History in Colour: Banning of Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa

by Admin · August 23, 2021

Fr Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, banned Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference official, is visited by SACBC president Archbishop Joseph Fitzgerald in the winter of 1977 after the priest was banned by the apartheid government following a four-month detention.

He was served the banning order on June 4 that year at Khanya House, the SACBC headquarters in Pretoria, the day before the bishops returned from their ad limina visit to Rome. In 1981, Fr Mkhatshwa would be appointed SACBC secretary-general, while still banned.

In terms of the banning order, which would lapse in 1983, Fr Mkhatshwa was forced to live in a house in Mabopane without running water, electricity, inside doors or a ceiling. The banning meant that the priest’s movements were restricted to Mabopane East and Pretoria. He was not allowed to leave the house between 18:00 and 6:00, and was allowed no visitors, except by permission from a magistrate.

Like many other priests and Church workers, of all races, Fr Mkhatshwa was detained several times. In detention, he was tortured, including by electric shocks. After his detention in 1986, he successfully sued the state for torture and assault.

In the 1990s it emerged that there had been failed plans to assassinate him.

After apartheid, Fr Mkhatshwa received permission from his bishop to serve in parliament. He was deputy-education minister from 1996-2000 and mayor of Pretoria from 2000-06. He now heads the Moral Regeneration Movement.

This History in Colour was published in the July, 2021 issue of the Southern Cross magazine

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