thing needed to come out,’ Bloem told me.
As expected, Bloem’s public accusations drew criticism from people
sympathetic to Magashule. In a letter to the Sunday Independent,
former MK member and public service and administration minister
Ayanda Dlodlo came to his aid. ‘There is more than enough evidence to
prove that Magashule was indeed in the liberation struggle not as a
planted enemy, but as a freedom fighter,’ she wrote. ‘All too often, we
tend to want to erase those that we do not like for whatever reason, in a
quest to satisfy our hate.’^8
In her defence of Magashule, Dlodlo cited an indictment document
that formed part of the Delmas Treason Trial. The document sets out
some of the accuseds’ activities in Tumahole in the mid- 1980 s.^9 One
was a campaign that saw UDF-aligned organisations like the Tumahole
Students Organisation allegedly intimidate and attack ward councillors
from Tumahole who were viewed as ‘sell-outs’ and ‘puppets’ of the
apartheid government. ‘On 24 March 1985 the house of a woman
councilor [sic] ... was petrol bombed,’ reads the document. ‘On the
next day it was attacked with stones. Present were Ace Magashule,
Vuyo Dabi and [Lister] Skosana.’
The attacks on this councillor’s home continued even after she had
resigned. According to the document: ‘Her husband thereupon fetched
Ace Magashule, Mosepidi and Thabane who said that they did not
know the reason for the attacks as they had told the children to accept
this councilor back into the community.’ Mosepidi and Thabane, whose
first names are not disclosed in the document, were members of the
Tumahole Civic Association (TCA).
Other records from the Delmas trial further detail Magashule’s role in
protest activities. One witness, Matthews Thekiso, testified that
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