Shroud over graves

Police forensic experts have been barred from accessing what appears to be a mass grave on a KwaZulu-Natal sugar cane farm on orders of the premier of the province.

Senzo Mchunu is said to have prohibited access to the site yesterday as investigations on the farm Glenroy, near Dududu, on the South Coast, were about to begin.

Muzi Hadebe, of the KwaZulu-Natal department of arts and culture, which is leading the provincial government's investigation, said Mchunu had ordered that no one other than department officials be allowed on the site.

"This thing has gone out of hand," Hadebe said. "No one is allowed. The site is embargoed. This is private land.

"We're not at the stage of doing any forensic investigation. It must be reported to the police in a correct way."

Reports have now emerged of the existence of two more mass graves and of a "prison" on the farm.

The authorities have not confirmed the new claims.

Glenroy farm was bought by Illovo Sugar in 1989. But, according to the company's spokesman, Chris Fitz-Gerald, the company had no idea of the grave's existence until December.

The order said to have come from Mchunu were given after a sangoma, a Ms Nkomo, whose "vision" led to the discovery of the grave, broke her silence yesterday.

Speaking to The Times by phone, Nkomo confirmed her vision, saying she had seen "pain".

"It was people in pain ... people who wanted to be returned to their loved ones," she said before ending the call. Follow-up calls went unanswered.

Nkomo is said to have told the provincial government about her vision in October.

A police officer, who asked not to be named, said the police had been told by Mchunu's office that no one was allowed to visit the grave.

"We're baffled about why we're not allowed to visit a crime scene."

He said information on the grave came to light last year but the police were kept in the dark.

"We would have come a long time ago but we were not informed," he said.

Police spokesman Major Thulani Zwane referred inquiries to Mchunu's spokesman, Thami Ngwenya. Ngwenya said he did not know who in the premier's office could have ordered the denial of access to the grave site.

He failed to answer e-mailed questions about why an investigation had not been launched until now, despite the provincial government reportedly having been told about the grave in October.

Japhet Mqadi, a local chief , said he remembered, as a child in the 1950s, seeing prisoners being brought to the farm.

"They would come past our house. My parents told me they were brought to the farm from Eastern Cape. They told me the prisoners were being badly treated and . that they suffered unimaginable terror."

He said Nkomo approached him last year about her vision.

"She told us she had been told the government must be informed and that the dead must be reburied at their family homes. She said their deaths were 'painful'.

"We want to know why it has taken so long for this to be investigated and why it's being kept [under wraps].

Mqadi said he was aware of prisoners escaping from the farm's "terrible conditions".

"Most, wearing brown sacks, escaped to Eastern Cape. I believe they were brought from other prisons during the apartheid era to work on the farm. People would be arrested and we would hearthey had been killed."

Fitz-Gerald said the existence of the graves predated the company's purchase of the farm.

"At the stage of the discovery [of the graves] in December, we weren't aware of the graves," said Fitz-Gerald. "We've been informed that a derelict building, previously hidden by overgrown vegetation, on an uncultivated section of the farm was a prison building, and that the graves recently discovered may well be those of the prisoners."

Forensic anthropologists have warned that the investigation will be extensive and will include scouring historical data, possibly finding living relatives, collecting DNA from bones, and gathering oral history from locals.

Archaeologist and heritage specialist Anton Pelser said: "This is not a cheap undertaking ... it's not just putting a shovel in the ground and saying X marks the spot."

How difficult the task will be depends on how the bodies were buried and whether the remains are mingled.

Pelser said the chances of a mass grave being confirmed were uncertain.

"Often, over time, a cemetery falls into disuse, relatives of the dead stop coming to the graves and people forget the cemetery was there."