Andrew Babeile:

One of the good days I will be back.

Speaker 2:

When Andrew Babeile went to prison two years ago, he was an angry young man in a town full of hate.

Andrew Babeile:

Vrijburg is a place which consists of racism.

Speaker 2:

Now he is ready to come home but is the town ready for him?

Speaker 3:

Vrijburg and the people of Vrijburg would like the past to get to waste.

Speaker 2:

Four years ago, Vrijburg High School hit the headlines when a group of white parents armed with Sharm box descended on the school. With their children safely locked in their classrooms, the parents went on a rampage. They beat and assaulted black students. Many of whom had to crawl through broken windows to escape.

Most white parents believed that this was the only way to protect their children and sort out the racial tension at school. Earlier the principal had been taken hostage and fighting among learners had become so bad that many felt that it was only a matter of time before someone was killed.

Speaker 4:

This is private property.

Speaker 2:

No one was killed but the attack by the parents only made matters worse. The war between white and black students escalated, filtering into the town and the township. Then the final straw. A white boy Christopher Erasmus was stabbed by his black school mate Andrew Babeile.

Speaker 5:

We turned we saw a grieved, that we failed to pick out the silver lining that loud. It should be somewhere there for us to pick out.

Andrew Babeile:

It was terrible, in the morning when I wear my uniform and say that I'm going to school, I pain it first. Each and every time when I wear my uniform saying that I'm going to school 'cause I know there were so called group of the rugby boys whom were regarded as the pullers of the school. Whom even if you charge their board, you can just see that is meaning something as one but not education.

Speaker 5:

Plus said, for both Babeile and for the school and for the community and for Erasmus and for whoever was associated with the school or this community, it is a sad affair.

Speaker 2:

As with everything else in Vrijburg, there are two versions of what happened in the Andrew Babeile affair. The white say Andrew was a vicious criminal who premeditated and planned the stabbing. For the blacks he was an innocent victim of racial abuse who acted in self defence. [Tumilen Mabuya] was in grade seven at the time, he recalls the incident.

Tumilen Mabuya:

It was the first break and we were in the [inaudible] I saw Babeile he was around the circle of white students and it was like they were trying to beat him. The only way to survive was to pick at the scissor and then to stab that kid so that he can get out of the way and run away. So that he can run.

Speaker 2:

Erasmus says he wasn't part of the group. He was merely watching the fight when he got stabbed. Central to the whole affair was the pair of scissors. Was it a weapon or merely a school tool? Andrew claimed he coincidentally had them on him. He'd been covering books the period before and had mindlessly put them in his pocket.

Andrew Babeile:

I just put it on my pocket, you see. Then when I go to the tack shop, I didn't realise that there is something that I can regard it as something that is harmful to me because it was an instrument of the school.

Speaker 2:

School instrument or not, the wound he inflicted on Christopher was serious. Later this fact caused the charge against Andrew to be changed from the lesser one of grievous bodily harm to attempted murder. The 19 year old school boy was suddenly catapulted onto centre stage. The court case further polarised the town. In the township support for Andrew was growing.

Speaker 7:

We all know the tension is very [inaudible] in Vrijburg and we're not going to allow this marching into town. We are all big people we can solve the situation without any violence.

Speaker 8:

For how long? For how long?

Speaker 9:

[foreign language].

Speaker 7:

48 hours then there's a meeting that they can decide upon.

Speaker 2:

48 hours later, the protest moved into town. This growing militancy frightened the whites. A support Babeile committee had been formed to help coordinate all the activities. Charles [Muhale] was the press secretary. He read out the memorandum.

Speaker 10:

The people of Vrijburg and the [inaudible] South Africa as a home. Had wanted somebody, a symbol of resistance to their plight in this historic white schools. He happened to be there, he didn't choose, he didn't know I'm sure that what he was doing that day, wrong as it was would have changed him, Vrijburg High and the rest of the country. He didn't know.

Speaker 2:

As the trial dragged on, support in the township grew even more.

Speaker 11:

[foreign language].

Speaker 12:

[foreign language].

Speaker 2:

By now the name Andrew Babeile had become known countrywide. It had become synonymous with racial violence in a small platinum towns of the North West. It was against this backdrop that Andrew was found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The court rejected evidence that he had acted in self defence. Instead it found there was a real intention on his part to commit the act.

The harshness of the sentence only made matters worse. To many he was not only a victim of racism at school, he had now become a victim of a racist judicial system.

Speaker 13:

There is a syndicate that wants to see comrade Andrew into jail and we're saying that we'll demonstrate peacefully to the end that comrade Andrew is been released. [foreign language].

Speaker 14:

[foreign language].

Speaker 13:

Down with racism, down.

Speaker 14:

[foreign language].

Speaker 2:

Despite numerous attempts, none of the earlier appeals was successful. Andrew began to serve his sentence in Kimberly's Juvenile Prison. Meanwhile, at another school across the country, Brighnston High, there was a similar incident of racial violence. In this case the perpetrators were a group of white boys who assaulted and kicked a black student in the eye.

Unlike in Andrew's case, the school resolved the matter internally. The police weren't brought in nor criminal charges laid.

Speaker 15:

All of us in [inaudible] and the rest of South African men should learn from this incident.

Speaker 2:

After mediation attempts by the Provincial MUC of Education, the perpetrators were permitted back in school, one of them even went on to become a prefect. Back in Huhudi Township, residents were outraged by the contrast between these two cases. The support Babeile campaign changed its name. It became the Free Andrew Babeile Campaign and his friends began to mobilise for his release. Jail they felt was not an appropriate sentence for a school boy.

Speaker 10:

The MCU has never believed that Andrew is a criminal. He is the ... On the one hand the victim of circumstances beyond his own control but on the other hand he is a symbol, a representative of the situation facing many black youth in most historic white schools in our country.

Speaker 2:

But the white community doesn't see it this way.

Speaker 3:

You can never explain, you can never have thought or applaud somebody that tried to murder somebody else. While Andrew Babeile was in school prior to this scissors incident, we had discipline problems with him. He was taken to the village, where he nearly killed and [inaudible] punched a teacher with a knife. The department of education expelled this guy from the schooling system.

Speaker 2:

Andrew denies this. He says that because of his high profile he was continually victimised. Either way, Andrew was an angry young man by the time he went to prison. He felt wronged by the school, by the police and the justice system. A visit by the former president Nelson Mandela changed all of this.

Nelson Mandela:

I've told him of how many of our prisoners took advantage of the prison and studied.

Speaker 2:

After this visit Andrew changed visibly. He formed a cultural group and got involved in many youth activities. Mandela also gave Andrew money so that he could continue his studies.

Andrew Babeile:

When I was behind the bars I meditated a lot. I imagined a lot of things. I started from the ex president, I said that he make it, I read A Long Walk to Freedom. After reading A Long Walk to Freedom, I started getting the reason why he mingled with the enemy and said to myself that bitterness, hatred in my heart I will always taking it out.

Speaker 10:

He qualifies to be trusted by Mandela himself. Not that Matiba trust him because he thinks what he did was correct, no. It's only because he understands the role that Andrew must play after this.

Speaker 2:

While Andrew has been serving his sentence in Kimberly, the situation at Vrijburg High School has improved traumatically. The former principal who many accused of fermenting racial hatred is gone along with his old white governing body. The new principal is largely credited with turning the school around. Each Monday morning, assembly starts with a grand entrance by the teachers.

Detoy:

The school on which I as the principal, the HGB and the whole of the community are really very proud.

Speaker 2:

Detoy arrived at Vrijburg at the beginning of last year.

Detoy:

To George [inaudible], [foreign language] but they can say, "Are you mad?" And to also feel bad. Now [foreign language].

Speaker 2:

For Detoy the solution is simple. All the students need is a fair hand, disputes to be judged on their own merit and not on the basis of colour. This, a little bit of strict Christian discipline and no politics.

Detoy:

[foreign language] appearance. And appearance in schools is [foreign language].

Speaker 2:

This ban on politics seems to have worked till now but in the lead you to Andrew Babeile's release, the question remains, can the Andrew issue really be kept out of the school?

Speaker 19:

Yeah and then can it be [foreign language].

Speaker 2:

Sunday night in Huhudi Township Vrijburg. It's the night before Andrew Babeile's release. At his house, every one is waiting. Around the Township the feeling is much the same.

Speaker 10:

It's obvious they are too excited [inaudible] after his incarceration. we're happy that at last he is coming home. Firstly he was not supposed to be there.

Speaker 2:

Early the next morning at Kimberly prison, preparation are underway for the release. A big media contingence is expected and the Department of Correctional Services want to be fully prepared. Everyone is there except Andrew's mom who is waiting at home.

Andrew Babeile:

Prison it was a hard, hard, seriously hard. You have to accept anything you get. No matter it tiny or whatever but you have to accept. Prison is filled with evil spirit.

Speaker 10:

We would ourselves like to make a special appeal to the media in this country to allow Andrew to be a boy again. A community boy, who grows up, who dates, who plays without the attention of the entire country focused on him. He is too young for that attention. The attention is overwhelming.

Andrew Babeile:

My only thing that I have liked to make within this country is to meet a genuine, the boy whom I have stabbed so they say. Thanks.

Speaker 20:

Thanks Andrew, thanks.

Speaker 21:

Thank you very much.

Speaker 10:

You're good. Don't forget this thing.

Speaker 22:

We want to ask.

Speaker 23:

For the breakdown.

Speaker 22:

Okay then. We're just gonna [inaudible] Babeile's house.

Speaker 2:

Plans for his welcome are progressing well. A small contingent of people will greet him in town as he is handed over to the North West officials but the real party is planned for here at his house. After the press conference Andrew is escorted by the prison officials. From here he is to be driven to Vrijburg. Since he is being released into correctional supervision, the conditions are strict. He is not allowed to drink or take drugs or even visit a place where drink is sold.

Speaker 24:

That car in front. That one was washed behind this one, the rest [inaudible].

Speaker 2:

At the parol office in town, Vrijburg's mayor arrives.

Mayor:

We're hoping that the coming back of Babeile will make us begin to talk together. He is a young man who got into the problems that he got into but he cannot be condemned for life.

Andrew Babeile:

The first thing that I'm going to do when I get home, the only one first thing that I want to, I want to hug my mom. That is the plan that I want to do. I want to hug my mom.

Speaker 2:

Such as the excitement by the time he finally does arrive, that Andrew doesn't even get the chance to hug his mom. All she gets is a small piece of her son.

Speaker 10:

We have missed him as a friend for almost two years. We were excited, we were excited anyway. But to us, he remain a hero and he remain a hero indeed to these young people in this community.

Speaker 3:

Being welcomed back as hero, I think it's a great petty. A message was sent out that in South Africa, if you've committed a crime and when you get back to your hometown, you're being welcomed back as a hero.

Speaker 2:

Back in the township the hero worship continues as Andrew is paraded through the streets.

Speaker 10:

Andrew has enjoyed the love, the warmth, the support and sympathy of the overwhelming majority of the people of this country but it's exactly because of this support that he owes the country. I was happy when he said he wants to meet Christopher Erasmus, he wants to reconcile with him and I'm happy that it came from Andrew that after serving his prison sentence he has no bitterness towards Christophe, he has no hatred for him. He would want to work with him.

Andrew Babeile:

In fact I did not expect it. I was just thinking that I'll be released, I'll just come home quietly but unfortunately it took me by surprise. I can say that perhaps the name of the destiny like my name says Itumele, Itumele means happiness if I'm not mistaken. I was more than that word. I was more than happy. Even I didn't know what to do, where to start and the way I was excited.

Speaker 10:

Which one are we signing?

Speaker 28:

Order, order, hold on, hold on. Sorry, [foreign language].

Andrew Babeile:

Everything that happened is on my backside to see, so I'm looking forward for the night, for future.

Speaker 2:

Most important of Andrew's future plans is to meet with Christopher Erasmus but Erasmus is media shy. Even when Mandela went to Vrijburg to meet with him, only his parents were there.

Nelson Mandela:

I heard only yesterday that he was in Pretoria. I have arranged with his parents that he must come and see me because I want to encourage him to play a constructive role.

Speaker 2:

But this seems unlikely. In an interview with African's newspaper Rapport, Christophe once said he wants to get on with his life and doesn't want as he puts it, "Cheap Publicity." By shaking hands and making a big fuss. As far as he is concerned, it was an unfortunate incident but it is a thing of the past.

Speaker 10:

As we say, the event must be looked at within the context of the entire environment. The environment led to that situation. The people who had the capacity to lead the boys, to guide them didn't do anything and actually felt that they connived to create that situation.

Speaker 3:

The past is dead. It's dead and whoever wants to keep on living in the past, whoever wants to keep on hanging and keep on tying themselves with the past we again really breaking the speed with which we can move forward.

Speaker 10:

I think the first thing they must do is to invite him to the school and say to him they understand that a lot of wrong things happened in the past and that the school takes responsibility for the greater part of those wrong things.

Speaker 3:

But he is just a normal learner. We don't [inaudible] invite him over, not a normal learner, he is just an ex learner of this, he is not a learner of the school. He's been expelled from the schooling system. Why must we specifically invite Andrew Babeile whilst we're not inviting any other ex learner of the school?

Speaker 10:

If he did so, it would also be saying to him once you have made a mistake, you can admit it. It's a great lesson for him and for the rest of us.

Speaker 2:

It's the morning after the release. At Andrew's home, things are getting back to normal. Andrew's dream is to become a lawyer one day. For that he'll need to study really hard but before he moves on, there's one thing that both he and Christopher must still do.

Andrew Babeile:

If I can meet Erasmus and I hold him with my hands and say, "Let's go to a private high school." And then I think each everything [inaudible] is there, he will follow us to unite me and Erasmus will make another [inaudible] to unite themselves.