Born in Jabulani, Soweto on the 28th December 1958, Bheki Mlangeni was a human rights lawyer by profession who studied law from the University of the Witwaterand. Mlangeni’s story of his role in the struggle is a very tragic one.

When public outcry at the time over apartheid government hit squads grew louder, the then President F.W. De Klerk set up a Harms Commission of Inquiry on the 5th March 1990. I was somewhere inside my mom’s womb at the time. You see, the whole notion of setting up Commisions of Inquiry is not a new concept!

Mlangeni and his law firm were investigating the hit squads and had presented evidence on them previously. Former security police captain Johannes Dirk Coetzee gave a key testimony to this commission. In May 1990, a Walkman cassette player with an explosive device in the headphones was sent to Coetzee, when he was in Zambia.

The sender’s name and address was given as that of Bheki Mlangeni in Soweto, who had been in contact and was working closely with Coetzee over the investigations. Upon receiving this parcel, Coetzee was suspicious of it and refused to accept it, which then saw the deadly parcel make its way to the sender on February 1991. I was only a year old then.

Mlangeni received the parcel and put on the booby-trapped headphones, turned on the tape and was blown up instantly. The identity of the person behind the walkman bomb was later revealed and Mlangeni’s family have never found peace.

His memory can now be preserved as the name behind the newly built hospital in Jabulani, Soweto just opposite Jabulani Mall.

Remember The Silent Heroes.

Credit to sahistory.org.za