FOLLOWING the passing of Struggle activist and 1976 Soweto uprising student leader Dan Montsitsi, the ANC has lauded him for his enormous contributed to the downfall of apartheid and described him as one of the architects of South Africa’s new democracy.
Montsitsi died on Thursday following Covid-19 related complications at the age of 67 and the ANC, which described Montsitsi as a true revolutionary and selfless cadre of the liberation movement, said that his death had robbed the people of South Africa of one of its finest sons who served his country and people with selfless dedication.
In a statement, ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said that Montsitsi together with Tsietsi Mashinini and Khotso Seatholo would be remembered as a leader of the Soweto Students’ Representative Council and for the monumental role he played in the planning and execution of the 1976 Soweto uprising.
“The ANC salutes Comrade Montsitsi and the militant 1976 generation for challenging the might and brutality of a vicious regime.
“We honour Comrade Montsitsi and his generation for adding a new chapter in the history of our struggle for liberation. It was a chapter that saw young people across the length and breadth of our country occupying the foremost trenches in the struggle to defeat apartheid,” Mabe said.
Mabe also recalled Montsitsi’s imprisonment following the Soweto uprising after he was arrested by the apartheid security police on June 11, 1977, just before the first anniversary of the June 16 uprisings and how he was tortured and then imprisoned for three years on Robben Island.
Montsitsi also served the ANC as a Member of Parliament and in 2013, he was deployed as leader of the ANC parliamentary caucus while he also served on the Ad Hoc Committee on the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill, the Standing Committee on Defence and the Select Committee on Labour and Public Enterprises.
“Comrade Montsitsi was very vocal against corruption and state capture and raised his views sharply. He believed that looting of state resources was counter-revolutionary. He supported all efforts aimed at restoring the moral fibre of the ANC as well as the organisational renewal agenda of the movement.
“He contributed enormously to the downfall of apartheid and was one of the architects of our new democracy. We dare not forget his sacrifices and the vision for which he was prepared to lay down his life,” Mabe said.
He added that South Africans will treasure his memory as one of the country’s most distinguished sons who consciously chose to fight a cruel and inhumane system at a time when it was extremely dangerous to do so, and when he could have chosen to live a comfortable life as a medical doctor.
“The ANC sends its heartfelt condolences to his family, comrades and the entire mass democratic movement. We hope they will find solace in the knowledge that the whole nation shares in their grief. We wish them strength and fortitude during this difficult time,” Mabe said.
Political Bureau