In December 1986, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres Joyce ‘Betty Boom’ Koekanyetswe, Nomasonto Mashiya and Tax Sejaname were abducted by members of the Orange Free State Security Branch in Lesotho. Betty Boom was a Commander and highly trained MK cadre as well as a committee member of the South African Communist Party (SACP). Nomasonto Mashiya was abducted with her one-year old baby but the police returned the baby to Mashiya’s parents in the Orange Free State (now the Free State Province). Not much is known about Tax Sejaname’s affiliations or abduction. Early in January 1987, Mbulelo ‘Khaya Kasibe (KK)’ Ngono was involved in a shoot-out with the security forces in Lesotho but he managed to escape only to be abducted in 1988 by the same security branch who abducted Betty Boom, Nomasonto Mashiya and Tax Sejaname. KK was abducted in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The four MK cadres were held at a farm in Ladybrand, Free State which is 18kms away from Maseru and came to be known as the Ladybrand Four. 

Three members of the Orange Free State Security Branch namely Anthony Jagga, Robert Shaw and Mike Jantjie and Daniel Thulo, an apartheid-era police informer and a member of the Ladybrand Security Branch police unit, applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for the abduction of the Ladybrand Four.

Their TRC hearing took place on 12 October 2000. They all admitted to abducting the four MK cadres from Lesotho in 1986 but claimed that they released them after they became askaris or police informers. However, the families of the victims did not believe their testimonies as none of the four MK cadres were seen after their abduction. 

Tryphina Mboxela Jokweni was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and was part of the 1956 Union Buildings March which saw 20 000 women march to Pretoria on 9 August. The march inspired her to become an uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadre in 1962, working under the leadership of ANC veteran Billy Nair. She was arrested in 1966 for her political activities in her hometown, Umkhumbane, Durban and detained for six months.

Jokweni then moved to Umlazi, Durban where she  her home was used as a safe house for MK cadres. In April 1987 she was detained and tortured for this by the apartheid police based in Amanzimtoti, south of Durban. Jokweni passed away from illness in 2002 and left behind three children. She was 77 years-old at the time of her death.

On 29 August 2012, the ANC commemorated Jokweni and recognized her contributions to the liberation struggle by laying a new tombstone for her at the Wentworth Cemetery, Durban, where she is buried. 

The Seweweeks Poort is probably the most beautiful 18 km stretch of gravel road anywhere in South Africa. With easy gradients, multiple river crossings, mind-boggling geology, camping and self catering accommodation all packed into an almost perfect micro-climate, this road is an absolute joy to drive or ride, as it twists and turns through every angle of the compass, as it follows the contorted bends of the River and falls entirely under the control of Cape Nature Conservation and more specifically the Swartberg and Towerkop Nature Reserves.

The term “poor whites” was coined during the 19th century, as the mineral revolution and development of mines forced smaller farmers off their land.[1] This led to an increase in urbanization, poverty and unemployment as many farmers lacked formal education.

Durban is the Capital City of the South African Province of KwaZulu-Natal, on the East Coast of the Country. It is not only a popular tourist attraction and coastal hotspot, but it is also home to the continent’s biggest Container Terminal and one of the major Ports in Africa - the Durban Harbour. The modern Port of Durban was first established when a party of British men from the Cape Colony settled on the shores of the Bay of Natal in 1824 to establish a Trading Post.

Built by the Tamil Community the prominent and almost 70-year-old Building of the Hindu Tamil Institute (HTI) in Cross Street, Durban, near the Durban Girls’ Secondary School, was officially opened on April 12, 1939 by Sri Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. He was the first vice-president of India (1952-1962) and its second president (1962-1967). His birthday is celebrated in India, as Teachers’ Day on September 5.