Glenmore activist, Ben Mafani, who threw a stone through a window of the Grahamstown high court early last month appeared in the magistrates court last week.
Facing criminal charges for his trademark gesture of protest, which he has carried out repeatedly over a number of years, Mafani was supported on his arrival at the court on Friday morning by members of the Unemployed Peoples Movement, as well as some residents of Glenmore. Mafani carried a placard pasted with news clippings of the hardships endured by him and people of Glenmore, forcefully removed from Colchester, Kouga and Klipfontein to Glenmore, around 40km from Grahamstown in the Peddie direction, in 1979.
He is demanding that the people of Glenmore, removed from their homes by the apartheid government, be returned to their birthplaces. “These are my stories. Stories of my pain,” Mafani told Grocotts Mail, looking at his placard. He pointed to one article with a photograph of his children, who had died in 1982. He said his three children, along many others, had died in a tornado in the resettlement camp.
They had been buried near the Fish River, with no coffins. Mafani was at pains to explain that the placard was not by way of protest, but rather because he but wanted the court to see the stories and understand the reason for his action on Friday 6 January. “They want to charge me as a criminal. I am going through a lot of pain. This is way beyond throwing of a stone.” Mafanis case was postponed to 11 April 2012 for a plea or trial. “Sentence me life or death. I will continue throwing stones until our problems are solved,” Mafani said.
