Anti-apartheid activists Coline Williams and Robert Waterwitch awarded Order of Mendi for bravery
|Published
Cape Town - Anti-apartheid martyrs Coline Denise Williams and Robert Anthony Basil Waterwitch will be posthumously honoured with the Order of Mendi for Bravery at the end of this month.
Williams and Waterwitch were young activists and members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Ashley Kriel Detachment, and will be awarded the Order of Mendi for Bravery in silver, with fellow recipients Mawilliams Kekana, Ignatius “Iggy” Mthebule, and Makhwezi McDonald Mtulu at an investiture ceremony on April 30.
Williams and Waterwitch have been recognised for “courageously pushing back against the oppressive system of the apartheid government” and ultimately losing their lives “for the ideals of freedom in the middle of the war against racism and inequality”.
The two were killed after a series of limpet mine attacks were planned in the Peninsula on Sunday July 23, 1989, as part of an MK anti-election bombing campaign.
The mine intended for the Athlone Magistrate’s Court detonated behind public toilets opposite the court, with the bodies of Williams and Waterwitch at the scene.
Aspersions have been cast on the cause of their deaths, from faulty mines detonating prematurely to whether or not they were alive at the time of their deaths and killed by the apartheid police prior to the bomb having detonated.
Williams’s sister Selina said the Williams family welcomed the award and will be accepting it.
“This award recognises my sister’s decision to fight for freedom and her courage to resist the repressive state of apartheid, even after 10-plus months of detention, she returned more committed and determined and vowed that she would ‘fight till my last breath leaves me’.”
Williams was born in District Six and at the age of 5 her family were forcibly displaced to Bonteheuwel through the Group Areas Act.
“Coline was quiet and intense, spiritual, and she read a lot. She loved ice skating and performing arts, she loved the theatre.
“She was a listener and would only raise her voice when it was necessary, and when she did, she would have the attention of the room because it didn’t happen very often.”
Following her release from prison on June 11, 1987, Williams was not yet ready to speak about her experience.
Her mother insisted that she seek counselling at the relief centre in Athlone and she was accompanied by her sister every Thursday afternoon for these sessions.
A month later, comrade and anti-apartheid activist Ashley Kriel was murdered.
“I went with her to visit the Kriel home. As we entered the gate of the premises, Coline collapsed. She cried uncontrollably. It took her more than 30 minutes to gather herself and go greet Mrs Kriel and her daughters. I think this was the moment she decided the way forward.”
Waterwitch, from Gleemore, Athlone, was 20 years old at the time of his death.
His cousin Margeaux Nicholas said that while the award was welcome and would be accepted, more could be done – in particular with the reopening of the case and for a proper investigation to be conducted.
“He was a very dedicated ANC member. That’s all that I can attribute to him joining the Ashley Kriel Unit too. He was simply a very pleasant person, very easy to be around, but as I said, very dedicated to the causes that he fought for.”
On Tuesday, the chancellor of the National Orders, director-general in the Presidency Phindile Baleni, announced the recipients of the National Orders.
“National Orders are the highest awards that our country, through the president, bestows on our citizens and eminent foreign nationals who have contributed towards the advancement of democracy and who have made a significant impact on improving the lives of South Africans,” Baleni said.
Cape Argus