On\nThursday, 1 August 2019 the SPU community gathered to honour and remember\nNokuthula Simelane through an exhibition on her life put together by our\nHeritage Studies students and to hear her story narrated by her sister Thembi\nSimelane-Nkadimeng, Executive Mayor of the Polokwane Local Municipality and the\nPresident of the SA Local Government Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\nwelcoming those present at the public lecture, Professor Jean Baxen, the Deputy\nVice-Chancellor: Academic mentioned that the stories of the many women who\nsacrificed so much in the struggle against apartheid were seldom told. These\nare the stories and \u201crememberings\u201d that SPU will be sharing during the month of\nAugust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also encouraged the young women present to exercise their agency through having self-respect and being respected. For the men present, she urged them to have agency through restraint and to respect all the women in their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr\nSibongile Masuku, a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at SPU and a friend of\nNokuthula, gave a powerful performance of a poem about \u201ca sister who ceased to\nexist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thembi\nSimelane-Nkadimeng related the story of Nokuthula Simelane, a 22-year old woman,\nwho was about to graduate from university in1983 when she was abducted by the\nApartheid police, tortured and then disappeared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was an\nUmkhonto we Sizwe operative when she had travelled from Swaziland to South\nAfrica to purchase her graduation gown but her movements were reported by a spy\nwithin her unit. She was intercepted at\nthe Carlton Centre in Johannesburg sometime between 8 and 11 September 1983,\ntaken to the police facility in Norwood, and kept there for one week while\nbeing interrogated and tortured in an attempt to turn her into a double agent \u2013\nin what we now know was called Operation Kopdraai. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was\nlater moved to the notorious Vlakplaas where she was subjected to vicious\ntorture such as electrical shocks to her breasts, submersion in a dam (also\ncalled waterboarding), and continually beaten until she was unconscious or lost\ncontrol of her bodily functions. She was\nnever seen again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her family\nhas established that she was kept there for about six to eight weeks. Stronger men were broken in this process\nafter about six days so it is a testament to Nokuthula\u2019s strength and courage\nthat she endured being brutalised for about 52 days. It is therefore not possible that she\nsurvived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thembi\nSimelane was nine years old when her sister disappeared \u2013 she remembers as a\nchild the story in the family about a missing child. Her family has searched in\nearnest for Nokuthula from the time that those in exile began to return to\nSouth Africa and they realised that she was not amongst them. In 1996 they opened a case of\ndisappearance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The matter\nwas then referred to the TRC who gave Nokuthula\u2019s torturers amnesty for her\nabduction and kidnapping but not for the torture. The case of murder was referred to the NPA\nfor further investigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, the family, and those of other families still searching for their disappeared children or spouses were forced to take legal action against the government for not following through on the referrals from the TRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four\nmembers of the Soweto special branch of the apartheid police service were then\ncharged and will be prosecuted for Nokuthula\u2019s disappearance. The family agreed to their bail during which\ntime one of the accused has died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An interim\norder on the presumption of her death was issued and the court insisted that\nthe accused in Nokuthula\u2019s disappearance be given an opportunity to\nobject. On 8 August 2019, on the eve of\nWomen\u2019s Day, the final order will be made on the presumption of death of\nNokuthula Simelane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thembi says\nthat in every war there are casualties but every soldier is dignified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Nokuthula\u2019s family, for her mother and her surviving siblings, they need the closure that comes from performing the rituals for the dead \u2013 they need to find her remains. Unfortunately, they have resigned themselves to never getting that measure of respect for Nokuthula, because those that brutalised her and those that were complicit before and after her disappearance, continue to do so to her memory and to the family, so they will continue their pursuit of justice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"