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Anti-apartheid struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada has died following complications that occurred after surgery.
His foundation made the announcement via Twitter just before 6am today.
Ahmed #Kathrada has passed on. Details to follow.
— Kathrada Foundation (@KathradaFound) March 28, 2017
Kathrada was hospitalised on March 4 for surgery related to blood clotting on the brain.
He had initially been admitted to hospital for dehydration, but doctors later picked up the clot, which was removed. His condition had deteriorated in the last 24 hours, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation’s Director Neeshan Balton said on Monday.
Kathrada had experienced several postoperative complications, rendering his condition serious.
“Kathrada has contracted pneumonia, which has affected both his lungs ... He is currently comfortable.”
Kathrada was one of the last Rivonia trialists still alive – the other two being Andrew Mlangeni and Denis Goldberg. Along with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba and Elias Motsoaledi, they were sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment on Robben Island during the famous Rivonia Trial.
Despite his age, Kathrada had remained in the public eye.
He came out strongly against President Jacob Zuma this year, even calling for him to resign, but his belief in the ANC – that it was the only party of choice for South Africans – remained firm.
In an open letter penned following the Constitutional Court judgment on Nkandla that Zuma had failed to “uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law”, Kathrada wrote that if he were Zuma, he would step down. But on the election campaign trail with the ANC in Orange Farm in Gauteng in July, the former Robben Island prisoner was full of unflinching loyalty for the liberation movement turned political party.
“The ANC is still the party of choice because it can be the only party of choice,” he said.
“The ANC brought us freedom. It led the people of South Africa to freedom. For the first time after 300 years of apartheid rule, it was the ANC that brought freedom to our country. Freedom did not fall from heaven, freedom was fought for. Freedom was sacrificed for.
“With freedom comes responsibility, and that responsibility falls on the shoulders of young people, because they are the majority of the people.
“They are the ones who are benefiting most from freedom. So the responsibility is to themselves, their parents and to the country.
“We hope and we know that the youth of today will carry out the duties imposed on them.”
Last year, he co-authored his seventh book, this one with journalist Sahm Venter about his opinions, encounters and experiences.
Ahmed Mohamed “Kathy” Kathrada was born on 21 August 1929 in Schweizer-Reneke.
He entered politics at the age of 12 when he joined a non-racial youth club in Johannesburg that was run by the Young Communist League.
Kathrada was jailed for the first time at the age of 17 in the Passive Resistance Campaign, for defying a law that discriminated against Indians. In 1952, along with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and 17 others, he was sentenced to nine months in prison with hard labour, suspended for two years, for their involvement in the Defiance Campaign. He received his first banning orders in 1954 and was arrested several times for breaking them.
On July 11 1963 he was arrested in a police raid on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. This led to the Rivonia Trial for sabotage. Kathrada was in prison for 26 years and three months, 18 years of which were on Robben Island.
Kathrada served as Mandela’s parliamentary counsellor from 1994 to 1999 and for one term as the chairperson of the Robben Island Museum Council. In 2008, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation was established, with the aim of deepening non-racialism.
Kathrada is survived by his wife, former minister of health and public enterprises Barbara Hogan. – Information on Kathrada’s life courtesy of his foundation’s website
