Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
My appeal to Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane and AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo is that they find faith and traditional leaders to mediate between them.
Institutions do not decide to go to war or to make peace or who to destroy or kill or who to accuse of involvement in and benefiting from extortion or litigating against the accuser; those actions are the responsibility of individuals sitting in influential positions.
To try to understand the root causes of the conflict that led Premier Mabuyane to open a case against King Dalindyebo at the Bhisho police station on September 10 after the king accused him of involvement in extortion incidents only in terms of power politics and resource control, without also understanding the influence of human behaviour, undermines our effectiveness as peace-loving citizens in preventing conflicts and making peace that will help us to overcome crime and other social problems collaboratively.
Over the past 14 months, faith and traditional leaders in different provinces received training on conflict mediation in agonised attempts to land on that sweet spot of unimpeachable neutrality, and are available to help.
Given their inherent impartial leadership roles, the reasons for society’s high expectations of faith and traditional leaders as conflict mediators are easy to discern.
Impartiality is a knotty old concept, and one of the trickiest things about it is that it relies on the idea that faith and traditional leaders are uniquely capable of safely shepherding disputants into finding practical and lasting solutions to neutralise conflicts.
The allegations stem from a public address King Dalindyebo gave at Laphumikhwezi Primary in Mthatha on August 20, where he accused Eastern Cape politicians of being involved in extortion in the town.
But Mabuyane has denied any involvement.
“The Premier has requested the law enforcement agencies to conduct a comprehensive probe into these claims and gather all necessary evidence,” spokesperson Khuselwa Rantjie told the media.
King Dalindyebo also accused the late controversial Mthatha West ‘traditional leader’ Nkosi Sakhumzi Mareke of being an extortion kingpin and of working in cahoots with politicians, and specifically mentioned Mabuyane.
Laphumikhwezi was forced to shut its doors for over a week from August 13 after alleged extortionists stormed the school premises and assaulted the principal. The school was reopened after intervention from Dalindyebo.
On September 4, Mareke and two of his guards died in a hail of bullets during a shoot-out with police at the National Intervention Unit base in Mthatha.
The danger facing our society is not from wild or impulsive action but from the considered actions of decision-makers who believe they know what they are doing and how their supposed opponents will respond.
Their confidence is not reassuring when their judgement has previously fallen short.
King Dalindyebo’s spokesperson, Princess Ntando Dalindyebo, told the media on September 10: “We have not been notified of any case opened against the king except seeing it through online media reports. It is ironic that the Premier chose to open the case after Mareke has died.”
This sounds like a quick downplay of the litigation by Premier Mabuyane, suggesting it was unclear who was responsible and indicating suspicions about the timing and motives behind the litigation.
Premier Mabuyane and King Dalindyebo’s partners must press for restraint by promoting a human rights approach that ensures that, according to the Constitutional Court Justice Madala in the death penalty case: “We do not and should not take our standards and values from the murderer. We must, on the other hand, impose our standards and values on the murderer.”
The gravity of the extortion and drug trafficking crisis has overturned the old rules, and we are in a new age of uncertainty. As partners, let us collaborate to find solutions instead of fighting among ourselves.
*Nyembezi is a human rights activist, researcher and policy analyst
Cape Times