(Originally published in Green Left Weekly in Australia and online on January 20, 1999, updated and published here by the author.)

Mzwakhe Mbuli, South Africa's beloved poet, musician and movement hero, has been incarcerated since October 1997. He is now incarcerated at the Leeuwkop Maximum Security Prison, following conviction at the end of March 1999 for crimes he did not commit: armed robbery and possession of a hand grenade.

This is not Mzwakhe Mbuli's first experience with the criminal justice system in South Africa. As he has said many times, he is no stranger to pain, isolation, detention and sorrow. This time, it is his own government that is holding him. This time, just like under apartheid, his treatment could best be characterized as cruel. Back then, it was not unusual. This time, it seems both cruel and unusual.

Mzwakhe Mbuli, the People's Poet, instantly recognizable and widely respected, even revered, was denied bail five times, in several courts. Before he was moved to Leeuwkop, in his cells at Pretoria Central Prison, 65 prisoners shared one toilet, and four shared each mattress.

The ANC leadership seems to have forgotten this grassroots superstar, but the South African people have not. Mzwakhe enjoys the kind of celebrity for which one name is sufficient. The people simply call him "uMzwakhe," and they will never forget.

Each court appearance brought loudly supportive throngs. Several thousand people visited him in prison prior to his conviction and sentencing. Many dramatically expressed their grief in the prison visiting area, so many that Mzwakhe's attorneys made a request for a transfer immediately prior to the start of the trial to an area away from the crowds. Following the hearing regarding the transfer, Mzwakhe complained of handcuffs being too tight and was subsequently attacked by three police officers working for the government of the new South Africa who beat him severely. He sustained multiple injuries and required medical treatment.

It is no secret that apartheid justice was not buried with apartheid. In an interview from prison with New York's Village Voice, Mzwakhe reported that black prisoners in the new South Africa routinely arrive with dog bites. This claim was refuted by some, but it was corroborated by Amnesty International in its April 1999 Report on Human Rights in South Africa.

An international alert has been sounded by International Freedom of Expression Clearinghouse on behalf of Mzwakhe. Initiated by International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee, this alert is also a demand that the government present the evidence on which its action against the poet is based. Index on Censorship's publication Banned Music lists Mzwakhe.

Known as the "people's poet," Mbuli describes himself as a musician who deals with truth. Truth has been hard on him lately. Fearlessly outspoken, he was a natural target under apartheid and subject to arrest for performing and recording.

Forced underground, Mzwakhe never stopped appearing at rallies and funerals, delivering poems to enthusiastic crowds. He poetically eulogised many felled by apartheid and the struggle within KwaZulu/Natal.

Mzwakhe didn't just create music and dub poetry. He mourned with the people. Because they memorised his poetry and constantly performed it, they kept his words alive everywhere. Even people who could not read became poetry fans.

Mzwakhe's poetry honours the amaZulu tradition of singing to ease the hearts of grieving people. Mzwakhe Mbuli murmuring in the background was -- and continues to be -- the sound of South Africa trying to recover. The people are comforted because they know he shares their grief, pain and rage.

Leaders sought out Mzwakhe because of his gift of words. Following the praise poem he performed for Mandela's inauguration in 1994, Mzwakhe tasted even greater success. The activist artist, a product of the Soweto uprising generation of "young lions," had arrived. Then things got crazy.

Mzwakhe continued to speak out against corruption and drugs, and protested against the political violence in kwaZulu/Natal. The Inkatha Freedom Party attempted to ban his 1996 album, KwaZulu Natal. Later that year, someone fired nine bullets into his car in an attempt to assassinate him.

In 1997, Mzwakhe released a gospel album, uMzwakhe Ubonga uJehovah, which quickly went gold. But like people from kwaZulu/Natal province, the people's poet found his life and his nation's violent history tangled in treachery.

In 1997, Swazi officials brought him news of South African police involvement in drug corruption. Mzwakhe planned to discuss this information with Mandela. Then all hell broke loose.

Mzwakhe was lured to Pretoria by someone who claimed to have information about the attempt on his life. He met someone who handed him a bag said to contain the information and told him to leave. As he left, police pulled him over and arrested him for bank robbery. The evidence: money in the bag given to him.

Mzwakhe was denied bail and was later sent to what were formerly the death row cells, near the gallows, at Pretoria Maximum Security Prison where in 1988 he had been tortured and held in solitary confinement.

Those in the cell he was put in upon his arrest included people who had committed some of the most notorious crimes of apartheid, including the murder of Mzwakhe's close friend, Chris Hani, another national hero and former head of the South African Communist Party.

The government insists Mbuli's treatment is "normal." Helen Suzman, an internationally respected former member of the South African parliament, has called his conditions "appalling."

The Campaign for Release of Mzwakhe Mbuli, which operates the FREE MZWAKHE MBULI website at www.mzwakhe.org asks people to write to President Thabo Mbeki at president@anc.org.za and to Amnesty International at amnestyis@amnesty.org to raise awareness of his case and to urge community radio to play his music, and we also ask you to please sign our Petition online at the FREE MZWAKHE MBULI website at www.mzwakhe.org.

In kwaZulu/Natal, life remains mysterious and violent, especially for people who talk about the violence and mystery. In South African prisons, Amnesty International has reported, there are still many deaths in custody. Crowded cells still hold people who, like Mzwakhe Mbuli, refuse to be silenced.

Mzwakhe Mbuli
Leeuwkop Maximum Security Prison, Command Area
Private Bag x2
Bryanston 2021, South Africa

To contact Mzwakhe by e-mail, please send e-mail to mzwakhe@mzwakhe.org, and we will get the message to him. To contact the Campaign, please write to campaign@mzwakhe.org, or write to:

Campaign for Release of Mzwakhe Mbuli
PO Box 390058
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
contact: Dorothy Flynn

voice mail: 1 617 876 3169