JOHANNESBURG, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Friends, family and colleagues were among the people who gathered at Eskhaleni TVET college in Empangeni on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast to pay their last respects to Lindani Myeni on Saturday.
The former rugby player was shot dead by Honolulu police in April in Hawaii, the United States. His remains were repatriated to his home country last week.
"I can't believe that his body is gone but his spirits is not gone. He has left us with more courage now, more than we ever had," said his wife Lindsay Myeni, who had yet to come to terms with her husband's death.
"To the whole Myeni family, his in-laws the Andersons, and his friends across the globe, our presence here today is to comfort and console you," said Peggy Nkonyeni, member of the Executive Council for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison in KwaZulu-Natal.
Nkonyeni said the unmitigated state power resting in the hands of white police officers in the United States reflected "a microcosm of that country's attitude towards other countries, and that it exports war and misery in return for minerals."
"The death of Lindani Myeni must not be seen as just another isolated racist and systemic incident, it should be viewed within the context of the U.S. politics of domination and racially motivated exclusions, an unwritten policy that criminalises blackness," she said. Enditem