President Cyril Ramaphosa with Defence and Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga at Air Force Base Waterkloof. Picture: Jacques Naude / Independent Newspapers
By Carl Niehaus
Last Friday, on September 27, in the early morning hours the families of the 42 liberation heroes and heroines who passed away in exile, gathered at Isivivane, in Freedom Park, and participated in interfaith rituals as part of a poignant and deeply emotional Homecoming ceremony.
Two days earlier, on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, the mortal remains of 42 liberation soldiers who passed away in exile in Zambia and Zimbabwe arrived back home at the Waterkloof Air Force Base in the City of Tshwane, and last Friday they received the due honour that they deserve at a solemn ceremony where President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the keynote address, and laid a wreath at the Wall of Names.
The importance of these events for the very psyche of our nation cannot be overestimated. The repatriation of our Freedom Fighters forms part of the ongoing Resistance and Liberation Heritage Route Project, with the aim to commemorate, celebrate, educate, and preserve a durable testament of our long and arduous South African road to freedom. The process of doing so is not only a gesture of great honour to the individual struggle heroes, which it certainly is, but it also strengthens the historically long bonds of friendship, solidarity, and with the countries who hosted our heroes during the years of exile.
I am very deliberately reminding the readers of this piece, in a very careful and formal way, of the history, and significance of this Homecoming of our fallen heroes. I am also very deliberately not elevating any of the names among the 42 liberation heroes who have finally concluded their long and arduous liberation journey, and have now returned home.
In the early morning hours of last Friday I recited aloud the names of all 42 of them, and then silently read their short biographies attached to the Homecoming programme. There are certainly very illustrious liberation struggle heroes among them, and some of them I have known personally, but every one of these 42 fallen heroes are equally important in the dedication of their lives to our liberation struggle, and the immense sacrifices that they, and their loved ones and families, have made. It is only correct and proper that we honour and celebrate them as the collective memory and conscience to our nation that they truly are.
Many long years ago, as a young man, I sat under a lemon tree in the humble backyard of Dr Buyers Naudé (Oom Bey), one of the great spiritual leaders of our liberation struggle. Oom Bey took my hands in his, and said these simple, but very profound, words to me: “Carl, a tree without roots is not anchored, and cannot draw the water and nutrients from our African soil, when the inevitable storms in life come it will be blown over and die. Always remember your roots, and take good care of them.”
As I was reciting the 42 names of those whom our nation are welcoming home last week, I was truly pouring the sacred, holy, waters of memory on the very roots of my existence, and the existence of our nation.
This is truly one of the most important, but also delicate and fragile times in the history of our nation, and in the words of Oom Bey, we must take “good care of our roots”.
The Resistance Liberation Heritage Route Project, hugely important as it is, has certainly not been without blemish, faults, and mistakes. The Homecoming of our beloved heroes have taken far too long, and the 42 heroes and heroines that we embrace and honour are only a small number of the more than a thousand of our Freedom Fighters who remain buried across the world, from Africa to Europe and the America’s. We must continue to commit ourselves that all these fallen heroes, regardless of political affiliation, must finally be brought home, and every one of them must be honoured with the dignity that they deserve.
All the families of all these fallen heroes deserve the same recognition, and the right to dignified closure, that the families of the 42 liberation heroes that we have honoured and welcomed, are so correctly afforded. Not a single liberation struggle hero or heroine’s memory must be tarnished by delay or neglect.
Failure in this regard is really not an option, it is our nation's sacred duty. How we proceed to carry out this duty will tell much about who we are, not only to ourselves, but also to those peoples and nations who provided sanctuary to our struggle heroes, when they had to leave their beloved country under the most terrible of circumstances. The world is watching us, and we dare not fail ourselves, and them.
Sadly there are many serious warning signals that we have not taken care of our roots, and that as a nation we find ourselves in a perilous state. We are certainly not grounded and anchored as we should be!
During the past week I received disturbing messages from the leadership of the South African National Military Veteran’s Association (SANMVA), that they are deeply concerned about how they have been sidelined, and how this Homecoming project had been (miss)-appropriated by certain unscrupulous individuals, groupings, and specifically one political party, the African National Congress, for their own selfish advancement.
In the run-up to the national and provincial elections, shortly before May 29, I have been appalled by how the ANC deliberately abused the erection of tombstones for fallen liberation struggle heroes, as election campaign events. President Ramaphosa himself, and his fellow acolytes, even shamelessly attended the unveiling of tombstones in ANC regalia!
The fact that myself, and other members of the Portfolio Committee of Defence and Military Veterans, have not been invited to last Friday’s Exile Repatriation Homecoming event at Freedom Park, is not simply an unfortunate oversight, it is a sectarian and vengeful act of exclusion by the petty minded leadership of the DMV, who resent the fact that we are exposing their appallingly glaring failures to take proper care of our Military Veterans.
In addition there are very serious allegations of corruption, fraud with regard to the tender processes, and the misappropriation of the funds, related to the Resistance and Liberation Heritage Route Project.
It would be amiss of me not to refer to these serious concerns, but the immediate aftermath of the Homecoming ceremony last Friday, is not the time to further elaborate about them, that time will come in the correct fora and legal processes. However, what is appropriate now is to demand from all of us that we delve deep into our own better selves, and to conduct ourselves in such a manner that we do not bring blemish and dishonour to our fallen liberation struggle heroes, who have now finally returned home.
As part of doing so, let us also re-dedicate ourselves to the sacred freedoms that these liberation struggle heroes lived and ultimately died for, and that the sell out ANC-led government, both when it was solely in power and now in alliance with white supremacists in the farcical ‘GNU’ coalition, so recklessly squandered.
While this repatriation brings long-overdue respectful honour and closure to many families, it sadly is also a very stark symbol of the ANC’s wanton neglect, that it took so awfully long to finally come to this point. Not only has the ANC dismally failed to prioritise the dignity of our fallen heroes, but it continues to blatantly, and in the most cynical ways imaginable, to betray the very ideals for which they have sacrificed their lives.
I remain of the firm opinion that the only way to finally honour our fallen liberation struggle heroes, is to once and for all remove the ANC from any vestiges of governing power. Their continued presence in the government of South Africa, and abuse of that governing power even in exploiting the memories of our fallen heroes, is a festering wound, and an insult, that if we truly want to honour our liberation struggle legacy and heroes, can no longer be tolerated.
To TOTALLY unplug the ANC from all power, is now really the only way to take care of, and to nurture our roots!
* Carl Niehaus is a member of the EFF, and an EFF Member of Parliament in the National Assembly, representing the EFF on the Portfolio Committee for Defence and Military Veterans.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.