1. In Search of the Disappeared:
Unburying Truths of Apartheid South Africa
Amelia Seman
John Daniel, SIT
School for International Training
South Africa: Social and Political Transformation
Fall 2013

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“You can say we go to the ends of the earth to find these people.”
-- Deborah Quin, Senior Investigator for Missing Persons Task Team
“For my mother, this event is about closure. My mother says this event today will
ensure that she can account for all of her children. She says when people ask her
what happened to Moss, she will no longer say, ‘I don’t know.’”
--Palesa Moruda, whose brother was missing for two decades,
on the occasion of his symbolic burial at Freedom Park
“It is better when you can see the bones of the one you love.”
--Hleziphi Ngwenya, widow of B.P. Ngwenya, who disappeared in 1991

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Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements 4
Abstract 6
Introduction 7
Literature Review 9
Forced Political Disappearances Internationally 9
Disappearances According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 12
Missing Persons Task Team 16
Methodology 19
Limitations 20
Findings 22
The Search for the Disappeared 22
Challenges 25
Case Study 1 – Busani Ngubo 30
Case Study 2 – B.P. Ngwenya 32
Broader Implications 36
Conclusions 39
Bibliography 43

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Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible if not for the invaluable guidance I received
from a few very caring individuals.
Firstly, I would like to thank Jeffrey Ayres for igniting my interest in human rights
processes around the globe, for advising me at Saint Michael's College in the months leading up
to my trip to South Africa, and for his continued interest in my project even from the other side
of the Atlantic.
I must also thank John Daniel, for introducing me to the subject of the disappeared of
South Africa, for encouraging my interest in the Missing Persons Task Team, and for presenting
me with the once in a lifetime opportunity to work there. Additionally, he helped me to shape
my research and provided me with literature on my topic and advice on my paper, but more
importantly he shared with me his wealth of knowledge on the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, the disappearances, and the search for the missing. His passion for my research
inspired me to be engaged, inquisitive, energetic, and hopeful.
Finally, I am eternally grateful to Deborah Quin, who made my month at the Missing
Persons Task Team unforgettable. She threw me into work on the very first day, forcing me to
dive into researching the disappeared, searching through old records, and coming up with the
needle in the haystack. She encouraged me in my findings, celebrated my discoveries, and
shared with me the experience of hard work paying off when a case is cracked. She answered all
my questions, even the hard ones, shared her own story of apartheid pain, and pushed me to find
the answers and tie up the loose ends. She allowed me to see not only the work she does, but to
be a part of it; not only how a case is solved, but how it affects a family; not only the rosy

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picture, but also the internal politics, the challenges, and the harsh truth. She helped me to feel
welcome with her tea and scones, her lunch dates, her advice on weekend events. She took me
to rural police stations, her favorite restaurants, meetings with the premier's staff, the border of
Lesotho, an old cemetery, and to meet the family of a missing person. Above all, she showed me
what it means to be truly passionate for one’s work.

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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role that the Missing Persons Task Team
plays in addressing the human rights violation of forced political disappearances in South Africa
which occurred during the apartheid regime. Through a practicum with the unit, which was set
up in 2005 at the recommendation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I discovered the
ways in which the Missing Persons Task Team responds to the needs of the individual victims as
well as how it attempts to heal the society as a whole.
In my practicum, the primary research methods employed included participant
observation, field visits, informal interviews, and archival research. I spent one month working
as an intern under Deborah Quin, lead investigator for the KwaZulu-Natal unit of the Missing
Persons Task Team, which afforded me opportunities to delve into the work of this unit and to
see how it affects ordinary South Africans and their country.
Through discovering the fates of individuals who have been missing for decades, the
Missing Persons Task Team affords the families of the disappeared closure and peace, as they
can finally put the bones of their loved ones to rest in the traditional way. The crime of the
disappearances finally comes to a close when the fates are discovered and the remains brought
home, and the stories of the disappeared contribute to a national narrative of accountability and
forgiveness with the prerogative to learn from the past in order to shape a better future.

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Introduction
For undemocratic regimes, politically-motivated killings have long been a tactic used to
suppress resistance and create internal strife between dissenting groups. From East Timor to
Guatemala, armies, security forces, secret death squads, or paramilitaries have systematically
eliminated perceived threats to the governments in power. Forced disappearances are one type
of political killing, arguably the most painful for the victims’ loved ones and the most
intimidating for the society which suffers from this human rights violation. In these cases,
victims literally disappear and are often never heard of again. No notice is given as to their
whereabouts, no bodies are found, and their fates remain mysterious.
In South Africa, politically-motivated killings, in particular disappearances, were
prevalent during apartheid. After the country’s transition to democracy, the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission sought to uncover the buried stories of the bloody past, and many
South Africans came forward to tell of their missing loved ones. Today, a special unit, the
Missing Persons Task Team, is charged with investigating these individuals, and where possible,
finding their bodies so that they may be returned to their families for proper burial. This work is
not only significant to the families who can finally put the bones of their loved ones to rest, but is
also symbolically important for a country which chose to pursue justice not through retribution,
but through reconciliation.
The research conducted in this study focused on how the Missing Persons Task Team
addresses the private pain of ordinary South Africans through their work in investigating
individuals who were disappeared during apartheid. Furthermore, I hypothesize that by tending

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the wounds of individuals affected by the crimes against humanity committed during apartheid,
the nation can find closure and healing.
This paper consists of five main sections. The first gives a background on previous
research on the topic, and covers forced political disappearances as a transnational phenomenon,
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s response to disappearances in South Africa, and the
role of the Missing Persons Task Team in the country post-apartheid. The second section
addresses the research methods I employed for this project, and the third discusses the limitations
I faced. The fourth section, the findings of my research, makes up the heart of the paper. In this
section I discuss the processes and resources used by the Missing Persons Task Team in working
through a case, as well as the challenges the MPTT has faced at several stages in their
investigations. I have included two case studies, both of which I helped Deborah Quin
investigate during my internship with the Missing Persons Task Team. Finally, I discuss the
broader implications of the unit’s role in individual lives, South Africa’s national narrative, and
international human rights discourse. In the final section of my paper, I will conclude my
findings and recommend further research in various areas.
In my discussion, I will sometimes refer to the Missing Persons Task Team as the MPTT.
The TRC is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. NPA stands for the National Prosecuting
Authority. I also use abbreviations for well-known South African political organizations such as
the ANC (African National Congress), MK (Umkhonto we Sizwe, the militarized branch of the
ANC), or IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party). Other abbreviations include the UN (United Nations),
KZN (KwaZulu-Natal, the province of South Africa where Durban is located), and MP (Missing
Person). Any other unfamiliar terms I will explain as I discuss them.

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Through my research, I hope to contribute to the body of knowledge on responses to
human rights violations, in particular forced political disappearances. In addition, I hope that by
studying South Africa’s approach to the disappearances, others may learn how to utilize this
strategy in other contexts, to hone and perfect it so that in the future, governments are able to
effectively meet the needs of their citizens in the wake of mass human rights atrocities and
disappearances.
Literature Review
Forced Political Disappearances Internationally
The term “disappeared” is used in reference to individuals forcibly removed from their
communities, their fates remaining a mystery to their families and friends. It is a word which
takes on a whole new meaning in this context. Usually when we say that a person has
disappeared, the person does the disappearing, implying that they actively chose to drop off the
map for some reason or another. However, when we say that a person has been disappeared, the
word changes. Here, the person was not an actor in the event. The disappearance was forced
upon them by an unnamed actor. “When used as a transitive verb, to disappear means to arrest
someone secretly, to imprison them and/or to kill them” (Gutman & Rieff, 125). This second use
of the word is relatively new. It was first used in the Guatemalan context, where los
desaparecidos numbered in the tens of thousands between 1954 and 1996. However, one of the
most well-known uses of the term was in Argentina.
During the Argentinean “Dirty War” of 1975-78, targeted civilians, often intellectuals,
student activists, schoolteachers, community leaders, or other vocal figures were abducted by

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men in civilian clothing driving unmarked cars, and then taken to secret locations. Many were
tortured, killed, and buried in unmarked graves. “Others were drugged, put on planes, stripped
of their clothes, flown out over the Atlantic Ocean, and tossed out—alive” (Neier, 34). The fates
of these individuals were never made known to the victims' families, who were told when they
pressed the government for details that their loved ones had joined a terrorist group and gone into
hiding abroad. In some countries where disappearances have taken place, “governments deny all
responsibility, often blaming “death squads” or other forces which they say are acting completely
beyond their control. Sometimes the killings are disguised as accidents or the result of random
violence” (Amnesty International, 17). These tactics were used by the apartheid regime in South
Africa to avoid taking responsibility for all the people who went missing without a trace.
Most basically, disappearances can be viewed as a violation of international humanitarian
law in terms of the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to this
document, “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (Amnesty International,
103). In 1998, the International Criminal Court deemed ‘enforced disappearance of persons’ a
crime against humanity when committed as a widespread or systematic attack, and defined it as
“the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or
acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that
deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with
the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time”
(Robertson ,499).
As a crime against humanity, disappearances directly violate several human rights.
Disappearances typically include “unlawful confinement, failure to allow due process, and
failure to allow communication between the arrested person and the outside world. It often

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involves torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, and too commonly it involves murder”
(Gutman & Rieff, 126). Thus, disappearances violate numerous statutes in international
humanitarian law. Article 2 of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance states, “No state shall practice, permit or tolerate enforced
disappearances,” and Article 1 of the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and
Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions states, “Governments shall
prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions” (Amnesty International, 103).
The apartheid government in South Africa, through deception, cover-ups, blatant lies, and
feigned ignorance, committed the crime of disappearing its own people, while outright denying
it. During apartheid, fear was typically employed as a means to get away with disappearing
people. If a person inquired as to the details on their missing family member and was ignored or
lied to by the state, it was anything but an invitation to press your luck again. People never knew
who was next, and who might be punished just for the crime of asking too many questions. Even
during the period of transition and in the early days of democracy, “once their activities became
known, the political authorities of the former state continued to insist that they had no knowledge
of the actions of [units within the police and military secretly involved in disappearances and
killings], and that [these units] had been acting without authorization” (TRC Report Vol. 6, pg.
516). However, even this dodging of the inquiries would implicate people of the crimes they
pretended to know nothing about.
“Crimes against humanity could be committed in peace as well as in war, and by a single
sovereign state within its own territory,” as was the case in apartheid South Africa (Robertson,
236). In the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
Apartheid, Article 3 stated that “International criminal responsibility shall apply, irrespective of

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the motive involved, to individuals, members of organizations and institutions and
representatives of the State, whether residing in the territory of the State in which the acts are
perpetrated or in some other State, whenever they commit, participate in, directly incite or
conspire...(or)...directly abet, encourage or co-operate in the commission of the crime of
apartheid” (Robertson, 236). However, South Africa during transition chose not to implicate the
guilty parties criminally in all cases. Rather, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
the government “offered immunity from prosecution only to political criminals prepared to earn
it by testifying fully and frankly” (Robertson, 272). It was through many such testimonies at the
TRC that cases of missing persons were opened. Finally, people could talk openly about
disappearances, and the Missing Persons Task Team was given the job of investigating these
disappearances.
Disappearances According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, according to the Promotion of National Unity
and Reconciliation Act of 1995, sought to “provide for the investigation and the establishment of
as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human
rights committed” in South Africa or neighboring states between March 1st
, 1960, and May 10th
,
1994 (TRC Act 1995, pg. 1). This act went on to define ‘gross violation of human rights’ in two
parts:
(a) the killing, abduction, torture or severe ill-treatment of any person; or
(b) any attempt, conspiracy, incitement, instigation, command or procurement to commit
an act referred to in paragraph (a).

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The TRC asked for statements from any and all victims of the crime of apartheid. People came
forward to tell their own stories or the stories of others. The TRC reported that “it received over
1500 victim statements concerning people who were missing or disappeared and 477 people
named in the statements remained missing” at the end of the TRC (EDIEC). The statements
from the victims were taken locally by trained volunteers, and forms had to be filled out by each
person for the purpose of gaining as much information as possible about the event. The
Statement concerning Gross Violations of Human Rights, which all victims reporting to the TRC
had to fill out, addressed the specific conditions under which a disappearance would have
occurred. For an abduction or disappearance to be considered, there must be “evidence that
someone was taken away forcibly and illegally, or the person vanished mysteriously and was
never seen again” (Statement concerning Gross Violations of Human Rights). In addition, there
must be sufficient “evidence to show that this was an event which was politically motivated as
part of the conflict of the period.”
Eventually the TRC expanded its category of ‘abductions’ to include not only “persons
who were forcibly detained or arrested” by security forces or agents of the apartheid South
African government, but also “those forcibly and unlawfully abducted by other known or
unknown armed groups or parties” (TRC Report Vol. 6, pg. 515). This was a significant
alteration because it shifted responsibility for the crimes committed from only apartheid agents
to other groups as well. It essentially acknowledged that individuals and groups within the
liberation movement could be guilty of crimes too, and that not all methods of working for
freedom were justifiable. Thus, even the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe,
Inkatha Freedom Party, and other liberation groups were expected to own up for any sins their
members had committed against the citizens or country of South Africa.

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Due to the extreme violence in KZN in the early 1990s, perpetrated in large part by
Inkatha, a disproportionate number of the MPTT cases come from this period and are suspected
to implicate IFP members. Therefore, a brief overview of this violence may be helpful. In 1990,
the apartheid government under President F.W. de Klerk lifted the bans on the ANC, which
meant that leaders in exile could return to South Africa and leaders in prison like Nelson
Mandela were released. The ANC and its allies, the Pan-Africanist Congress, the South African
Communist Party, and the United Democratic Front, led the negotiations for a new constitution.
However, the apartheid regime, intent on weakening and destabilizing the alliance, instituted a
policy of ‘low intensity war,’ “waged against the alliance by surrogates of the state—particularly
Inkatha…The security forces, especially the KwaZulu Police (KZP), also played a vital role in
this regard” (Jeffery, 213).
Beginning in 1990 and continuing in some areas well after the first democratic election,
Inkatha acted as an agent of the state in carrying out the strategy of low intensity war, subjecting
the townships in particular to gruesome violence. Hiding behind the IFP was the apartheid
regime, simultaneously pretending to negotiate a new constitution and terrorizing the black
townships in the following manner:
The implementation of ‘low intensity warfare’ (LIW) was part and parcel of the
government’s negotiating strategy. It was effected in various ways, including the
assassination of alliance leaders and the sowing of terror in communities supporting the
alliance. Implemented through proxies—so as to obscure the state’s role in the
strategy—LIW aimed at demoralising communities, eroding support for the alliance, and
enabling the government to control and direct the process of negotiation towards the
maintenance of the status quo. (Jeffery, 213)

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Inkatha during this period was responsible for frequent random violence against perceived ANC
members or supporters. A great deal of the cases of the disappeared, therefore, came from this
period of intense political violence. In many cases, the bodies of the people killed were never
identified because of the sheer number killed at once, or because of the brutal manner in which
they were killed (many people were burned to death, which leaves little to identify).
Through testimony from victims' families and loved ones, the TRC heard the stories of
many who went missing during the darkest days of apartheid. In addition, individuals who were
guilty of abductions and killings came forward to tell their stories and to apply for amnesty.
These testimonies provided a fuller picture of what actually became of many of those who had
been disappeared, and families finally had their questions answered. However, a great deal of
cases remained unsolved after the TRC closed, and South Africans still wanted answers about
their missing loved ones. The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act mandated
that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission make recommendations to the President based on
their findings. “The TRC recommended, among others, the establishment of a task team to
investigate the nearly 500 cases of missing persons that were reported to the TRC, but remained
unsolved. The President endorsed this recommendation in April 2003, upon tabling the TRC's
Final Report in Parliament” (Notice 1539 of 2008: Exhumation Policy, pg. 2).
President Thabo Mbeki, in a speech in Parliament on the TRC's Final Report, provided
greater detail for the follow-up to the many unsolved cases of missing persons. He elaborated on
the TRC’s recommendations, saying, “The National Directorate of Public Prosecutions and
relevant Departments will be requested to deal with matters relating to people who were
unaccounted for, post mortem records and policy with regard to burials of unidentified persons”

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(Mbeki, 2003). The following year, the Missing Persons Task Team was established to fill this
role.
The Missing Persons Task Team
The TRC created guidelines for disappearances that proved important for the Missing
Persons Task Team in its work. After analyzing “the statements it received in respect of
abductions, the Commission identified the following categories:
a abductions and enforced disappearances;
b disappearances in exile;
c disappearances during periods of unrest;
d disappearances regarded as out of the Commission's mandate, and
e cases of indeterminate cause” (TRC Report Vol. 5, pg. 519).
The Missing Persons Task Team was burdened with the 477 remaining unsolved cases of
disappearances, which fell into one of the above five categories. However, according to
Madeleine Fullard, head of the MPTT in Pretoria, “families consistently call in with legitimate
political cases, so that number is always growing,” with a potential to reach more than 2,000
cases due to the political violence in KZN in the early 1990s (Savides, 2012). During the course
of the TRC, efforts were made to uncover the fates of many of the disappeared and to eventually
locate their bodies. The second volume of the TRC report describes this process:
Cases of disappearances came to the attention of the Investigation Unit largely through
statements made to the Commission by deponents who believed their relatives had
disappeared as a consequence of their political activities. These statements were cross-
referenced to applications for amnesty, yielding some positive results. The Investigation
Unit also referred to a list supplied by the African National Congress (ANC) of members
who had been kidnapped by South African security forces, or who had disappeared after

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infiltrating the country. Mortuary registers, cemetery registers and undertakers were
consulted in the process of locating bodies. (TRC Report Vol. 2, pg. 544)
After the TRC's conclusion, virtually the same process was used by the Missing Persons Task
Team to continue this work. There was not a great deal of literature on the process of
researching cases, although there was some on the exhumation process itself. Since most of the
work that the Missing Persons Task Team does takes place before an exhumation, this warrants
further study. I delved into this through my practicum with lead investigator for KwaZulu-Natal
Deborah Quin.
The Missing Persons Task Team was initially meant to tie up loose ends left after the end
of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What it attempts to do, though, means a great deal
more to the families of the victims. According to Palesa Morudu, whose brother's fate was a
mystery for two decades, the work of the Missing Persons Task Team has finally given her
mother peace. “For my mother, this event is about closure,” she says during a symbolic burial
for her brother at Freedom Park. “My mother says this event today will ensure that she can
account for all of her children. She says when people ask her what happened to Moss, she will
no longer say, ‘I don't know’” (Business Day, 31.10.13).
Searching for the victims of apartheid still missing from decades ago is not the most cost-
effective, as much time and resources go into what often seems a search for a needle in a
haystack. Nor is this effort one necessary for the nation as a whole to transition politically or
heal emotionally, since only a tiny fraction of the population is affected by a finding, and fewer
than 100 bodies have been exhumed since the Missing Persons Task Team started their
investigations. However, this effort is unique in that “transitional justice mechanisms have
tended to be designed primarily to facilitate political transition and enable the rehabilitation of

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existing political and social institutions rather than to ameliorate the suffering of ordinary people
who were directly exposed to daily violence and deprivation during times of conflict” (Aronson,
pg. 262). The Missing Persons Task Team addresses the private grief of ordinary men and
women and does its best to honor and remember the lesser-known heroes of the liberation
movement through their work of investigating disappearances. According to the head of the
MPTT in Pretoria, Madeleine Fullard, “Partly it's trying to say, these people lived and
mattered...It's about recovering memory and gathering information” (Gurney, 2008).
While the Missing Persons Task Team does its best to discover the fates of the
disappeared and to honor their memories, there are some limitations to this work. Primarily, the
MPTT is underfunded and understaffed, which severely constricts its capabilities. The
investigators like Deborah Quin simply do not have the time or the support staff to be able to
investigate all of the cases on file, making the backlog of cases overwhelming and the apparent
progress underwhelming. In addition, many families of the victims have very high expectations
for the Missing Persons Task Team in how they will be personally acknowledged, and the MPTT
just does not have the funds for these expectations to be realized. It can be seen that “while the
MPTT does an excellent job of officially acknowledging the private pain of relatives of the
missing, it does not have the resources to ensure broader public recognition of the sacrifices of
the missing and their families or the mandate to provide special reparations for their suffering”
(Aronson, pg. 268). Further study into the limitations facing the Missing Persons Task Team
was done through the practicum, as this is an area where extensive literature is lacking.
The Missing Persons Task Team, in its attempts to discover the fates of the disappeared
and return the remains to their families, has become more than just a small investigative unit
within the National Prosecuting Authority. Although it is faced with many limitations, it has

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succeeded in honoring those who gave their lives to the liberation movement. It is also unique in
the international arena as it is one of the only transitional justice mechanisms intent on
addressing the pain and suffering of ordinary men and women. In my Independent Study
Project, the Missing Persons Task Team was investigated as an extension of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, as a way of furthering the effort to expose past human rights
violations and to create a wealth of knowledge in an attempt to never let such things happen
again. It is a means of tending to individual suffering in order to heal a nation.
Methodology
This research project was conducted as a month-long practicum, and my primary
methodologies for research were participant observation, field visits, informal interviews, and
archival research. I spent November 2013 working as an intern under Deborah Quin, lead
investigator for the KwaZulu-Natal unit of the Missing Persons Task Team. Much of the time
we worked at the office in downtown Durban, where I had access to case files, mortuary
registers, cemetery records, TRC documents, photographic evidence and other archival sources.
I was able to experience the MPTT’s investigative process through participating in it, whether I
was led by Deborah or navigating the process myself.
I was also able to accompany her and Colonel W.S. Mhlongo on a number of field visits.
We travelled to rural police stations to collect mortuary registers, a cemetery to access burial
records, a border post for investigation on a disappeared person’s last known location, and to the
home of a missing person’s wife. These visits gave me a better perspective on how the
investigative team gathers information and builds a case, and it also taught me about all the

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challenges the team runs into as the investigators attempt to carry out their mandate to find the
disappeared.
Finally, I attended several meetings with Deborah and Colonel Mhlongo. In one meeting
with the office of the Mayor of Durban and the Premier’s staff, I saw how the city officials
budget and plan for the handover and reburial of a victim once the case has been solved by the
MPTT. In another meeting, we told the wife of a disappeared person that we had found what we
believe to be the grave of her husband, who had been missing for over 20 years. These meetings
allowed me to see the end stages of a case, how a case is handled by the government once it is
solved, and how a resolution affects a family.
Limitations
My research was limited by several factors, including the methodology I chose for this
project. Because I was working so closely with Deborah, I tended to see issues from her
perspective, and I was thus biased by her views. I saw less of the controversial nature of the
work of the Missing Persons Task Team and instead saw mainly the accomplishments of the
KZN unit as a productive legacy of the TRC.
Another limitation I faced was the time constraints of this project. Had I more time to
spend working at the MPTT, I may have been able to see a case through its various stages to
completion, which would have been extremely helpful for my research. Additional time would
also have allowed me to explore other areas such as the controversial cases, how a family is
affected by a disappearance (both before and after the victim’s case is solved), attitudes towards
the MPTT by South Africans who never had a loved one disappeared, recommendations by the

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MPTT for other countries dealing with forced political disappearances, and the future of this
project. Study in these areas would have given me a much fuller picture of the MPTT and their
impact not only on individual families, but South Africa in its first few decades post-apartheid,
as well as the international discourse on addressing human rights atrocities.
A final limitation of my research was my own bias and expectation coming into the
project. Before starting my practicum, I believed that the Missing Persons Task Team would be
a grand operation with a very official agenda. I expected to attend an exhumation and see bones
in the dirt. None of this turned out to be true. The MPTT unit of KZN is simply Deborah Quin,
who sets her own agenda: attending to the needs of families. She talks on the phone to a victim’s
daughter like they are old friends, and she attends meetings to advocate for families before the
budgetary concerns of fellow bureaucrats. I never saw a dig, but rather I was able to see all the
work that goes into an investigation before any dirt is overturned. I expected to look but not
touch; it turned out that I would become a part of an investigation rather than just watching a
senior investigator solve one. Deborah allowed me to sift through evidence myself, and in the
process, crack a case.

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Findings
The Search for the Disappeared
The cases officially assigned to the Missing Persons Task Team were left over at the end
of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Every case has a file, which includes information
gathered by trained volunteers during the TRC. This includes statements made by family
members of the disappeared. Mothers, wives, siblings and children gave their stories of "gross
human rights violations" which occurred during apartheid, and the information in these
statements is crucial to solving the cases. Most of the statements taken in KwaZulu-Natal are in
either English or Zulu, but most documents, if they are originally in Zulu, have been translated
into English for the investigators. The ideal statement would include the person's name, their age
and date of birth, a recent photo, their place of residence, their relationship to the person giving
the statement, the date and place they were last seen, their occupation and employer, and any
political affiliation, activism, or community involvement they had. Other helpful information
would include recent death threats, involvement in recent protests, political missions, trips out of
the country, who they associated with publicly or privately, or the addresses of extended family
or significant others. Unfortunately, many files are missing much of this information, which
makes searching for people very difficult. For example, it is hard to find someone when their
family did not provide their age or the approximate time and circumstances when they went
missing.
When an investigation begins, the MPTT creates a chart for the disappeared individual.
At the center is the person in question, as well as their name and ID number. Then from the
statements from family members they pull the crucial details of the disappearance, including the

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person's age, place of residence, political affiliation, and date and place they were last seen. This
information would be compressed into a sentence or two and placed in a corner of the chart.
Radiating out from the person's name would be other information the investigator could gather.
This would include their home address, their employer and telephone number, as well as any
living family members and their contact information. This information is crucial to gaining
further details on the person's activities or recent political violence in the area. Thus, files may
come to contain a number of other documents from many sources that could hold clues to their
fates.
In order for these cases to progress, investigators must establish that there was a reason
for the missing to have been disappeared; that is, there must be reason to believe that this crime
was politically motivated. The best way to discern whether a disappearance was politically
motivated is to find out whether or not the victim was politically active. If they were an MK
fighter, for instance, or a member of the ANC underground, then they would be a definite target
for a disappearance. There are, of course, a whole host of reasons why a person may have been
disappeared, but it is the job of the Missing Persons Task Team to investigate this possibility.
Once they have established the possible motive for a forced political disappearance, the
investigation can proceed.
Since most of the disappeared were killed shortly after they went missing, the MPTT
assumes that the disappeared died within the first few days of going missing unless they have
reason to believe that the disappeared were held for a period of time first. Mortuary registers are
a good source for leads, so the MPTT collects mortuary registers and looks at ones from morgues
in the area where the person went missing, and starts searching through the entries starting at the
date the person went missing. Deborah Quin, the lead investigator for the KwaZulu-Natal unit of

24. 24
the MPTT, looks for people buried as paupers who were unidentified at the time of their burial.
Finding an unidentified pauper of the same race, sex, and approximate age of the victim, buried
in the same area they went missing within a few days of that date, and with a cause of death that
could indicate murder, could indicate a potential match, for example, in the second case study of
B.P. Ngwenya. If a match is found, the next step would be to go to the cemetery indicated in the
mortuary register where that body was buried and retrieve the cemetery records. These would be
used to find the specific burial plot where the remains are located.
At this stage, if the burial can be found with the correct information (that is, it matches
with the information in the mortuary register), then the family would be notified that the Missing
Persons Task Team may have found their loved one. The investigative team would ask the
family questions that could help to identify the bones as their loved one. Family members would
be asked whether the missing person had a broad or narrow chest, their height and weight,
whether or not they smoked, the shape of the head and chin, whether they had any birth
deformations, whether they had broken any bones or lost any teeth, or even if they had any
chronic pains or serious diseases. At this meeting, DNA samples may be taken from the children
or other blood relatives of the missing person.
After obtaining permission from the proper authorities, the Missing Persons Task Team
would complete a partial exhumation for the purposes of DNA testing. The MPTT has two
forensic anthropologists, including Claudia Bisso, an Argentinean who frequently works with
Deborah on exhumations. They excavate the grave site, remove enough of the bones to get a
DNA sample, and send this to the lab for testing. Results could be back in about a month, and if
it turned out to be a positive match, the team would conduct a full exhumation. There would be
a handover ceremony, where the officials would give the remains back to the family, and then

25. 25
there would be a reburial. During my internship with the MPTT, I had the opportunity to attend
a meeting with Deborah, the Mayor’s staff, and the Premier’s office, for the purposes of
negotiating a handover ceremony and reburial for two MK veterans that Deborah had found and
exhumed earlier this year. At the meeting, the city officials discussed a budget, dates, and details
on the ceremony, which they would cover financially, including the purchase of two cattle for
ceremonial slaughter.
In cases where the body of a victim cannot be found, families may still be able to find
peace in the discoveries of the MPTT. According to Deborah, many times when a victim’s body
was blown up with grenades to eliminate the evidence, there may not be anything left for the
team to collect for the families. Times like these, families may have a traditional healer, a
sangoma, perform a ceremony to “collect” the spirit of their deceased loved one at the place
where they are believed to have died, or where their body was destroyed. The sangoma would
then put the spirit in a basket and give this to the family to rebury just as they would bones. This
ceremony is called spiritual repatriation, and can provide families the closure they need to move
on knowing they have appeased the ancestors. This ceremony may be helpful in a case such as
the first case study of this investigation, an MK operative named Ngubo.
Challenges
In my practicum at the Missing Persons Task Team, I noticed several of the challenges it
faces, which the literature I studied at the beginning of this project had previously discussed. In
regards to the MPTT being understaffed and overloaded, this was one of the most apparent issues
that the unit faced which I only began to understand a couple weeks into my practicum. Since
Deborah works in an office with other personnel from the National Prosecuting Authority, I

26. 26
believed at first that they were all doing the same work as her in investigating the
disappearances. But after hearing several conversations between her colleagues regarding their
work, which had nothing to do with what she was investigating, I asked her where the rest of the
KwaZulu-Natal MPTT unit was. She told me then that she was the unit for KZN, and the police
officer who accompanied us on all of our field visits was mainly concerned with facilitating our
meetings with the police. Most of the Missing Persons cases come from KZN, so I asked why
this province had such a small unit if it had the most cases. Deborah told me that most provinces
don't even have units; the entire investigative staff of the MPTT across the country consists of
herself, a police officer in the Eastern Cape, and Madeleine Fullard in the central office in
Pretoria. This shocked me; I had seen the sheer volume of cases that Deborah had to work
through (her desk was covered in them). At the end of each fiscal year, the federal government
attempts to shut down the unit by not allocating funds or renewing their contracts. To me, what
seemed such an important project from an international perspective with human rights in mind,
the South African state obviously did not consider it of high enough importance to allocate the
necessary resources to solving these cases.
The literature from J.D. Aronson in particular also discussed the MPTT's inability to meet
the high expectations of families during and after the reburial of their loved ones. Technically,
the MPTT's mandate ends after the remains have been delivered to the TRC Unit, but there are
so many bureaucratic hoops that families must jump through in order to see their loved ones
reburied with dignity that the MPTT often takes up the slack in order to help facilitate this
process. Therefore, when the local government does not provide a lavish funeral service or
public recognition for the sacrifice of their fallen loved ones, it may appear to families that

27. 27
Deborah cannot deliver all that they expect, when in reality she goes above and beyond what is
required of her to help the families.
In addition to these previously acknowledged challenges, I also observed several other
issues that the MPTT faces in its work. The records they use are not kept in a central location,
which requires Deborah to drive all around the province to collect old mortuary registers and
cemetery records from small poorly-run local police stations. The registers are hardly ever well
organized, kept in piles with other old documents in dusty storage sheds filled with junk, or sent
off to other locations. Pages are often missing, or have been damaged due to exposure to the sun
or flooding; usually they were not properly kept in the first place, and are lacking the necessary
information. An entry in a mortuary register may say nothing besides "Bantu male," which
makes it very difficult to discern whether this death was an old man or a child.
The officials Deborah must work with can be uncooperative or downright hostile. Local
police units either don't know the answers to the questions they are asked, or they don't care
enough to find out. Deborah often drives hours to meet with the head of a police station and
collect records only to get there and have him tell her that the records she needs are no longer
stored there, but have been sent somewhere else. When records are requested, low-level
bureaucrats may tell her that they are not authorized to release them to her, or that they don't trust
her with them, or that they cannot even let her see where they are stored. Sometimes they even
tell her that the records have been destroyed, pretending that this is simple protocol. On one
occasion, when Deborah's partner, Colonel Mhlongo, called a station commander to request a
meeting to gain access to mortuary registers, the commander became very hostile, said there was
nothing they had of interest to the MPTT, and to leave that station alone. To Deborah, this

28. 28
indicated that this individual may be covering up a past involvement in apartheid crimes, but his
hostility made it very difficult to get to the bottom of the issue.
Deborah is also highly respected by the Mayoral staff and the Premier's office, and is
often invited to meetings to facilitate the reburial of the remains of the victims she finds. The
bureaucrats whose job it is to actually facilitate this process, namely the TRC Unit in the
Department of Justice, are highly uncooperative in this space. They stall the process for months
after an exhumation, which is not only frustrating for Deborah, who sees her work undermined
by the officials who do not care enough to see the process through, but also frustrating for the
families, who just want their loved ones reburied with dignity. One official in particular shows
up late to meetings and then leaves early, and recently sent Deborah (his senior in the civil
service) a highly demeaning, scathing, and rude email telling her that she was not authorized to
make joint decisions with the Premier's office, that she is following improper procedure, and
instructing her to step back and let his office handle matters from this point forward, when his
office was not handling things in the first place which necessitated Deborah to step in and do his
job.
One of the biggest problems the MPTT faces is the incomplete record collection done
during the TRC. The cases have preliminary statements that were taken back in the early days of
the Commission, but were taken by poorly-trained volunteers. Much of the necessary
information on the victims is missing due to misunderstandings of the volunteers or the statement
givers, language barriers, or just lack of knowledge on the circumstances themselves. Many files
do not list the victim's age or date of birth, or do not say when the victim went missing. Others
have conflicting testimonies from various family members, testimonies which have not been
translated into English, or erroneous details in the testimonies.

29. 29
Perhaps the most concerning challenge facing the MPTT is that of time. As of now, the
disappeared have already been missing for twenty, thirty, sometimes forty years. Since they
went missing, many of the people who gave statements at the TRC in their behalf have died;
many of those responsible for the disappearances have died; records have deteriorated or been
destroyed; families have moved and not sent in updated contact information; people who may be
able to give valuable testimony have aged significantly and no longer remember; and the remains
have completely decomposed, leaving only bones. Deborah said that the longer cases go
unsolved, the harder it is to solve them. This challenge is exacerbated by the other factors at play
here: with only three investigators, fewer cases can be solved at one time, leaving a huge backlog
of cases; further deterioration of records will take place as more time goes by; uncooperative
officials who do not allow Deborah access to records hinder the process, wasting valuable time;
when statements from the TRC are incomplete, they must be retaken, but this is not possible
when the statement giver is elderly or deceased.

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The following are two cases which I worked on with Deborah Quin during my internship
with the Missing Persons Task Team. They each illustrate various strategies used by the MPTT
to investigate the disappeared, as well as some of the many challenges the unit faces in this work.
Furthermore, the outcomes of both cases are very different, so they point to a variety of ways in
which families may find closure through the information presented to them by the MPTT.
Case Study 1—Busani Ngubo
Busani Ngubo left South Africa with his brother in 1977 to train with Umkhonto we
Sizwe. He returned a few months later for a mission and was arrested for terrorism in
Pietermaritzburg. His family was told that he would be released from jail after three years, but
when that time came he did not appear. When his family inquired after his whereabouts, they
were told that he had escaped from prison and the authorities did not know what happened to
him.
At the beginning of my internship with the Missing Persons Task Team, Deborah was
already investigating this case and had gained considerable ground. She had looked into prison
records and found out that he was arrested in September 1977 and held in Boston in the KZN
Midlands. In October, he “laid a charge of assault with the magistrate at Himeville,” most likely
to complain that he was being beaten or tortured in prison (Case file (MP 320)). After being
questioned, he was transferred to Sani Pass police cells, a tiny border post in the mountains near
Lesotho, in December 1977. In February 1978, his release was authorized, and all traces of him
disappear there.
We drove up to Sani Pass to see if we could find any records there from the time period
when Ngubo would have been held. The station commander at Sani Pass told us that they don’t

31. 31
have a lot of the old records, and showed us to a shed where they keep all their records. When
we opened the door, we saw stacks of files pushed against the back wall, inaccessible due to the
rusty lawn equipment and hundreds of toilet paper rolls blocking our way. When we fought our
way through to the records, we found mostly receipts for mundane purchases and other unhelpful
bits of information. There was nothing on prisoners from that period, only a payroll sheet listing
the officers working there at the time. The station commander told us a few other stations where
we might find documents. When we called one station, that commander was very hostile, and
told us that there were no records of interest to us at his post, and then told us to stop snooping
around in his business. When we visited another station, that commander told us that the records
from long ago had been destroyed.
The drive back down the mountain from Sani Pass made me consider Ngubo’s fate. The
area was completely isolated, accessible only by a single dirt road winding up the side of the
mountain in impossible switchbacks. The closest inhabitant was miles away, and it could be
hours before you passed another human being on the road. The vast sheer cliffs and deep clefts
in the mountains made it easy to imagine how simple it could be to dump a body, and how
unlikely it was that anyone should find it for days or weeks. With no reason at all for Ngubo to
be transferred up there besides to dispose of him, Deborah and I agreed that on the drive up the
mountain, he had to know that he was being brought there to die.
We have since been unable to find any potential matches for him in the mortuary
registers that were available to us. Since it is unlikely that we will obtain any more from that
area and the right time period, the MPTT may never find out what happened to his body. The
best guess we have is that after he was released, he was abducted by the police, shot, and the
body was left in the mountains. It was either never found or discovered much later and was too

32. 32
decomposed to be identified. Unless, upon further investigation of this case, more information is
discovered, Ngubo’s family may choose to have a spiritual repatriation to collect his spirit from
Sani Pass and have a symbolic reburial service in his honor. Although his family may never get
back the body of their loved one, they may find closure in knowing what happened to him and
being able to perform the traditional burial rituals.
Case Study 2—B.P. Ngwenya
Buswabuphele Phillip Ngwenya left home on December 26, 1991, telling his wife that he
would be home soon. That was the last time she ever saw him. When he had not returned home
by the next morning, she became concerned and contacted family members in the area to inquire
after his whereabouts. Ngwenya’s sister reportedly saw him going to visit his girlfriend, who,
when contacted, said he spent the night at her house and left for home the next morning. A
neighbor allegedly told Ngwenya’s wife that he saw Ngwenya’s car, a Toyota Hilux, at the
police station at Pietermaritzburg, and that he had seen Ngwenya being led into the police station
by Security Branch members. The family reported him missing to the police, but they were
unsuccessful in tracing him after inquiring at several mortuaries in the area.
The family submitted their statements as testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission years later, but all they received was a letter, signed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
the TRC chair, telling them that “there is insufficient evidence to enable us [the Commission] to
make a decision on your story” (Case file (MP 323)). Nothing further was done for Ngwenya’s
family until the Missing Persons Task Team was created in 2005 and the case landed on Deborah
Quin’s desk. On my second day at the MPTT office, Deborah gave me a stack of case files from

33. 33
the Pietermaritzburg area and told me to see if I could find anything in a pile of mortuary
registers from the same area. So I read through all the files, including the case file for Ngwenya.
According to his wife, Ngwenya was 46 years old when he went missing, and was an
active ANC member who worked at Hebox Textiles in Hammarsdale. He may have been a
member of the trade union SACTWU, South African Clothing Textile Workers Union. Months
before his disappearance, he had told his wife that he had driven some ANC members to
Swayimane, and Inkatha fighters had killed everyone in the truck. He said the only reason they
didn’t kill him too was because someone said that he was just the driver and was not politically
involved, but he later told his wife that he still feared Inkatha would try to kill him.
After going through the mortuary registers page by page, one handwritten entry at a time,
I stumbled across something. An unidentified black male, found dead on the road in
Mpumalanga on December 27th
, 1991. His cause of death was entered in the register as “fracture
base of skull in apparent MVA,” suggesting that he may have died in a motor vehicle accident
(Case file (MP 323)). If Ngwenya was killed in the same area that he went missing from, then
Camperdown is where his body would have gone to morgue, and this register was from
Camperdown. The body in this register went unclaimed and unidentified for a few weeks, and it
was buried in a pauper’s grave in Azalea cemetery on January 15th
, 1992. Even though we didn’t
know the name or age of this person, we suspected that it was Ngwenya since he was killed the
day after he went missing, and was found dead of a car accident but without his car. It looked
like someone had killed him, and furthermore it may have been politically motivated. He was a
potential witness to the killings in Swayimane, and someone may have wanted him dead so he
could not testify against them.

34. 34
Upon further inspection of his file, I found an undated death certificate for Ngwenya,
probably obtained through the courts years after he went missing. His wife had worked to have
him legally declared dead, which would have helped her financially at the time raising six
children alone. This alone was not unusual. What was unusual, however, was that there was a
cause of death listed on this death certificate, and it was “fractured base of skull,” consistent with
the cause of death of the unidentified black male in the Camperdown mortuary register. It is
unclear to us how this cause of death was obtained when Mrs. Ngwenya never saw her husband’s
body or even knew what happened to him, but it lead me to believe with even more surety that
this was his body.
At this point, Deborah decided that we would go to the cemetery where this body was
buried to see if we could find anything more. When we asked the woman at the police station
there for the burial records of Azalea from the early 1990s, she pulled out two massive old
volumes, each filled with thousands of tiny handwritten entries. Unfortunately, the entries were
in no particular order. Instead of being organized chronologically, it was organized by blocks in
the cemetery, which were seemingly filled randomly. Therefore, there was no good way to
search for the entry we needed besides to go through every single entry. A few days later, as I
was reading through hundreds of these entries, I found one that stuck out. Buried in Block I,
Row C, grave 9, was an “unknown male” transferred from the Camperdown mortuary. He was
black, had died on December 27th
, 1991, and his cause of death was under investigation. He was
buried on January 15th
, 1992. Only one detail was inconsistent, his age, which was listed as
approximately 37 years of age. But then we took a look at the very next entry, another pauper
burial which took place the same day, also transferred from the Camperdown mortuary, a black
male whose cause of death was also under investigation. This person was listed as

35. 35
approximately 46 years old. We were almost positive that this was an entry error, and that this
was a match. We had found our man.
We called Ngwenya’s wife Hleziphi and invited her to come to the office. We told her
about our findings and that we believed her husband’s remains were buried in Azalea cemetery.
She took the news very calmly, with dignity and poise. She thanked us for our work and seemed
at peace when she told us that her four late children were also buried in Azalea cemetery. We
then asked her a series of questions which would help us to identify the bones as her husband:
she told us that he didn’t smoke, he was missing a top front tooth, and he wore a size medium
shirt. We told her that in a few months we would be able to conduct an exhumation for DNA
testing, so we could tell with certainty that this was her husband. She told us that this would be a
good day for her family, because ever since her husband disappeared, things have gone wrong in
the family, as if a dark cloud were following them. This feeling, Deborah told me, is common of
the families of the disappeared, because traditionally it is believed that after someone dies,
certain practices must be observed, including a sacrifice to the ancestors. If the family cannot
properly bury the dead, the ancestors will be displeased and misfortune will befall the family
until everything is made right. Hleziphi Ngwenya told us how she had waited a long time, over
20 years, to find out what happened to her husband, and after searching for so long it could feel
at times a pointless task. But after all this time, here she was, hearing what had happened. She
said she never stopped hoping because “it is better when you can see the bones of the one you
love.”

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Broader Implications
For the families of the disappeared, the work of the Missing Persons Task Team allows
them to find closure and put their pain behind them. Many of the mothers and wives and siblings
of the disappeared were for years silenced by the apartheid regime, either too afraid to demand
answers or outright denied them. Deborah and the others at the MPTT honor these individuals
by pouring energy and resources into discovering the fates of their loved ones. They are finally
treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve as human beings and as victims of human
rights violations. After informing families that the remains of their loved ones have been found,
Deborah has been told by many that it means the world to them just that she has put months of
work into finding their missing loved ones. In this respect, the MPTT may be one of the greatest
investments the new government of South Africa can make as a way of atoning for the sins of the
apartheid regime.
Burying the remains of their loved ones as they wish to gives the families the peace of
mind that they had been seeking for decades. Many family members of the disappeared express
the belief that things have gone wrong for their families because they have been unable to bury
their dead properly, and that things will be right when they have done the funeral rituals. The
South African government covers financially the funerals of the people found by the MPTT,
including purchasing the cattle for slaughter (a bull for a male victim, a cow for a female) in
traditional funeral rites. This recognition of the importance of cultural practices of the suffering
victims is crucial: it honors the fallen and their families, and returns the right to make these
important burial decisions to the families. Many victims were buried in secret or in unmarked
pauper graves, and were not afforded any of the most basic rituals of a funeral. In the reburial
service, they are recognized for their sacrifice for the cause of liberation, granted attendance by

37. 37
their family, friends, and fellow comrades in the struggle, and honored with the traditional
funeral rituals, including the slaughter of a head of cattle. In addition, the families can feel a
weight lifted off their shoulders as they make the proper amends with their ancestors after
burying their dead.
In the cases of most political killings, the crime committed is the act of murder; the
confines of the crime are typically centered on the abduction, unlawful confinement, torture, and
murder of the person. Thus, the crime affects the families of the victims because of the loss, but
the crime itself ends at the murder. I would argue that this is different in the case of
disappearances. Because their bodies are missing and their fates remain a mystery, the families
usually never discover what happened to their loved ones, and so they go on suffering, often
times unable to move past the crime. Therefore, I would argue that families are by extension
victims of the crime of disappearance, and the confines of the crime extend well after the murder.
The crime is the disappearance, so it continues until the fate of the disappeared is found out. For
many families, this day never comes, and so they suffer indefinitely. The Missing Persons Task
Team attempts to end the crime by giving families answers. This may be the most noteworthy
aspect of their work, the fact that they can and have ended the crime of disappearance for many
families by delivering answers, and in many cases, the remains of their loved ones.
After apartheid, there were many different strategies put forth on how to move on and
start over in the new South Africa. The strategy eventually employed by the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission was meant to expose the truth that had been hidden for so long. It
allowed people to tell their stories, and it created a national narrative on the apartheid years that
was contradictory to that which had been the official apartheid narrative of a happy and
prosperous South Africa built on ‘separate development.’ It exposed all the ugliness and pain

38. 38
that ordinary men and women had suffered for so long. The stories that could not be told,
though, were the stories of the disappeared. The Missing Persons Task Team carries out the
mission of the TRC by telling these untold stories after so many years. The MPTT contributes to
the national narrative of the new South Africa by making the fates of the disappeared known
publicly rather than allowing them to remain buried under a cloud of secrecy for the rest of time.
Exposing the truth of those years has helped South Africa to be frank and open about its painful
past, to learn from the sins of the previous regime and to learn to forgive not through forgetting,
but by remembering. Thus, the MPTT honors not only the memory of the disappeared, but also
the cultural memory of South Africa. It uncovers secrets long buried in order to put the past to
bed and move into the future, to a present marked not by pain that is silenced, but by learning
from the memories and cherishing the legacies of those who sacrificed everything.

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Conclusions
Disappeared persons tend to stay disappeared, leaving emotional scars on their families
and on their societies, with which they have to grapple for decades. The Missing Persons Task
Team works to uncover the fates of South Africa’s many disappeared, as a way of tending to the
victims of these crimes and as a contribution to healing post-apartheid South Africa. In this
study, I sought to investigate the ways in which the Missing Persons Task Team searches for the
disappeared of so many years ago, as well as how the uncovering of their remains affects the
families of the victims. Furthermore, I intended to study the implications of these findings for
South Africa, more specifically, how the Missing Persons Task Team contributes to the goal of
reconciliation through uncovering truths of the past.
Through my practicum at with the KwaZulu-Natal unit of the Missing Persons Task
Team, I participated in the investigations of two cases, MP 320 Busani Ngubo and MP 323 B.P.
Ngwenya. In the first case, the investigation led to a dead end due to a lack of the necessary
records from the period. The remains of this individual may never be found, however his family
should be encouraged to conduct a spiritual repatriation to reclaim him from the probable scene
of the crime. In the second case, we followed a paper trail of TRC statements, mortuary
registers, and cemetery records to find our victim’s unmarked pauper’s grave, and informed
Ngwenya’s widow of our findings so that she may finally have a grave to visit. In both cases,
the families may be able to find closure in the discoveries of the Missing Persons Task Team,
and may perform a ceremony to maintain right relationship with the ancestors.
The work of the Missing Persons Task Team could be made more efficient with some
administrative changes. One of the main challenges is the lack of an updated and consolidated

40. 40
record database. Going through ancient, crumbling, water-damaged mortuary records is
incredibly tedious, and many of these volumes are still scattered around the province at police
stations far from the office. Cemetery records are in a similar condition, making them difficult to
access without driving hours to collect a few to use for less than a week at a time. If funds were
made available, scans could be made of each page and then compiled into electronic copies, and
they would be better preserved and easier to skim through to find a specific entry.
Another serious challenge for the Missing Persons Task Team is that they are severely
understaffed. Because cases become more difficult to solve as the years pass, a support staff
would help with various tasks to alleviate the pressure of time constraints. A support staff could,
for example, drive to the various police stations to collect mortuary registers, create electronic
copies of records, synthesize information from TRC statements into summaries for each case,
translate statements and other documents into English where this has not yet been done, arrange
meetings with families or officials, or create maps of cemeteries where they are lacking. These
functions would ease the process of investigations and free up the investigators for the more
important tasks.
If there had been time for further study, it would have been interesting to investigate the
impact this strategy has had on international human rights discourse and on other countries
grappling with the effects of past forced political disappearances. While this may not be the
most practical study to undertake here in South Africa, it may be an interesting topic of research
for students in, for example, Switzerland, or in a country which, like South Africa, has had a
history of disappearances, perhaps Guatemala or Argentina.

41. 41
Through my research, it became apparent that those most directly affected by the findings
of the Missing Persons Task Team are the families of the disappeared. Having been ignored or
denied answers for years under the apartheid regime, the MPTT tends to the families by
returning to them their human dignity along with the stories and remains of their lost loved ones
by honoring them with the answers they seek. Families find closure in knowing what happened
to their loved ones, and make peace with their ancestors when they can rebury their relative
using traditional ceremonial practices. Victims are also recognized as heroes in the liberation
struggle by government officials, and families are thanked for their contribution to South African
democracy by their fallen relative.
Another matter I considered at the close of my study was the theoretical framework of the
crime against humanity which we call a forced political disappearance. Before my field study,
my understanding of this term had come from other literature, which acknowledged the victim as
the individual which has been disappeared, and which defined the crime as secret arrest,
unlawful detention, often torture, and extrajudicial execution. However, my study led me to a
different conclusion. Since the suffering from the crime extends well after the event, and the
families bear the brunt of this pain, I submit two alterations to the understanding of
disappearances: firstly, that the confines of the crime extend beyond the death, and include the
entire period of disappearance, bounded only by a discovery of the fate of the individual in the
event of an investigation concluding in answers; secondly, that the victims of a disappearance
include not only the disappeared individual, but also the extended family of that individual, who
suffer indefinitely in the absence of closure following the crime. The work of the Missing
Persons Task Team attends primarily to the private pain of the families of the disappeared, and
seeks to end the crime of disappearance by delivering answers and remains. Thus, this unit

42. 42
recognizes these families as victims and provides them with the support they need to handle the
effects of the disappearances.
Furthermore, the Missing Persons Task Team contributes to the national narrative by
uncovering the untold stories of the disappeared. This creates a more complete picture of the
transgressions suffered by ordinary South Africans under the apartheid regime, which was a
main prerogative of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With this more complete
narrative, South Africa attempts to reconcile with the painful past, heal in the present, and
prepare to build a more thoughtful future. The Missing Persons Task Team, therefore, honors
not only the individuals persecuted for their commitment to the liberation struggle, but also
honors the cultural memory of South Africa and the possibility of the future they fought for.

43. 43
Bibliography
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Quin, D. Case file (MP 323) Ngwenya, Buswabuphele Phillip. Accessed 2013. MPTT.
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Jeffery, A. (1997). The Natal Story: Sixteen Years in Conflict. Johannesburg: South African
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