JK: Mandela our father too

BY THE GUARDIAN REPORTER

16th December 2013

  Says lasting bond forged in struggle

President Jakaya Kikwete speaks during funeral for former South African President Nelson Mandela in Qunu yesterday

President Jakaya Kikwete has assured South Africans that Tanzanians were mourning with them the passing of their Father of the Nation and icon of peace, Nelson Mandela.

President Kikwete speaking at Qunu village where Mandela was buried yesterday said: “The people of Tanzania have lost a great friend, a great comrade in arms.

Your grief is our grief …Your loss is our loss. He was our leader, our icon and our father as much as yours,” Kikwete said. 
The president’s delegation included Mama Maria Nyerere.
“Comrades, President Mandela had a long association with Tanzania which dates back to the time of the struggle for independence and liberation here in South Africa and back home in Tanzania.

“Our two sister parties —the ANC and TANU (Tanganyika African National Union) and later Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) enjoyed special relations and supported each other in the time of need.

“It was no accident that after the ANC decided to take the struggle to the next level and formed the armed wing ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe’ (MK), after peaceful means seemed futile, Dar es Salaam was Madiba’s port of call in January 1962.

“He left South Africa secretly through Bechuwanaland at that time, via Northern Rhodesia into Tanganyika to the town of Mbeya. And then from Mbeya arrangements were made for him to go to Dar es Salaam.
His mission was to seek support for the armed struggle and to train the MK combatants.

“Comrades and friends Mandela met our first president, Julius Kambarage Nyerere,” Kikwete said.

“Indeed this visit of Madiba was later to become a landmark event, which had the profound effect of changing the course of history of this nation, culminating in the fall of apartheid in 1994 and the birth of a new South Africa,” the president said.

Kikwete said although at first President Nyerere was hesitant in discussing with Madiba how and when to initiate the (armed) struggle, he accepted his request and gave members of the MK permission to live in Tanzania and a place to train.

“I am sure for the ANC and MK veterans gathered here, names like Kongwa, Mgagao, Morogoro, Mazimbu and Dakawa in Tanzania sound familiar and when we mention them, they may even rekindle the memories of their life in Tanzania while sharpening their tools and skills to defeat apartheid,” he said.

Kikwete said president Nyerere went beyond availing places to for ANC fighters to live in and to train. He offered Tanzania’s own moral and material support.

“The ANC found the new home in Tanzania from where it operated, organised, spearheaded the struggle … ANC was able to reach its cadres and other members who remained and operated inside South Africa through discreet means of communication,” Kikwete said.

“From Tanzania, the ANC was able to send messages to the body masses of South Africa through publications, ‘Sechaba’ and dedicated radio broadcasts … Radio freedom broadcast from Dar es Salaam.

“As a matter of fact the government of Tanzania had built a radio station for the liberation movements.

“Meagre as the contribution to the struggle was, it remains symbolic to us. Mwalimu was instrumental in mobilising regional and international support for training and arming the combatants. Indeed this applies to all other liberation movements including the PAC, MPLA, Swapo, ZAPU, ZANU and Frelimo,” Kikwete said.

He said Tanzania also gave cadres of the liberation movements, travel documents, passports, some of them with assumed Tanzanian names.

“When Madiba came to Tanzania he had no passport. But he was given a Tanzanian traveling document. It facilitated his movements …. I am not sure if Thabo Mbeki returned his passport,” he said.

“Comrades and friends, there is another interesting thing about Madiba’s first trip to Tanzania in 1962 which I would like to share with you.

“In order to keep the visit discreet, he did not stay in a hotel. He stayed at the home of TANU’s treasurer, who was also the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Asanterabi Zephania Nsilo Swai, now deceased.

“On his departure, to Accra, Lagos and Addis, he left behind his boots at Mr Swai’s home in the hope that on his way back he would pick them.
“Unfortunately he could not pass through Dar es Salaam again and shortly after returning to South Africa, he was arrested and imprisoned, spending 27 years in Robben Island, the president said, adding: “But Swai’s family kept the boots awaiting his return.”  

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN