CEREMONY OF HEROES AND HEROINES WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR OUR FREEDOM @KASIBCNEWS

CEREMONY OF HEROES AND HEROINES WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR OUR FREEDOM @KASIBCNEWS 

PRETORIA ON 27 SEPTEMBER 2024 AT 11H00

Programme Directors

His Excellency, President of the Republic of South Africa, President Cyril

Ramaphosa

President of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Cde Mzwanele Nyhontso

Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Cde Angie Motshekga

Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Mr Gayton Mackenzie

High Commissioner of Zimbabwe to South Africa, His Excellency Hambaziripa High Commission of Zambia to South Africa, Her Excellency Mazuba Monze

Premier of the North-West Province, Cde Lazarus Mokgosi

Gauteng MEC for Education, Sports and Recreation, Cde Matome Chiloane

Families, Friends and Relatives of our heroes

Comrades and Compatriots

Today, we welcome home gallant sons and daughters of the South African soil, who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that we all can gather here today as a free people. 

These illustrious men and women, whose remains are finally brought  home after decades of exile, represent different generations, united by the  yearning to liberate their motherland. 

They represent the well-known, such as ANC Secretary General Duma  Nokwe and head of the ANC Women’s Section Florence Mophoshe, journalist Todd Matshikza and Wankie campaigner Basil February as well as other unsung freedom fighters, who are all heroes and heroines of our liberation struggle. Today we pay homage and express our profound gratitude to them and their families for their immense contribution to our freedom. 

They came from all over the country, from Alexandra to Zeerust, Cape  Town to Soweto, Durban to Mdantsane, Bloemfontein to Mahikeng, the East Rand to Ivavuma, paying testimony that our struggle against apartheid tyranny, was a truly national struggle.

This homecoming is a culmination of extensive work that spans a number of years by the ANC government. Many hurdles had to be overcome to correctly trace the final resting places of these and many more other  combatants. 

Some have been quick to claim easy victories and arrogate this homecoming to their preferred leaders. This homecoming is a culmination of years of painstaking work by the ANC to fulfil a commitment to the  families to bring their loved ones home. 

We were pleased when in March 2021, the Cabinet of the 6th Administration approved the National Policy on Repatriation and Restitution of Human Remains and Heritage Objects. The implementation of this policy is driven by the Inter-Ministerial Committee led by the Deputy President.

This then paved the way for this first group of 47 freedom fighters, who were buried in Zambia and Zimbabwe, to be exhumed and repatriated.

This will be followed by comrades buried in countries like Tanzania, Angola, Uganda, Lesotho, Mozambique, and many more.

Over the last century since the establishment of the ANC in 1912, our people have fought heroic battles against colonial and apartheid tyranny.

These battles were waged in many fronts. From internal resistance inside the country to armed combat in the frontline states to the capitals of the world who rallied behind the anti-apartheid movement.

The brutality of the apartheid regime and the banning of the ANC alongside many other progressive organizations in the country led us to the underground and exile, where we continued to wage our struggle.

Indeed, many of our comrades went into exile so they could contribute in different ways to the liberation of our country. We remain grateful to the many nations of the world who embraced our people, supported our struggle, trained our people and provided our movement with the much-needed resources to wage our struggle in different terrains. The role of the frontline states who stood as a bulwark against the aggression of the apartheid state gave our struggle momentum and rallied the continent and the world behind our struggle.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the indelible role played by the countries where these comrades mortal remains were repatriated from:

Zambia and Zimbabwe. Zambia, led by President Kenneth Kaunda gave home to the ANC and other liberation movements, providing for ANC headquarters, training camps, and the education of our children and young people. It did so whilst still busy rebuilding their own country, after just attaining their own independence from colonialism in 1964. In the spirit of true Pan Africanist, the government and peoples of Zambia vowed that they can’t be free until all peoples of Africa and Southern Africa are also free. And they put deed to word. We remain forever grateful. Zambia also ensured the ANC’s sonic presence in the airwaves in the form of Radio Freedom, which enabled the ANC to shape the course of the unfolding struggle and internal political developments.

Zimbabwe too, like us fought a long and hard struggle for her independence and freedom against a regime, like the apartheid regime, that was determined to cling to power at all costs. It was for this reason that we found common cause with the freedom fighters and freedom loving people of Zimbabwe, expressed in the joint Wankie and Sipolilo Campaigns of Umkhonto we Sizwe and ZIPRA in 1967 and 1968. Once she attained her independence in 1980, Zimbabwe too provided offices to the liberation movements and played a critical role in uniting the Frontline states against apartheid South Africa.

Both Zambia and Zimbabwe became victims not only of cross border raids and strikes, but also assassinations, bombs, grenades and other attacks. 

Despite these they remained steadfast in their solidarity with the liberation movements and peoples of South Africa.

It was Egyptian intellectual Edward Sa-id who said:

“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.”

This estrangement impacted particularly harshly on the families of those of our comrades who went to exile. Often not knowing where their loved ones ended up, what they endured and experienced, let alone when and if they will ever see them again.

Unfortunately for those in whose honour we hold this Homecoming Ceremony today, they were never able to taste the fruits of freedom in their homeland, let alone see their loved ones.

It is therefore important that we continue with this programme, working with families, to bring home the remains of those who passed away in exile, so that we may all begin to have closure and heal.

Amandla!!