Margaret Thatcher and the Sharpeville Six.

 

When I was a student at Ruskin College Oxford during 1984-86, I lived in Old Headington for a year in a building named in honour of the black activist, Steve Biko. One of the people who lived in Biko, was a woman called Joyce Mokhesi.

I didn't find out until many years later, that Joyce was the sister of Francis Don Mokhesi, who was one of 'The Sharpeville Six'. They were all ANC supporters who were convicted under the legal doctrine of 'common purpose' for the murder in 1984 of the black deputy Mayor of Soweto. The six were sentenced to death by hanging in December 1985.

Joyce Mokhesi, who was from Sharpeville, met Margaret Thatcher to try and persuade her to use her influence to get the death sentences commuted. According to Charles Moore, (Margaret Thatcher - Volume 3), Thatcher agreed to see Joyce Mokhesi who proclaimed her "belief...shared by all Western leaders to whom I have spoken - that Mrs Thatcher is the single international statesman to whom President Botha is most likely to listen."Margaret Thatcher considered the ANC a terrorist organisation and opposed economic sanctions against South Africa, but Charles Moore, insists that she never called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. He also asserts that she "privately urged Regan and Kohl to support her plea for clemency."

Following Margaret Thatcher's intervention, the death sentences were delayed for further judicial consideration and then P W. Botha, commuted the sentences of the Sharpeville Six, to long prison terms. Francis Don Mokhesi was released from prison in September 1992.

I don't ever remember the case of the Sharpeville Six ever being mentioned during my two years at Ruskin. The only thing that I do recall is my old friend Mick Kelly, who also lived in Biko, telling me that Joyce Mokhesi was related to somebody who was involved in some controversial issue in South Africa but it was all very vague.

Joyce Mokhesi kept very much to herself and didn't really mix with the other residents who lived in Biko. I am not sure why that was but I was told that she had said to somebody that my two friends Mick Kelly and Richard Phelps - who were built like rugby players - reminded her of her South African Boer jailers. That perhaps explains why there was a failure to communicate.