by JARED SACKS
Last week, South Africa commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Marikana Massacre. But a slow and painstakingly thorough bloodbath of Durban’s shack dwellers has been taking place for the past 15 years.
The target
On 20 August 2022, in the early hours of the morning, under the cover of darkness, two armed men snuck into the eKhenana Commune, a collective led by the shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. Everyone was asleep and no one saw them as they moved among the shacks looking for their target.
Footage from CCTV cameras (installed by the community after the assassinations of Ayanda Ngila and Nokuthula Mabaso) shows that the two men first went into the community hall (which doubles as the movement’s Frantz Fanon School). It was empty.
Then they moved on to the communal kitchen where members sometimes sleep. No one was there either. Searching through the rooms of eKhenana’s chicken coop, still they found no one.
Eventually, however, they arrived at the home of Lindokuhle Mnguni, the chairperson of the commune.
The safe house
For the past year, Mnguni has been sleeping in a safe house far away from eKhenana. There were already threats against him and attempts on his life because of his role in founding the settlement and challenging the stranglehold that local mobsters have on housing developments in the Cato Manor/Cato Crest area.
After Ngila and Mabaso were assassinated, the need to use the safe house was underlined. Mnguni would visit eKhenana during the day under the protection of other members of the movement; but once night fell, he would leave his true home for the protection of this clandestine refuge.
It was no way to live and Mnguni hated living in fear. He was committed to the struggle and willing to give his life for his community. But he was also under pressure from his comrades to take these precautions. They told him that they could not lose yet another leader of the movement. So, religiously, he would return to the safe house each night.
On the night of 19 August, however, Mnguni finally let down his guard.
After just finishing a meeting at the community hall that had run overtime, Mnguni insisted to another movement leader that he was too tired to travel. Assuming that no one aside from close comrades knew about his presence at eKhenana, he rationalised that he could safely retire to his humble home that he had not slept in for the better part of the year; he would leave at first light that Saturday morning before others had risen.
Besides, most of the Ngubane family, the people linked to Ngila and Mabaso’s murders, were now behind bars; things were looking up, and the settlement had been quiet for months.
Forgetting vigilance this one time was just too tempting: Mnguni would get to sleep in his own bed, in the warm arms of his partner, among a community he loved and believed in. Though the risk seemed low, this one miscalculation proved fatal.
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