Pretoria - As the media speculation continues over the identity of a man resembling the 1976 uprising hero, Mbuyisa Makhubu, Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile, says the nation should wait for official DNA test results.
Makhubu is the one seen carrying Hector Pieterson in the famous photograph taken by Sam Nzima during the Soweto uprising in 1976. After the photograph appeared in the newspapers, Makhubu, who was aged 18 at the time, was harassed by the apartheid security services, forcing him to flee the country.
Recently, a newspaper reported that a man resembling Makhubu is being detained in a Canadian jail on immigration offences. A high-level initiative is being fast-tracked by both Canadian authorities and senior officials from the Department of Arts and Culture to have the man’s DNA cross-checked against Makhubu’s surviving relatives in South Africa.
Speaking to SANews, Mashatile said: “The role of a government Minister is not to speculate, but to tell the nation the truth. Yes I want to confirm that a few weeks ago, we managed to get information that there is someone in Canada who maybe Mbuyisa Makhubu.
“… once we were alerted about this, we needed to check this properly. We’ve been working on this close to a month now,” he said.
Mashatile also confirmed that a team has been dispatched to work with the Canadian authorities to try and determine whether the man in the Canadian prison is the 1976 icon.
“As things stand now, we don’t have an official confirmation whether it is him (Makhubu). We requested the authorities to conduct the DNA test.
“When somebody disappears and if the person is still alive or dead, to confirm the identity of that person, you conduct the DNA test and that is what we are doing as government because we don’t want to speculate,” he said.
Mashatile, who also confirmed that they are in the process of finalising the DNA test results, further said: “as government, we are concerned there are many of our people who have disappeared during the liberation struggle, some are buried in unknown graves, while some we don’t even know their graves, so as government we continue to try to find the whereabouts of all our people ....”
The Minister said once he received the official confirmed DNA test results, he will brief President Jacob Zuma before making an official announcement.
“Once we get the correct and official information to say it is him, I will first brief President Zuma and then we will start the process of repatriation back to Soweto, so wait patiently for … (the) truth,” he said.
Makhubu’s late mother Nombulelo Makhubu told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that the last time she received a letter from him was in 1978 while he was in Nigeria.
“I have heard from so many papers and television overseas and many people have been coming to my house every time around June 16…”
She said all she wanted was to find her son and thought the newspapers would help her.
“My reason for talking to all the newspapers locally and from overseas (was that I) hoped somebody somewhere will say I know (Mbuyisa).
She said she wanted to know if her child was dead or alive and if he died how it happened.
“… I've come here because this is my last hope, that maybe the Commission could help me find out what happened to my child,” she said. - SAnews.gov.za
