Tsala ea Becoana: Difference between revisions
| Line 7: | Line 7: | ||
==Early Life== |
==Early Life== |
||
Wilton “Bri-Bri” Zamisile Mkwayi was born in Chwarhu area near [[Middledrift]] in 1923. His parents were uneducated farmers <ref name= “Wilton”>[http://www.sadet.co.za/docs/rtd/stories/stories%20-%20wilton%20mkwayi.pdf Ndlovu, S. and Houston, G. 2008. “The Road to Democracy: South Africans Telling Their Stories”. Online. Accessed 3 September.]</ref> He was one of seven children. Mkwayi started school at age ten in a Presbyterian church building in Keiskammahoek. He had a rural childhood herding sheep and goats, and passing through circumcision school <ref name= "Wilton"/>. |
Wilton “Bri-Bri” Zamisile Mkwayi was born in Chwarhu area near [[Middledrift]] in 1923. His parents were uneducated farmers <ref name= “Wilton”>[http://www.sadet.co.za/docs/rtd/stories/stories%20-%20wilton%20mkwayi.pdf Ndlovu, S. and Houston, G. 2008. “The Road to Democracy: South Africans Telling Their Stories”. Online. Accessed 3 September.]</ref> He was one of seven children. Mkwayi started school at age ten in a Presbyterian church building in Keiskammahoek. He had a rural childhood herding sheep and goats, and passing through circumcision school <ref name= "Wilton"/>. Mkwayi became a member of the ANC at age 17 after his father, also a member of the ANC, gave him a membership card. He left school in 1943, while World War 2 was ongoing, to work at a dynamite factory in [[Somerset West]]. Mkwayi left [[Somerset West]] for [[Port Elizabeth]] in 1945 to work offloading big trucks and trains; he also worked at the docks. |
||
==Political Career== |
==Political Career== |
||
Revision as of 04:04, 5 September 2017
““Wilton Zimasile Mkwayi””
Wilton Zimasile Mkwayi was born on 17 December 1923 in Middledrift, Eastern Cape. He was an African National Congress veteran and one of the first six members of Umkonto weSizwe to be sent for military training.
Early Life
Wilton “Bri-Bri” Zamisile Mkwayi was born in Chwarhu area near Middledrift in 1923. His parents were uneducated farmers [1] He was one of seven children. Mkwayi started school at age ten in a Presbyterian church building in Keiskammahoek. He had a rural childhood herding sheep and goats, and passing through circumcision school [2]. Mkwayi became a member of the ANC at age 17 after his father, also a member of the ANC, gave him a membership card. He left school in 1943, while World War 2 was ongoing, to work at a dynamite factory in Somerset West. Mkwayi left Somerset West for Port Elizabeth in 1945 to work offloading big trucks and trains; he also worked at the docks.
Political Career
On 1 May 1950, he participated in the ANC Youth League’s one-day general strike and stay away across South Africa. He was a leader of the 1952 Defiance Campaign in the Eastern Cape . [3]. He was also union organiser for the African Textile Workers Union in Port Elizabeth in the early 1950s [4]. He worked as treasurer of the South African Congress of Trade Unions. He was arrested after the Defiance Campaign for a metal workers strike and escaped with a fine [4].
Mkwayi was one of the 156 co-accused in the 1956 Treason Trial for supporting the Freedom Charter calling for a nonracial democracy and a Socialist-based economy [5].
Mkwayi went into hiding during the trial and the 1960 State of Emergency while the other defendants were detained, later arrested and tried during the Rivonia Trial. He was able to escape because a policeman mistook him for an ordinary member of the public. He started his exile in Lesotho with Moses Mabhida, Ambrose Makiwane and Joe Matthews. From Lesotho he journeyed to Swaziland, Congo, Ghana and the UK to meet the British Trade Unions Council (BTUC). The BTUC funded his travels to Prague, Romania and Czechoslovakia to establish contacts for the South African Council of Trade Unions. [1]
Alongside Raymond Mhlaba, Patrick Mthembu and Joe Gqabi, Wilton Mkwayi was sent for military training at the Nanking Military School in China. He met Mao Tse-tung while in China. They were the first Umkonto weSizwe trainees.[6]
He returned to Britain after his training where he met Oliver Reginald Tambo. He returned clandestinely to South Africa in 1962 to work underground and lead sabotage operations such as Operation Mayibuye. His most documented disguise was a clerical collar that allowed his to pass for a township preacher.
After Nelson Mandela, Raymond Mhlaba and other co-defendants were arrested in July 1963, Mkwayi briefly took command of Umkonto weSizwe. He was arrested at his girlfriend’s house in Orlando West Extension 1964 after he was sold out by a mole within the ANC to the Apartheid police [1]. He was detained in solitary confinement and subjected to torture while awaiting trial.
Mkwayi was charged with Sabotage and Suppression of Communism Acts, with furthering the aims of communism and conspiring to bring about a violent revolution, allegedly as a member of the new High Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was sentenced in December 1964 in the Little Rivonia Trial and sent to Robben Island where he met Nelson Mandela and Govan Mbeki. During his imprisonment, he was one of three prisoners – along with Nelson Mandela and Mac Maharaj planning to escape during a visit to a dentist in Cape Town. They called their escape plan off when they suspected a police trap setting them up for assassination [6]
Mkwayi was released from Robben Island on 10 October 1989. In 1992, he was honoured with the ANC’s highest award, Isitwalandwe Medal (““the one who wears the plumes of the rare bird.”) awarded to those who have made an outstanding contribution and sacrifice to the liberation struggle [4].
He was elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC in July 1991 and he continued to serve as a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC until 1997 when he stepped down due to his ill health. From 1994, he served as a member of the National Assembly. He continued to serve as a member of Parliament in the National Assembly until his passing on 24 July 2004.
His funeral was held in King William's Town and attended by Phumzile Mlambo-Ncuka. His cremation was attended by Thabo Mbeki[4].
Personal Life
In 1985, in a Robben Island Prison Ceremony, he married his childhood sweetheart Ntombifuthi Irene Khumalo and they had two children. She succumbed to cancer in 1987. He married a second time and his wife Patricia Lang-Mkwayi survives him. [6]
References
- ^ a b c Ndlovu, S. and Houston, G. 2008. “The Road to Democracy: South Africans Telling Their Stories”. Online. Accessed 3 September.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Wiltonwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ 2013. “Wilton Z. Mkwayi” Online. Accessed 3 September.
- ^ a b c d 2004. “Statement on the death of Wilton Mkwayi” Online. Accessed 3 September.
- ^ The Associated Press. 2004. “Wilton Mkwayi, 81, Prisoner with Mandela for 2 Decades” Online. Accessed 3 September.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
“Obituaries”was invoked but never defined (see the help page).