The 22 Bergville community members who made a living by trading in marijuana and were sentenced to death about 60 years ago for protecting their trade from the apartheid regime police will be posthumously vindicated following efforts by the Ukhahlamba local municipality in Bergville to establish a cannabis industry on a scale capable of offering thousands of jobs to the villagers.
The deceased were arrested in 1956 and sentenced by the apartheid high court in Pretoria for killing five apartheid special branch police officers whom they claimed had unjustifiably killed two villagers – Gojela Mthembu and Sjumba Kubheka – who were “allegedly illegally trading in marijuana”.
Legend in the area has it that when the special branch police pounced on the two villagers and shot them to death for selling marijuana, the 22 slain villagers were livid and willing to avenge the killing of their fellow villagers – and like raging bulls went for a kill, if only to defend their marijuana trade.
Mayor Vikizitha Mlotshwa said the municipality was in the process of having the bodies of the 22 slain men exhumed and repatriated to their ancestral home of Bergville.
The feeling among the villagers is that they will be returning home not as “convicted murderers: but as heroes and pioneers of the trade that will in the final analysis benefit communities and provide job opportunities to alleviate poverty in rural areas surrounding Bergville.
Mlotshwa, in an interview with Sunday World, said the families of the slain villagers had been identified, “but as this will turn out to be a delicate and emotional process; this matter must be treated with circumspect”.
“Their families have waited for years to give their loved ones a dignified send off. We, together with the national government, are on a process of returning home their remains so that they can be given a decent send off,” said Mlotshwa.
The mayor said there was a general excitement in the small rural town of Bergville as the community seems to embrace the idea that cannabis economy will soon form part of an industry to reduce employment in the area.
Not much is known of the 22 community members who made their livelihood through trading marijuana, and that they were hanged by the apartheid regime defending the livelihoods of villagers who eked out an existence through trading in marijuana.
Mlotshwa said the deceased should be honoured in a similar way that those who died in Sharpeville and eSandlwana were celebrated.
“This will be a constant reminder of the brutality meted out to our people for growing and selling what their forefathers had given them as a source of income for their families,” he said.
Okhahlamba has already applied for licences to grow cannabis, which will turn the sleepy town into the capital of marijuana in the country.
According to community activist Dalisu Mazibuko, who has long campaigned for legalising the cannabis trade, the idea was not to sell raw cannabis.
Mazibuko said traditional leaders would be actively involved in helping to establish community cooperatives. A laboratory will be built to test and process the production.
Deputy minister of agriculture Nomalungelo Gina said the area was a sleeping economic giant.
“Although Bergville has fertile land for various crops, it has a unique climate that is favourable for the growing of cannabis,” said Gina.
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