The last mystery of Tsietsi Mashinini

More than three decades after his death in exile, the circumstances surrounding Tsietsi Mashinini’s final days remain shrouded in mystery

- Sam Mathe

Should we understand Tsietsi Mashinini’s demise against the background of violent and fatal ideological clashes?

In the absence of evidence to prove that his death was politically motivated, conspiracy theorists have been tempted to choose this route, a line of thought that suggests he had been made to pay the ultimate price for his refusal to join the ANC.

There are too many unanswered questions but, in the absence of solid facts or circumstantial evidence, it would be unfair and irresponsible to point fingers at any organisation or individual.

By some accounts, he was assaulted but the identity of the assailant or assailants remains a mystery after all these years.

There was never an arrest, let alone a trial for his murder.

In Portia Rankoane’s documentary film, Tsietsi My Hero, Ma-Mokete recounts that Miriam Makeba phoned her a week before his death and explained that he was in hospital, seriously ill — but there was never mention of an assault. Was he perhaps assaulted in his sick bed?

In an interview, Barney Mokgatle said that when he offered to go to Guinea to participate in the repatriation of the body, Makeba discouraged him and instead suggested that he join the repatriation team in Harare, Zimbabwe.

“I don’t want what happened to Tsietsi to happen to you,” the singer reportedly told Mokgatle.

Unfortunately, Mokgatle died on 13 November 2025 after a long illness that made it impossible for follow-up interviews that might have clarified matters such as this one.

One of the reasons why there’s so little information in the public domain about Tsietsi’s life in exile, especially his final years, is the absence of detail in some of the books written by those whose paths crossed his.