INTRODUCTION
On August 8 1985, the Press Trust of SA Third World News Agency, which paid a heavy price for supplying the world with news and reports about the struggles in South Africa at that time, published a lengthy article about the life of political trials lawyer, Mrs Victoria Nonyamezelo Mxenge. We at PTSA had written the profile only seven days after Mrs Mxenge was brutally murdered in the driveway of her home in the Umlazi township in Durban. She was stabbed and shot to death by four unknown assailants after she got out of a car driven by the Reverend Mcebisi Xundu, who was the chairperson of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Natal at that time. Her husband, political activist, political trials lawyer and former Robben Island prisoner, Griffith Mxenge, was stabbed to death brutally more than 40 times five years earlier in 1981. Her death raised suspicions that apartheid death squads were cold-bloodedly culling the ranks of black activists in South Africa. Mrs Mxenge, who was one of the defence attorneys in the trial in which 16 UDF leaders faced high treason charges, was the 40th black activist to have been killed brutally or to have disappeared mysteriously since the violence in the townships erupted once again in September 1984. After our freedom in 1994, it was disclosed that apartheid security agents, led by Dirk Coetzee, had been responsible for their brutal murders. Sadly, they were granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) after they disclosed their roles in the murders of the Mxenges. This article, written as a tribute to Mrs Mxenge’s sacrifices and dedication to the struggle, was supplied to news organisations and radio stations around the world in August 1985. The article was based mainly on interviews that this correspondent, Subry Govender, had conducted with her after the brutal death of Griffith Mxenge in November 1981.
(SOME WOMEN STALWARTS ATTENDING HER FUNERAL IN KING WILLIAM'S TOWN IN 1985) BLACK SOUTH AFRICA LOSES ANOTHER CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER AT THE HANDS OF A DEATH SQUAD
Mrs Victoria Nonyamezelo Mxenge was only 43-years-old when she was brutally murdered.
She had been a widow for almost five years since the murder of her husband, prominent political trials lawyer and activist, Mr Griffith Mxenge. He was found with 45 stab wounds at the Umlazi stadium, near the port city of Durban, on 18 November 1981.
At the time of Mrs Mxenge’s murder in August 1985, the brutal murder of Griffith Mxenge remained unsolved. Mrs Mxenge had come a long way from growing up as a country girl in a little village in the Eastern Cape region of the country.
When I interviewed her in 1982, she represented the life of being a typical political widow who had been forced out of circumstances to fill the roles of mother, father, breadwinner and even a political personality in the community.
BORN IN TAMARA IN THE EASTERN CAPE
Nonyameselo was born in January 1942 in the dusty village of Tamara, which was cut off from the strife and bustle of the larger towns and cities. In this little village, she grew up with a sister and two brothers who spent their young lives in carefree oblivion of the political situation developing in the rest of the country.
Nonameselo, the second child of simple and humble parents who were ordinary teachers, began her education in the local village school where she was one of the top pupils in her class. At the tender age of 12 she had to leave home to attend secondary school at Beaufort West, also in the Eastern Cape. After obtaining her matriculation certificate, she joined the Lovedale Hospital in the university town of Alice to train as a nurse.
MET GRIFFITH MXENGE
It was during her student days at the hospital that the young and idealistic Griffith Mxenge came into her life when he visited an aunt in Tamara.
The young couple became friends after their first introduction. Nonyameselo and Griffith, who was studying for his law degree at the University of Fort Hare at this time, began dating and by the time he went to Durban to complete his LLB (Bachelor of Law) degree at the University of Natal, their romance had blossomed.
MOVED TO DURBAN IN 1964
They continued to meet during Griffith’s holiday breaks and married in November 1964. In 1965, Nonyameselo moved to the then Natal province to join her husband and enrolled at the King Edward V111 Hospital for a course in midwifery.
The young couple got their first taste of Pretoria’s political repression against opponents of apartheid when in April 1966 Griffith was detained by the then dreaded security police for 190 days.
At the end of the detention, he was charged under the Suppression of Communism Act and taken to Johannesburg where he and a friend, Albert Dlomo, were asked to be state witnesses in the trial of Durban attorney, Roley Arenstein. But Griffith and Dlomo refused to turn traitors against a fellow freedom fighter and in February 1967 were convicted for three and two years respectively.
They were imprisoned and Griffith served a part of his sentence on Robben Island with such greats as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mahlaba, Govan Mbeki, Andrew Mlangeni and Ahmed Kathrada. While Griffith was one the island, Nonyameselo gave birth to their first child, Madasa. She told me in the interview that it was a difficult period because, although she had always known of her husband’s political views, she was not ready to be cast into the role of a “political prisoner’s widow”.
But, she said, after her first visit to Griffith on Robben Island, she was able to cope with the situation better because he himself had accepted his imprisonment cheerfully and as part of the sacrifice in the freedom struggle.
“That was typical of him. He never moaned about the unpleasant things in life. If he thought something was wrong or bad, he would fight rather than become bitter. “It was for this reason that he joined the African National Congress during his student days while the organisation was still legal.”
Although life with a newly-born son and without work was traumatic, she managed to make ends meet with the help of friends. When Griffith was released at the end of his three-year term, he was served with a two-year banning order and prevented from continuing with his studies at the University of Natal. All was, however, not lost.
The head of the law department, Professor Tony Matthews, assisted him with written lectures and even helped him with his studies at his home in the Umlazi township, near Durban. Despite the pressures of security police harassment and financial problems, Griffith completed his law degree in February 1968.
(PROMINENT PEOPLE ATTEND MRS MXENGE'S FUNERAL IN KING WILLIAM'S TOWN IN 1985)
GRIFFITH MXENGE JOINS RABBI BUGWANDEEN'S LAW FORM AS AN ARTICLED CLERK
And when his banning order expired at the end of 1971, Griffith joined Natal Indian Congress official, Rabbi Bugwandeen’s law form as an articled clerk.
But the security police and the apartheid system did not leave him alone. Just when he was about to complete his articles in 1973, he was slapped with another banning order. Although they had to put up with the accompanying difficulties and problems, the marriage of Nonyameselo and Griffith thrived and in December 1973 their second son, Viwe, was born.
By this time, Nonyameselo had completed her midwifery course and joined a clinic in Umlazi where she worked with a “wonderful white doctor”, Dr Wolfgang Bordenstein. “When I went for an interview, I told the doctor all about Griff’s political activities but the good doctor accepted me without any question.
“The matter, however, did not rest there. A few days after I began work, the security police called on Dr Bordenstein and told him about my background. But since he was already aware of my position, he treated me with the greatest of respect.”
She said that the years at the clinic and her activities as a community health worker, opened her eyes to the harsh realities of the apartheid system. For the first time she realised that the diseases and sickness that beset black people were not caused by ignorance but by the socio-political factors. When she visited patients suffering from malnutrition in their shanty homes, she realised that malnutrition was caused by abject poverty and nothing else. In 1975, with the birth of their daughter, Nounhla, Griffith who had just started his own legal practice in the Grey Street area of Durban, insisted that Nonyameselo stay at home to look after the children.
At this time the Mxenges were not only supporting their own children but five others from the homes of less-privileged relatives. Nonyameselo gave up her job and stayed at home. But soon became bored and frustrated because she had nothing to do once she had completed her household chores. In the meantime, her husband’s newly-established legal practice was booming and Griffith was finding it difficult to cope with the work-load. He was looking for someone to assist him and soon found that he could not find a better person than Nonyameselo.
VICTORIA MXENGE JOINS HER HUSBAND'S LAW FIRM AS A CLERK
After some cajoling on her part, Griffith employed her as his clerk. From the life of a nurse-housewife, legal work was a completely new field for Nonyameselo and she found that working in a legal office gave her a completely new perspective of life. She used to regard lawyers as “cavorters of criminals” but now became intrigued and fascinated by law. Totally engrossed in her work and sometimes putting in more hours than any other staff member, Nonyameselo realised that the only way she could talk to her husband on equal terms in the legal field was by furthering her studies. She enrolled with the University of South Africa and by the end of 1979 had passed all her subjects except for one – Afrikaans.
GRIFFITH MXENGE BRUTALLY BUTCHERED TO DEATH IN NOVEMBER 18 1981 BY MEMBERS OF THE APARTHEID DEADTH SQUAD
With the assistance of a friend, she passed Afrikaans in 1980 and in 1981 joined Griffith as a fully-fledged lawyer in her own right. But just when Griffith and Nonyameselo had earned the respect of the entire black community as dedicated political trial lawyers, she was woken up in the early hours of November 18 1981 and told her husband was found dead at the local Umlazi stadium.
When discussing her husband’s death, Nonyameselo conceded that she was very bitter.
“The perpetrators of the dastardly deed were not satisfied with the taking of his life only but like the butchers they are, they savaged every part of his body. “Every vital organ in his body was savaged. His ears, stomach and even his liver was ripped open,” she whispered and the pain was clearly etched on her face. And as if the brutality inflicted on her husband was not enough, she had to bear the further pain of seeing the confusion suffered by her children, who could not understand why their father had been butchered in such a manner.
“My six-year-old daughter wanted to know why her father, who was so young had to die when her grandfather was still alive?” “What could I tell her?”, she asked with tears streaming down her face.
“And my eldest son, who was in the middle of his Junior Certificate examination, became a ‘zombie’ after he learnt of his father’s death. “He was completely unapproachable. He did not shed a tear but just drew into himself. As his mother I could not even talk to him because I did not know what to say to him. “Yet he completed his examination and after writing his last paper, flew with his father’s body from Durban to King William’s Town where the funeral took place. “Amazingly he passed his examination. Today at 16 he seems to have overcome the initial shock of his father’s death and has matured far beyond his tender years. He sees himself as ‘the man of the house’ and behaves like one.”
In 1982, almost a year after Griffith death, Nonyameselo Mxenge was picking up the pieces and building a new life for herself and her children without her beloved husband. She and her children were going about their lives in the full knowledge that Griffith had not died in vain – they were in fact confident that freedom struggle would be won with a matter of a few years.
“One day – in the lifetime of my children and myself – we will be free and independent.”
Some prominent people at the funeral in August 1985
VICTORIA MXENGE ALSO KILLED BRUTALLY ON AUGUST 1 1985
Like her husband, Griffith, she too was brutally hacked to death on August 1 1985.
Nonyameselo Mxenge had come a long way from the carefree days in the dusty backdrop of Tamara in the Eastern Cape and had filled an important position in the black community.
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