This day in history! The abduction of Sheila Nyanda from Swaziland

On 24 May 1987, two days after the ambush and murder of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Transvaal Urban Machinery Chief of Operations, Theophilus “Viva” Dlodlo, Sheila Nyanda, who was the wife of the Commander of the same MK Machinery, Siphiwe Nyanda (aka Gebhuza), was abducted from Swaziland.

The same apartheid Security Police officers who were involved in the murder of Theophilus Dlodlo were involved. These were Colonel Johan Botha and Warrant Officer Lappies Labuschagne, belonging to the Security Branch of Middleburg.

The two police officers moved to a flat next to Sheila Nyanda, and were pretending to be South African university students on a break in Swaziland.

Lappies Labuschagne, who called himself “Andre”, befriended Sheila and so she was not surprised when “Andre” knocked on her door at 19:30 on 24 May.

When she opened the door, “Andre” was at the door armed with a submachine gun fitted with a silencer. He told her not to make any noise and behind him was another white man, Colonel Johan Botha.

“Andre” pushed her back into the house and said, “We know you are Sheila Priscilla, Gebhuza’s wife”. He then asked who was in the house, and Sheila responded that there was no one.

After the two men had searched the house, they blindfolded Sheila and took her outside into a white BMW 3 series, which was parked in a carport.

Sheila Nyanda was then taken to South Africa, where she was tortured, with the police slapping her and punching her even in the face.

They burned her left ankle, right calf and the soles of her feet with a cigarette lighter, blindfolded and whipped her.

Her kidnappers called themselves the “suicide squad”, under the leadership of the Vlakplaas Commander, Colonel Eugene de Kock.

When they invited her to collaborate with the apartheid Security police, she refused. She was then placed in solitary confinement for six months. Pictures of her taken after her release revealed deep burn wounds above her ankles.

A doctor from the University of Natal, who examined Nyanda after her release said she was depressed, had difficulty in socialising, was constantly daydreaming, could not tolerate the company of others and had erratic sleep patterns.

He also found that chance remarks brought about a recall of her torture, that she had frequent headaches, and experienced excessive perspiration and poor concentration. She was tense and irritable, was startled easily and had lower abdominal pain.

In an affidavit she filed against the apartheid South African government for her kidnapping, arrest and torture, Sheila Nyanda testified that Glory Sedibe (aka Comrade September) visited her while she was in detention. September asked if she had also been kidnapped from Swaziland and tortured.

He told her that some people could withstand torture better than others. But when September was asked about this conversation during his appearance in 1990 before the Harms Commission of Inquiry into certain murders, he denied having engaged with Sheila Nyanda. He declared that while he knew her as Siphiwe Nyanda’s wife, he did not see her or talk to her while she was in detention in South Africa.

Despite his denials, September was out to hurt the African National Congress (ANC) and helped to drive it out of Swaziland, notwithstanding the reasons for his collaboration with the apartheid security services.

A secret ANC report, dated 10 November 1986, noted: “Nearly all the internal combat units have been wiped out, September, fortunately did not know the real identity of many of our political units.”

September literally dismantled all the structures of the ANC in the Northern Transvaal and the effect was quite devastating on the Transvaal military structures.