Comrades pay tribute to struggle stalwart OR Tambo
Audience members were told moving anecdotal stories about Tambo's friendship with anti-apartheid activist Trevor Huddleston.
A statue of Oliver Tambo is pictured behind the Freedom Charter memorial, 29 June 2015, in Walter Sisulu Freedom Square, Kliptown, Soweto, during a public time travel event depicting the inception of the freedom charter. The event organised by Bridging Ages and The Department of Arts and Culture saw members of the public become members of the congregation that created the Freedom Charter in 1955 in a large scale role playing exercise. Picture: Alaister Russell
The original leadership of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and fellow comrades paid glowing tributes to the late ANC president Oliver Tambo and praised the role that he and his friend Trevor Huddleston played in organising international solidarity against apartheid.
This came from speakers during a panel discussion that formed part of the on-going commemoration of Oliver Tambo’s centenary birthday.
The event, was held at the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre in Sophiatown on Wednesday night, was organised by the British High Commission, the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation and the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre.
The smartly dressed audience heard moving anecdotal stories of this friendship from a panel that comprised of former AAM president Lord Steele, former AAM honorary secretary and South African diplomat Abdul Minty and ANC veteran and its women’s league stalwart, Gertrude Shope.
Lord Steel related how he was rope and asked to sacrifice his Cabinet post to lead the movement.
He said the UK AAM successfully convinced hotels to refuse to admit or serve PW Botha during his British visit in the 80s.
“He had to be flown by helicopter Heathrow (Airport) to the Chequers and back,” Steel said.
Relating the Tambo and Huddleston friendship, Minty said Huddleston would not do anything without first informing Tambo.
“Theirs was a very very remarkable friendship”. He attributed the AAM successes to Tambo’s foresight and Huddleston’s influence.
He said Huddleston, despite being sick, was able to organise the 1987 Harare International Conference on Children as a response to repression aimed at children by apartheid authorities.
Huddleston also initiated the Nelson Mandela Freedom at 70 campaign and organised the statesman’s birthday’s famous concert at Wembley Stadium in London in 1988.
British High Commissioner, Dame Judith Macgregor said when in London, Tambo encouraged and built lasting relationships with UK anti-apartheid organisations.
She said the horror of the Sharpeville massacre angered Britons who protesting in Hyde Park and some staged a week long protest outside the South Africa House in Trafalgar Square.
MacGregor recounted successes such as the forced the cancellation of the 1970 Springbok rugby tour, the expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth and pressured put on Barclays Bank and other leading British companies to disinvest in South Africa.
“But it was the Free Nelson Mandela campaign from the mid-1980s that was the AAM’s biggest success.
Over 50 UK towns and cities symbolically awarded Mandela the freedom of the city. Roads and public spaces were named after Mandela all over the country,” she said.
She commended the AAM’s determination and the role it played in drawing international attention to the situation in South Africa.
ANC’s Shope, said Tambo encouraged women in exile to stand up for their rights, move that culminated in the establishment of the ANC Women’s Section, as it was called.
Tambo gave Shope and other women in the movement the task of fundraising internationally for the poor children of Africa.
“To us OR (Tambo) was a very strict man who demanded accountability,” Shope said.
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