The David Motsamayi Branch of the ANCYL, located in Sunnyside Pretoria is making all the necessary logistical arrangements to get a date to march to Church Square to hand over a memorandum that the Statue of Paul Kruger must be removed and replaced with the names of heroes that were jailed after the conclusion of the Rivonia Trial at the Palace of Justice overlooking Church Square.
According to ANCYL the Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964. Ten leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) were charged (and eight eventually convicted) on four broad charges:
(a) recruiting persons for training in the preparation and use of explosives and in guerrilla warfare for the purpose of violent revolution and committing acts of sabotage;
(b) conspiring to commit these acts and to aid foreign military units when they [hypothetically] invaded the Republic;
(c) acting in these ways to further the objects of communism; and
(d) soliciting and receiving money for these purposes from sympathizers outside South Africa. Among other consequences, the trial led to the imprisonment of ANC leader (and future President of South Africa) Nelson Mandela and the other convicted defendants on life sentences, of which Mandela actually served 27 years.
Mandela’s speech from the dock was to prove an influential statement of his political beliefs. The trial was named after Rivonia, the suburb of Johannesburg where 19 ANC leaders had been arrested (and ANC documents discovered) at Liliesleaf Farm, privately owned by Arthur Goldreich, on 11 July 1963.
The farm had been used as a hideout for the African National Congress. Among others, Nelson Mandela had moved onto the farm in October 1961 and evaded security police while masquerading as a gardener and cook called David Motsamayi (meaning “the walker”).
