Piet Mokoena

Piet Mokoena, from Witzieshoek Native Reserve, Harrismith District, Orange Free State [now Free State Province], was a strong supporter of Paulus Howell Mopeli,also a banished person, and was alleged to have undermined the authority of the appointed chief. In terms of a banishment order dated 19 February 1953, he was banished, in 1954, to Frenchdale in the Mafeking district, [Northern Cape], [now Mahikeng, North West Province].

His banishment followed ‘the announced visit by the police, the call to the Commissioner’s office, and the imposition of the banishment order.’

Helen Joseph met him in 1962 at Frenchdale, where he had been in banishment for eight years. She recounted that Mokoena’s hut ‘was unexpected in its neatness. It had almost a furnished look about it, with a bed, a table and a chair, and a goatskin on the floor. He had been reading his bible by candlelight while he was waiting for us.’  Mokoena had indicated that ‘the banished men who were already there when he arrived had long since been allowed to return to their various homes. But he remained, and other men had followed.’ On being banished, he had been given £2, (then approximately R4) but nothing else thereafter.

In 1958, Mokoenawas offered a meagre monthly stipend ‘at the same time as the Mopelis, but like them he had refused, because he had been given nothing before.’ He said that ‘life was very difficult. We had to go to the villages to ask for food and for just a few pennies that we sometimes got for work from them. Sometimes there would be four whole months and no one from the authorities would ever come near us’. He had requested permission for his family to live with him but received no answer, giving a lie to the Deputy-Minister of the Bantu Administration Department’s (BAD) claim that a banished person’s ‘family is able to join him if they so desire.’ His partner or a child sometimes visited. He was keen to have family with him, as ‘he seemed to have given up all hope of ever going back to Witzieshoek.’

In 1965, together with the Mopelis and other inmates of Frenchdale he was moved to Ewbank Farm in the Kuruman District, [Northern Cape]. His banishment order was only withdrawn on 18 July 1972.