ANALYSIS: Robert McBride: Caught in the jaws of State Capture, adrift in the present while captive of the past By Marianne Thamm MarianneThamm
In 1987, Fatima Meer, ANC Stalwart, friend of Nelson Mandela, academic, author and activist, penned “A sociological report for the defence”, setting out the extenuating circumstances in the life of Robert McBride, who had, on 13 April that year, been sentenced to death three times by Justice Shearer in the Supreme Court of Natal.
were killed instantly when a car packed with explosives was detonated on Durban’s Marine Parade near two bars, Why Not? and Magoo’s. At least 70 people were severely injured.McBride had been part of an ANC underground MK cell that had carried out 23 known combat missions during the first half of 1986. These, Meer noted, included “eight acts of sabotage against installations, the rescuing of a comrade shot and detained by the police in a hospital, and the blasting of a car bomb”.
McBride’s car bomb ended people’s lives, and altered his own irrevocably. Greta Apelgren, while they were still in hiding together before their 1986 arrest and torture, remembers how Robert seemed to be slowly falling to pieces.She describes how he used to rise early in the day and weep.His whole body would be bent over and crying, sob so badly… he was damaged after that,” wrote Leslie and Matthews.
McBride Jr, she added, began to view the police “not as preservers of law and order in Wentworth, but as preyers and exploiters”. It has spread everywhere, from the head to the tail. It involves a network of corrupt politicians, top ranking SAPS and Hawks members, members of the NPA, CI, the judiciary, business, as well as the financial and consultancy sector.As a man, McBride is once again confronted with another iteration of the same. Only this time it is the party he killed for and that, in 2019, goes by the same name, the same colours, the same mass rallies, the same songs, the same rituals.
The Constitutional Court has ruled that the IPID Act renders the body independent of political interference, through the Minister. Whether McBride or someone else will be the new head is not up to Cele. It is up to the committee.
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