"I will not look at you as a criminal, but your actions [have the potential to]make you a criminal." With these words the case against Glenmore activist Velile Ben Mafani of malicious damage to property was dismissed.
"I will not look at you as a criminal, but your actions [have the potential to]make you a criminal." With these words the case against Glenmore activist Velile Ben Mafani of malicious damage to property was dismissed.
And with these words another chapter in Mafani's 33-year struggle against injustice came to a close.
It's been an epic of pain and frustration for Mafani and a saga of embarrassment and frustration for the authorities.
In 1979 police arrested Mafani at his home in Coega, near Port Elizabeth, and dumped him and his family at Glenmore resettlement camp.
His protests at the time were ignored and since 1994, Mafani has been petitioning the new government in an effort to secure redress for the community.
The malicious damage to property charge stems from Mafani's throwing a rock through a window of the high court in Grahamstown.
He did it for the first time in 2004.
In 2007 he broke three windows at the court and was charged for malicious damage to property.
He was sentenced to a R2 000 fine or a year in prison, but the sentence was suspended for five years on condition he was not convicted of a similar offence in that five-year period.
Seven months later in 2008, he did it again, was arrested and then released on a warning.
The article, '"Freedom fighter' has a question for Koornhof" by Ben Maclennan (Mail and Guardian: 20 November 2007) explains the significance of the rock: "Denied his day in court, Mafani mulled over the matter for several years… he put on a jacket and tie and went back to the High Street, with another rock.
"This one was carefully painted in three colours — black, to show that the people of Glenmore were 'sitting in a black place', red 'meaning that our people are crying blood', and white, 'saying I need freedom in Glenmore'."
The latest protest was just over a year ago and in that case, heard last month, state prosecutor Nevadia Adriaan called security guards Nosiphiwo Tshikila and Siyabulela Makengelele as witnesses.
They said they'd found Mafani standing near the high court after the incident on 6 January last year. They said Mafani had told them and the police that he had broken the windows.
Tshikila told the court that Mafani had shown them the brick, which was "wrapped up like a Christmas present", and said he had broken the window.
She called the police, who arrested Mafani.
Last week, magistrate in the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court Ntsoki Moni expressed sympathy for the 59-year-old victim of forced removals, who has been trying to make his voice heard for more than three decades.
Moni said on Friday, "I will give you the benefit of the doubt." In a pre-court hearing with the magistrate, Mafani was advised to explore other ways of drawing the government's attention to his plight.
He was also warned that there was a criminal element in his methods and that they left the court in an awkward position.
When asked to state his case, Mafani said he would put it in the hands of the court, because he felt he had no right to defend himself.
Mafani admitted breaking windows of the high court, but had pleaded not guilty to the charge of malicious damage to property.
The magistrate last year referred Mafani for psychiatric observation. The result indicated he was fit to stand trial.
Before dismissing the case, Moni said she would trust that Mafani had come to understand that similar actions would result in his going to prison. "I will not look at you as a criminal, but your actions make you a criminal," she said.
