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The Citizen
28-05-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
ANC hero George Mbhele remembered
The KZN ANC interim fundraiser, Nomagugu Simelane-Mngadi, addressed scores of ANC members at the George Mbhele memorial lecture at the Adventist Youth Camp in Anerley last Saturday. Simelalane-Mngadi said that not all ANC heroes were famous and that they were gathered to remember a man whose story is rarely told. 'The name George Mbhele does not easily roll off many people's tongues. This is because, way too often, we tend to only speak of the struggle for our liberation using names that became famous. We usually pay tribute to Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu, Winnie Mandela, and many others and rightly so; because those leaders made a great contribution to our liberation. But today, we have an opportunity to go deeper to take an unusual, but equally important route and remember those who were just as brave and committed, but whose names don't get mentioned every day in our public discourse. Comrade George Mbhele is one of those heroes,' she said. According to Simelane-Mngadi, Mbhele was a teacher, a husband, a father, a leader, and a freedom fighter at Umzumbe Fairview Mission in 1930, and joined the liberation struggle due to his strong sense of justice and patriotism. 'He was the second-born of four brothers and was the first in the area to gain an MBA degree from the University of Fort Hare, even though his father was a farm worker earning peanuts. Mbhele witnessed the repressive laws of apartheid first-hand as they stripped black South Africans of their land rights and dignity, such as the Group Areas Act, which forced people out of their homes to make way for whites-only areas,' she said. Also, Mbhele was a teacher at Lamontville in Durban where he also operated as an ANC youth leader. Twice, he was held on 90 days without trial in solitary confinement due to his political activism. 'In 1961, along with Govan Mbeki and Johnny Makhathini, Mbhele worked with Albertina Sisulu to help recruit nurses from South Africa to work in Tanzania. This was after an exodus of British nurses after Tanzania attained freedom. He was arrested in May 1963 and put in solitary confinement for 11 months before being sentenced to four years' imprisonment on a charge of being an active member of the ANC,' said Simelane-Mngadi. She said Mbhele was taken to Pollsmoor Prison, before being moved to Robben Island, where he stayed behind bars until his release in 1968. 'Mbhele served time alongside Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, and other great leaders of our liberation struggle. At the time of his arrest, his wife, Sibusisiwe Mbhele, was a nurse at King Edward VIII Hospital. She was left alone to raise their two children Njabulo (3) and Duduzile (2),' said Simelane-Mngadi. Mbhele's wife then became the family's sole breadwinner, but authorities forcibly removed her from her workplace for questioning, and she was eventually dismissed from the hospital and banned from working as a nurse. 'On his release in 1968, Mbhele was given a banning order from gaining employment as a teacher, attending church, or having more than two visitors at his home. The couple also had to report to the police station twice a week. On the ANC's advice, they left for the UK on April 10, 1970. He was offered a history teacher's job, after a headmaster read about his story in The Guardian newspaper. His wife also got a nursing job. The family moved to Zimbabwe in 1982, but his wife sadly died in 1987 after a visit to South Africa,' she said. In 1991, Mbhele returned to South Africa with his second wife, Ellen and her children, and became the deputy principal of Fairview Mission School, where his own journey had started. 'In February 1994, Mbhele was shot dead in his office at school, just two months before South Africa's first democratic national elections on April 27, 1994. He was shot by two young boys who came to the school wearing khaki uniforms and gave him a letter to read, but suddenly shot him dead,' said Simelane-Mngadi. HAVE YOUR SAY Like the South Coast Fever's Facebook page At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
TimesLIVE
22-04-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Luthuli was killed by apartheid govt because ANC was rising to power
An inquest into the death of ANC president-general chief Albert Luthuli in the Pietermaritzburg high court was told on Tuesday the leader was killed by the apartheid regime because he was regarded as a threat. KZN ANC convener Jeff Radebe who took the witness stand said the murder took place because under Luthuli's leadership the ANC had started to become more militant against the apartheid government. Radede said under his leadership the ANC's military wing uMkhonto we Sizwe and ANCYL were formed. He said the blueprint of the Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown in 1955 while Luthuli was at the helm of the ANC. 'During Luthuli's leadership the defiance campaigns were intensified and as a result the apartheid government regarded our president-general as a danger, so he had to be killed,' said Radebe. He said despite various banning orders against him including house arrest, Luthuli was able to hold secrets meetings plotting against the apartheid government. Prosecutor advocate Ncedile Dunywa put it to Radebe his evidence on Luthuli's militancy was in contrast to the picture created of a man of God who loved peace. Radebe conceded Luthuli was a man of peace but said his attitude changed because of the approach of the apartheid government. He said their tactics forced cadres to have two options — to submit or fight against the oppressive regime. 'Cadres like Luthuli chose to fight instead of submitting,' said Radebe. He said his influence also got international recognition, resulting in him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in 1961. 'Fellow Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King jnr who spoke highly about, and held Luthuli in high regard, was also eventually killed,' said Radebe. He said the former US president John F. Kennedy who visited Luthuli in Groutville was also assassinated, adding that many people who associated themselves with the ANC leader were killed or imprisoned. He said because of his influence the apartheid government had no choice but to kill him and cover up his cold-blooded murder as an accident. 'As the ANC we never believed the lies [that] Luthuli was hit by a goods train, and that is why we are here today,' he said.
