Picture: Supplied
Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) president Mzwanele Nyhontso says the party has managed to sail through the storm of leadership infighting and is now back on its feet.
The party will be fighting the May elections from a stronger position, he said.
Nyhontso, addressing mourners at the funeral of PAC stalwart and former Robben Island prisoner, Kwedi Mkhalipi, at Mandalay Methodist Church in Cape Town Saturday, said the PAC still insisted that the land must be returned to Africans because it was robbed and stolen from them.
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“We in the PAC are a solid and strong structure that passed through the turbulence of infighting and power struggles. The PAC has come out of the dust, we have shaken ourselves off, and we are now clean.
“The PAC is today proud to stand up and be counted in the general elections on 29 May 2024. We are campaigning very strongly on the ground, with whatever we have to make our presence felt, and we are certain that we will emerge stronger than ever before since we entered the post-1994 political dispensation,” Nyhontso said.
On the land issue, he said as they PAC they were debating and discussing with all other political players to “reason together and find a common ground in the resolution of the National Question”.
“We are insisting that the land of the African people must be restored to the owners because it was wrongfully usurped by colonial conquest. It was robbed and stolen by foreign invaders. This anomaly must be resolved through the power of the ballot paper. We say the land first, all else shall follow, this is to give peace a chance,” Nyhontso said.
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The PAC president paid a tribute to Mkhalipi, who made many achievements and milestones which he accumulated with a sense of humility.
He worked hard in the jobs he was assigned to, achieved success in his studies, was a loving husband to his wife, gave his children never-ending love, cared about his relatives and friends and gave everyone close to him an attention.
“He never wanted to do self-praise upon himself and he did not like to have attention of the broader public focused upon him,” Nyhontso said.
The leader revealed that Mkhalipi, a former member of Poqo, the original name of the PAC military wing before it was renamed Azanian People Liberation Army (Apla), campaigned tirelessly for some streets in Cape Town to be renamed after PAC founder Robert Sobukwe, notorious leader of the 60s Cape anti-pass march Philip Kgosana and former PAC Robben Islander Jafta Masemola.
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Mkhalipi, who spent 20 years on Robben Island, frequently knocked at the door of the Cape Metropolitan Municipality Council and the authorities listened to him.
“He was bothered by the circumstances of poverty and neglect that the heroes of the struggle are facing in today’s reality in South Africa. He wanted change and transformation in the veterans’ sector, he did his all to serve continuously for the PAC’s military veterans and Poqo stalwarts,” Nyhontso said.
Poqo was notorious for its series of military activities in the 60s throughout the country. Many of its members were arrested and imprison but a large number of were executed by the apartheid regime in Pretoria. Those executed included the so-called “94 + 1 Poqo Martyrs” .
The extra member was a white man, John Harris, who led the African Resistance Movement, the armed wing of the PAC’s aligned group from the white community.
Mkhalipi was a close associate of Poqo leader, John Nyathi Pokela and the revered Zephania Mothopeng who both became PAC presidents and was a friend of the first army commander Gerson Ndlovu, from the Cape.
Mkhalipi’s sacrifice for the struggle, his non-sectarian and non-partisan approach, went across to influence many people from various other organisations and political cultures. He was a true patriot of the African Nation,” Nyhontso said.
“What would be missed is his magnetic personality to hold together the activists and participants of the great Poqo Insurrection that first started the armed struggle in 1961 by launching its attacks on the 11th September 1961. Mkhalipi’s devotion to the task of uniting and serving through Poqo is his mark on the footprints of history. He was the glue that brought together the rural people and the urban community on Robben Island.
“Today we have come to pay respects to a man who served, suffered and sacrificed. He worked bravely, diligently and with dedication for the cause of Ama-Afrika Poqo,” Nyhontso said.
He blamed Western imperialism and its proxy war tactics for the conflicts in Palestine, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of the Congo and the simmering in Darfur, South Sudan.
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“The bloodshed in all these conflicts do not make any sense because it is the lives of ordinary men and women, children, and old people, who are sacrificed while the beneficiaries of the conflict are sitting cozily in their respective capitals in Washington, London, Paris, and other cities. Imperialism must go. Settler-colonialism must go,” Nyhontso said.
Mkhalipi was laid to rest at Eester River Cemetery, Cape Town and the funeral was also attended by many dignitaries including former Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Sthembele Khala, former Media Workers Union of SA (Mwasa) general secretary, Cunningham Ngcukana a former National Council of Trade Union (Nactu) general secretary and Mkhalipi’s Robben Island inmates and Prof Simphiwe Sesanti.
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