Theresa,+I+wish+they+had+hanged+me,+Victor+Khupiso,+Sunday+Times

Sunday Times, Metro, Johannesburg, 21 January 2007
=‘I wish they had hanged me’=


 * //Sharpeville Six members’ despair//**


 * Victor Khupiso**

IT WOULD have been better to hang than live in poverty — this is the desperate plea for help from a member of the Sharpeville Six who escaped the noose in the apartheid era.

Along with survivors of the Boipatong massacre, members of the Sharpeville Six are outraged — they say a R116 000 luncheon held to honour them by Sedibeng Executive Mayor Mlungisi Hlongwane on New Year’s Day was a waste of money.

The council spent almost R28 000 on chairs and tables, R5000 on transport, R1 200 on hiring sound equipment, and R10 000 on photography and video for the 350-guest event.

It also forked out R44 000 for food and R28 000 on gift packs for the guests’ grandchildren.

Sharpeville Six member, unemployed Reid Mokoena, said the lavish lunch did nothing for him because he lived in a shack and “cannot even afford a chair”.

Mokoena said it would have been better if he had been hanged.

“I blame the people who fought for us to be spared from Death Row,” he said of the World Council of Churches, the South African Council of Churches and the Black Sash, who managed to force then Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee to grant them an indefinite stay of execution — 15 hours before their scheduled hangings.

“If we were hanged we wouldn’t be facing this problem. We have lost our dignity. We can’t even tell our children about our past,” he said. “Poverty has reduced us to nothing.”

Another Sharpeville Six member, Theresa Ramashamole, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Sharpeville deputy mayor Jacob Dlamini in 1984, boycotted the lunch held at the Vereeniging Civic Centre.

“I didn’t fight for parties but for a better life,” she said. A waitress at the time of the killing, which occurred during a rent protest, Ramashamole and her co-accused were regarded as heroes then — now they live hand to mouth.

“Our lives have just worsened. Nothing has changed for me. I’m still living in poverty and my life has stood still since my release from prison,” she said.

“We can’t even support our families. I’m angry because our council does not care about us and are instead busy hosting parties.”

Last year, survivors of the Boipatong massacre, in which 49 people were killed, objected to council plans to erect a R2-million monument to honour victims of the violence that erupted in 1992.

Many survivors of the massacre still live in shacks and believe the R2-million could be better spent.

But all the council has offered them are jobs as tour guides.

Council spokesman Colin Mokoena said a tourism project, which would use survivors of political violence in the Vaal, was discussed at the R116 000 luncheon.

“We are fortunate to have survivors who can be regarded as moving libraries loaded with history that should be shared ,” he said.

“We want to ensure that the survivors are able to earn a living through tourism. Some would be given an opportunity of working as tour guides,” Mokoena said.

Paralysed Boipatong massacre survivor Pauline Mbatha, to whom the council donated a wheelchair at the luncheon, said she was happy with her new chair but still lived in the same shack in which she was attacked.


 * From: http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Metro/Article.aspx?id=362938**

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