No justice for assassinated Abahlali activists

First published by GroundUp

Just metres from 28-year-old Phumzile Mkhize’s shack, perched on a steep hillside in the Durban informal settlement of eKukhanyeni, two bullet holes mark the wall of a local spaza shop where her late husband S’fiso Ngcobo was shot dead while buying cool drinks on 23 May.

Ngcobo was the regional chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo shack dwellers’ movement and a vocal critic of the ANC’s failure to provide housing for the more than 317,000 households estimated to be living in informal dwellings in eThekwini Metro.

In June 2017 Ngcobo had led an Abahlali land occupation in eKukhanyeni, formerly known as eMansenseni, and later helped to secure a court interdict against a private security company that repeatedly tried to forcefully evict residents.

“S’fiso had always been active in advocating for people’s rights ever since I met him,” Mkhize said, adding that Ngcobo had often told her he was willing to die for his community if necessary.

Almost four months since Ngcobo’s death, no arrests have been made, and Mkhize says she has been left in the dark about the current state of the investigation. George Bonono, Abahlali’s KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, says the organisation has not heard anything either from SAPS concerning the case.

When GroundUp called the investigating officer assigned to Ngcobo’s murder at Marianhill police station, which serves eKukhanyeni, he claimed to have no knowledge of Ngcobo’s case, hung up the phone and blocked us on WhatsApp.

A SAPS spokesperson subsequently told GroundUp that no murder case docket concerning S’fiso Ngcobo had been opened at Marianhill SAPS.

According to Bonono, who claims that more than 10 Abahlali members have been “assassinated” since 2013: “Many of the cases where our comrades have been killed have happened in clear view and with damning evidence that is (then) erased and the cases don’t continue. Yet when we question this, the police tell us that the cases are still being investigated. Our people are killed and brutalised and receive no justice because even years later we are told the matter is still under investigation.”

In another case in eKukhanyeni concerning Samuel Hlole, who was shot dead during an attempted eviction by eThekwini’s anti-land invasion unit in June 2017, a SAPS spokesperson for eThekwini said that no docket existed for the case number Abahlali had been given.

SAPS declined to respond to further questions surrounding alleged police complicity in obfuscating investigations into killings of Abahlali members.

Richard Pithouse, who has written extensively on Abahlali, told GroundUp that the police in KwaZulu-Natal are heavily influenced by “local power brokers” within the ANC and “sometimes even by the approval of more senior political figures”. Pithouse said such political interference contributed to “incredibly low conviction rates” in cases concerning murdered activists.

In the case of S’fiso Ngcobo, Abahlali believe that the local ward councillor for Marianhill, who is also named Sifiso Ngcobo, is behind the murder, alleging that he had threatened Ngcobo in the days immediately preceding his death.

The councillor dismissed such claims, saying that he had “nothing against Abahlali” and that the group merely “needed someone to pin S’fiso’s death on”.

One of the bullet holes in the wall of the eKhukanyeni spaza shop where S’fiso Ngcobo was shot dead in May this year. Photo: Samantha Reinders

Children walk home from school in the informal settlement of Cato Crest on the outskirts of Durban. Photo: Samantha Reinders

Nkosinathi Mngomezulu was shot in the stomach eight times during an attempted eviction in 2013 in Cato Crest. Photo: Samantha Reinders

Thuli Ndlovu’s mother Gertrude says that “life has moved on” since two ANC councillors and a hitman were convicted of her daughter’s murder. Photo: Samantha Reinders