Editor’s Note: The following statement comes from one of the veterans of the liberation struggle in Occupied Azania, still called by the colonial name South Africa. Like many others, Comrade Kenny Motsamai, a commander from the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, is still languishing in prison.
While he attributes this to nepotism in the amnesty review process, what is clear here is that the larger question is that the revolution in Azania has not been completed. If Azania was free, the freedom fighters would be in power, not in prison.
Instead, we see that the petty bourgeoisie in Azania have become administrators for the same colonial system. It has changed faces from apartheid to neocolonialism; from direct white rule to white rule in black face, but it is colonialism all the same.
Our call is for the African working class in Azania to get organized to complete the revolution in Azania, tied to the entire worldwide African revolution, because it is one struggle.
It is with the completion of the African revolution that we will see the African workers and poor peasants in power and those who fought for our freedom held in high esteem, not in prison cells.
Build the African Socialist International!
By Kenny Motsamai, Commander from the Azanian People’s Liberation Army and political prisoner in South Africa
In November 2007, the then president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, addressed the national parliament and announced that a committee would be established to look into the matter of freedom fighters that were not amnestied by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Amnesty Committee.
The group was established in January 2008 and it was to complete its work in September. The results were to then be released and imprisoned freedom fighters
should have been released.
This didn’t happen, and it was later reported that results would be released in December 2008. This also did not happen.
On February 10, 2009, caretaker president Kgalema Motlanthe’s State of the Nation Address said an announcement would be made, yet nothing happened.
On April 5, 2011, it was said that the minister of correctional services, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, would look at all the applications based on merit and that political consideration would not be a factor when she applies her mind to applications before her.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqcakula then released two ANC Self-Defense Unit members, Fusi Mofokeng and Thsokolo Joseph Mokoena, from Kroonstad Prison. These two ANC political prisoners were also denied amnesty by the TRC Amnesty Committee.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqcakula pushed her political agenda by releasing the two ANC Self-Defense Unit members.
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqcakula discriminated against PAC political prisoners, applying political nepotism.
She released Mofokeng and Mokoena without involving the national council for correctional services advisory board.
Mofokeng and Mokoena were convicted in 1993 for the killing of a policeman in the then Orange Free State.
What I know for sure is that we were condemned by the apartheid masters of the colonial regime for playing a very significant role in the liberation struggle, which was previously called “terrorist,” and for laying a firm foundation for the
advancement to a democratic revolution.
It has been long now, but what are we in for?
It is absolutely criminalizing to our noble struggle to treat freedom fighters like this, and in my view, the reference committee is the agent for this humiliating and unjust treatment.
Finally, I charge the PAC and all political parties to take a stand for our noble and just struggle and to restore the dignity that goes with being part and parcel of righteous struggle, which we are suffering all in the name of the very same
struggle.
Sons and daughters of Azania, I was denied a blanket amnesty by the TRC Amnesty Committee.
I never appeared before the TRC Amnesty Committee. I was represented instead by attorney Mavundla Moses from Seriti Mavundla & Partners Attorneys Conveyances and Notaries.
I was denied a blanket amnesty by the TRC Amnesty Committee because I wanted the very same amnesty which they had granted some of the worst apartheid criminals, such as white serial killer Barend Strydom, secret police commander Dirk Coetzee and apartheid government spy and assassin Craig Williamson.
Comrades, I am a suitable candidate to be placed on the new parole system for lifers.
This is because I have more certificates than Fusi Mofokeng and Tsokolo Mokoena, who were released by Mapisa Nqakula. More efforts are needed to fight this political nepotism that is being applied by Mapisa Nqakula who is overlooking the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) freedom fighters.
Comrades, as is always the case in every war, even in the liberation war, there were casualties. This has been the case with the formation of POQO-APLA. PAC lost many of its cadres.
Some were killed in battlefields and others are today in wheelchairs or disabled, one way or another. Some have lost families through deaths in prison; others have lost their homes and businesses all because of the ANC’s political agendas.
Those who survived during these trying times have their stories to tell. We are held in South African prisons while those we helped from captivity are enjoying themselves in parliament and other organs of political power.
The fight for our release needs the same strength we had during the apartheid years. It needs the same kind of trust we had to fight against the colonial apartheid regime of South Africa.
Our freedom must be fought for by all men and women in the world who believe in human dignity and world peace, because our liberation struggle was not just a
struggle; it was a sacrifice of our life to freedom which our people are enjoying today.
APLA has a history in the democracy and freedom of this country, South Africa.
Unless the rampage of political agenda and political nepotism is halted by vigorous efforts of the international community, nepotism will always affect humanity as a whole because of its inhumane character. It must be fought by all mankind and eradicated from all elements.
Azania cannot claim to be totally free as long as cadres of the PAC liberation struggles are still languishing in prison.
Izwe Lethu I Afrika!!!!
I Afrika Izwe Lethu!!!!
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