Africa-Press – Botswana. The family of the late Mr Fish Keitseng has welcomed plans to build a monument at his yard in Lobatse. It was there that he accommodated African National Congress (ANC) freedom fighters. The family has said doing so would honor him for the immense contribution he made in the struggle for South Africa’s independence.
Mr Keitseng’s daughter, Ms Tumisang Keitseng, said this during a tour of the yard in Peleng by an entourage led by South Africa High Commissioner to Botswana Ms Thaminga Shope-Souma recently. The entourage included Mr Keitseng’s widow Ms Joyce Keitseng, their children and grandchildren, and some people from South Africa who were accommodated at the yard many years ago.
Ms Keitseng said the place held beautiful history for the family and the town. She said in one of those historic moments, the ANC leadership held a conference in one of the small rooms in the yard on October 27 1962. She said her father was instrumental in preparing for that conference, but was arrested in Salisbury in Rhodesia with 27 young South Africans, amongst them former president of SA Mr Thabo Mbeki before they could attend the conference.
“They were arrested in Rhodesia and the conference took place while they were not here. My mother and my late cousin took care of the ANC members who were attending the conference in the absence of my father. They were the ones preparing meals and looking for spaces at Lobatse hotel and other places where they knew they could hide them. We really appreciate the two governments (of South Africa and Botswana) to be honouring, or to be taking recognition of such contribution. As a family we value this history so much. It makes us really happy when we see that it will be read by generations to come,” she said.
Ms Keitseng pointed out that it was at that conference where the ANC arms struggle, Umkhonto we Sizwe was born. She said the conference was attended by heavy weights of the apartheid struggle such as then ANC president, the late Mr Oliver Tambo.
Mr Tambo, she said, came from London to attend the conference alongside the entire ANC leadership, including Mr William Shope who was father to the current high commissioner of South Africa to Botswana.
Apart from the 1962 ANC conference, Ms Keitseng said the yard was also famous for accommodating former president of SA, the late Dr Nelson Mandela, on three occasions when he was in transit to Tanzania.
“He passed here three times. The first time was for three weeks when he was on the way to Tanzania to meet Mr Oliver Tambo. In the mornings he would go up Peleng hill with Papa Fish to exercise and strategise how to go forward with activities of Umkhonto we Sizwe,” she said.
Dr Mandela also came to Lobatse after completing six months training in Ethiopia, before he got arrested after going back home, she said.
Ms Keitseng also said thousands of ANC members used the yard as a strategic transit in and out of South Africa in the 1960s. She said they were ferried using four Land Rover vehicles provided by former president of Tanzania, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
One of those vehicles exploded in Peleng moments after Mr Keitseng alighted from it and they suspected that a bomb was tied to it. Ms Keitseng said her father bought the plot using money given to him by former president of ANC Mr Albert Luthuli and built the four small rooms that still stand in the yard, after he was banished from South Africa.
“He decided to settle in Lobatse instead of going home to Kanye because he wanted to continue fighting against the apartheid regime. He believed Lobatse was the ideal place for him because it was close to the border,” she said. Born in Kanye in 1923, Mr Keitseng who passed away in 2005 was recruited into the ANC while working in the mines in South Africa.
He was deported to Botswana in 1959, where he continued hosting ANC freedom fighters. Lobatse mayor Mr Mosimanegape Dithebe said the visit by the South African High Commissioner and her delegation signified their respect for Keitseng family and its contribution to the struggle against apartheid.
Mr Dithebe promised the government of Botswana and Lobatse Town Council would ensure that the envisaged construction of the monument went ahead without a hitch .
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