Africa-Press – South-Africa. Johannesburg – The SA Communist Party (SACP) is mourning the passing of Rebecca Kotane, who died at her home in Diepkloof, Soweto on Sunday.
Rebecca Kotane was the wife of SACP stalwart Moses Kotane, who died on May 19, 1978 while in exile.
In a statement on Monday, the SACP described Rebecca Kotane as a stalwart of the Struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression.
Spokesperson Alex Mashilo said the party had sent its heartfelt condolences to the entire Kotane family, relatives, and the ANC-headed alliance of liberation movements.
Ma Kotane took part in the defiance campaigns in the 1950s and the mobilisation towards the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955.
In the August 9, 1956 Women’s March to the Union Buildings, in which she took part, she was among the women detained by the apartheid regime. Detained for two weeks, Ma Kotane shared a cell with other stalwarts of the anti-apartheid movement, including Albertina Sisulu, Helen Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi, Amina Cachalia, Violet Wynberg, among others.
In detention, they were gravely mistreated and humiliated by the apartheid regime’s authorities, intending to break their revolutionary spirit and discourage them from continuing with the Struggle. At some point the apartheid regime even enticed Ma Kotane with a mansion and urged her to divorce her husband, Moses Kotane, long-time SACP general secretary, and turn against the movement. Ma Kotane stood her ground and never betrayed her revolutionary principles.
“Ma Kotane practically supported the Struggle to the hilt and also served as a pillar of strength to (Moses) Kotane during the difficult years of the Struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression and capitalist exploitation. By her continued resilience in the fight for social emancipation, over the decades she also helped to keep the name of Moses Kotane alive in the hearts and minds of the people. She last saw her husband in 1963, when he went into exile in Tanzania,” said the statement.
“This followed relentless house raids, arrests, threats and acts of victimisation by the apartheid regime, which intensified especially after the enactment in 1950 of the Suppression of Communism Act and the state of emergency in 1960. Even after the death of Kotane in 1978, Ma Kotane persisted in the fight for liberation.
“Today the name of Moses Kotane cannot be mentioned without at .. the same time mentioning Ma Kotane, a hero of our Struggle for liberation and social emancipation in her own right, and vice versa. Since their marriage in 1945, they intimately collaborated in the Struggle against colonial and apartheid oppression, in the process helping to build and strengthen the alliance and various organisations of the people.”
Political Bureau
