LALOO CHIBA – POLITICAL PRISONER WHO WAS SENTENCED TO ROBBEN ISLAND IN THE SAME YEAR AS NELSON MANDELA, AHMED KATHRADA AND OTHERS - HAS BEEN RELEASED AFTER BEING SENTENCED FOR 18 YEARS -----------AN ARTICLE WRITTEN BY THE PRESS TRUST OF SA NEWS AGENCY IN JANUARY 1983

In December 1982 when the internal struggles against the white minority regime was gaining momentum, one of the political prisoners who had his roots in Gujerat, India, was released after being imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 long years. A former member of the Transvaal Indian Congress(TIC), Transvaal Indian Youth Congress, the ANC, the South African Communist Party, and underground member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Mr Chiba was sentenced to Robben Island for being involved in sabotage and other activities against the white minority regime. Mr Chiba was 35-years-old when he was sentenced to Robben Island. Mr Chiba served as an ANC member of parliament for 10 years after the dawn of freedom in 1994 and was awarded the Order of Luthuli in June 2004. He passed away in Johannesburg on December 8 2017 at the age of 87. He was a Board member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation at the time of his death. A month after his release, the Press Trust of South Africa News Agency, which was operating under trying conditions during this period, interviewed Mr Chiba about his involvement and his release. This article was sent to the Press Trust of India and other outlets in India and other countries.

January 19 1983 ROBBEN ISLAND POLITICAL PRISONER FREE AFTER 18 YEARS A former South African political prisoner, Mr Lalloo Chiba, has just been released from Robben Island, near Cape Town, after being imprisoned for 18 years. Mr Chiba, now 53, was convicted and sentenced in 1964 after a marathon sabotage trial that last for nearly six months. The former Johannesburg activist of the ANC, Transvaal Indian Congress and the South African Indian Congress served his sentence alongside top-ranking African National Congress(ANC) leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada. Mandela, Sisulu, Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, and Dennis Goldberg were sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island in the famous “Rivonia Treason Trial” for plotting to overthrow the government by violent means. MISSED HIS FAMILY Mr Chiba, who is now trying to re-adjust himself as a “free” person, has taken the first step towards his re-integration into society by getting to know his three daughters and wife from whom he had been separated for nearly two decades. At the time of his imprisonment only his eldest daughter, Kaylash, who was 8-years-old at the time of his imprisonment in 1964, was big enough to know what had happened. Mr Chiba’s other two daughters, Gita, and Yasvanti, who are now 24 and 21 respectively, were too young to know that their father had gone to jail because of his struggles for a free, just and democratic South Africa. And when his two older daughters married while he was still in prison, it caused Mr Chiba a great deal of sadness; but now he is looking forward to his youngest daughter’s wedding, which will take place in May. In an interview with the Press Trust of South Africa News Agency, Mr Chiba expressed his serious disappointment and sadness at missing his children’s most cherished moments. “My wife and I,” he said, “had spent 18 years apart as parents of three little girls”. “Now that we are re-united, it is as proud grand-parents of three little boys; only she and I and those placed in similar situations know of the missing, intervening years.” Speaking of his incarceration and release, Mr Chiba, who kept fit in prison by following a programme of exercises and Yoga, said he now understood how a bird freed from a cage, felt. However, he expressed his sadness at the fact that so many of his comrades were still on Robben Island and hoped prisoners such as Mr Mandela, who he considered to be the true leader of the people, would soon be released. Mr Chiba said he was convinced that South Africa’s problems could only be solved if the true leaders (those in prison, exile, banned or restricted) were allowed to negotiate with the ruling white regime for a real non-racial and democratic new South Africa. While Mr Chiba propagated his political convictions, his overjoyed wife, Luxmi, said she hoped that her husband would now remain with her forever, so that they could bridge the gap of the lost years. Mrs Chiba said that although she had missed her husband a great deal and had to be both “father and mother” to her three daughters, she was happy that they had managed to live those 18 years with dignity and courage. Mr Chiba, who was born in Johannesburg in 1930 to parents who had arrived from the state of Gujerat in India, became politically aware from an early age when he attended the Johannesburg Indian High School and befriended activists of the calibre of Ahmed Kathrada. During the 1950s and 1960s, he became actively involved in the Transvaal Indian Congress, the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the underground movement of Umkhonto We Sizwe. He was first arrested in 1963 and again in 1964 when he was convicted for sabotage and sentenced to 18 years on Robben Island. Now that he is free, he did not talk about his future involvement in the political struggles. Ends – Press Trust of SA News Agency January 19 1983