Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) veteran Peter Molotsi (81), died yesterday
following a long illness, the party said. Molotsi had been one of only
two remaining members of the original national executive committee when
the party was founded in 1959, PAC spokesperson Lehlohonolo Shale said
today.
He had occupied the post of secretary for pan African affairs under
party president Robert Sobukwe. Shale said Molotsi, who was born in
Kroonstad, had been a "revolutionary intellectual." He worked as a
journalist on Bantu World, later re-titled the World, after leaving
school.
He became an office-bearer in the African National Congress Youth
League, participated in the Defiance Campaign, and served a spell in
jail after being convicted under anti-communist legislation. Molotsi was
one of a trio of PAC leaders who left South Africa in 1960, after the
party was banned, to organise the PAC in exile and set up headquarters
in Dar-es Salaam.
He later became the PAC representative in the United States and at the
United Nations. He completed a doctorate and lectured at various
universities in the US. Shale said that Molotsi died at his Kroonstad
home. Funeral arrangements have not been finalised, he said.
