President Thabo Mbeki paid tribute on Friday to Transkei-born activist Wycliffe Mlungisi ”Wyckie” Tsotsi, who had died earlier this week.
”His death has robbed South Africa and the African continent of a hero of the struggle for liberation, non-racism, non-sexism and justice,” Mbeki said.
Tsotsi was born in Transkei and educated at Fort Hare in the 1930s, before becoming a teacher and headmaster. He later trained as a lawyer.
As a political activist from the 1930s, Tsotsi was associated with the All-African Convention (of which he was president from 1948-1959) and the Non-European Unity Movement, which became the Unity Movement of South Africa (where he served as acting president and vice-president in the late 1950s and early 1960s).
”He was the major impetus behind the radicalisation of the Cape African Teachers’ Association in the 1940s.”
As an activist lawyer and leader of the Transkei Organised Bodies, Tsotsi was close to rural struggles of the peasants in the Transkei and Eastern Cape and gave support to elected leaders (in Tembuland, for example) who opposed the system of bantu authorities.
Tsotsi also defended teachers who were dismissed in the wake of the implementation of bantu education.
In the early 1960s, he was arrested and detained.
When he was forced into exile in the early 1960s, Tsotsi enjoyed a distinguished legal career in Zambia and Lesotho and he continued his political activities.
During this time, he devoted time to research and writing, and published a history of South Africa, From Chattel to Wage Slavery.
He also completed two other manuscripts: Out of Court, a study of the operation of bantu authorities and betterment in the Transkei bantustan, as well as an autobiographical study of repression and exile, I Was a Refugee or Was I?
On his return to South Africa, Tsotsi served his alma mater, the University of Fort Hare, as a member of its council.
In 1998, at the ripe age of 84 years, Tsotsi accepted the demanding appointment as a commissioner on the amnesty committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In this position Tsotsi again served his country with distinction, thus contributing to the establishment of justice in the new South Africa.
Tsotsi was given an honorary LLD degree by Rhodes University in 1999 in recognition of his contribution to the birth of a new South Africa.
”We would like to express our deepest condolences to Tsotsi’s wife, Mrs Blanche Tsotsi, his surviving children and family,” Mbeki said. — Sapa