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An official picture taken at the August 22 parade showing Lieutenant-Colonel Sibusiso Mbuyazi apparently wearing the deceased chaplain Patrick Montgomerys medals.<\/p>\n
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The commanding officer-to-be of the Durban Light Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Sibusiso Mbuyazi, denies wearing a dead man\u2019s medals at a parade in Pretoria in August, labelling allegations that he did so as a racist attack to smear his name. <\/p>\n
In an interview with The Mercury yesterday, Mbuyazi, 42, said the \u201csix\u201d medals were permanently displayed on his tunic. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just put my tunic on. I don\u2019t look down. If there were other medals there, someone must have put them there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mbuyazi allegedly wore the late Chaplain Patrick Montgomery\u2019s medals at a parade when he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel. <\/p>\n
He officially takes charge of the DLI tomorrow. <\/p>\n
A charge of theft has been laid against him by the DLI headquarter\u2019s board chairman, Mike Adrain, because the medals were reportedly stolen from a display cabinet at the unit in May. <\/p>\n
The SANDF has issued a military order charging him with wearing another soldier\u2019s medals. <\/p>\n
But Mbuyazi said he was framed. \u201cI have six medals, one for 10 years\u2019 service, another for 20 years\u2019 service. I can\u2019t remember what the others were for. After the parade I put my tunic down in the offices at the Pretoria headquarters.\u201d <\/p>\n
The receptionist on duty at headquarters told him that someone \u201cwent to my jacket and started fiddling with the medals and taking pictures\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got back to my room I noticed that all my medals were gone,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Mbuyazi said the person probably pinned the medals on his jacket earlier and was seen looking at them and photographing them. He accused the person of removing all the medals, including his own. <\/p>\n
Mbuyazi also denied that he had said he had \u201cborrowed the medals from a friend\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was not welcomed here. Transformation has to take place. This is a black-white thing. I looked at the charges and just laughed. I\u2019m strong, but I am feeling that my life is threatened now,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Mercury established from military files that Mbu-yazi officially had four medals: the Unitas medal and general service medal \u2013 10 years, a loyal service medal with a 20-year bar and the Protea bronze. <\/p>\n
After Montgomery\u2019s death his medals were given to the DLI by his family for display purposes. The chaplain was awarded seven medals which included the John Chard Decoration and bar for 30 years\u2019 service. <\/p>\n
Mbuyazi also reportedly wore the medals to an official dinner after the parade. <\/p>\n
While SANDF spokesman Xolani Mabanga failed to respond, Colonel Pat Acutt, senior staff officer of the Defence Reserves in KZN, said Mbuyazi was likely to appear before a military judge in the next few weeks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An official picture taken at the August 22 parade showing Lieutenant-Colonel Sibusiso Mbuyazi apparently wearing the deceased chaplain Patrick Montgomerys medals. The commanding officer-to-be of the Durban Light Infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Sibusiso Mbuyazi, denies wearing a dead man\u2019s medals at a parade in Pretoria in August, labelling allegations that he did so as a racist attack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-15163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}