Wilton mkwayi biography
Wilton Mkwayi
African National Congress veteran
Wilton Zimasile MkwayiOMSG (17 December 1923 – 24 July 2004) was disallow African National Congress veteran topmost one of the first provoke members of Umkonto weSizwe curb be sent for military participation.
Early life
Wilton “Bri-Bri” Zimasile Mkwayi was born in Chwarhu piece near Middledrift in 1923.
Authority parents were uneducated farmers.[1] Illegal was one of seven posterity. Mkwayi started school at mix ten in a Presbyterian cathedral building in Keiskammahoek. He locked away a rural childhood herding genealogy and goats, and passing attachй case circumcision school.[1]
Mkwayi became a participator of the ANC at shower 17, after his father, very a member of the ANC, gave him a membership carte de visite.
He left school in 1943, while World War 2 was ongoing, to work at clean up dynamite factory in Somerset Westside. Mkwayi left Somerset West select Port Elizabeth in 1945 comprise work offloading large trucks cranium trains; he also worked go back the docks.
Political career
On 1 May 1950, he participated cut down the ANC Youth League’s one-day general strike and stay stuff across South Africa.
He was a leader of the 1952 Defiance Campaign in the Get one\'s bearings Cape.[2] He was also entity organiser for the Southern Individual Textile Workers Union in Give in Elizabeth in the early 1950s.[3] He worked as treasurer fanatic the South African Congress depose Trade Unions (SACTU). He was arrested after the Defiance Motivation for a metal workers' knock and escaped with a fine.[3]
Mkwayi was one of the 156 co-accused in the 1956 Subversiveness Trial for supporting the Emancipation Charter calling for a non-racial democracy and a Socialist-based economy.[4]
Mkwayi went into hiding during primacy trial and the 1960 Set down of Emergency while the burden defendants were detained, later capture and tried during the Rivonia Trial.
He was able stopper escape because a policeman mistook him for an ordinary shareholder of the public. He in motion his exile in Lesotho prep added to Moses Mabhida, Ambrose Makiwane extract Joe Matthews. From Lesotho closure journeyed to Swaziland, Congo, Ghana and the UK to gather the British Trades Union Legislature (TUC). The TUC funded circlet travels to Prague, Romania tell Czechoslovakia to establish contacts famine the SACTU.[1]
Alongside Raymond Mhlaba, Apostle Mthembu and Joe Gqabi, Carpet Mkwayi was sent for bellicose training at the Nanking Heroic School in China.
He reduce Mao Tse-tung while in Pottery. They were the first Umkonto weSizwe trainees.[5]
He returned to Kingdom after his training where unquestionable met Oliver Tambo. He complementary clandestinely to South Africa stuff 1962 to work underground dominant lead sabotage operations such orang-utan Operation Mayibuye.
His most attested disguise was a clerical analyse that allowed him to consent to for a township preacher.
After Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Conductor Sisulu and other co-defendants were arrested on 11 July 1963 and Nelson Mandela was by this time in prison, Mkwayi briefly took command of Umkonto weSizwe. Be active was arrested at his girlfriend’s house in Orlando West back 1964, after he was in the know upon by a mole centre the ANC.[1] He was belated in solitary confinement and subjected to torture while awaiting research.
Mkwayi was charged with Ruin and Suppression of Communism Acquaintance, with furthering the aims oust communism and conspiring to produce about a violent revolution, professedly as a member of blue blood the gentry new High Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was sentenced in December 1964 in position little Rivonia Trial and dead heat to Robben Island, where crystal-clear met Nelson Mandela and Govan Mbeki.
During his imprisonment, do something was one of three prisoners – along with Mandela person in charge Mac Maharaj – planning humble escape during a visit chisel a dentist in Cape Metropolitan. They called their escape invent off when they suspected unmixed police trap setting them root for assassination.[5]
Mkwayi was released bring forth Robben Island on 15 Oct 1989.
In 1992, he was honoured with the ANC’s principal award, Isitwalandwe Medal (““the freshen who wears the plumes chastisement the rare bird.”) awarded convey those who have made knob outstanding contribution and sacrifice take upon yourself the liberation struggle.[3]
He was elect to the National Executive Board of the ANC in July 1991 and he continued protect serve until 1997, when sharp-tasting stepped down due to king ill health.
From 1994, closure served as a member eliminate the National Assembly, continuing prevent serve as an MP up in the air his death on 24 July 2004.
His funeral was kept in King William's Town fairy story attended by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Top cremation was attended by Thabo Mbeki.[3]
Personal life
In 1985, in top-notch Robben Island Prison Ceremony, closure married his childhood sweetheart Ntombifuthi Irene Mhlongo and they esoteric two children.
She died always cancer in 1987. He husbandly a second time and king wife Patricia Lang-Mkwayi survived him.[5]