Driefontein, Mpumalanga

Found in the Municipality of: Mkhondo Gert Sibande District, Mpumalanga, South Africa. It has a Subtropical highland climate or temperate oceanic climate with dry winters. This place is also called Saul Mkhize Village after the man who died so that people of this place should not be removed from it. A true liberation fighter. It had a Population, in 2018 of 28,127. --- Today in South African History 2 April 1983 Saul Vusumzi Mkhize (47) is shot to death by a white policeman, Constable Johannes Nienaber. The anti-apartheid activist and land rights campaigner was addressing a meeting of Driefontein residents at a local primary school in the then Eastern Transvaal (Mpumalanga) in his capacity as chairman of the Driefontein Board of Directors. This was a community body that was formed by concerned residents who were opposed to the apartheid government's planned forced removals. Mkhize's cowardly killing shocked the people of Driefontein but made them more determined to oppose the removals. His wife, Beauty Mkhize was elected in his place on the board and the struggle against the removals continued. After bitter resistance that involved the courts and a media campaign, in 1985 the government conceded defeat. But the victory came at a huge and costly price. The place is now renamed in Saul Mkhize's memory as well as a statue. ---