- Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi will preside over the reburial of political activists Alex Mashapa Matsepane and Solomon Mankopane Mawasha on 19 July 2025.Â
- The ceremony in Ga-Maupa village is part of the Gallows Exhumation Project to return remains of political prisoners executed under apartheid.Â
- This event marks a significant milestone as the project nears completion, restoring dignity and closure to families affected by apartheid-era injustices.Â
It was a day marked by pain, fear, and tragic violence. A group of young activists, led by Solomon Mankopane Mawasha, confronted what they believed to be a grave betrayal; the presence of alleged police informers within their community.
Tensions were high, frustration born from years of oppression and injustice boiling over in the heat of apartheid’s cruel grip.
On that day, Mawasha and Alex Mashapa Matsepane stood at the centre of a protest that turned fatal. Solomon Maake and his son were accused of collaboration with the apartheid police and were brutally killed by the youth group. Mawasha also ordered Jack Rampjapedi, who feared for his life, to pour the two victims with petrol and set them alight.
Witnesses later told how the victims were taken to a graveyard and stoned, then set alight in an act that shocked the nation. Justice F H Grosskopf found no justification for their act, and they were sentenced to death. The courts found Mawasha, the group’s leader, responsible for ordering the attack, and Matsepane complicit in the violence. They were swiftly convicted and sentenced to death.
Yet, the pain of their families was deepened not only by the loss of their loved ones but by the cruel injustice that followed; the apartheid regime denied the families the right to bury their sons. They were cast away, buried anonymously, without honour, stripped of dignity even in death.
The Gallows Exhumation Project: Healing old wounds
For decades, their families grieved in silence, denied closure, their memories overshadowed by the stigma and secrecy imposed by apartheid’s brutal laws. Today, nearly 40 years later, that painful chapter is finally ending, thanks to the Gallows Exhumation Project, a national initiative launched in 2016 to exhume and return the remains of political prisoners executed under apartheid.
On 19 July 2025, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi will lead a solemn reburial ceremony at Ga-Maupa village, bringing the remains of Mawasha and Matsepane home to rest with the dignity they were denied. Accompanied by Deputy Minister Andries Nel, Kubayi will oversee this momentous event as part of the ongoing Gallows Exhumation Project.
The project has painstakingly worked to heal the wounds inflicted by decades of injustice, restoring humanity to those buried in unmarked graves. Of the 83 identified political prisoners yet to be exhumed, 76 have now been returned to their families. The ceremony at Ga-Maupa is one of the final steps towards the project’s completion.
A nation’s commitment to justice and reconciliation
The reburial is more than a ceremony; it is a symbol of national healing, reconciliation, and a commitment to right the wrongs of a painful past. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, together with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Unit, have worked closely with the families to ensure that the rituals and rites of the community are honoured, restoring not only the bodies but the spirits of those lost.
For the families of Mawasha and Matsepane, this day carries the weight of a lifetime’s sorrow, but also a long-awaited peace. Though it cannot erase the trauma or the loss, it offers a final act of love, the chance to lay their sons to rest properly, to mourn openly, and to reclaim their stories from the shadow of history.
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