Inkwenkwezi eQaqambileyo
Programme Director
PEC member Cde Fikile Desi Veteran Mama Lamani
Cde Ben Exec Mayor of Nelson Mandela Municipality
Cde Thando Ngunombe Deputy Mayor & Regional Chairperson MKVA Nomfundiso Kulett
Cde Linda Mthi thank you for availing yourself at the last minute. Cde Mbulelo Musi representing the Dept of Military Veterans HOD of Human Settlements Mr. Gestro
Reverend Xundu and Mama Qupe The family of Cde Nomkhosi Mini
DDG of Human Settlements and all Officials
All honoured guests, comrades, ladies and gentlemen I greet you all this afternoon.
On behalf of the ANC led government under the leadership of Comrade Jacob Zuma our President I feel very honoured to be given this opportunity of addressing this gathering in Memory of Cde Nomkhosi Mini.
I am very humbled and great full that this dream has finally come true in this 20 years of freedom.
We do so comrades as we round up the month of August the women’s month.
We know that in this month we normally remember those courageous women who marched 20 000 of them to the Union building on the 9th of August 1956 led by Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Marry Moodely, Sophie DeBryuin and many others.
We also reconnect in this month with women who marched in Bloemfontein in 1913 led by Charlotte Maxeke.
There are many courageous women who over the years have picked up the fallen spears of these courageous women and continued the struggle.
Such as Albertina Sisulu, Ivy Gcina, Mildred Lesia, Elizabeth Mafikeng, Ida Mntwana, Dora Tamane to mention just a few.
When the watershed years of the student uprising in 1976 took place many young women swelled the ranks of Umkhonto Wesizwe and took up arms in pursuit of freedom in our life time.
Cde Nomkhosi Mini was one of them.
She trained in Angola at a camp called Nove Ketenge as part of Monceda Detachment.
As we are in the war path of telling a good story it is imperative that we tell the good story of these young heroines.
Their contribution should not be forgotten. They have left an indelible mark in our struggle for a free, non sexist, non racial and democratic South Africa and paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedom today with their lives.
And to those who were in exile and those who continued the fight inside the borders of South Africa we are forever grateful for your courage to fight for our freedom.
It is time for us to rewrite our history.
This gallant figure was at the camp when that very camp was attacked by the apartheid regimes defense force.
She was lucky to survive that attack.
Mary survived this attack because women of Umkhonto Wesizwe took a conscious decision not be treated differently in the camps because they are women.
They subjected themselves to vigorous military training side by side with their male comrades.
By so doing they mastered the art of war.
She took leadership positions in the camps as commander and commissar. Including driving tanks, shooting bazookas, ZKU- Mzeke zeke and engineers.
Most of all they were combat ready 24/7 preparing for possible attacks by the enemy through mock attacks.
This is the combat readiness that made Cde Mary to survive the attack where some cadres were killed.
I met Mary in Lesotho she was a disciplined, strong and dedicated cadre of our movement.
She was always in a jovial mood. Her moral was always high.
Cde’s we are here today to remind ourselves that freedom was indeed never free.
Many sons and daughters of our soil lost their lives for freedom. We owe it to them to tell fellow South Africans particularly the younger generation of how this freedom has come about by reminding them of the journey of heroines like Nomkhosi Mini.
We must tell their good story.
It is critical for all of us to remember where we come from in order to know where we are going.
We were together in Lesotho in 1985 where we became close friends. Cde Nomkhosi was excited about the new house she had just acquired. She invited us to a house warming party. We were excited about the invitation and we all agreed we would attend her party.
She told us that the party will be on Saturday in her new house. We met that morning in town in Maseru where she was doing shopping for the party.
We assured her that we will see each other that evening and that was the last time I saw her.
What happened was that the car which was meant to fetch us never pitched up and that is how we survived that deadly attack.
We heard in the early hours of the following day that the Boers have struck once again and murdered 6 of our comrades at that house.
We were also informed that a baby was found playing on her mother’s lifeless body and both parents were amongst the six fallen comrades.
The Comrades who were killed were Mary Nomkhosi Mini, Morris, Joe Jwuka and his wife, Trevor from Paarl and Themba known as Sgananda from Guguletu in NY 1.
What a moment of darkness we felt on that day. What a pain filled our hearts.
What a sorrow we experienced.
It was like we were dreaming but it was indeed a reality that our Cde Mary was no more. But we knew Alutha Continua!
That is how Cde Mary Nomkhosi departed and she died with her boots on. Our tried and tested leaders rose to the challenge and continued the mission.
As usual when comrades had fallen they sent a convoy to Lesotho from Lusaka led by Treasurer General Thomas Knobi who spoke at the funeral.
We were also overwhelmed by the support of people from home in particular from PE & Cape Town led by Mama Ivy Gune who came in by numbers from all over South Africa.
Immediately after the funeral there was a Coup orchestrated by the South African regime in Lesotho at the time in which they used LLA.
Boers at the time closed all entries to Lesotho and all border gates. The food delivery trucks were not allowed to enter or to leave Lesotho. This extreme frustration of food led to instability in the country which resulted into a coup which crippled the government in power in Lesotho. This put pressure on Lesotho Government to throw all ANC people out of Lesotho.
We were forced to camp at the Lesotho airport overnight as we were waiting for plains to take us to Lusaka.
The planes finally came.
In Lusaka we were welcomed by the ANC President O.R Tambo and ANC Secretary General Alfred Nzo.There were many young people from PE who asked O.R to buy them sweets and he did.
I hope this background will assist in making each and everyone understand the importance of putting stories of this nature high on the agenda of our government.
As we owe it to people like Nomkhosi Mini and many others who brought about the freedom you and I enjoy today.
Nomkhosi Mini – daughter of Cde Vuyisile Mini who was the first person to be hanged by apartheid regime is one of those combatants whose names will never die.
We want their families and the South African community at large to understand that their sacrifices were not in vain.
This reminds me of the words uttered by the late Cde Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu as he was going to be hung – he said “This is to my mother. Mama do not cry for me, tell my people that I love them, that my blood shall nourish the tree that shall bear the fruits of our freedom.”
It is those very words that are sterling reminder comrades.
That as we do our work in various departments we need to reconnect with their spirits so that we can pick up their fallen spears and continue our struggle to eliminate poverty, unemployment and inequality.
As we build houses for military veterans we must start with houses of the elderly veterans.
Our target as the Department of Human Settlements is to build more than 5000 houses with in this administration.
Going forward in memory of Mary we will launch a Nomkhosi Mini Heritage programme.
It will help us to identify these unsung heroines and heroes who were in exile in all provinces and speak about their good stories towards our freedom.
It will also help us explain to our people why we are having housing backlog and It will work hand in hand with our housing consumer education programme.
But this will focus on civic education.
Its core business will be memorial lectures, seminars, camps etc. in order to create a core of Human Settlements activist who will be the ambassadors of Human Settlements using our volunteers across the country.
In conclusion programme director let me thank the Mini family for giving us comrade Vuyisile Mini and Nomkhosi Mini.
We thank you for understanding and also agreeing to join us on this memorable day.
Long live the spirit of Vuyisile Mini long live! Long live the spirit of Nomkhosi Mini long live!
Long live the spirit of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela long live Amandla!
