Publications
Partners
On the eve of his death, anti-apartheid activist and ANC stalwart Laloo ‘Isu’ Chiba told the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation that he wished for a new ANC leadership to emerge at the party’s upcoming conference that would rescue the country from state capture.
The ANC is set to elect new leaders at the 54th conference from the 16th to the 20th of December. Chiba (87) died at his home in Lenasia on Friday. His body was cremated at the Avalon crematorium in Lenasia on Saturday afternoon.
Before his death, Chiba told the foundation, which he was instrumental in and was an active member of, that he did not want a state funeral.
His family revealed at a packed Nirvana Secondary School in Lenasia on Saturday that Chiba wrote to President Jacob Zuma in April last year requesting him to step down. The letter was also sent to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and his deputy Jessie Duarte, the family said.
Duarte was among mourners at the funeral, which was also attended by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC national executive member Derek Hanekom, Basic Education deputy minister Enver Surty, deputy minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Andries Nel and Gauteng ANC chairperson Paul Mashatile.
Delivering his tribute, Hanekom told mourners he was shocked at receiving the news of Chiba’s death, saying he was talkative the last time he met him on Wednesday.
He said Chiba at the time told him to keep up the fight and do whatever he could to ensure there was a good outcome at the ANC conference.
Hanekom, who is the chairperson of the foundation, said Chiba remained loyal to the ANC to the very end. Together with the late Kathrada, Chiba tried to fix and return the ANC to its values for the betterment of the country, he said.
Chiba was among the ANC veterans who participated at a consultative conference organised by stalwarts and veterans last month in an attempt to save the party.
Hanekom said the conference identified a need for all men and women of honour to stand up and expose dishonest elements seeking to destroy the ANC, government and country for self enrichment. The veterans and stalwarts wanted state capture to be stamped out with immediate effect.
Turning to Duarte, Hanekom said he was aware there was resentment in the ANC about the consultative conference.
“That was the gathering of the best of the best of the ANC,” he said before leaving the stage.
Motlanthe decried ANC young members, in what could be viewed as a reference to the ANC Youth League, for their unwillingness to learn from stalwarts.
He said Chiba had shared briefly his experiences with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) during a tour at Robben Island following Kathrada’s wish for opposition parties to visit the former prison.
Part of Chiba’s story entailed his experience when he was ferried with other political prisoners in a bakkie from Pretoria to Cape Town. He was cuffed in the bakkie together with others and there was a bucket of excrement at the back of the bakkie that spilt all over them.
On their arrival in Cape Town, they were awash with excrement.
After hearing Chiba’s story, the EFF leadership swore not to betray the cause of the people, Motlanthe said.
He said he wished that young ANC members would listen to stalwarts but unfortunately they have shown arrogance.
He said some ANC young leaders had no role models and seemed “committed to some revolution that is ill-defined”.
Motlanthe said Kathrada taught him that their incarceration on Robben Island didn’t make them leaders but casualties of the struggle.
“That lesson stays with us even when elected to lead,” he lamented, adding that they all needed to remember to be servants of the party’s membership and of South African people.
Motlanthe said he hoped that leaders will see their beauty in others, not in themselves.
Delivering a message from ANC stalwarts, Barbara Masekela said Chiba did not want recognition. “We live in an age where people value labels and material things. People want to sit on VIP seats, want to be recognised ... I hope we will honour him by continuing that same struggle.”
Defined as a principled activist, humble revolutionary and selfless leader, Chiba was born in Johannesburg on November 5 1930. He attended the Bree Street Primary School and the Johannesburg Indian High School in Fordsburg.
Chiba is survived by his wife, Luxmi, three daughters – Gita, Kailash and Yaswanti – seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
He is a recipient of the Order of Luthuli (silver), which was awarded to him by former president Thabo Mbeki on June 16 2004.
He was appointed as an ANC Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2004 when he retired from official politics.
During that spell in Parliament, he served on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the Portfolio Committees on Housing and Correctional Services and the Audit Commission.
As a political activist, Chiba was arrested numerous times by the apartheid state for his activism in the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.
In the early 1950s, he befriended young activists of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress (TIYC) such as Kathrada, Bobby and Tommy Vassen and Herbie Pillay, which awakened his early political consciousness.
Chiba was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment on Robben Island Prison, which he served to the last day with leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Kathrada.
Together with Mac Maharaj, he was responsible for the transcription and smuggling out of prison of Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.
