Sipho Philip Mutsi
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22 December 1967
Sipho Mutsi | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sipho Philip Mutsi 22 December 1967 |
| Died | 5 May 1985 (aged 17) Odendaalsrus, Republic of South Africa |
| Occupation | Political activist |
| Organization | Congress of South African Students |
Sipho Mutsi (22 December 1967 – 5 May 1985) was a South African political activist. A regional organiser for the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), he was arrested at a bus stop in Odendaalsrus, Free State on 4 May 1985. He died in detention the following day, having been severely beaten by some members of the South African Police in Odendaalsrus. He was the first COSAS member to die in police custody.
Sipho Philip Mutsi was born on 22 December 1967, at King Edward Hospital in Durban. He then went to live in Odendaalsrus in the Free State; and not long after that, his mother – Pulane Irene Mutsi - moved him to live in Mokhalinyana village in Lesotho.[1] Mutsi was a teenager at a time that South Africa had an exceedingly large participation from young people (particularly students) during apartheid, on matters pertaining to politics and unrests thereof.
Political life
Mutsi became one of the leaders of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) in his township of Kutlwanong. He became even more involved after the Maseru Massacre of December 1982, when South African Defence Force commandos attacked a cluster of houses in Maseru which they believed was where African National Congress exiles were hiding. The Lesotho parliamentary forces were no match for the SADF and by the morning 42 people had died, 30 of them were believed to be African National Congress members; the rest were Lesotho residents including five women and two children.[2] He was particularly affected by this because his parents were born in Lesotho and Sipho spent some early years of his childhood in the country. His political insight was also nurtured by the interaction that he had with South Africans who were exiled in Lesotho during the apartheid era.[3] On 14 December 1984, Mutsi was one of the delegates who attended the COSAS congress which was held at the University of Natal in the Wentworth Campus. Upon return, Mutsi and his comrade Sello Dithebe started influencing learners from school such as Rearabetswe and Phello Secondary School to be more politically active and thus established a COSAS branch.[4]
