National police commissioner General Bheki Cele has apologised to the family of Andries Tatane and insists he never encouraged police to “shoot to kill”.
Cele was forced to drive from Kimberley early on Tuesday after bad weather had prevented him from flying to Ficksburg, on the border with Lesotho.
“His blood has helped us to say ‘Here we cut off. It doesn’t happen again’,” Cele told family members, including Tatane’s 80-year-old grandmother, Maria Baatjies.
Tatane’s widow Rose was in Ladybrand to visit a doctor “to stop the video that keeps playing in my head”.
Tatane was killed last week after he was assaulted and shot by a group of at least six policemen.
The death of Tatane has led to angry clashes between residents and cops, with President Jacob Zuma weighing in and condemning the brutal slaying of an unarmed Tatane.
Asked if his comments, like the much-publicised “shoot to kill” comment, had not perhaps contributed to the police’s heavy-handed actions, Cele said: “Show me the place Cele says ‘Shoot the people’.”
When Rose arrived, she took her place on the floor and, wrapped in blankets, sat next to Baatjies.
“I am satisfied,” she told Cele.
Outside the small clay house, family members from as far as Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Joburg and Bloemfontein milled about, the men preparing two slaughtered sheep. Another relative had a shopping list with 52 items.
“At first I thought we could not allow police in here. For you coming here, I am already healed,” said Tatane’s sister, Seipati Tatane.
On Monday, however, when the six policemen allegedly responsible for Tatane’s death first appeared in a Ficksburg court, Seipati told Rose: “I wish I had a gun. Then I would kill all these people.”
Rose herself lashed out at her husband’s alleged killers in court and nearly came to blows with a family member of one of the accused.
With all the activity around the death of Tatane, his son Molefe’s fourth birthday on Sunday went almost unnoticed.
Cele told the family in Meqheleng township: “An ugly thing happened. It’s bad, it’s painful.”
The family responded by saying they held no grudge against the police force as such, and encouraged Cele to get his members to go on with their work, which was necessary.
“I am humbled by the big-heartedness of this family. After all that has happened, I didn’t expect this. I will tell these stories well after I’ve met this family,” said Cele.
Before he left, the police chief pulled R350 from his pocket and gave it to the family.
But Rose still has to contend with last week’s events.
“It’s like a video that keeps replaying in my head. It happens when I’m sitting, talking to my grandmother or anywhere,” she said.
After nearly a week of unrest and loss, residents of Meqheleng are trying to pick up the pieces.
Residents queued for water, as they have done for four years, while a lucky few made their way out of town to work.
Schoolchildren in uniforms expertly navigated routes around huge puddles in muddy roads, some passing the burnt and looted Meqheleng library, where Tatane once taught pupils wanting to improve their science and maths marks.
Tatane will be buried on Saturday. - The Star