WeeklySA_AdminSERVICE: Rasegatla will be buried in Hammanskraal next Thursday…
By Monk Nkomo
A former commander of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe , who was also one of the senior ANC stalwarts who waged the armed struggle against the apartheid regime and planned and executed some of the attacks on various government structures including police stations during that era, passed on this week.
Lt.Gen. Malekolle Johannes Len Rasegatla, who was in the forefront of the guerilla war against the racist government for the liberation of Black people in this country, died at his home at 1732 St. Andrews Street, Thornbrook Estate in Akasia 2 where he had settled after going on retirement.
After leaving the country and joining the ANC and its military wing in the 1970s, he received military training in Angola and the German Democratic Republic. He was a commander of a Transvaal Urban Unit (TUM) operating from Mozambique and which orchestrated a spate of attacks on government structures especially police stations in the Gauteng area. A number of policemen were killed and others injured.
He was also responsible for providing the hardware (weapons) to ANC guerillas who infiltrated the country to carry out sabotage attacks on government installations. Many of these cadres were students who had left the country at the height of the 1976 Soweto student riots to join the ANC and undergo military training with the aim of returning to overthrow the apartheid regime by military means.
The guerilla war also targeted government buildings including police stations, members of the SA Defence Force, community councilors, petrol depots and Bantustan leaders who were viewed as sell-outs. Many of these ANC cadres succeeded in their missions albeit at a heavy price. Scores were arrested, others shot and killed by security police while dozens were arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Others were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Rasegatla was one of the MK commanders who championed the struggle for the liberation of this country. It was through the unrelenting efforts of people like him that South Africa attained its freedom in 1994. It was through their unwavering stance of making the apartheid regime ungovernable that Black people in this country are today living in a democratic country. It was through the armed struggle and economic sanctions that the apartheid government ultimately surrendered its racist policies paving the way for negotiations for a democratic dispensation.
Rasegatla was amongst a group of ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe members as well as other political activists who returned home after the unbanning of political organizations by the apartheid regime. The then South African President, F.W. De Klerk, in a speech delivered during the opening of Parliament in February 1990, announced the repeal of the ban on the ANC and other banned political organizations as well as the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners. This paved the way for formal negotiations to end the evil system of apartheid.
In the year 2000, Rasegatla, together with two other prominent MK commanders of the Transvaal Urban Unit – Siphiwe Nyanda and Solly Zacharia Shoke – applied for amnesty before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Amnesty Committee chaired by Judge S.M. Miller and Acting Judge N.J. Motata.
The applications related to their involvement in the attacks on government buildings including police stations in which several people were killed and others injured.
The three applicants were granted amnesty after the Committee declared that they were satisfied that they had given full disclosure of their participation in the attacks which were politically motivated.
Rasegatla was given amnesty in respect of attacks on the Orlando and Booysen police stations during 1979 and 1980 respectively. The Amnesty Committee said they were also of the view that the case of the victims of these attacks be referred to the Committee on Reparation and Rehabilitation for its consideration in terms of the Act.
The victims included policemen who were injured during a landmine attack on a South African Police casspir in Mamelodi, Pretoria, on February 16, 1986;
* the explosion at the Mamelodi police station where Madimetsa Abram Moatshe and Samuel Mogano were injured;
* the attack on the municipal police training centre during April 1987 in which several people were injured;
* the explosion at Tshabalala’s Dry Cleaners on August 7, 1984 where Lina Msimango was injured;
* the attack on the Moroka police station in Soweto in which Brian Tembe, a policeman, was killed and several of his colleagues injured during 1979;
* the attack on the Wonderboompoort police station on December 26, 1981 in which D.M. Nkosi was killed and several policemen injured;
* the attack on the Orlando police station in Soweto during 1979 where a number of policemen were injured.
Rasegatla will be buried at his hometown of Hammanskraal at 575 Mogodi 2, Ratjiepane village in Temba on June 1. A memorial service will be held on Thursday – a day after South Africa’s general elections – at Akasia Community Hall in Pretoria, from 1pm to 3,30pm.
