VASANTHA PHYLLIS RUTH NAIDOO (NEE DAVID) - GIANT OF THE LIBERATION STRUGGLES – REMEMBERED ON JANUARY 5 2019 WHEN SHE WOULD HAVE TURNED 91

SECOND ARTICLE AND RADIO PACKAGE ON THE LIFE OF PHYLLIS NAIDOO PHYLLIS NAIDOO ON HER DESIRE TO TELL THE STORIES OF THOSE WHO SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES AFTER SHE RETURNED TO THE COUNTRY IN THE EARLY 1990S

BY SUBRY GOVENDER Today, on the 5th of January 2019, one of the giants in the struggles for a free and non-racial South Africa, Vasanatha Phyllis Ruth Naidoo (nee David), would have turned 91. Known as Phyllis Naidoo, this committed struggle stalwart was born on the 5th of January 1928 to a staunch Catholic family who also had their roots to indentured labourers. After being involved in the struggles for more than 60 years, she passed on, on February 13 2013 at the age 85. As a tribute to this struggle giant, I am re-publishing the interview that I had conducted with Phyllis Naidoo at her Umbilo Road flat in Durban in 2005. The radio package was also recorded and broadcast at this time.

(PHYLLIS NAIDOO WITH PAUL DAVID, ARCHIE GUMEDE AND HER DAUGHTER, SAKTHIE) "I have a great urge to tell, especially the children the contributions, what people did to get us where we are today." At 78 and after more than 60 years of being actively involved in the political struggles, one would expect Phyllis Naidoo to take it easy, relax and take time to enjoy the new democracy and freedom. Not Phyllis Naidoo. She has no time for such luxuries. Her small, neat one-room flat in the Umbilo Road of central Durban is full of books; the walls are adorned with photographs and posters - all relating to the political struggles. Portrait pictures of leaders such as Joe Slovo, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, and Chris Hani are prominently displayed. There are two small desks in the room and they are neatly packed with struggle documents, a computer and a fax machine In one section of the room there are two rows of 156 folders – containing information about the 156 struggle stalwarts who appeared in the 1956 Treason Trial. Naidoo wants to complete the profiles on the 156 leaders in time for the 50th anniversary of the Treason Trial next year. She said: "I'm looking at the profiles of the 156 to see who they were, what they are doing, are they alive. I think about 80 percent of them are dead. But I still want to know about them. What moved them to do anything because a lot of our people were very poor you know." The project on the treason trialists is her fourth literary contribution to the history of the struggles. Her previous works included, Waiting to Die in Pretoria, an account of prisoners on death row which was published in 1990; Le Rona Re Batho: An account of the 1982 Maseru Massacre - which she published in 1992; and Footprints in Grey Street - her tribute to a number of political activists who used the Grey Street area of Durban as their base. This book was published in 2002. Naidoo also published in 2003 - Doc's Files - a collection of banned and restricted people that the late activist, Doc Docrat, had compiled during his long years of house arrest and restriction. Phyllis Naidoo wants the young people of today to read and learn about the stalwarts of the struggle because the pain and suffering of the thousands of activists should not be forgotten. Phyllis Naidoo, the eldest daughter of a disciplinarian school principal, Simon David, joined the ANC after at first being drawn into the struggles as a member of the former Non-European Unity Movement. While assisting jailed political activists and their families, she came under the watchful eye of the security police in the early 1960s. She was banned and restricted between 1966 and 1976 - at a time when she was trying to cope with life as a single mother after her husband, M D Naidoo, was sentenced to Robben Island for ANC activities. Phyllis Naidoo went into exile in 1977 after the then security police made life too difficult for her to endure. She went to Lesotho but there too she was hounded and was seriously injured when she unknowingly opened a parcel bomb that was sent by the security police. In 1983 she was forced to flee Lesotho and move to Zimbabwe. During this period her son, Sadhan, was killed by agents of the apartheid regime while he was managing an ANC farm in Zambia. Then after she returned from exile in the 1990s, her second son, Sha, died from a stomach ailment. Her former husband, M D Naidoo, also died during this period. Despite all her trauma, Phyllis Naidoo is not despondent. She believes the ANC Government is on the right path even though there's a great deal of work still to be done to overcome the twin evils of poverty and unemployment. She said: "All the people that I know in power and that belong to the ANC are good people. I mean I can't think of anyone who has not made the most supreme sacrifices in their lives. I can't believe that they would be cottoned on to the present seductive president that we have. We didn't struggle so that trust funds could be set up for one's own children. We were about everybody's children. I know that it's very difficult to sustain in this period but I still believe that we could continue to do those things." A committed atheist, she wants to continue to write about the struggles till she breathes her last. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com