“I am still awaiting trial after five years behind bars for a crime I did not commit,” says Toke Okeowo*, a 25-year-old inmate at the female section of the Kirikiri Prison in Apapa, Lagos State, Nigeria. Her case typifies the injustice suffered by hundreds of poor women in Nigeria.
Kirikiri Prison is one of two female correctional facilities in the country. At the entrance of the prison, there is a notice stating the prison was carrying 2,000 people over its 1,700 capacity, an issue that has led to the spread of diseases and countless deaths. What is more alarming, a majority of the detainees, similar to Okeowo, have not been convicted by any court of law.
“My neighbor came over to my place and told me to hold her mobile phone while she went next door to pick up her child. Thirty minutes later, a group of men came knocking at my door looking for the neighbor who had apparently fled. They found the phone which had been stolen from the men along with a laptop and accused me of being an accomplice,” says Okeowo.
She was immediately detained and sent to the medium security wing of the prison where she has been waiting for a verdict for the past five years. Nigeria has the highest number of detainees awaiting trial in Africa.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/09/21/grime-comes-crime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Grime That Comes With Crime</a>
Okwendi Solomon, an expert in Criminology and Penology, estimates that over 70% of prison inmates are on the awaiting-trial list in the country. The legality of these detainees is still an ongoing debate. Section 19 of the Prison Act of Nigeria defines a woman prisoner as “any person lawfully committed to custody”.
However, Dr Uju Agomoh, an expert in justice and prison reform and founder of Prisoners Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), believes the ambiguity in the law needs to be addressed.
“For a woman to be recognized as a prisoner in Nigeria, her confinement to prison must be lawful. This raises serious concerns as to the legal status of awaiting-trial women who are often charged by magistrates who have no jurisdiction to do so and are then remanded in prison custody by such magistrates pending their proper trial before a competent court,” says Agomoh.
<div id="attachment_33644" style="width: 259px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33644" class=" wp-image-33644" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/UJU-AGOMOH-212x300.jpg" alt="" width="249" height="352" />Dr Uju Agomoh (Photo supplied by PRAWA)</div>
Furthermore, she believes that because women do not account for a majority within the criminal justice system of many African countries, most prisons have a proclivity to cater to the larger male prison population without sufficiently taking into account a gender-sensitive approach and therefore unable to adequately take care of the special needs of female prisoners.
Princess Ndema* experienced this insensitivity the hard way.
“I was arrested for trafficking drugs. At the time, I was six months pregnant so I ended up giving birth to my child in this prison. It was very bad conditions because the prison did not have adequate treatment or care. I fell ill immediately after that due to an infection I contracted during childbirth. If you do not have someone bringing you feminine hygiene products from the outside, you basically have to try and somehow survive,” says Ndema.
Most of the toiletries used by inmates at the Kirikiri Prison are provided by non-governmental and religious organizations &#8211; a problem for the female prisoners who might be nursing mothers or pregnant.
“We do not get any welfare from the government. If it was not for the local church who bring sanitary pads, soaps and sometimes food to us, the situation will be a lot worse than it is,” says Ndema.
She and her son have been at Kirikiri for seven years now. She claims although she was 16 at the time, the arresting officer said she was 21 so she could be tried as an adult. That trial never came.
“The number of female prisoners are few in comparison to the male population, however, due to the recent alarming growth as well as the unique nature of female prisoners, I think it is imperative for the criminal justice system in Nigeria to focus on the conditions and issues that can have a negative impact on their health,” says Dr Olayinka Lawal, Executive Director of PRAWA.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2015/08/01/how-criminals-free-their-mind-behind-bars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How Criminals Free Their Mind Behind Bars</a>
The organization was established about 22 years ago as a non-profit due to the inhumane conditions in the prison system. For Lawal, improving conditions in the prison also means speeding up the legal process for awaiting-trial persons.
“The way this system should work is, somebody is arrested for a criminal offence, goes through trial, and is presumed innocent constitutionally until found guilty of the offence. But this does not happen because the criminal justice system is slow with the average detainee waiting between five to 17 years. Three years ago, we helped to release one of the longest detainees in the state who had spent over 17 years awaiting trial,” says Lawal.
The only light through the prison’s concrete labyrinth for those still awaiting trial is the presence of organizations like PRAWA. The organization puts prison reform at the top of their agenda through capacity research and institutional building as well as advocacy.
“The administration of Criminal Justice Act ACJA 2015 has outlined the framework to tackle the issue and we need to find prudent and efficient ways of implementing this. As I have always stated, there are other forms of sentencing like communal service instead of prison term so education is also key,” says Lawal.
The mandate to reform the prisons in Nigeria rests with the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) but due to the peculiar challenges in prisons in the country, the process of rehabilitating prisoners and sending them back into society has been significantly hindered.
“Those awaiting trial under the eyes of the law are usually presumed to be innocent and there is no provision for them in the prison system because they are just passing by. As a result, the reformative program in the prison is intended for the convict,” says Lawal.
According to Dr Kemi DaSilva-Ibru, founder of Women At Risk International Foundation (WARIF), “When juxtaposed with other members of the society, prisoners suffer numerous health issues in prison including substance abuse, mental health and communicable diseases.”
Equally worrisome for mothers like Ndema, the responsibility of raising her son rests squarely on her shoulders until she is separated from him during incarceration. For her and many females facing an uncertain future, the challenges continue. The only way out is through government and other stakeholders coming together to provide and improve the prison system as well as healthcare and most importantly, ensuring the criminal justice system achieves its intended purpose by legally punishing or acquitting individuals in an expeditious manner.
*names changed to protect identity

The Uncertain Future Of Nigeria’s Female Prisoners

On February 5 2013, Annette Kilele and Marie Muyembi both received the same tragic news. Both women are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in Johannesburg.
Kilele’s husband, Kilele Mukuti, and Muyembi’s brother, David Bakajika, were arrested, along with 18 others, by South African police on charges related to a coup attempt targeting their head of state, Joseph Kabila.
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After a month-long and expensive battle, their men were denied bail and were detained for almost two years. However, a surprise decision by the judge changed all that. In late November 2014, Bakajika was released. Mukuti was not.
Both women now face a different set of challenges; Kilele must continue to support her five daughters despite her husband’s incarceration, while Muyembi must help her brother, and his two children that she cares for, come to terms with his traumatic return.
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The Women They Leave

We meet Dikgang Moseneke exactly three years after Nelson Mandela died on December 5, 2013. Dikgang, the retired deputy chief justice and the executor of Mandela’s will, is in a pink Polo golf-shirt, navy chinos and matching loafers; reclining in a floral sofa in his home study in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city. It may be three years after Mandela passed away, but Moseneke shows deep emotion as he relives the day the man, who mentored him on Robben Island, left him.
Upon entering Moseneke’s home, two large portraits of Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, the founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress and a fellow Robben Island prisoner, greet you. On the day Mandela passed on, Moseneke was at a year-end dinner for judges and his phone was off.
“Towards the end of the dinner I switched on my phone. There were these several messages from Mama Graca Machel (his wife) and Bongi Mkhabela (CEO of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund), and they were all saying ‘Tata is gasping. You have to be here.’ I ran out of the dinner to [Mandela’s] house in Houghton. And the old man had just surrendered, he had just passed on. And Mama Graca was seated there crying and on the side was [Mandela’s daughter] Makaziwe. It was terrible. It was like a father who had passed on. I have my own father of course, but he was a father on Robben Island,” he says.
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Politics brought them together a lifetime ago. By the age of 13, in high school, Moseneke, born in Atteridgeville, a township near Pretoria, was engrossed in the African Students Union of South Africa (ASUSA) and later the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). It was a risky passion under apartheid.
“Our headmaster at Banareng (Primary School), Mr Ramopo, had related to us the fables of James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, a champion of African nationalism, and in 1960 I had been horrified by the Sharpeville (massacre) corpses I had seen on the pages of the newspapers we read daily,” he says.
The headmaster had planted a seed in young minds.
“I hated oppression. I hated the difference and I still hate it now. I dedicated my life in trying to advance equality, to get African people out of bondage, out of oppression. The fact that we have failed to do it now makes me angry. Too few of us have come out of that terrible economic situation for African people. Even then, when I was growing up, I could see the differences between the suburbs and townships, the lawn and the dust, differences in our schools, we had great teachers but the facilities were inferior. Young people have a deep sense of what’s right and wrong.”
It was at the crack of dawn, in March 1963, when Moseneke was at the mercy of a dozen rough policemen who kicked open his front door, ransacked the house and took him away.
“Mercifully, they missed all the banned literature and leaflets that were meant to rouse the populace into a revolt that morning. I froze with fear, but I didn’t cry… They cuffed my arms behind my body. I was under arrest for terrorism, they told my crying mother, but they were not permitted to tell where I would be kept. They blindfolded me and we sped off into the darkness,” Moseneke says.
He faced a gruelling trial on charges of sabotage and treason, and spent nearly a year in solitary confinement in a Pretoria prison.
In July 1963, in the winter rain and piercing wind, Moseneke paid the price for his principles when the guilty verdict came out. The 15-year-old Moseneke and other political prisoners were chained in pairs and cramped in the back of a police van all the way from Pretoria to Cape Town, where they were ferried to Robben Island. In oversized prison clothes, he started a 10-year sentence.
Despite Moseneke’s group affiliating to the PAC, a breakaway of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), senior prisoners from the ANC and other banned political formations took the youngsters under their wing. Between toiling in the prison quarry, Moseneke studied English, political science and law through the University of South Africa. He co-founded the Makana Football Association, a prison league.
On the day he was released in 1973, grinning policemen came to his home and told him he was banned for another five years. This meant he was on curfew and couldn’t mix with more than one person at a time.
Mandela remained in prison but the bond between the two was strengthened.
“In fact, I went to see Mandela in Victor Verster Prison before he was released. I did a lot of assignments for him, very critical assignments in his life. And he relied on me in a variety of fronts; for example Mandela asking me to write the interim Constitution.”
Upon retirement in 2016, Moseneke published a book called My Own Liberator: A Memoir, in which he talks of his political rite of passage and time with Mandela.
“I have a chapter in the book where he says ‘Dikgang, I am glad I have found you’. He traced me down to the Kruger National Park, I was in the Malelane Lodge, hiding, and he said ‘Well, Dikgang I am glad I found you, you must come and run the elections’, so I became the deputy of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission). I made it quite clear I was not going to run for a political office. I am going to become a lawyer, and possibly a judge, but not a political leader.”
Indeed, Moseneke was true to his word. He stayed as a lawyer. Moseneke and George Bizos, the lawyer that defended Mandela in the Rivonia Trial, represented Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his ex-wife, when she appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, for the abduction and murder of a 14-year-old Stompie Seipei. Moseneke was on Mandela’s defence team when he divorced Madikizela-Mandela in 1996. Madikizela-Mandela hired Moseneke when she was fired by Mandela in Parliament for visiting Ghana without permission.
“I won that case against him. Winnie was reinstated. But that didn’t tear us apart, it got us even closer. When the Mandela Children’s Fund was formed, he asked me to chair it, which I did for 16 years non-stop. It was one of his first loves, the children. That’s why we opened the hospital which was conceived under my leadership, and Bongi Mkhabela ran with it. I retired from the Children’s Fund and allowed for a new leader. Otherwise, I would have been like President Mugabe and stayed on forever.”
“This day, I am still the executor of the will. Mandela said: ‘Dikgang will you look after me when I am not here?’ It was big ask, from a big man. I said ‘yes Tata’.”
Moseneke is one man who can say he was close to three South African presidents but he cannot be accused of being a lackey to the powerful.
When Thabo Mbeki took over from Mandela in 1999, he appointed Moseneke to be the judge of the Constitutional Court and as Deputy Chief Justice, in 2005, a position he retired in.
“He asked me to go to Zimbabwe to monitor the (2002) elections; I wrote a report which Mbeki didn’t quite like. It wasn’t made public until the courts ordered that it be revealed. I said the elections weren’t free and fair. Even though we were close but he came to know that Moseneke was independent,” says Moseneke.
Mbeki, who wrote the foreword for his book, had told Moseneke if he had not been recalled in 2007, he would have made him the chief justice.
“Our world view has a lot in common, he’s by and large an Africanist, he believes in African renaissance and the greatness of African people, and the need for them to rise again. I believe in the

The Young Rebel With A Cause That Shone Through Tears  And Violence

A few months ago, he was a lone voice in the wilderness, now he is an international figure. Days after his acquittal in court, he has a campaign manager and his personal assistant tells me that for now he is not taking any calls. I speak to him in Johannesburg days later.
“I have not spoken to my parents yet due to security concerns for them. But, I know they have been praying for me. My wife was there throughout the whole court proceedings from morning to evening, fully pregnant. She is an amazing woman, I tell you,” he tells me from Johannesburg, in a visit that might last longer than his supporters want.
Evan Mawarire shot to international recognition on July 12, the day he presented himself to the police with a bible in hand and his flag around his neck. The country’s police had summoned him over a missing police helmet, a baton and suspicion of possessing subversive material.
“As we entered the cold, dark and smelly cell popularly known as ‘Baghdad’, I couldn’t help notice the brotherliness amongst the group inmates. They laughed, hit high fives and exchanged stories on what had landed them in for the first time or yet again. Nearly all the young men in the cell with me that night told me truth of their offenses. The one guy said to me ‘I deserve this and my desire is to stop stealing but I can’t boss, I don’t have a job’. Later that evening we shared some of my food that had been brought to me and he took it upon himself to ask anyone in the cell who had more than two blankets to give me one. I’ll be honest I’ve made a lot of friends in my lifetime, but that day in that cell I made some truly special friends. I met some real genuine Zimbabwean men,” says Mawarire.
The man of the cloth, who now had a blanket, was to also face charges of trying to topple his government. It all ended in acquittal and cheers at the Rotten Row magistrate’s court in Harare.
He is not the first to face such charges: Morgan Tsvangirai, Dumiso Dabengwa, Lookout Masuku and Ndabaningi Sithole, all opposition politicians, have been similarly accused down the years.
Mawarire’s crime: filming himself, using his mobile phone, complaining about his country’s malaise. The government’s only evidence, as they dragged him to court, was his posts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This is the story of Mawarire and his hashtag campaign #ThisFlag. In Zimbabwe, it’s risky to say the least.
Mawarire rallies hundreds of thousands of demonstrating ex-patriate Zimbabweans from Harare to London, Washington, Johannesburg and Melbourne. His words appear powerful enough to persuade citizens to shut down the country; on July 6, this turned Bulawayo and Harare into ghost towns.
On Sundays, he preaches to a congregation of 70, outside church, his sermons about politics, economy and corruption reach tens of thousands over the internet. His campaign is so powerful that the government is contemplating banning social media.
“This campaign is unique as it’s not led by politicians; it’s a campaign by ordinary citizens. We are calling for citizens to act now and act urgently, we are not going to be silenced and intimidated by the government. The call is for our government to account for and address corruption, injustice and poverty,” he says.
Mawarire, married with two children, grew up in Mazowe, 40 kilometers north of Harare, in a family of six. He studied at one of the country’s top schools, Prince Edward in Harare, before his father brought him back to the village. At 16, he was chosen as Zimbabwe’s first child president from the country’s schools.
Twenty three years later, Mawarire’s country is mired in poverty while the elite earn vast salaries; he claims billions have been lost to corruption. His campaign emerged out of frustration over scraping together school fees.
“We are completely unhappy with the situation, we have graduates who are vendors, our pensioners struggle to get their $80 out of their banks, and our best hospital goes for days without water that patients are now being asked to bring their own water,” he says.
Speaking out carries a heavy price.
“I’m definitely worried of re-arrest and I know they are trying to take me. I see danger and I fear for my life but I am more afraid of failing to explain to my children for having done nothing. Recently somebody called me and threatened to strangle me with the flag. Two government ministers have attacked me personally on social media. They are not used to citizens rising up and speaking to them.”
Jonathan Moyo, an opponent and minister in President Robert Mugabe’s cabinet, tweeted that US ambassador, Harry K. Thomas Jr, launched #ThisFlag at his residency. Mawarire and the US embassy deny this.
“The gap between real politics and cyber politics in Zimbabwe is so huge that one does not influence the other. Local politics remains the paradigm,” tweeted Moyo.
After Mawarire shut down the country Moyo had more to say.
“The notion that anyone can build Zimbabwe by shutting it down is an oxymoron,” Moyo tweeted.
“Moyo is trying to discredit the campaign by likening it to the Arab Spring. In all of my posts I made a call against violence; I know our government is well equipped to dealing with such kinds of resistance. They have accused us of being funded by the Americans, which is laughable and an indication of desperation,” says Mawarire.
#ThisFlag has shades of Baba Jukwa, the anonymous social media dissident that gave Mugabe and Zanu-PF headaches, so much so that a $300,000-reward was put on his or her head.
“I am not hiding like Baba Jukwa, I am not outside the country, people know where I live, and they know my salary.”
Editor of the Zimbabwe Independent and Chief Content Officer of Alpha Media Holdings, Dumisani Muleya, says Mawarire has rattled Mugabe’s government.
“It’s a defiance or anti-Mugabe regime campaign to rally people to fight the damaging leadership and policy failures of this government which have reduced Zimbabwe to ruins, hence panic by Zanu-PF ideologues to launch a counter. The regime is very afraid, anything can spark off an Arab Spring-like spontaneous uprising due to the explosive conditions on the ground,” says Muleya.
Bruce Mutsvairo, a social media researcher based at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, says Africa has seen many campaigns of this nature.
“The problem is, in spite of their good intentions, most of these campaigns fall victim to clicktivism, that is to say, many people think by clicking a page, signing an online petition or producing a video on YouTube, they will achieve political change. Mawarire is encouraging a new generation of activists and citizens to speak up and that’s a good thing. But then you need someone to listen, otherwise it’s like fighting a losing battle.”
Mawarire’s campaign has seen him engaging officials, such as reserve bank governor, John Mangudya, in a bid to stop the introduction of bond notes, the first step to giving Zimbabwe back its currency. Mutsvairo believes more of that is needed if the clergyman’s campaign is to be successful.
“The real challenge is to transform remarkable online initiatives such his into offline political engagements,” he says. “No one had expected the reserve bank governor to listen to Mawarire and crew so that was quite an achievement but will he listen to Mawarire at all? Also, is anyone in Zanu-PF willing to engage Mawarire? Zanu-PF officials know the majority of people commenting online do not vote. They focus on the rural folk, most of whom have no idea who Mawarire is.”
That won’t stop Mawarire who wants to continue saying it loud and proud even if he risks going back to Bagdhad.

Say It Loud, Proud And At the Risk Of Ending Up In Baghdad

Every morning, as the sun rises over the deep blue of Hout Bay near Cape Town, you can catch a glimpse of one of the last survivors of the men who faced death with Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial in 1964.
Denis Goldberg retired to the light and air of Hout Bay, maybe to banish the dark of his stinking Pretoria prison cell where he was incarcerated for 22 years. Here he learned a few sad notes to feed sad souls. As condemned men waited to hang, they would sing their last song. Goldberg taught himself to play along on guitar and recorder.
“I was never good enough to play by ear, but somehow when those men sang, the chords just came to me. When I left, I felt sad that no one was going to hear those notes from my recorder again,” he says.
Fast forward 50 years to a lighter world above the crashing surf of Hout Bay and yet there is no escape from the ills of South Africa.
“I read the negativity, day after day, because scandals sell newspapers; the newspapers which used to be a place of solid analysis for developing ideas and finding solutions to problems. What you read is the absurdity that South Africa is worse today, than what it was under apartheid. How can that be?”
On the walls around him is African art; an unspoken statement against the bleak walls of prison. Goldberg points to a portrait of an elegant black man writing in a book.
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“He’s not protesting; he’s not toyi-toying; he’s not at a political rally. It turns out that the artist is an anaesthetist and has presumably done a portrait of a colleague in a hospital, writing his diary at the end of the day. A white artist is painting an intellectual activity of a black South African. That for me reflects everything we fought for,” says Goldberg.
These pictures of hope contrast with the less hopeful picture of leadership in Africa.
“Perceptions are important in politics. I have to say President (Jacob) Zuma has played a heroic role in developing the country. He was a herd boy, who gained an education, one way or another, school education, by reading and reading. If you talk to him and speak to him off the cuff, he really is an extremely well-read person in politics. In a discussion, he is fluent and his ideas are fluent. His role in the ANC intelligence apparatus, it was enormous. Creating peace in KwaZulu-Natal, negotiating with leaders brought peace. Mandela started negotiations in Rwanda, Zuma brought them to a climax. That’s his ability. Now, I believe sadly, this circle around him is stealing the democracy of our people.”
Despite misgivings, Goldberg believes that the ANC is the only hope of closing the gap between the rich and poor.
“To oppose the crony economy we have allowed to develop; it’s not going to happen overnight, but we have to start.”
Goldberg says it’s high time to root out corruption.
“[In 1994], one of the first things that happened was new ANC members of Parliament demanded of Nelson Mandela a salary increase&#8230;When I said to leading members, ‘why are you looking for this huge increase in salaries, which puts you at the level of white management?’ Their answer was ‘do you think we are not worthy of it because we are black?’”
In the days when Goldberg fought for education, he never dreamed he would see students wreck universities.
“It angers me that students, who are supposed to be the intellectual leaders of the future, don’t think and don’t know our history. Don’t they understand the history of South Africa, don’t they understand how far we’ve come in only 20 years?&#8230; Students who throw excrement over a statue think they have solved a problem. Does that solve the problem of accommodation or worker’s wages? What does it create&#8230; disgust, and I hope they get charged.”
The protests at Parliament?
“We have serious problems and we reduce them to petty insults, its outrageous behavior. The politics in the media and in Parliament has become politics of personality and not issues.”
Amid the turmoil of politics, Goldberg has a silver lining of his own. He wants to build a center where children can dance, play music and paint in the sea breezes of Hout Bay
“When I watch kids out of the townships, with their patched best clothes, walking up and down with their violins, it’s a joy. Even if they don’t play the damned instrument properly, they had the opportunity to find themselves.”
A search he knew all too well, 50 years ago, when he played along to sad, condemned, voices.

Lament For A Stolen Dream

Ahmed Kathrada looked frail, but fit and always on the move, as he trod the concrete of his former prison. In the so-called Rivonia Trial, Kathrada was accused number five alongside Nelson Mandela and eight others. They were charged with sabotage and faced death. Instead a young Kathrada and his co-accused were shipped to Robben Island to serve life imprisonment in 1964.
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“We found out only later that life was to be life,” he says.
Kathrada spent 18 years of hardship and humiliation on Robben Island, followed by spells in other prisons, before he was released in 1990. Now 85, he is one of three survivors of the trial.
As South Africa celebrated 21 years of freedom, in April, Kathrada was back on the island wearing a black baseball cap with the words ‘Long Walk To Freedom’. A sign that this was a trip laden with symbolism. Upon disembarking on the ferry, he rejected a shuttle and walked for about 200 meters to the jail that robbed him of his youth.
As he spoke, standing on concrete patch prisoners used as a tennis court, he held his old cell key in his left hand; to his right was Christo Brand, the jailer who kept his eye on Mandela. Brand was 18 years old when he joined the prison as a warder, he’s now a manager at the island’s museum.
“We have our jailer among us,” smiled Kathrada.
Being a prisoner was no laughing matter. Alongside Kathrada was Vusumzi Mcongo, a former prisoner and now a tour guide on the island.
Mcongo told FORBES AFRICA the guard dogs would attack prisoners when they worked in the quarry. If the prisoners fought back they were punished. Officers thought more of the dogs than the humans they guarded.
“Black prisoners wore shorts because were regarded as boys and the Indians had long trousers,” says Mcongo.
Kathrada was back on Robben Island, now a World Heritage Site, because Google had launched a virtual tour application. It means anyone in the world can tour Robben Island for free.
This is a world away from the years that Kathrada and fellow prisoners spent on the island before they were released in the 1990s; they were still living in the 1960s.
“The technology revolution passed us by. The warden came to us and said ‘we received a fax from Pretoria, you are getting released’, after slight jubilation we asked ‘what is a fax?’” says Kathrada.
When Kathrada came out of prison he had never seen a motorway, nor a computer, not even an ATM.
“Not being able to see or interact with children for 20 years was possibly the most difficult thing to endure during my time on the island. There’s a poetic justice that children in classrooms all over world will now be able to visit Robben Island using this technology,” says Kathrada.
Kathrada, his friends called him Kathy, was a librarian in prison and earned an honours degree in history; he also became a father figure.
“There was a 15-year-old boy here, he was sentenced to 10 years. He did his matric here, his BA here, he started his B Juris here but completed it outside. Today, he’s the Deputy Chief Judge of the Constitutional Court – Justice Dikgang Moseneke – that was the boy,” says Kathrada proudly.
Long before Kathrada and his comrades were arrested, Xhosa Chief, Makana Nxele, was in chains on Robben Island. Nxele led a Xhosa regiment against the British in the Eastern Cape and was captured in 1819. In 1820, in an attempt to escape, Nxele swam from the island; guards caught him when he reached the beach at Blouberg, near Cape Town. The armed guards forced him to swim back. On the way back he drowned. You can google the rest.

Cyberspace Creeps Up  On The Island of Tears

In 1986, Wilson Zulu returned from a long day’s work at the Balalaika Hotel, kissed his wife goodnight and woke up the next morning in a prison cell. During the night, the hotel was raided by the police. Zulu and his wife were arrested for not producing proper documentation and for being found spending the night at the all-white hotel during apartheid. The couple was bailed out by the hotel management. These unexpected raids become common and the hotel staff along with Zulu became accustomed to them.
Nineteen-year-old Zulu, from KwaZulu-Natal, moved to Johannesburg to find work. What he found when they got there was like a scene from an old western movie: dry land, rail roads and one hotel – the 66-year-old Balalaika. He walked in, asked for a job and started immediately as a cleaner. Two months later, he was promoted to a wine steward working in the bar, earning R38 a month. Forty two years later, Zulu is still at the doors of the hotel serving his guests their morning breakfast.
“During that time, there were no interviews; you just came to where you wanted to work. They ask you ‘can you do this?’ If you said yes, you carry on with it,” says Zulu.
For the last 42 years Zulu has lived by himself and sees his family just once a year, a tough and lonely arrangement but one that is very necessary for Zulu and most of the staff at the hotel.
“It’s fine; all they want from me is to buy something to eat and to wear. You can’t do anything without money, so when I leave, they say ‘go well,’” says Zulu.
Being at the same hotel for so long does guarantee a few regular friends.
“I’ve seen PJ Powers here; I’ve seen Johnny Clegg (the so-called ‘White Zulu’ musician) as well. Danny Jordaan, the SAFA President, used to join us for breakfast. Former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, was also here. My favorite regular is Clegg. I remember saying to him once, ‘No you can’t make Zulu dance now; you are too old.’ And he said to me, ‘No I am not’, and he stood up and started dancing. Whenever Clegg comes here, he looks for me,” says Zulu.
In the early eighties, Kaunda stayed at the Balalaika Hotel for almost six months because of unrest in his country. Zulu recalls him as not a very happy man.
“Just this morning I met one of my regulars at breakfast from Barloworld and he said to me, ‘Wilson you are still here?’”
After 10 years of service to the Balalaika, Zulu told himself that he will retire at the hotel because he felt that it would be too difficult to find and learn another job. And with little education he was happy he had a job at all.
Zulu’s best memory of his time at the hotel was between the years of 1970 to 1981, when he was crowned the best Zulu dancer.
“We were visited by the [branch] in Rivonia… every Christmas and we used to perform Zulu dances for the guests. There were judges that used to keep score and I was always number one, I was like Johnny Clegg,” says Zulu.
Despite all the ups and downs, Zulu has made the Balalaika his life and even though every single thing around him changed over the decades, nothing about him has changed much. A working day for Zulu begins exactly the same way it did in 1973, with a cup of tea.

Forty Two Years  Of Black Presidents  And A White Zulu

The pavement outside Pretoria’s High Court sounded like Kinshasa on this fateful Friday in late November.
A handful of the 300,000-strong Congolese community in South Africa pounded the pavement with dance and chants.
Echoes of anger rang in their songs: “Kabila must go, Kabila must go” and “Tuta Muua, (We will kill him),” sang around 50 protesters.
“It’s better to live in hell than a South African prison,” says David Muyembi Bakajika.
The men had spent 23 hours a day locked in their cells with an hour for exercise.
Mussassa Tshibangu was merely glad to feel the sun on his skin.
“It is the first time that I see people, so many people, just walking in the streets. I am very happy.”
President Joseph Kabila was the man the 15 freed men were accused of trying to overthrow. Those released were part of the group recruited by Kabuka Lugaba Andrian Kilele, who remains in prison, for so-called anti-rhino poaching training at a remote Limpopo bush camp. They were arrested instead.
All of the men were charged under the Foreign Military Assistance Act for engaging in “mercenary activity” and rendering “foreign military assistance” as well as collectively conspiring to “commit murder” under the Riotous Assemblies Act.
The Hawks, South Africa’s undercover police agents, executed the sting operation and believe that the 15 were foot soldiers of a coup attempt. Prosecutors couldn’t make the charges stick.
“We stopped proceedings [because] it became apparent that we wouldn’t secure convictions due to a lack of evidence,” says National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Nathi Mncube.
Thesigan Pillay, lawyer to 14 of the men, says it was a partial victory.
Four of his clients, including Kilele, are believed to major players in an unfortunate plot remain in custody. They are: James Kazongo; Lunula ‘Patrick’ Masikini; and Kilele ‘Jeff’ Mukuti.
Etienne Kabila, who claims President Kabila is a relative and initially assumed to be the coup’s mastermind, is out on bail but still faces charges.
The men were released shortly after midday and the crowd burst into euphoria. The men were embraced, hands were shook, prayers were said and supporters danced.
Soon after the men were welcomed back into the world, the crowd escorted them to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where they were promised help with jobs and homes. It was a 40-minute walk away.
While there, the men were summoned inside, the journalists were asked to stay outside. On their return, they were holding business cards from the ICRC. They say that they were offered support with their transition back into society, be it employment or lodgings.
As those released begin to make a new life, and leave the trauma of the old one behind, the other five return to court on January 26.

‘It’s Better  To Live In Hell Than A South African Prison’

Denis Goldberg, who faced death with Nelson Mandela in the 1964 Rivonia Trial, was in a TV studio in London commenting on the great man’s release from prison.
Goldberg was released before the others after 22 years.
“I was absolutely confident that I was the start of a process. I wanted to be out to play a role in the liberation of South Africa. I was tired of being a symbol locked up in prison and I thought the time had come to move things along. There was the offer of releases and unconditionally releases, I decided to accept because I didn’t want PW Botha’s offer in 1985 just to evaporate into thin air, he made the offer out of weakness not strength, that’s the important part,” says Goldberg.
“I was able to tell the story of how the day we were sentenced, the head of the prison security said we should have been hanged and will never walk out of prison on our own two feet; they’d carry us out in a coffin. And then Nelson Mandela stopped the car he was in and he and his then wife Winnie Mandela walked out holding their hands into freedom, and the rest is history. I was able to tell that story. We survived and the old security colonel had passed away.”
Goldberg has many memories of Mandela but one that sticks in the mind is their first encounter after prison.
“He said to me, ‘hello boy it’s been a long time. He always called me boy because I was so much younger then he was. It was very sweet and touching. I also remember a bit later when we met again in Sweden, my wife and my daughter had to meet him. He greeted my wife rather stiffly not knowing who she is and when I introduced her, he bent down from his great height and whispered to her, ‘the boy is looking good you must be looking after him very well.’”
Zakhe Khuzwayo, Group CFO of InnoVent, was 14 years old and at boarding school at Hilton College in Pietermaritzburg. The school was dismissed early so they could watch Mandela’s first walk as a free man.
“The man was an enigma, I think I had seen a photograph of him when I was younger, I didn’t know what to expect. I guess it was more exciting and anxiety to see who this guy is and see what he actually looks like,” says Khuzwayo.
Twenty five years later, Khuzwayo runs his own company and enjoys much of the freedom ushered in by the release of Mandela.
“His role was instrumental in what this country actually became,”
says Khuzwayo.
Political analyst Thapelo Tselapedi was four years old in 1990 and remembers the humble Toyota Cressida that Mandela rode through Cape Town in. He also remembers seeing the man in the flesh four years later.
“In 1994, when I was eight, we went to the Mafikeng stadium where he was speaking. After he spoke, my sister ran to him to him to try and get an autograph. Nelson Mandela was surrounded by his bodyguards and my brother and I tried to go in and get an autograph but we couldn’t. My sister was the only one who managed to get one. She got in, got her autograph, he shook her hand and then she got out. I was sad that I couldn’t break through, but my sister always kept that autograph in her room, it was very nice,” recalls Tselapedi.
A quarter of a century later, his feelings are bittersweet.
“Sweet because he has to do the impossible to calm down black people but at the same it seemed to not have been enough as it was limited by the interests that the white people had also wanted, he had to find a home for everyone and that meant compromise. The bittersweet part is characterized by where black people are now versus where white people are.”
Like Tselapedi, Goldberg has his opinions.
“I am still optimistic but I am also distressed. I am optimistic because we have achieved so much despite our weakness, despite the legacy of apartheid leaving us with an inadequate civil service, with half the population illiterate, half the population unemployed and we’ve come a long way since then and the conditions of people have undoubtedly improved. My sadness is the corruption and what I call the patronage society,” says Goldberg.
The man who stared down death with Mandela feels his country has a long way
to go.

Tag: Prison

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