Ciskei General Charles Sebe is Imprisoned and Convicted
On 15 June 1984, former Commander of the Armed Forces of the Ciskei, Major-General Charles Sebe, brother of President Lennox Sebe, was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of incitement to public violence. He was charged of having established and being leader of a brutal elite unit named “Ikrele Lesizwe” (Sword of the Nation), an anti-terrorist squad that championed state-sponsored violence and intimidation, and was later bent on destabilising and overthrowing the Ciskei Bantustan government.
Major-General Charles Sebe (often referred to as Lieutenant-General Xhanti Charles Sebe) was the former commander-general of the combined armed forces and the Director of State Security in the former Ciskei Bantustan. He was one of the most powerful, feared and enigmatic figures of South Africa’s apartheid-era homeland system. His life and career epitomised the volatile, paranoid and often violent politics of the “Bantustans” – territories established by the Pretoria government referred to as ‘Bantu Homelands’ to enforce ethno-geographic and racial segregation.
As the architect of a ruthless police state in the Ciskei, his rise to absolute power, spectacular fall from grace, and violent death in a South African-orchestrated trap serve as a vivid case study of Bantustan “homeland” politics.
Charles Sebe began his career as an ambitious agent within South Africa’s notorio
