Kroonstad Correctional Centre officially renamed Bizzah Makhate Correctional Centre

Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has called on South Africans to jealously guard, and protect, their freedom.

Delivering his address today (16th April 2014) at the official renaming ceremony of the Kroonstad Correctional Centre to the Bizzah Makhate Correctional Centre in the Free State, Minister Ndebele said: “The colonial powers used incarceration as a way of subjugating the indigenous populations. Oliver Tambo, in his December 1964 Foreword to President Nelson Mandela’s book “No Easy Walk to Freedom,” writes about South Africa’s high prison population and notes: ‘South African apartheid laws turn innumerable innocent people into ‘criminals’. Apartheid stirs hatred and frustration among people...every case in court, every visit to the prisons to interview clients, reminded us [me & Mandela] of the humiliation and suffering burning into our people.’

“In 1975, uMama u-Winnie Mandela was incarcerated here at this Kroonstad facility. In February 1975, our founding President, the late Nelson Mandela, wrote her a letter where he was encouraging her not to let prison break her down. President Mandela wrote: ‘Incidentally the cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself, to search realistically and regularly the process of your own mind and feelings… the cell gives you the opportunity to look daily into your entire conduct, to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you’. In 1987, Winnie Mandela spoke about her horrible prison experience at the hands of cruel warders. She recollects that, 'The years of imprisonment hardened me.... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back, and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn't be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life, I no longer have the emotion of fear... there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn't any pain I haven't known’.

“This month, we commemorate the historic occasion, in 1994, when South Africa achieved democracy, where all its citizens became free from discrimination and oppression. The first democratic elections in South Africa were held on 27th April 1994. It marked the dawn of a new phase of building a South Africa that truly belongs to all who live in it. While we build our democratic state and nation, we dare not forget the sacrifices made so that we can enjoy this freedom today. The renaming of Kroonstad Correctional Centre to Bizzah Makhate Correctional Centre must be seen as part of on-going efforts by our government, and the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), to deepen social cohesion, promote nation building and recognise the suffering, and pain, that brought us this freedom which we should jealously guard and protect. Our Constitution obliges us to ‘honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land’.

The White Paper on Corrections calls upon all of us to transform places of incarceration, to centres of hope and second chances. For example, the name of Qalakabusha Correctional Centre, in KwaZulu-Natal, means a place to start over, or new beginnings, and is largely seen by the community, where it is located, as such. In Kimberley, we also have a modern, state of the art Correctional facility named Tswelopele – meaning moving forward. As DCS, we are, therefore honoured, together with the community of Kroonstad, to pay tribute to the late Comrade Wilfred Sefularo ‘Bizzah’ Makhathe who was incarcerated at this facility in the eighties.

“Today, at this renaming ceremony of the Kroonstad Correctional Facility, we are also celebrating how far South Africa has come and what we have achieved under difficult conditions, of transition, from apartheid to freedom and democracy. The sacrifices of our freedom fighters were not in vain, and we have a responsibility to demonstrate, and celebrate, that fact. Through their deeds, we are able, today, to enjoy freedom and dignity. It is against this backdrop that we pay tribute to these heroes, and heroines, of our country.

“Born on 6th October 1946, Sefularo Wilfred Makhate, affectionately known as Bizzah Makhate, was active during the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF). He led different structures within the UDF, including the Maokeng Civic Association and Maokeng Education Crisis Committee. He was a founder member of the Release Mandela Campaign, as well as organiser (underground) of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) in Kroonstad. In 1985, during the uprising in Kroonstad, he was at the forefront of mass mobilisation. His house was bombed by enemy agents, with deadly chemicals, following the 1985 uprisings. He was detained on several occasions, including late in 1985 and early 1986. Among those detained, he was the only person with a disability. During incarceration, they bathed in cold water, slept on the floor and, because his right arm could not function, he could not turn as much as he wished. This caused him to sleep on one side. In renaming this correctional facility after him, we acknowledge the tremendous sacrifices made by the many men, and women, who gave their lives for their vision of a democratic South Africa. We are privileged to be a part of this process of reconciliation. May the memory of Sefularo Wilfred ‘Bizzah’ Makhathe inspire us, as a country, to do more for the many heroes of our struggle who died mercilessly at the hands of the oppressor. May his memory remind us, and generations to come, that our freedom was after all, not free,” Minister Ndebele said.

Enquiries:
Logan Maistry
Cell: 083 6444 050

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