Peter Mokaba, who passed away on Sunday 9 June 2002, was the leader of a generation. As the youth of this country took up the spear of liberation, Peter Mokaba emerged as a committed fighter, a relentless organiser and an inspiring leader.
While Mokaba will probably be remembered most for his role as a youth leader his contribution was far broader and his legacy far greater.
Mokaba had a life-long passion for learning. He was a revolutionary intellectual, always keen to expand his knowledge and deepen his understanding, and never shy to engage head-on with the political and theoretical debates of the moment.
He was equally never shy to engage in the practical tasks that were demanded of revolutionaries, no matter how difficult or how dangerous. He is remembered as a daring challenger willing to shoulder the responsibility of taking forward the struggle on whatever front was necessary.
As a tribute to this remarkable South African, we reproduce here - in his own words - the story of a life of courage, sacrifice and service.
I was born on the 7th January 1959, in a place called New Look Location, near Polokwane city in the former Transvaal Province now known as the Limpopo. Born to Mr Albert Mogodi and Priscilla Mapitsi Mokaba. My parents worked as migrant workers in and around Johannesburg. My father held several jobs. He worked as a miner, as a driver, as a petrol attendant, as a domestic etc. My mother worked as a domestic, a shop assistant and as an unemployed. I was born in a family of four children, namely, my elder brother, Ernest Tsiane, Evah Fina Mamohuba, who passed away in 1982 and Mapula, who is now married to a comrade, and friend, Danny Msiza. They married in exile, Mazimbu, Tanzania and brought home their eldest daughter, Kgothatso.
Ours was an extended household including my father, his parents, his brothers and their wives, his two sisters, and my mother and us the children.
Raised as a Roman Catholic and attended the Church's pre-school in Old location, an area bordering with the then 'white Pietersburg town'. As a child my grandparents Ernest Tsiane Mokaba and his wife Mapula Pheladi Makoso raised me. Ernest turns one hundred years in 2002.
New Look Location was then declared a 'Black spot' by the apartheid government. Families were forced removed to Seshego, ten kilometres from Pietersburg, and Mankweng Township, situated 28km East of Pietersburg. These were new Black settlements with Mankweng planned and established as a result of the establishment of the University College of the North (later changed to the University of the North) in 1958. Our household was divided, with some choosing to resettle in Seshego while my father's family and my grandparents chose to settle in Mankweng Township. New look was then raised to the ground.
In Mankweng we lived as squatters, in shacks, and moved from one yard to the next around the Township. The township was divided into three sections, namely, Baruting where NGK students, officials and priests lived, Lecturers' estate popularly known as "Malectshareng" where the Lecturers of the University of the North, some teachers, nurses and other middle class people lived. Then there was the Bantustan, which is where the poor and general masses lived. My family established itself here.
Mankweng Township initially had no schools. I attended at Ga-Motholo Primary School in neighbouring Mamotintane rural village. Once Pula-Madibogo Primary School was built and opened in Mankweng Township we relocated there. From Pula-Madibogo we would graduate to Dikolobe Higher Primary school and then to Hwiti High School after which a student could either enrol with the University of the North or other tertiary institutions.
The divisions between the township and the rural settlements around it were also most pronounced and often lead to major conflicts fought in organised formations with stones. There was also a problem of ritual killings that forced us to move in groups as we went to school. Petty crime added to a feeling among us that we were surrounded with violence and danger. It was this that induced me to take karate lessons, a sport I prioritised until I reached first Dan Black Belt. I also became a karate instructor. I played judo, taekwondo and boxing. I also played soccer with Turfloop Dynamic Bullets and was called "Six Mabone'. I played Softball as a Pitcher for Tinti's Softball Club. As a ballroom dancer I became the president of our dance club. I played drama and wrote poetry and plays. I also played most indoor games both at school and outside. I also made it to the school choirs.
As a family we struggled to make ends meet. As a result our household engaged in various informal activities including shebeens. This particular activity attracted much of police raids against my family. During one of these raids, which was sparked by someone who went to report to the police that he had visited my home and was served brandy, the police used a lot of violence, beating my grandmother while asking questions about brandy. Blacks were not allowed to drink or have brandy and beers or what was called 'the white man's drink'. She was assaulted in this fashion because as the police moved in to arrest my mother my grandmother intervened and said they should rather arrest her instead of my mother, her daughter-in-law. This angered the police. As they continued assaulting and beating her with fists and kicking her, she neither tried to defend herself nor to run away. She simply sang a hymn about Jesus on the Cross bleeding. I was watching and very angry and upset. I felt quite helpless. She was arrested and jailed for a day in Pietersburg.
With the above divisions as the context in which I grew up I was most aware of the poverty of my family and others in our midst. As we mixed and played with children from the rich our situation was not allowed to pass without comment to remind us of the poverty we represented. Even at schools and in the churches and other areas management of public life was influenced by these attitudes. For an example, you may, in the course of playing as children become naughty and do wrong things together at school, but punishment would be meted only against those from the poor family. These would be humiliated publicly while the others would have their parents visited to discuss the problem. Our parents would not be afforded such courtesy or consideration.
When confronted with this I would always promise those around me that when I am old enough I would indeed end the poverty of my family. I promised my father that unlike him I would not allow myself to be humiliated by another man particularly a white man when I grow up. He of course argued that that must wait to be seen since all Africans face this humiliation. It was part of growing up, he said. To my friends from rich families I would admit to them that indeed their families were better off than mine but asked them not to judge me on the basis of achievements or lack of achievement by my parents but on what I was achieving and would achieve as a future adult. I would urge them to compete with me and not pose their parent's achievements as theirs. Hence I made it a point that I would endeavour to excel in everything I did in school and outside.
During holidays and after school hours I would pick up piece jobs to raise funds for my school fees. In this connection I worked at the ½ Price Store in Pietersburg, as a handyman in a building construction company in an area called Dalmada, as a gardener for a reverend of the DRC near Turfloop. I worked for a week for the latter employer. When at the end of the week I went to collect my wages he gave me two and half cents. Together with my co-gardener Morrow Rasefate I protested and demanded more. He unleashed his dogs on us. We managed to outpace them and returned home expelled in that fashion.
In this regard the SASO students from the University who interacted with the community, particularly, the poor played a major role. They had projects in the community and often invited us as children into the university where they helped us with our education. They taught us wherever they met us. They loved imparting knowledge of all sorts including political. They lived as one community with the Mankweng Township residents. It was for this reason that the community were always participants and active supporters whenever the students went on strikes and were involved in running battles with the apartheid state. The strikes at Hwiti high school would be similarly supported by both the community and the University student and vice versa.
In 1972 Onkgopotse Tiro addressed the graduation ceremony at Turfloop. Among other things he said that "the day shall come when we shall be free, when every man and woman will breath the air of freedom, and when that day shall come, no man no matter how many tanks he has shall reverse the course of freedom." Tiro skipped the country but his words like the deeds and words of Mandela before made a profound impression on me. I admired this type of bravery and wanted to be counted in this regard. There were poets of Black Consciousness who flooded the township and filled us all with moving poetry. They played street drama and sang freedom songs in the streets and halls of the township. They spoke about leaving the country for military training to come back and fight. They distributed pamphlets. They spoke about the ANC and PAC. They distributed literature and spoke about great African and Black leaders in the African diaspora like Marcus Garvey, Du Bois, Kwame Nkuruma, Patrice Lumumba and others. They said freedom was possible.
Among these was comrade Mma Winnie Kgware. She seemed to be always there when there were fights with the police. But she operated somewhat differently. She would not be part of the marches and the turmoil. But she would always invariably appear, give us pamphlets to distribute and swore us to secrecy. As children we felt important that we were part of the challenge against the police. She spoke in quiet and measured tones also telling stories of freedom. She organised after school classes for us to help us with our schooling.
In 1974 the University, my community and the country erupted again with the pro-Frelimo rallies. We were told Mozambique and Angola were free. The police attacked the ceremonies. Comrade Winnie Kware encouraged us to form a branch of SASM and to establish an SRC in Hwiti High School. I was elected President of the SRC. It was during this time that she started speaking to me about leaving the country. The University and Hwiti High Schools remained in turmoil into 1975 although there was insistence that we all must be serious with our studies, write exams and pass while fighting intermittently with the police.
In 1976 SOWETO erupted. Hwiti High School joined immediately. As the President of the SRC and a day scholar acting together with other student leaders I organised for the striking students to head for the villages and the mountains around to fight better with the police and to better maintain our unity. We learned how to put together petrol bombs. In the first of our operation we tried to set the school alight. This failed but Mma Kgware upon learning about this reprimanded me seriously. She said our problem was not the school building but the police and Bantu education. The strike at Hwiti and the running battles with the police lasted until the end of the year when I was arrested and detained without trial in Pietersburg Prison together with three co-accused. There were 28 state witnesses against us including the school principal. We were represented by attorney Don Nkadimeng. At the trial most witnesses refused to speak against us while others decided to perjure themselves. We were found guilty and given a suspended sentence and some fines.
One morning at the beginning of 1977 as I was preparing to go to school, the Principal came to my door. He delivered two letters, one from Hwiti High School and the other from the Lebowa Bantustan government. The former was to inform me that I had been banned from attending school at Hwiti High School. The second letter was a notice informing me that I had been banned from attending any school in the Province. I received these letters and said nothing to him after he had read them out to me. I had just passed my standard eight when I was arrested. I could not attend my standard nine classes.
Later in the day I went to the school to the administration offices and demanded that I be refunded my school fees. There were arguments and a tussle but they finally refunded me.
I registered as a private candidate, wrote exams and passed. Because I had no money to proceed to University I took up employment as a science and mathematics private teacher at Makgoka High School. I also helped students at Marobathota High School with the same. I also worked as a freelance journalist for Voice Newspaper and continued to write poetry and drama. As a writer I joined WASA (later MWASA). The University of the North continued to resist my enrolment there. They relied on the letters of banning served on me while at Hwiti. Mrs Kgware intervened and I was admitted in the Bsc Computers Sciences faculty.
In 1979 I organised and helped form COSAS in the Northern Province. I also became one of the founder members of the Azanian Student Organisation(AZASO).
1980: In 1980 the University went on a protracted strike. The first issue over which we were striking was to demand the unbanning of student leaders who were banned in the University. This was followed by protests against the University soccer club joining PSL. There were violent clashes. Some lecturers and students formed vigilante groups with the police. My colleagues were attacked and some nearly killed from the stabbing. We formed a militia in response and returned fire. Underground activity took root. Police and intelligence structures like BOSS became even more vicious.
The 1980s launched the Decade of Liberation declared by OR Tambo. The Release Mandela Campaign was launched and various mass organisations were formed. Among these was the formation of a feasibility Committee to investigate the launch of a National Youth Organisation (NYO) implementing COSAS resolution adopted at its inaugural conference. It was also a period of realignment of political organisations. It was the Year of the Freedom Charter. Debates and sometimes-violent confrontations raged as part of persuading the youth and all mass structures that Black Consciousness had exhausted itself and the time then was for the politics to be based on the Freedom Charter and the struggle for non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy and prosperity. This struggle was won.
Acting in units we decided that some among us would have to leave the country for military training. Mme Winnie Kgware and Comrade Mavi in Johannesburg joined hands to help us in this regard. When I finally had to leave campus and the north because I was wanted I was received by Comrade Vincent Mohano in SOWETO. He raised funds and assisted us to skip the country.
We illegally entered Swaziland through the fence at Piet Retief. A taxi we boarded on the Swaziland side sold us out to the Swazi police. We were shocked when the taxi drove us straight to the police station where we were detained and interrogated by the Swazis. We were locked up, pictures were taken. After two days we were released after James Mawela convinced them that we were visiting his relatives. We took a lift to Mbabane and, indeed, Comrade James Mawela whom I was travelling with contacted his relatives who allowed us to stay with them for a short while. We later made contact with the ANC. We were received by Comrade Abrahamse Whitehead (MK alias Archie Dira), Kgoshi Mapuru, John Nkadimeng, and Comrade Graham Morodi who was known by his MK name of Ntate Mashigo.
We started helping out with operations from Swaziland. The apartheid regime struck. The home of Comrade Mashigo where I was supposed to put up was bombed. We survived because Comrade Mashego warned us not to put up in any house but to sleep in the bush because he suspected an attack. After this incident we proceeded to Maputo in Mocambique. As we were crossing the border we were once again arrested and detained. Our guide managed to organise for our release on condition that we were taken back to Mbabane. Upon being released we successfully skipped into Mozambique.
In Maputo at Matola we met with other exiles. ANC leadership visited us. Comrade OR Tambo who visited me several times told me that there were two options for me, namely, Military Training or furthering my education. I insisted on military training. For a long time he worked to convince me that I needed to proceed to university to complete my science education. Finally, I convinced him that I should start with military training and be reinfiltrated to do battle in South Africa. I told him I felt responsible to those I had left behind. I however promised that should I live and not be killed in combat I would, indeed, further my studies.
In the meantime I ran mathematics classes for my other comrades. The camp was however infiltrated and a certain Justice who was among the officials tried several time to get some of us out of the camp so that we could be kidnapped back home and into the hands of the apartheid state. I was briefed and warned to lull him down. In no time I was part of a team that transported him to Angola, Luanda where he was arrested in Viena by the ANC and the Angolan police.
1981: I received my political and military training under the command of Comrade Mzwai Piliso and a group of Russian and Cuban instructors. Among other things they created a huge library for me to go through. As I complained that all I needed was a gun Cde Mzwai Piliso convinced me that politics was primary in the ANC. He taught me that it was not the gun but the man behind the gun who wins the war. Such a man should not only be loyal but a convinced cadre. One should live and die for a cause he is convinced of. He also said that he was insisting on politics because I should be able to see when "anyone of us . including those in leadership" deviate from the cause. This selflessness, openness and honesty of ANC leaders was for me most inspiring. After training with the Angolans, Cubans and Soviet Comrades I was deployed in a number of Mk camps until I was selected to re-enter RSA through Swaziland. My brief was to operate as a pioneer setting up bases for these who would follow including conducting training and military operations of new recruits inside the country, to conduct economic sabotage and prepare for people's war and insurrection. I did as instructed.
During this time the ANC introduced among its cadres a discussion about the need for the formation of a United Front of democratic forces in South Africa. We were asked to examine the character, format and content of such a front. These discussions took place both in the camps and in the underground structures inside the country. They were part of those raging in the prisons of South Africa among detainees and sentenced comrades.
1982: I was arrested in Lebowakgomo after completing my mission and preparing to leave the country. Detained under Section 6 of Terrorism Act and later converted to Section 29 of the Internal Security Act I was tortured and humiliated by the police. The torture was severe. Frustrated by their failure to break me, and accusing me of trying to be a martyr the policemen took me to Piet Retief where they tried to shoot me from behind on the pretext that I was trying to escape when actually they instructed me to jump the fence into Swaziland. The man holding the gun to shoot me was stopped by his colleague. They wanted to know where I was hiding the guns and other Comrades. I refused and told they should rather kill me than allow myself to do such a thing.
After months of torture I was finally charged. Later they brought into my trial Comrade Jerome Maake who was also charged. Our trial was a big fraud. When they could not get state witnesses to testify against me they tried to bribe them and forged evidence. The magistrate was leading this attempts. This was finally uncovered as lawyers of witnesses recorded the approaches and promises by the magistrate to them and their clients. Our legal representative Mr Farber filed for the Magistrate to recuse himself. He refused, found me guilty and sentenced me to six years imprisonment We were taken to Robben Island.
In Robben Island I found a very serious political debate that was dividing the ANC in prison. The issues were many. Among them "ANC and Socialism", The NDR and the Socialist Revolution", "national democracy Vs people's democracy", the "character of ANC leadership", "the Freedom Charter: is it a socialist or a NDR document" etc. We ran classes both for formal education and political education Most of us were registered with UNISA while others studied to complete their matric. There were those who could neither read nor write. These too were put through classes. For me this was an opportunity to keep my promise to OR Tambo and to follow Nelson Mandela's career. So I registered for B.Proc. Except when in solitary confinement there has never been a year when I was not studying, registered with one or the other institution. Because of these activities and in particular those relating to political debates and education I was removed from the common cell and put in isolation cells.
Our appeal against the judgement and the sentence was upheld. My co-accused and I were transported to Pollsmoor. At Pollsmoor we went through the formalities of being released. We were given suits and instructed to leave. Just as we stepped out of the door we were rearrested and re-charged. We were then moved from one detention center to the next until in 1985 February my CO-accused was discharged after the trial and I was later found guilty of possession of an unlicenced fire-arm, namely, a Markarov pistol, and given a 5 year suspended sentence. I was released on March 1 1985.
1985: Upon my release I joined the UDF in the Northern Province. I became its organiser, political education officer and one of its leaders in the Northern Province. I later became a member of the national executive committee of the UDF. I also joined DESCOM (Detainees Support Committee). We formed Mankweng Civic Association (MACA) and I was elected its publicity secretary. We also worked to organise and establish trade unions such as SAAWU and FAWU in the Northern Province. I was also drawn into efforts towards the establishment of a National Youth Organisation (NYO) and into the IYY (UN International Year of the Youth) activities. I became the national political officer of NYO under the leadership of Comrade Deacon Mathe. I also re-established contacts with the ANC in Lusaka and received new orders to combine underground work and legal forms of struggle as part of the process towards insurrection and people's war. The leadership briefed me about the challenges facing the movement. Among my tasks was an instruction to return to the country to fight factionalism in the form of a Cabal within the democratic movement. I came back to brief the NYO about the problem and the factions. We launched a very concerted struggle against factions in the UDF. Not many were happy but we had a task to fulfil. And so we fought on. In the UDF context SAYCO was independent politically and organisationally and not autonomous. Our independence was also guaranteed by the fact that our finances were coming from the ANC and donors. We sent comrades for military training inside and outside the country, established arms caches etc.
As part of the preparations for the launch of the NYO we organised a national workshop at Broederstroom to decide its ideological orientation and direction. Two papers were prepared for discussion. One by the ANC Youth Section in exile and another by myself. We maintained close contact with the ANC exiled leadership on the issues relating to this matter. We chose historical and dialectical materialism as the ideological world outlook of the envisaged NYO. We located it within the NDR as defined and led by the ANC. We chose federation as its initial organisational format with the aim of consolidating it into a unitary structure as the struggle progressed. The federal structure was adopted to give expression to local specific conditions but mainly to be able to organise under the tough conditions that took root in 1986. We knew we could be banned and the structure was intended to frustrate such a move as the enemy would have had to issue banning orders for specific formats in villages and townships across the length and breadth of the country.
A month after my release attempts on my life increased. The New Nation recorded about 18 such attempts by 1990. Among these were the bombing of my home in Mankweng Township. A state of emergency was declared in order to prevent and frustrate efforts towards the launch of NYO, as was stated by Pieter Botha in the reasons for the state of emergency. Many Youth Leaders were detained. I was arrested and detained in terms of Section 28 of Internal Security Act together with France Mohlala and Louis Mnguni. We were held at Johannesburg prison. The state of emergency was lifted the following year and we benefited from a successful court challenge to Section 28 lodge by other UDF leaders. We were then released in the first quarter of 1987. We immediately proceeded to convene a secret conference in Cape Town and SAYCO (The South African Youth Congress) was launched. I was elected its first President. We launched SAYCO against the advice of the ANC exiled leadership about the timing. The leadership was later to celebrate our decision and did everything to help consolidate the new organisation. The Conference was funded secretly by Comrade Beyers Naude. The Political and Military Committee of the ANC through its secretary, Comrade Josiah Jele, funded most of our activities. ANC and MK underground structures formed part of our organising and political backbone throughout the country. Most of SAYCO leadership and cadres went for military training. We did all of these because we suspected that we may be killed and that it was important for the youth to know and maintain links with their mother body, the ANC and never be lost to other forces.
Immediately after its launch we arranged for an illegal visit to Bulawayo where the entire SAYCO leadership except for Comrade Dipuo Peters who had just come out of hospital with her newly born babe, Tumi. SAYCO met with OR Tambo and the rest of ANC leadership. We used our underground channels to ferry all of them outside the country through Botswana where they were received by Comrade Thabang Makwetla and funnelled through to Zimbabwe. Upon our return to the country we launched many campaigns to challenge the system of apartheid.
Towards the end of 1987 as part of organising in the rural areas of the Northern Province I requested ANC HQ to allow me to conceptualise and form and organisation of Chiefs. . The apartheid state was also forming and arming vigilante groupings around the Chiefs making organisation for democracy most difficult in the Northern Province. There were many Chiefs on the run in former Kwa-Ndebele. These constituted the first recruits. I finally launched CONTRALESA at Khanya College in central Johannesburg. Once again I organised through my underground channels and the whole CONTRALESA founding leadership was ferried to Lusaka where they met Comrade OR Tambo, Josih Jele and Jacob Zuma. These briefed them of their task and the desire of the ANC to work with the Chiefs towards the liberation of Blacks in general and the Africans in particular.
Movement of the chiefs is often guided by traditional healers. Traditional healers had a major influence in both urban and rural African areas. I then proposed to the ANC that there was a need to add to CONTRALESA the Congress of traditional healers, SAYCO collected data of such traditional healers but because of the difficulties associated with their profession and the fact that the youth were instructed by SAYCO to confront and defeat superstition, as well as concentrated enemy fire against SAYCO this one project never matured. Having noted and studied the difficulties presented by the system of migratory labour system in organising the rural communities I once again approached the ANC HQ for appreciation of the need to establish an organisation of migrant workers in the hostels in and around the urban areas. As Comrade Ephraim Mogale concluded in his analysis of the problem, all important decisions including decisions to join organisations by rural communities are suspended during the year because of the absence of bread winners who are far away in hostels. "December, in the rural areas, has become the month of decision". Since the head of the family is not necessarily the bread winner and decisions including those affecting the chiefs and their work are taken by breadwinners who are mostly migrants there was a need to capture them in the urban areas. Thus we established NOTPECO, the Northern Transvaal People's Congress.
A second State of Emergency was declared. I was once again arrested and detained under Section 29 of Internal Security Act because I had dispatched MK cadres to the Northern Province, deployed others in Moutse and armed others in Tembisa. As a result, said the police, a number of skirmishes in these areas have increased. I was told that police and army personnel had been killed and so on and so on. My arrest was engineered by one of the MK Comrades under my command who had turned Askari. As a commander of the Moutse based Northern province PMC (Political military Command) and SAYCO president I faced a few setbacks in this connection. According to his affidavit this latest arrest was a mistake. An assembly of about 50 (fifty) Askaries and security police were dispatched to find and kill me. The task of the Askari was to point me out since he was still working under my command without me knowing that he had become a turncoat. Instead when I met him in a nightclub he warned me not to come close instead he indicated that I should disappear and that's why I survived. He however helped them to trace me to the next spot near old COSATU House. His plan was to ensure that if they found me they should at least be disturbed and not be able to kill me. So finally when they surrounded me there were soldiers there and this disturbed the plan to kill me because it was supposed to have been done away from the public eye. I was then arrested and placed at John Vorster under Section 29 of Internal Security Act.
I was taken to Pietersburg and someone among the police alerted my mother that I was arrested. My mother visited the police station unannounced. It was when she was waiting to be attended that she saw me marched in chains against police claims that I was not with them. She was allowed to go home and then arrested and put under the state of emergency for nine months. I was transferred to Pietersburg Prison. Comrade Dipuo Peters paid me a visit and reported that the rest of SAYCO leadership had been detained. She was alone outside. Inside prison I was in communication with Comrade Rapu Molekane through smuggled notes carried by our lawyer Fink Haysom. We had taken a decision that a defiance campaign must be launched in all the prisons and in courts. None of the comrades should co-operate with the courts and prison warders. I also communicated to Dipuo that we would encourage a process of her forming a nucleus of second layer SAYCO leadership to sustain the organisation. She did this and that is how Comrade Phakamile "Parks" Mankahlana was brought into the national leadership structures of SAYCO. I also smuggled out to Dipuo papers written on a toilet paper on new SAYCO policy and on Organisation and Leadership.
The State of Emergency was lifted in 1989. The security police failed to put together a case against me. I was released in May 1989.
I visited Lusaka to report to the ANC. The Movement briefed me about negotiations, organisational challenges faced by both the underground and the mass democratic movement.
So it came to pass that when Mandela was released I was in detention under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act and held in Warmbaths in a sealed cell, painted white and with air coming in controlled and all sound from the outside barred. Torture and violence followed. My interrogation was co-ordinated by Captain Putter. At some point apartheid Minister of Law and Order, Mr Adriaan Vlok visited the police station and refused to hear my case. Part of the interrogation involved questions around what the attitude of the youth would be towards negotiations? Whether SAYCO could not accommodate talks with Afrikaner youths. My response was that SAYCO emphasises negotiations with the genuine representatives of the people, the ANC. I refused to receive any Afrikaner youth leader to explore possibilities of talks and pointed out that I can only do so when I was a free man with the benefit of belonging to the collective of my organisation SAYCO. When Azar Cachalia as a legal representative was allowed to see me I briefed him about these happenings. Comrade Nelson R Mandela demanded that I be released. So I was released on 19 February 1990.
I found the debates about how to re-launch the ANC under new legal conditions raging. The future of the UDF was also under discussions. As SAYCO we adopted a contrary view to that of some leaders in the UDF. Our position was clear: the UDF must disband and give way to the ANC. Members of the component structures of the UDF would all be members of the ANC. So we went to the Kwa-Ndebele UDF Conference armed with this position and a document we had written about fronts, alliances and their role and place is the struggles for freedom. The document was counterposed to the UDF delivered by Comrade Popo Molefe. After long debates SAYCO asked me to announce our position and demand that the UDF must disband and give way to the ANC. I did so and also announced that SAYCO has decided to dissolve and form the ANC Youth League. I pointed out that SAYCO would oppose and fight against any attempts to set up a "social movement". The UDF then disbanded and we proceeded to work towards the re-launch of the ANC Youth League. We formed the Provisional National Youth Committee to facilitate and co-ordinate the processes. We chose that the re-launch of the ANCYL will be held on 27 October 1990 in honour of OR Tambo whose birthday fell on that date. At our Conference to re-launch I was elected the President. We also elected Comrade OR Tambo the Life President of the ANCYL.
After 1994 27 April General Elections I was elected MP
As an MP I was appointed Chairman of the Portfolio Committee on Tourism and
Environmental Affairs.
I was appointed Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in August
1996.
In 1999 I was dropped from the Executive and took my place as a backbencher
In February 14 2000 I fell sick. Once again malicious rumour had a field day
with stories that I had died that the media promoted. This campaign was conducted
both within and outside the organisation. During this time Comrade President
Thabo Mbeki played a major role to see to it that I did not succumb to death.
Comrade Winnie Mandela and her daughter Zindzi as well as Comrade Thabang Makwetla,
Tony Yengeni, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, Sidney Mufamadi, Joe Maswanganyi, the many
doctors (some of whom organised by Comrade President Thabo Mbeki and others
by Winnie Mandela) and Churches including the ZCC, many other comrades and people
individually and as groups played an invaluable role.
In 2001 I was appointed NEC sub-Committee member for the Northern Province.
I am part of the ANC's National Political Committee.
I am appointed Chairman of the Powers and Privileges Committee of Parliament.
I am also appointed Head of ANC Election Machinery and Campaigns.