'We were very careful not to tell'

An admission by apartheid-era law and order minister Adriaan Vlok in 2021 finally confirmed that those in the highest echelons of the state security apparatus ordered the killing of the Cradock Four.

- By Hamilton Wende

Lukanyo Calata, son of Fort Calata (left), and Nyaniso Goniwe, son of Matthew Goniwe, at the inquest into the deaths of the Cradock Four in the High Court in Gqeberha on 11 June.

(Photo: Lulama Zenzile/Gallo Images)

The message came early on a Wednesday. It was from Howard Varney, a lawyer representing the families of the Cradock Four. "Would you possibly be available to come to PE this Friday?" It was a long-awaited summons. Finally came the opportunity to bear witness to the small but significant piece I had uncovered of those terrible, violent murders 40 years ago.

On 27 June 1985, four anti-apartheid activists Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkonto, Sicelo Mhlauli and Fort Calata were returning from Port Elizabeth when their car was stopped at a roadblock. They were taken into a nearby bush, brutally assaulted with steel pipes and knives, shot and killed. The bodies and the car were doused in petrol and set alight.

In 2021, I was the field producer along with filmmaker Naashon Zalk for a documentary for Al Jazeera on the struggle of Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, to reopen the case and find justice for his father and his comrades.

At issue for Lukhanyo was, of course, the criminal liability of the actual murderers particularly one Eric Taylor, a lieutenant in the Security Police at the time, who admitted to killing Fort by hitting him on the back of the head with a steel pipe and then watching as other policemen stabbed him multiple times before setting the body alight.

Taylor confessed to all this at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but he was not granted amnesty, partly because he refused to fully outline who had given him orders, and exactly what those orders were.