Why do they forgive us?

BELLA ENGLISH / Boston Globe 23apr03

After a South African mob murdered Amy Biehl in 1993,
her parents set up a foundation in her name,
then hired two of her killers to continue her work

[Are Prisons Obsolete? ANGELA Y. DAVIS Speaking at the First Congregational Church of Oakland 26jul03]

CAPE TOWN—Easy Nofemela is talking about his job at the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust, established by Linda and Peter Biehl in memory of their daughter. A Fulbright scholar, she was 26 when a township mob murdered her just before she was to return home to California.

"We have five schools," says Nofemela, who coordinates the after-school sports program for the foundation. "During apartheid, the disadvantaged kids didn't have the opportunity to be part of a sports program. We pull these kids off the streets. We help keep them out of trouble.

"Most of them," he adds with a hint of a smile, "remind me of me when I was younger."

Meanwhile, Ntobeko Peni runs errands among the various programs offered by the foundation in the sprawling township of Guguletu, pocked with corrugated-tin shacks and streets that are little more than potholed paths. It is here, in their hometown, that Peni's and Nofemela's lives intersected with Amy Biehl's.

On the night of Aug. 25, 1993, as Biehl was driving three black friends home, a mob chanting antiwhite slogans pelted her car with rocks, forcing her to stop. She stumbled out, heading toward the refuge of a nearby gas station, when she was hit with rocks and bricks, then stabbed to death.

Four men, including Peni and Nofemela, were convicted of murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Today the two of them work for the antipoverty foundation that bears their victim's name. They call Linda Biehl "Makhulu," the Xhosa word for "grandmother" or "wise woman."

"I love Makhulu," says Nofemela. "And Takhulu." That would be Peter Biehl, who died a year ago shortly after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Ask Linda Biehl, 60, how she feels about Peni and Nofemela, and she replies: "I have a lot of love for them." When Peter died, she bought two small plots of land in Guguletu in his memory, one for Peni and one for Nofemela. She hopes they will build their own homes, now that they are both the fathers of infant daughters.

Currently, each lives in the township with extended families; in Nofemela's case, his relatives range in age from 7 to 55. It is from this abject poverty, fueled by escalating violence in the dying days of apartheid, that the youths found a voice in the student and military wings of the Pan-African Congress. Peni was 19 and Nofemela 20 when, on their way home from a political rally, they caught sight of Amy Biehl. "What I believed is if you kill a white person, it is how we are going to get the land returned from the white people," Nofemela testified at trial.

Africa Captured Her Soul

It is one of the many ironies of this story that the white person happened to be Biehl, who was helping register black voters for the country's first free election. She was a Stanford University honors graduate who majored in international relations with an emphasis on southern Africa. On her graduation cap, she had written "Free Mandela!" in large block letters. Africa had captured her soul; she worked in emerging democracies throughout the continent with such people as Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter. At the time of her death, she was studying African affairs and learning to speak Zulu at the University of the Western Cape. Just two days later, she was to return to the United States to attend Rutgers University on a doctoral fellowship in southern African politics.

Africa was her life. And when it became her death, her parents stepped in to take her place. On the airplane that took the grieving family to South Africa, her father wrote Amy a letter: "I told her I thought she'd done a great job with her life and that her mother and I and her family would try to honor her with some sort of action."

Her parents established the Amy Biehl Foundation in the United States in 1994 and its sister trust in Cape Town in 1997. That same year, her killers went before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a stunning experiment in national healing in which those who committed acts of political violence could testify, express remorse, and ask for amnesty.

To the surprise of many, the Biehls supported amnesty. "Obviously, it was a mob situation, it was really not a personal thing," Linda Biehl says of her daughter's death. "You have to remember the context. Amy was always describing the condition and plight of black youths in the country . . . not knowing they would be her killers."

The four men detailed their parts in the killing and apologized to the Biehl family. In July 1998, they were released from prison after serving five years. Two of them, including the ringleader, are, in Linda Biehl's words, "not doing so well"; she does not keep in touch with them.

The other two, Peni and Nofemela, are now more or less part of the Biehl family. And no one, perhaps, is more surprised than they are. "I asked, `Who are these people? Why do they forgive us? What's wrong with them?' They are parents. I never expected a white person could care about us, especially her parents," says Easy Nofemela. His name fits. He's short in stature, gentle in demeanor, quick with a smile. Easygoing.

But 10 years ago, he and his friends were militant activists, trained to turn weapons on white people. "I was not born a killer," he continues. "In our culture, something happened that I cannot explain. The war was between white people and black people. I saw Amy as a white person who dared to come to this country to oppress black people."

That their victim turned out to be an ally in their cause—not to mention an unarmed, single woman—remains a painful subject. In fact, Peni will not be led down that road. "Now, you're taking me back to politics," he says. "We are concentrating on the way forward."

United Against Violence

The Biehls were a typical suburban family living in Newport Beach, Calif. Peter was a business consultant, Linda managed the couture department at Neiman Marcus. Their youngest, Zach, was still in high school when his sister was killed; there are two other daughters. The Biehls could have buried Amy and never set foot on South African soil.

But to her parents, Amy and Africa were inseparable. The couple left their careers and comfortable life to learn, from scratch, the international aid business. Some years, they spent 75 percent of their time in Cape Town; Linda is still there more than half the year. When she's home, she's raising money and giving speeches for the foundation, which also has education programs in this country.

In South Africa, the trust's logo is a black hand and a white hand, intertwined, with the slogan "Weaving a Barrier Against Violence." Programs include education, recreation, environment, job training, arts, and health and safety. There's Amy's Bread, produced in township bakeries, and now sold at the major chain grocery in South Africa along with Amy's Milk and Amy's Rice. The after-school programs provide activities and hot meals. The ambulance technician who attended Amy at her death now helps train others in first aid, including prisoners. A golf course on a scrubby patch 10 miles outside Cape Town provides lessons to poor black youths.

AIDS is a huge problem in South Africa; an estimated one in four people is infected with HIV. Amy's Tavern Project has solicited donations through South African breweries to place condoms in the shebeens, or township bars. And in a stuffy warehouse, people learn jobs skills such as sewing, carpentry, and block printing.

The foundation has 130 employees, including project manager Ashleigh Murphy, 24, a Northwestern graduate. "I look at my friends and I'm the only one doing a job I love," she says. "It's a huge challenge, and sometimes overwhelming. I'm constantly tested to be a better person."

Linda Biehl can certainly relate. The foundation operates on a tight budget of $450,000 a year, much of it from the United States Agency for International Development. She worries, a lot. "I have to look very carefully at the next five to 10 years at our sustainability," she says. Son Zach is now 26, the age Amy was when she died. He has stepped in to help his mother with the foundation.

And then there's the danger. Cape Town is said to be the murder and rape capital of the world. Murphy was held up at gunpoint, and a guard at the driving range was shot and killed. A bakery truck driver was also killed, and a couple of children in the after-school program were murdered on the beach on New Year's Day.

"There are funerals every weekend in the Cape Flats," Linda Biehl says. "That's part of everyday life." Which brings the discussion back to Easy Nofemela and Ntobeko Peni. When they were released from prison in 1998, they returned to Guguletu, where they found that little had changed; aimless youths were hanging out, getting into trouble. In 1999, the two were interviewed by an anthropologist who knew the Biehls. The men were trying to start a youth group; would the Biehls possibly meet with them?

"I wanted to see them so I can say I'm sorry," Nofemela says. "It was not enough at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission." When they met, he told them: "I know you lost a person you love. I want you to forgive me and take me as your child." Linda Biehl shared pictures of a new grandson.

Reaching Reconciliation

The men began a training program at the Amy Biehl Foundation and never left. Last June, Linda Biehl took them to New York, where the three of them addressed the American Family Therapy Academy, "people eager to hear our story of reconciliation and restorative justice," she says. They then spoke at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The trip was the first time either of the men had been on a plane. "I know they have a lot of obstacles, and I know working with me and the foundation, there are people in their own community who could resent them," she says. "There are others who got out of prison and didn't have that support."

Likewise, the men worry about Linda Biehl and say they are happiest when she is back on Cape Town soil. "She works so hard, I try to tell her," says Peni, who is more guarded than Nofemela. "If she's not in the foundation full time, it could collapse. That's bad for her health." He pauses. "I think that's what killed Peter. He never had time for himself."

Recently, a German film crew was in town to do a story focusing on the gory details of the murder. Linda Biehl became quite protective of the two men. "They can't talk too much in front of me about it, and I don't think it's healthy. Our relationship is more about the future and growing and moving forward." It is as if she has absorbed Archbishop Desmond Tutu's line, "No future without forgiveness," either for her personally or for her adopted country.

If there's a word to apply to the story, it is grace. Linda Biehl knows people think it's strange. "Everyone says, `You just forgave them.' My husband and I talked about this a lot. Yes, forgiveness is one part of it, but the real challenge—and what I think South Africa is about—is the reconciliation aspect. And reconciliation is about work. You can forgive someone and walk away and go on with your life . . . but if you're going to make a real difference and work at changing conditions, it's more the reconciliation process, the coming together and going forward mutually. It's taking things that are negative and turning them into positive energy."

She can hardly believe that nearly a decade has passed since Amy's death. "I would have no idea 10 years ago that this is what I would be doing with my life," she says. "I had never even been to Africa before."

And what would her daughter think? "I think she would really be thrilled because she was there for all those reasons. My personal feeling is that Amy probably had a little hand in orchestrating some of this."