Remembering Petrus Linda Jabane: “The Lion of Chiawelo”

Remembering Petrus Linda Jabane: “The Lion of Chiawelo”

Exactly 45 years ago, on the morning of 21 November 1980, at around 04:00, members of the apartheid Security Police knocked on the door of a house in Chiawelo, Soweto, waking up Jacob Mabuza and his wife Joyce, who decided to answer the door. When the door opened, about six policemen pushed through her, while brandishing torches and guns.

At that moment a firefight ensued between the police and a friend of one of Joyce Mabuza’s sons, who was being accommodated in one of the bedrooms. Part of the police contingent decided to move Jacob Mabuza, Joyce Mabuza, four of their five children and two uncles out of the house. However, one of the children, eight-year-old Henry Mabuza, was stuck in the same room with the man who was now engaged in a fire-fight with the police.

After several minutes of gunfire exchange, the policemen managed to break open the window of the bedroom, and sprayed the entire room with bullets, while the man inside continued to fight back. As the exchange of gunfire continued, the walls and the roof of the house were extensively damaged by heavy-calibre bullets and shotgun pellets, which also ripped the furniture open. Around ten minutes into the skirmish, a Russian hand grenade exploded, followed by another explosion in which the wanted man was holding his position.

After the second explosion, the police entered the room, where they found a child who had been shot in the head, and was quickly taken to Baragwanath Hospital. Fortunately the eight-year-old survived the bullet that was lodged in his brain, while his roommate who had fought gallantly against the apartheid police, lay dead on the floor, and was later identified as Petrus Linda Jabane (aka “Gordon Dikebu”), who became famously known within the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) as the “Lion of Chiawelo”.

Petrus Linda Jabane was born on 6 January 1957 in Soweto, south of Johannesburg. His father was a working pensioner and his mother was unemployed. After his father’s death, his mother could only afford to keep him at school until Standard five (Grade Seven), after which he worked to help support the family. He was actively involved in the 1976 Soweto student’s uprising, even though by then he was no longer a student. Jabane also took part in the burning down of the notorious apartheid police Sergeant Orphan “Hlubi” Chapi’s house, who was later killed by an MK combatant in June 1978.

In 1977, together with several other youths from Soweto, Jabane left the country to join the ranks of MK, where he received military and political training at Novo Catengue in Angola, as a member of the Moncada Detachment of MK. In January 1980, Jabane came back into the country to join what was known as the G5 Unit of the Transvaal Urban Machinery of MK, using the code name “Gordon Dikebu”. The unit was based in Soweto, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng), living in dugouts around mine dumps on the out skirts of Meadowlands, Johannesburg.

This was the first MK unit that carried out attacks on police stations throughout Soweto in the late 1970s and 1980s. By this time the unit, which had within its ranks hardened guerrilla fighters like Anthony “Bobby” Tsotsobe and others, had a specific task of carrying out attacks on apartheid institutions that terrorised the communities and activists. Jabane and Tsotsobe were part of the unit that carried out one of MK’s most daring operations; an attack on Booysens Police Station, in which an RPG7 rocket launcher, a “Bazooka”, was used for the first time on South African soil.

One of the unit’s other operations was the attack on Uncle Tom’s Hall in Orlando West, Soweto, which housed the area’s rental offices. At that time a rent boycott by Soweto residents was underway and the attack was carried out in support of that campaign. The unit was forced to abandon their hideout when a member was killed in a shootout with the police in Meadowlands. They split up and went to live in different houses across Soweto. It was after one of them was arrested that Jabane’s hideout in Chiawelo was exposed.

The day before this brave engagement between Jabane and the apartheid security police, on 20 November 1980, his Comrade, Anthony “Bobby” Tsotsobe was arrested outside Eyethu Cinema Complex in Jabulani, Soweto. While Tsotsobe was queuing for tickets at the cinema, he spotted somebody who trained with him in African National Congress (ANC) camps in Angola. The person also noticed Tsotsobe, but did not engage with him at the time. When Tsotsobe left the theatre after the film, the apartheid policemen pounced on him.

Jabane was described by the neighbours, who witnessed the fight from their unlit houses, as having fought like a lion, hence he posthumously earned the name “The Lion of Tshiawelo”. Jabane was determined not to be taken alive and finally died in a grenade explosion. After his death, it emerged that he had been called “Ikomanisi” by members of his combat unit, because of his dedication and determination. African National Congress (ANC) President Oliver Reginald Tambo praised Jabane’s heroic act and called him “The Lion of Tshiawelo”.

According to Alexander Sibeko, Jabane “worked hard and learnt from practical experience the meaning of class exploitation. He was a deep thinking, quiet young man, who seldom smiled. In fact I cannot recollect ever seeing Gordon smile but this did not bother one. He was warm and compassionate and at ease with his fellow comrades and leaders alike. You felt that he did not smile because of his single-minded devotion to his training as a revolutionary and a combatant.”

Jabane was reputed to be a hard-working, disciplined and intelligent young man, who was small in stature, and which made him almost inconspicuous. Those who knew him well indicated that he acquitted himself well in several operations and rose to be a commissar of the unit during their stint inside the country.

“You saw this on the football field”, Alexander Sibeko avers, “where it was a joy to watch him. He knew what to do with that ball; how to distribute it; how to shoot with telling effect. He never celebrated his goals; never celebrated his achievements; accepted the jubilant slaps on the back from his team mates and supporters with no sign of emotion. His was the stoicism of the worker to whom discipline comes naturally. A tough, nuggety revolutionary whom you would have chosen immediately to be on your side, be it for a game or on a dangerous mission.”

Sadly, his body was not released to his family to give him a decent burial, similar to all freedom fighters that were killed by forces or agents of the apartheid regime. Instead, he was buried in an anonymous grave until 2003, when his body was finally released by a post-apartheid democratic government, 23 years after his death to be buried in a dignified manner by his family and the national liberation movement. In 2003, Petrus Linda Jabane (aka “Gordon Dikebu) was posthumously bestowed with “The National Order of Mendi for Bravery in Gold” by the South African Government for “bravery and valour in the face of overwhelming odds and for sacrificing his life in the cause a non-racial, non-sexist, just and democratic South Africa”.

Sources:
Wikipedia
South African History Online (SAHO).
Alexander Sibeko, “Four Who Were Communists: A Personal Reflection by Alexander Sibeko”, The African Communist, No. 87, Fourth Quarter, 1981.
Sechaba Columnist, “December 16th: Our Heroes Day”, Sechaba, December Issue, 1982.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 7”, Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Department of Justice, August 2002.
South African Presidency, “National Orders Booklet – 2003”, The Presidency: South Africa, 2003.

Castro Khwela
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