Nation to bid Tata farewell
2003-05-16 12:10
Johannesburg - Mourners from across South Africa and the world will pay their last respects to the late anti-apartheid icon Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu on Saturday.
Sisulu will be laid to rest at the Creosus Cemetery in Soweto, Johannesburg. More than 50 000 mourners are expected to attend the funeral.
A stalwart of the South African liberation struggle, Sisulu died at his home in Linden in Johannesburg on May 5.
He was jailed for 26 years by the apartheid government alongside former president Nelson Mandela and would have turned 91 on Sunday.
The special state funeral was requested by President Thabo Mbeki in recognition of Sisulu's contribution to the building of a non-racial, democratic South Africa.
Sisulu was a key force behind the implementation of the programme of action that transformed the African National Congress from an ineffectual protest movement to the mass organisation that would ultimately bring about the downfall of apartheid in South Africa.
Alongside the transformation of the ANC, Sisulu underwent a personal transformation from radical young nationalist to strategic politician passionately committed to a non-racial South Africa.
He joined the South African Communist Party in 1954 and was the main architect of the non-racial congress alliance. He had a hand in the drafting of the Freedom Charter adopted at the 1955 Congress of the People.
It was he who held the ANC together through the stresses and conflicts of the 1950s and mammoth Treason Trial, which ran from 1956 to 1961.
He had a key role in guiding the ANC into the underground after the banning of 1960 helping lay the foundation for the shift to active self-defence against the violence of the apartheid state through the birth of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC's military arm.
He was arrested with a number of anti-apartheid activists at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia on July 11, 1963.
At the Rivonia Trial he faced the possibility of a death sentence with courage, and vowed to go to the gallows singing.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12 1964.
A night vigil will be held at Uncle Tom's community hall in Orlando West, Soweto on Friday, while family members and close friends attend a special, private service at Sisulu's old home in Orlando West on Saturday morning.
The hearse will depart for Orlando Stadium around 8am where a mass funeral service will commence at the Orlando Stadium about an hour later.
Mandela will address the service, while Mbeki will deliver the main address.
The service at Orlando Stadium will be conducted by Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. Methodist Church Bishop Mvume Dandala will conduct the service at the graveside.
Representatives from the Lesotho, Tanzanian and Namibian governments, as well as former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, will attend the funeral.
Sisulu is survived by his wife Albertina, their five children Max, Anthony Mlungisi, Zwelakhe, Lindiwe and Nonkululeko, 26 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
In addition Sisulu and his wife adopted four children, Jonqumzi, Gerald and Beryl (whose biological mothers are Sisulu's sister and his cousin) and Samuel, who was imprisoned on Robben Island.
- SAPA