Benedict: My son and friend
For 90-year-old great-grandmother Theambi Daswa the possible beatification of her son Benedict comes as little surprise.
There was always something different about him, she says as she lays a bouquet of flowers on her sons gravestone.
He was not only a son to me; he was a friend, she says. We would speak every day.
Ironically, Daswas grave is metres away from one of the ringleaders of the mob that killed Benedict on February 2, 1990.
Mrs Daswa prefers not to speak about the night her son was killed. All she will say is that her son would have forgiven his killers.
Chris Mphaphuli, a friend of Benedict, says Mrs Daswa was at home when she heard the news that something had happened to her son. She and Benedicts younger brother, Tanyane, rushed to Mbahe village and found Benedict covered in blood and lying dead on the ground.
Mrs Daswa fell silent and fainted. Tanyane, who looked up to Benedict as his father, dropped to his knees, cried out and implored the killers to show themselves.
You people who have killed my brother; come and kill me, because without my brother I’ll be nothing, he exclaimed.
Some days before, lightning had struck and caused three huts in the village to burn down. Village elders called a meeting and blamed a witch. They wanted each person present to donate R5 towards a witch hunt.
Benedict refused and tried to explain that lightning was a natural phenomenon.
Benedict Daswas mother and his eight adult children on 20th anniversary of his martyrdom.
A few days later, as he was driving home in his bakkie, the road in front of him was blocked with rocks and the branch of a fig tree.
Daswa stopped his car and was pelted with stones and rocks from both sides of the road.
He opened the door and ran for his life, over the soccer field that he had built and into a shebeen where people were drinking. When the people saw that he was covered with blood, they chased him out. He took shelter in a rondavel.
Two young boys heard that he was inside. They found him and forced him out. A mob surrounded Daswa and started singing and calling for blood.
It was a large crowd of people, says Mr Mphaphuli. They were heavily armed, he says, with knobkierries, pangas and stones.
They were singing, baying for his blood. We understand as he got out he prayed, but they forced him to be in the middle of the circle.
A security guard, who had returned home from Johannesburg, wanted to kill Daswa immediately, but the others in the group first wanted to question him.
The people said not now, we still want to ask him some questions… He used to say, well, he is a man of God; we want to see whether God will come and help him.
They gave the reasons for killing Daswa: Because he has been terrorising us. We tell him we want to contribute, five rand. He says no. We tell him we want to get a witch doctor for our soccer club. He says no.
He is always saying: lets pray, lets pray, lets pray. Well not today.
So they were singing: Benedict, Benedict, Benedict, let your God save you.
After a few minutes the security guard stepped forward and smashed his iron knobkierrie against Daswas head.
Benedict fell down, and when he fell down they didnt stop there, Mr Mphaphuli says.
There was a kettle of water. A woman wanted to use the water to bathe her child. So they took the boiling water remember there was a wound on his head and poured the water into the wound, [in his] nostrils, ears, all over, and the mouth as well, and the body was full of blood all over, the friend says.
They left him for dead there and immediately after that they started singing and singing. They were happy.
Benedicts killers were never jailed for the crime.
The ringleader got a very strong lawyer and up until today they said, well, they could not find the docket, says Mr Mphaphuli.
Some of them have passed away mysteriously; some of them are still around here.
Mrs Daswa shuts her eyes and says a prayer before speaking further.
When he died I was very sad, she says. What more can you say?
She had four sons, two of whom have passed away, she says. But there was always something extraordinary about Benedict.
He indicated that it would be better if we live close together. He said, I am going to build you your own house, which he did, she recalled.
When he died I was so sad, because he was not just a son, he lived like a friend to me, his mother says.
Benedict had enormous energy, according to Mrs Daswa.
Apart from her house, he built a church and a primary school. He was the headmaster of the school. He grew fruit and vegetables and he sold them to the community. If people had no money, he would give the food to them.
Some of the same people who took part in his murder still come to the house to ask for help, Mrs Daswa says.
Mrs Daswa says when her son was buried in the cemetery outside Mbahe village his grave was just like the graves that you can see over there…with stones only.
She saved all her pension money to buy him a tombstone. The stone was blessed by a priest when it was finally erected.
Mrs Daswa says she always tried to teach her children to respect and love others.
But Benedict was special, she says, as someone reminds her of how he would wash the nappies of his eight children.
He was a special son and father. He loved children,she says.
She points to Benedicts grandchildren playing on a swing outside her house.
Benedict, who would now be 68, would have loved to have known his grandchildren, she says.
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