Address by the Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, the Hon JH Jeffery, MP, at the handover and reburial of Ceylon Mabaso, held at the Naledi Community Hall, Soweto, 27 October 2023
Programme Director,
The family of Ceylon Mabaso,
The City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor, Cllr Kabelo Gwamanda, Cde Victor Serakala, PAC Deputy President,
Cde Apa Pooe, PAC Secretary General,
Cde Reuben Ramokgopa, PAC NEC member,
The delegation from APLAMVA, Cdes Thembinkosi Feliti, Gordon Mpinie, Ike Isaac, and Khehla Radebe,
Representatives from the National Prosecuting Authority and various government departments,
Distinguished guests and friends
In 2011 the Gallows Memorial Museum was opened at the site of what was previously called Pretoria Central Prison and a dedicated wall of remembrance, listing the name of each of the political prisoners who had died there between 1960 and 1989, was unveiled.
When one looks at closely at the names it looks, at first glance, as if Ceylon Mabaso isn’t there, but then one realizes that he is – but that his first name has been spelt slightly differently, as Cylion Mabaso.
Often the names of the deceased differ as the records in the State’s possession are later corrected or changed by the family.
And then, as one keeps searching under both spellings of his name, we learn more and more about him and his life.
On a burial list, he is listed as “MC M5542” – meaning MC, for Mamelodi West Cemetery, and his grave number was M5542.
And seeing the grave number is a heartbreaking reminder that for so long in our tragic past, many people in our country were just a number in the eyes of the former State.
When they passed away, the families were not given access to the bodies or allowed to take the body home – only in the very rarest of exceptions was this allowed.
They were buried In the pauper sections of municipal graveyards, with no names, no headstones erected for them, just with numbers.
Surely the most brutal way of trying to erase a person’s identity or negate their existence is to make them seem as if they are merely a number.
But today we are here to change that. We are here to acknowledge Ceylon Mabaso, to say he existed, he lived and he was a human being who paid the ultimate price a person can pay.
Mr Mabaso is one of the six individuals referred to the “Pretoria Six”. They were recruited to the PAC whilst they were in Baviaanspoort Prison serving sentences for other offences.
On 10 June 1964, he was among a group of 19 PAC members who were in a communal cell and who collectively condemned a fellow PAC member and cell mate, Mhlokonjo Madellela, to death for allegedly reporting on PAC activities to the prison warders.
Mr Madellela was then strangled to death in the cell. The six men, being Phineas Mlotywa, Corry Tyini, Victor Mahlangu, Isaac Masigo, Joel Leballo and Ceylon Mabaso, were sentenced to death on 14 April 1965 and executed on 19 November 1965.
Ceylon Mabaso was only 21 years old when he died.
One can very well imagine that he would not have had a free and fair trial.
He would, most likely, not have had legal representation, he would not have had access to an interpreter and would, in all likelihood, been prejudiced purely on the basis of being a member of the PAC, an organisation which had been banned by the Apartheid Government in 1960.
As you know, the exhumation of the remains of all political prisoners forms part of the Gallows Exhumation Project which was launched in March 2016.
There were at least 130 political prisoners who were hanged for politically- related offences in the period between 1960 and 1990, after which the death penalty was suspended.
The state retained custody of the remains of the deceased, thereby denying their families the opportunity to receive or bury them. The state buried the deceased as paupers in cemeteries in and around Tshwane.
Research indicates that if one looks at the number of executions of people for political activities during the period between 1960 and 1989, the overwhelming majority were hanged during the 1960s.
More people were put to death during the 1960s for politically motivated activities than in any other time in our country’s history and all were Black - with the exception of only one white man, Frederick John Harris, a member of the African Resistance Movement of the Liberal Party, who had placed a bomb in a suitcase at a Whites Only train station in Johannesburg.
Harris would become the only white person to be sentenced to death for opposing apartheid.
It seems as even in death, race played a role, as it is believed that unlike the other executed political prisoners who were all black, Harris's body was handed over to his family for cremation, but prison officials demanded his ashes.
The ashes allegedly lay in a filing cabinet in an office in the Pretoria Central Prison for over three decades until they were found by the National Prosecuting Authority's Missing Person's Unit in 2003.
What this tells us that the Apartheid State believed that the bodies and the ashes of those who were executed also belonged to the State – even after their passing.
The death penalty was one of the fundamental underpinnings of state repression of political protest throughout the period from 1960 until February 1990 when State President FW de Klerk announced a moratorium on all executions.
Some five months later the new Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1990 came into effect, which did away with the compulsory imposition of the death sentence and gave wider powers to judges to decide on its appropriateness in particular cases.
During the 1990s, judges continued imposing the death sentence1, but no further executions were conducted after 1989.
Prior to these steps that halted and later abolished the death penalty, South Africa had one of the highest rates of judicial execution in the world.
The Human Rights Commission reported in 1989 that Iran was the only country that executed more people than South Africa in the period from mid-1985 to mid-1988.
This meant that South Africa had the second highest execution rate in the world.2 Indeed, in 1987, South Africa executed more people than China or the United States of America, countries with much higher population figures.
In the late 1960s, a noted South African abolitionist lawyer, Professor Barend van Niekerk, estimated that 47% of all executions in the world took place in South Africa.3
During apartheid rule it was common for black people convicted of murdering whites to be sentenced to death, but it was very rare for whites who murdered blacks to be given the death sentence.
A study of death sentences in one year found that 47% of black persons convicted of murdering whites were given the death sentence as opposed to no death sentences at all for whites convicted of murdering black people.
In all, at least 130 political prisoners from various political organisations including the PAC, the ANC, the UDF, and members of civil society were hanged at the gallows.
The Gallows Exhumation Project aimed to recover the remains of 83 of the hanged whose remains had not yet been found or recovered.
At least 61 members of the Pan Africanist Congress’s armed wing, Poqo, were hanged in the 1960s and they constitute the single largest political group.
As mentioned, except for one, all the political prisoners executed were African men, overwhelmingly poor, many from rural backgrounds, some with little to no education.
Only seven were externally trained military operatives.
Most were ordinary local residents or workers mobilized into action by local protests and campaigns, while others sought to act in the name of national organisations and their objectives.
There were a further 151 political prisoners who were also sentenced to death, but escaped the gallows through legal action, a Presidential pardon, or the 1990 moratorium.
Today we can give back the remains of Ceylon Mabaso to his family for reburial.
To the Mabaso family, we share in your grief and sorrow.
I hope you will find comfort in the fact that he fought for and contributed greatly to the freedom that we now enjoy.
May this knowledge carry you through the difficult times and help you find healing and closure.
We take comfort in knowing that each one of those whom we have lost, like Ceylon Mabaso, their memories will live on.
They were never “just a number”. We honour them, we pay tribute to them and we remember them. May their souls rest in eternal peace.
I want to acknowledge those without whose efforts we would not be here today.
I want to commend Thapelo Mokushane and the TRC Unit in the Department of Justice as well as Dr Madeleine Fullard and her team from the NPA’s Missing Persons Task Team for their efforts and for their sensitivity and compassion.
I want to thank you on behalf of Government and on behalf of the families for your dedication and commitment.
The Missing Persons Task Team was set up in the National Prosecuting Authority to implement one of the TRC’s recommendations, namely that government should continue tracing the fate and whereabouts of those who disappeared in political circumstances between 1960 and 1994.
Of 130 hanged political prisoners, 47 have already had their remains exhumed by other parties, groups or individuals.
Out of the remaining 83, the Missing Persons Task Team supported by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Unit has, to date, exhumed 74 remains of deceased victims who were hanged on death row for politically related offences.
The Missing Persons Task Team and the TRC Unit have also successfully exhumed, handed over the remains and attended to the spiritual repatriation and/or reburial of more than 180 political freedom fighters and activists.
The most fitting way we can honour the memories of Ceylon Mabaso, other freedom fighters, political prisoners and activists who gave their lives to the struggle is to continuously strive to nurture and promote human rights, freedom and equality in our country and to defend our constitutional democracy.
What makes a democracy a healthy democracy?
There are a number of indicators of a healthy democracy – such as free and fair elections, independent and legitimate courts, freedom of the media, strong institutions, a vibrant and active civil society and others.
Let us look at these factors, we have had successful national, provincial and local government elections, which have been acknowledged as free and fair and the fact that proportional representation means that every vote gets taken into account.
Our courts are highly respected as are our judges. Court judgments have been instrumental in bringing about changes in laws and furthering the attainment of human rights.
Where laws fall short, our Courts have not hesitated to declare them invalid and have the Legislature rectify them.
We have an active and vibrant civil society, which plays a fundamental part in deepening democracy.
Our Constitution envisages greater participation and we see elements of participatory democracy across all spheres of government and the state, think of, for example, public participation in legislative processes.
We have Chapter 9 bodies which continue to play a vital role in monitoring and upholding human rights.
All these aspects show that our democracy is not in danger.
We need to do more. We must continue to strengthen democracy, build social cohesion between all our people, help people to access their rights by making access to justice a reality and we need to address the poverty and inequality.
Surely that is what comrades, like Ceylon Mabaso and so many others, would want us to do.
Let us defend the human rights of every person. Let us remember that “I am because you are”.
Let us be reminded of the words of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe when he said –
“Here is a tree rooted in African soil, nourished with waters from the rivers of Africa. Come and sit under its shade and become, with us, the leaves of the same branch and the branches of the same tree.”
I thank you.
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1 Indeed, death sentences were imposed in political cases in the 1990s, such as on Clive Derby-Lewis and Janusz Walusz for the killing of SACP and MK leader Chris Hani. Several ANC Self Defence Unit members were sentenced to death.
2 Human Rights Commission, The Death Penalty in South Africa, Fact Paper FP5, October 1989, p1.
3 According to the HRC’s fact sheet, Professor van Niekerk, who conducted research and published an article revealing the racist bias of the death sentence in South Africa, was charged with contempt of court for publishing his findings but was eventually acquitted.
