Two of Hector Zolile Pieterson’s siblings are at each others’ throats over his legacy and money donated to the family over the years.
Pieterson was among the first children mowed down in the Soweto uprisings on June 16, 1976.
Now Pieterson’s younger sister, Lulu, is accusing elder sister Antoinette Sithole of hogging the limelight and of refusing to share with other family members the spoils that come with being a Pieterson.
Sithole is the one running beside a dying Pieterson and Mbuyisa Makhubu in the iconic picture of the 1976 uprisings taken by Sam Nzima. Lulu claims that Sithole is not a Pieterson but a Molefi.
She says Sithole is Hector’s half-sister through their mother, Dorothy Mantoa Molefi.
Lulu says her father, Victor Pieterson, died in 2002.
Hector was the first-born, Lulu the second and another sister, Lindiwe, the last-born.
Lulu said Sithole was fathered by Sello Molefi, who was in jail at the time her father married their mother.
Lulu was speaking at a media conference held at the Kopanong centre in Dobsonville and organised by the June 16 Youth Development Foundation.
The media briefing was attended by Lulu’s aunt Maleshoane Tlhapane, 75, and a cousin Nontuthuzelo Tlhapane, 47.
Also in attendance was chairman of the foundation Phumlani Keswa and secretary-general Mandla Nyaqela.
Lulu, who was five years old in 1976, said it pained her to see someone who was not a Pieterson enjoying all the limelight that came with being Hector’s relative.
She said Sithole had started a Hector Pieterson clothing label that benefited her but not the rest of the family.
So deep was the rivalry between her and Sithole that since the opening of the Hector Pieterson museum in Orlando in 2002, she had never visited it, she said.
And neither does she attend June 16 commemoration services because the day makes her “very miserable”.
Thursday’s visit to the museum – at the behest of The Star reporters, who wanted to take a picture of her at the site where her brother was killed – was the first in 10 years.
An upset Sithole said it was not the first time such claims had been made.
Sithole confirmed that she was not a Pieterson, and blamed the media for the misrepresentation.
“It would seem that my fault was to be in that picture with a dying Hector. I am being crucified for that,” she said. - The Star