St James Church massacre

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The St James Church massacre was a massacre perpetrated on St James Church, Cape Town by the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA).

Contents 1 Massacre 2 The attackers 3 Similar attacks 4 Arrest and trial 5 Amnesty 6 Reconciliation 7 Later developments 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Massacre

During the Sunday evening service on 25 July 1993, a group of APLA cadres attacked the St. James Church in Kenilworth. Using grenades and AK-47s, they killed 11 members of the congregation and wounded 58. A single churchgoer, Charl van Wyk, managed to return fire with a .38 Special revolver and five rounds of ammunition wounding one of the attackers. It is possible that van Wyk's action caused the attackers to flee.^{[original research?]}

Members of the congregation killed were Guy Cooper Javens, Richard Oliver O'Kill, Gerhard Dennis Harker, Wesley Alfonso Harker, Denise Gordon Mirtle, Joan Smith, Marita Ackermann, Andrey Kayl, Karamjin Oleg, Varaksa Velentin and Pavel Valuet. The last four on this list were Russian seamen attending the service as part of a church outreach programme. Another Russian seaman, Dmitri Makogon, lost both legs and an arm in the attack. What is striking about the target is that the St James congregation is and had always been a multi-racial.^{[citation needed]} Indeed not all the victims were white South Africans.

[edit] The attackers

APLA commander Sichumiso Nonxuba selected the target, directed and took part in the attack on the church members. The APLA operatives who took part were Gcinikhaya Makoma, who also fired on church members, Thobela Mlambisa, who drove the vehicle, and Basie Mzukisi Mkhumbuzi, who stood watch outside.

[edit] Similar attacks

APLA cadres were held responsible for several similar attacks. Among these were the attack on King William's Town Golf Club on 28 November 1992 in which four people were killed, and the attack on the Heidelberg Tavern in Observatory, Cape Town on 31 December 1993, in which four people were killed. Ballistic tests showed that the same rifles were used in the St James and Heidelberg Tavern attacks.

[edit] Arrest and trial

Gcinikhaya Makoma was arrested ten days later and convicted for 11 murders. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Sichumiso Nonxuba, Thobela Mlambisa and Basie Mkhumbuzi were subsequently arrested and charged in 1996. They had in the meantime joined the South African National Defence Force as part of the integration of APLA operatives into the new national defence force.

In 1997, while on trial, Nonxuba, Mlambisa and Mkhumbuzi appealed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty, together with Makoma. They were granted bail pending their appearance before the TRC. Nonxuba died in a car accident while on bail.

[edit] Amnesty

Makoma, Mkhumbuzi and Mlambisa were all granted amnesty for the St James Church attack by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). As a result, Makoma was freed after serving only 5½ years of his sentence, and the trial of Mkhumbuzi and Mlambisa was never completed.^{[citation needed]}

In this and other APLA amnesty hearings, APLA operatives claimed that they were following their orders and that they regarded all whites as legitimate targets as they were complicit in the government's policy of apartheid. In statements made to the representatives of St James chruch they did however say that they were unaware that the selected target was a church until they arrived in Kenilworth.

Letlapa Mphahlele, national director of operations for APLA, took responsibility for ordering the attacks as part of his application for amnesty. He claimed that he had authorised attacks on white civilians following the killing of five school children by the South African Defence Force in Umtata.^{[citation needed]}

Amnesty in such cases was typically granted in terms of the TRC's mandate because the crimes were politically motivated, with the perpetrators following the orders of the APLA commanders, and full disclosure was made to the TRC.

Although amnesty was granted to the individual perpetrators, the TRC found that the act itself—along with other APLA/PAC attacks specifically targeting civilians—were "a gross violation of human rights" and a "violation of internal [sic] humanitarian law".^[1]

[edit] Reconciliation

Several of the church members who were injured or who lost family members in the attacks, as well as Charl van Wyk, who had returned fire on the attackers, later met and publicly reconciled with the APLA attackers.

[edit] Later developments

On August 27 2002, Gcinikhaya Makoma was arrested along with six others following a cash-in-transit heist of a Standard Bank cash van in Constantia, Cape Town, in which R1.8 million was stolen. ^[2] He and the others were later acquitted, with the magistrate finding that the prosecution case had been badly put together and that documents had been falsified by an investigating officer. ^[3]

In Oct 2004, Charl Van Wyk became the principle architect in forming Gun Owners of South Africa, (GOSA), a primarily online, Civilian Gun Rights ownership group. He no longer attends St James church.

Despite the terrible events of that night, St James church continues to be a gathering place for believers and seekers of all races. The church's response to the event can be found in a talk entitled "The night of the Storm" (available from St James Church, PO Box 2180, Clareinch 7740 South Africa) given by the then rector of St James and current Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa, Bishop Frank Retief.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Hands that unleashed Thunder
• Churchgoer Charl van Wyk recounts meeting APLA attacker in 2002
• Frontline Fellowship response to the attacks
• TRC Amnesty findings