S.African families battle to uncover apartheid truth

Since then, the family have pressed on with efforts to secure a proper investigation of Matthews’ death — despite their modest means.

Among their leads is a UN report from 1979 of which two-and-a-half pages deal with Matthews’ death.

The document quotes the police inquiry into the death which claimed that Matthews “forced the window open” and climbed on to a ledge.

– ‘Forced to climb out’ –

“The police were unable to stop him but called to him to come back… he lost his balance and fell to his death,” the police investigation said.

But the UN found that “it would be absurd to suggest that he attempted to escape through a window of the 10th floor”.

“There is a strong, and in the circumstances irresistible, inference that he was forced to climb out of the window because he was being tortured,” said the official UN conclusion.

Matthews’ corpse was never subject to an autopsy, but when the Mabelanes retrieved his body they discovered his blood-soaked trousers contained a disturbing message, Lasch said.

“Brother Lasch, tell mother and my other brothers that the police will push me from the 10th floor. I bid you farewell,” said the message written in the garment’s lining.

In their despair and in fear of the apartheid system, the family did not hold on to the trousers.

“Nobody could think that today, 40 years down the line, we could ever think of going to court and request an inquest to be opened,” Lasch said. “I wish I would have kept it.”

Gathering evidence so long after the incident has also proved challenging.

The Mabelane family, like dozens of others who have suffered similar trauma, feel that they have been failed by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, in power since the end of white-rule in 1994.

“The government and the ANC have not done anything for 20 years,” said Yasmin Sooka, director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa, which has helped finance the Timol family’s campaign for justice.

“That is why we have been looking at these cases privately.”

Sooka’s organisation recently decided also to champion the case of Matthews Mabelane.

Time is against them. The policemen involved are elderly, if not dead.

But most importantly, Phillip Mabelane prays that justice will be done while he is still alive.