smuggling armoury to the Front. As the HOD of the Ordinance Department he was deployed in Swaziland in the 80s with his late comrade Nelson Dladla, who also passed on mysteriously in KwaZulu Natal. It was Nelson Dladla who identified the badly decomposed body of Minus in a Morgue in Zambia after he went missing. It was in 1986, during the cause of discharging his underground misssion in Swaziland when Minus survived the assissin bullet. His was shoot at the back and the bullet was lodged in his left shoulder. His car he was travelling in with a young girl veered off and skidded down an embarkment landing on its tyres. Minus was able to sneak out and escape to safety. The Swazi police caught him and detained him at Matsapa Prison. He was then repatriated to Mozambique, where he was also detained at Machava Maximum Prison. After spending time there, he was deployed to Lusaka where he met his untimed death. Minus whose other nom guerre was MaQuestion, has had quiet a fulfilling life. However, his death like his other code name MaQuestion has left many more questions than answers. The TRC never called the family to testify after giving submission. Someone killed in a car accident to have his eye gouged out and private parts missing makes for an interesting observation. In Lusaka Minus worked for the Angolan Embassy as an interpreter, his grasp of languages was second to none. He spoke many languages fluently. Like many families who didn't stop asking for justice, it is our expressed desire that one day the truth will triumph. We quite aware that many of our country men and women passed without any closure. We of the idea that we need to heal as families and the nation. The Ahmed Timol case has once walk around for years without knowing the full truth. May the truth that is concealed in the vault of truthlessness be conquered by truth of truth. Time frozen is time questing for closure.