Xasa’s peace pact bid as bodies pile up in lobola row
Co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Fikile Xasa is to embark on a peace mission to rural Libode, where a raging lobola feud has already claimed 16 lives.
On Sunday, Xasa said the delegation he had sent last week, led by Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders chair Chief Mwelo Nonkonyane, had returned from the village with no resolution, leaving families in Zulu, Qungebe and Mkhandlweni villages living in fear.
The horrific saga, which began over a demand for a lobola refund of four cows due to a childless marriage, has been boiling over for a year.
“The families could not reach an amicable resolution with the delegation that went to intervene last week.
“ We are working closely with police in the community, because the situation is now out of hand,” Xasa said.
“The family demanding a refund on the basis that the woman cannot bear children is unheard of and cannot be aligned to tradition or Xhosa culture.
“In our culture, in cases of divorce, lobola is forfeited in consideration of the time and work the woman contributed to her husband’s family,” he said.
Xasa said a refund was normally applicable during the initial stage of a marriage, before the couple tied the knot and officially lived together as husband and wife.
“Because of the manner in which things are being done here, this will also need the intervention of the department of safety % liaison because people have died and others are in hiding.
“This is a highly unusual and rather peculiar case and cannot be associated with traditional custom,” he said.
Xasa said his visit to the warring families would happen when he had received a date from the station commander in the area.
Sunday Times journalist Bongani Fuzile reported at the weekend that among those killed were teenagers, some of whom had been mutilated, with their genitals cut off, while others had been decapitated.
The paper reported that the Mantywaki and Genuka families were united in matrimony at a joyous celebration seven years ago, when Peter Genuka asked for Peliwe Mantywaki's hand in marriage.
However, a year ago, when Matywaki failed to bear children, she was sent back to her family. Genuka then sent nine men to collect the four lobola cattle from Mantywaki's family.
Four returned. Five had been hacked to death and mutilated. One was decapitated and his brain removed, villagers said. The bloodshed escalated.
One man was killed in full view of his children. The community was split in two and many fled for their lives, the Sunday Times reported.
Peliwe Mantywaki was sent into hiding by her father, Msongelwa, who told the Times: “This month my brother was the 16th person to be killed. This is personal now.”..
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