RIP Gladys Nzimande-Tsolo: Courageous uMkhonto we Sizwe heroine dies

The death of an extraordinary woman who fought against apartheid is being mourned. Gladys Nzimande-Tsolo, 83, died in her sleep on Wednesday.

She was married to Nyakane Tsolo, the leader of the 1960 anti-pass campaign in Sharpeville.

Tsolo is one of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) members who heeded a call of their leader at the time, Robert Sobukwe, to surrender themselves to nearby police stations for failing to produce “dompas”.

The liberation struggle history does not adequately capture the voices of females as it does of male figures.

Nzimande-Tsolo is one of many victims of this unfair historical mistreatment.

She was born in 1940 in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal. She wanted to become a nurse. She could not pursue her studies in South Africa due to the divisive laws that existed then.

She resorted to becoming a domestic worker around Joburg.

She left for Botswana in 1961, where she joined uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) until 1965, when she went to East Germany where she finally trained to become a nurse at Lumumba Institute, in Leipzig, Germany.

According to Marjan Boelsma, the former chair of Azania Kommitte – a Netherlands-based organisation helping black political parties during apartheid – Nzimande-Tsolo was among the first women to join MK.

“Gladys was a freedom fighter. She has been with MK between 1960 to 1970. Undoubtedly, she is among the first female guerillas. She was trained in Tanzania, the Soviet Union and East Germany,” said Boelsma.

Nzimande-Tsolo not only obtained her nursing qualification in Germany, but she also met the man of her dreams, a life partner.

They loved each other and were both patriotic until the end of their lives. She also joined the PAC of which her husband was a leader.

She remained a proud member of the party until her last breath. One of Nzimande-Tsolo’s two children, Julia Nzimande-Tsolo, said her mother was not happy with the current status quo.

“Like any other veteran who fought for a better country, she was not happy with everything going wrong in our country.

“She is not the only one feeling like that; many people are hurt,” her daughter said.

Realising there were many heroes and heroines who were not recorded in the history books of the country’s struggle, she began the Nyakane Tsolo Foundation in 2018, to tell the courageous stories of her husband as well as those who have been forgotten by history.

She will be buried in Sharpeville next weekend.