of former Executive Mayor of Matlosana, Jaycee Nxamakele and his wife and two
children, Brazil Stadium, Klerksdorp
10 September 2006
The family of Nxamakele,
Relatives, friends and former colleagues,
The Executive Mayor of Matlosana,
All representatives of government present here,
Representatives of the tripartite alliance of the ANC, COSATU and SACP
present,
Our honoured traditional leaders,
Our spiritual leaders,
The community of Matlosana,
Ba gaetsho dumelang:
I would like to thank the family of Nxamakele for giving me an opportunity
to pay my last respects to the former mayor and his departed wife and
children.
Nothing could have prepared us for this tragic and sudden loss of precious
lives. The people and the entire province of the North West are bleeding
profusely from this calamity and it is on their behalf that I express my
sincere condolences today.
At times like this, we can only pray to the almighty that he gives all of us
strength but particularly the members of the Nxamakele family to survive
through this untold ordeal and not to lose faith in him.
As I have said, the entire province is still reeling with shock from the
passing on of this leader of our people. While we are still coming to grips
with this sudden loss of lives, we are equally at a loss as to what
circumstances could trigger such actions from a man who has steadfastly held
onto the beliefs that none of the challenges and problems faced by this
province and its people are insurmountable.
Nevertheless, today we have not come to speculate on the circumstances
surrounding this tragedy. We have come to pay tribute to lives spent in the
struggle for freedom and in the service of our people.
While this is a moment of great pain and grief for the Nxamakele family it
is equally a moment of intense pain and sadness for all of us in the local and
provincial government in Nxamakele's movement, the African National Congress
(ANC), his party, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and our people as a
whole.
At this critical time of the transformation and development of our province
and indeed our country into a new non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous home
for all our people we have lost a soldier in the fight to turn these ideals
that define our movement into reality.
Nxamakele spent almost totally all his life in struggle for the liberation
of our country from apartheid oppression and in recent times in the service of
our people. He fought for freedom, ready to lay down his life if necessary
because he wanted our people to have the possibility to build a better life for
themselves.
He was as ready to serve as a combatant in the first stage of our democratic
revolution to ensure the defeat of the apartheid system as he was ready to
serve as a combatant in the second stage of our democratic revolution to help
achieve the goal of a better life for all our people.
He agreed to serve in the local structures and governance of the North West
province so that he could make his indelible contribution to the realisation of
this objective. All of us here know that comrade Jaycee Nxamakele discharged
his obligations in this regard particularly as the Executive Mayor of Matlosana
with the great determination, skill, courage, boldness, discipline and
enthusiasm with which he engaged the overall historic and revolutionary project
of the fundamental transformation of our province and our country.
At the time of his death Jaycee Nxamakele was an elected and dedicated
representative of his community as councillor in the Matlosana Local
Municipality. He dedicated his entire adult life to the development of all of
our people. For that we are eternally grateful.
Comrade Nxamakele was a staunch communist at the time, the Regional
Chairperson of the SACP as well as leader of the ANC in the region. He was a
man of principle, a revolutionary, a fierce debater and a man of culture and
politics.
The void he has left in the provincial and local politics as well as in the
entire democratic movement can never be filled. At a time when this democracy
and freedom which he fought so hard for and valued so much was already bearing
fruits in the form of accelerated service delivery to our people, the army of
elected leaders has lost one of its dedicated soldiers.
All of us his former colleagues and comrades, as members of our communities
and as cadres of our democratic movement must pick up his spear and continue on
the chosen path of building a better life for all our people, a path that
Nxamakele dedicated his entire life to.
We therefore have an inescapable duty to follow that path which he chose to
its logical revolutionary conclusion. Individually, variously and collectively
we must therefore continue to work hard to eradicate the poverty and
underdevelopment that continue to afflict millions of our people.
Individually, variously and collectively we must ensure that we expand,
modernise and transform our economy including the second economy so that it
generates the resources we need to provide a better life for all our
people.
Individually, variously and collectively we must continue on the historical
path of building a democratic state committed to serve all our people, as well
as empower them so that we realise one of the objectives that comrade Jaycee so
eloquently articulated that âthe people shall governâ.
Individually, variously and collectively we must strive to ensure that
nobody in our country is left abandoned, without care, left to die through
destitution and hunger or without any help or support from this caring
government that comrade Jaycee helped to build.
In our different and various manners, we must continue to ensure that the
most vulnerable in our society, the women, the children, the elderly and people
with disabilities get the necessary protection and support from the democratic
government that comrade Jaycee so ably served.
He is no more now but his spirit lives within us and it must propel us
further in the path of building new relations of friendship and solidarity with
the peoples of Africa and the rest of the world, committed to the objective of
the creation of a just world order.
For these are the ideals to which comrade Jaycee dedicated his life and
these are the strategic principles that define the direction our movement and
our government including the Matlosana Local Municipality that he led chose as
the path to a better life for all.
As we put ashes to ashes and dust to dust as we lay these mortal remains of
our former colleague and comrade and his family to its permanent place, we must
renew our principled activism as fighters for the reconstruction, development
and growth of our province and our country.
All of us who had the privilege to call Jaycee our comrade now have an
opportunity to demonstrate in both word and deed that we were and still are his
fellow fighters for freedom and development.
Tragic as these circumstances are today; sombre as this occasion is today we
are nevertheless called upon to renew our ties as comrades and soldiers for
reconstruction and development to dedicate the rest of our lives to the
unqualified service of the people of North West, of South Africa and of the
continent of Africa.
By re-dedicating ourselves this way and in comrade Jaycee's spirit we will
continue on the path that he had chosen and bequeath to this earth a legacy
that will stay with generations and generations to come.
That way and when we finally attain a better life for all, we will be able
to say without fear or contradiction that the life of Jaycee Nxamakele and that
of his wife and two children were not in vain.
On behalf of the provincial government and the North West people as a whole,
I would like to once more extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the
late comrade Jaycee Nxamakele, his wife and children to the close family,
relatives and friends and to all those of us who have known and worked with
Jaycee in various contexts.
We once again ask the Lord for strength and may their souls rest in
peace!
I thank you!
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
10 September 2006
