ARCHIE GUMEDE - THE GENTLE GIANT OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLES FOR A NON-RACIAL AND DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA

(Archie Gumede welcoming Billy Nair after he was released from Robben Island in 1984) On June 21 (2020) it would be the 22nd anniversary of the death of one of the gentle giants of the freedom struggle, Mr Archie Gumede, who was living and working in Pinetown, west of Durban, at that time. Veteran journalist, Subry Govender, who interacted with Gumede since the late 1960s to the time of his passing, recalls that Gumede was one of the scores of freedom fighters who put the cause of freedom first before their own personal situations. BY SUBRY GOVENDER Sometime early in 1995, I had made arrangements to interview one of the doyens of the struggle, Archie Gumede, at his law offices in Pinetown, west of Durban, about his life and the road ahead. “Hi Subry, don’t worry about me,” he said in his usual polite and gentle tone. “I am just a small cog in the free South Africa now. We have a lot of work to do now to improve the lot of the masses.” But despite his reservations, I convinced him that I want to record his contributions in the struggles to the overthrow the former white minority government and the move towards the creation of a non-racial and democratic new South Africa. At this time I had just joined the SABC as a senior journalist and I had decided, in addition to the everyday work of a political journalist, to record the lives of many of the activists and leaders I had interacted with during the heightened days of the struggles in the late 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Mr Gumede had been appointed an ANC member of the new democratic Parliament after the first democratic elections on April 27 1994. His involvement in the struggles, especially in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, had attracted harassment, intimidation, detentions, bannings and two treason trial charges from the side of the former dreaded security police. I already had a great deal of information on Mr Gumede as I had known him at close hand when he was involved with the leaders of the Natal Indian Congress, Release Mandela Committee, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the alternative Ukusa newspaper. “Subry, it’s great to see you again. All our work has borne fruit and now the ANC has a major task ahead to bring about social and economic changes for those who had been discriminated and disadvantaged,” he said. JOINED THE ANC AT AN EARLY AGE Born as Mtuzela Archibald Jacob Gumede in the district of Pietermaritzburg on March 1 1914, Archie Gumede or “Archie” had been immersed in the political struggles from an early age. His father, Josiah Gumede, was a founding member of the ANC and was also elected as the fourth president of the organisation. Archie Gumede became an activist while completing his matriculation in Pietermaritzburg and his law degree at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. He joined the ANC in 1942 but because of his involvement, he constantly suffered harassment, bannings, detentions and political trials at the hands of the dreaded security police at that time from the 1950s to the mid-1980s. While he was being detained under the 90-day detention law in 1963 in the Natal provincial capital of Pietermaritzburg, a senior security policeman approached him in his cell and made the following offer:

(Archie Gumede 8 with Jay Naidoo at a protest meeting at the Catholic Cathedral in Durban) OFFERED "BANTUSTAN" FREEDOM "Now Mr Gumede why don' t you behave yourself and be a good chap like Matanzima in the Transkei and we will make you a big shot in the KwaZulu homeland.” But the genial Mr Gumede politely turned down the offer and told the security policeman that “Bantustan” freedom did not appeal to him and that he was fighting for the liberation of the whole of South Africa. Immediately after he was released from the 90-day detention, he was served with a five-year banning order and restricted to the district of Pietermaritzburg. He was also house arrested, prevented from attending all political meetings and social gatherings, and had to report to the local police station once a week. The restrictions placed on his political activities was a severe blow because he had been closely associated with the ANC before it was banned in 1960. Mr Gumede began his political career in 1943 when he became assistant branch secretary of the ANC in Pietermaritzburg. He later became branch secretary and then assistant secretary for the Natal region. But because the secretary, Mr M. B. Yengwa, and the president, Chief Albert Luthuli, were continually in and out of jail, Mr Gumede used to carry most of the workload in the Natal region. With a number of comrades, he launched the Defiance Campaign in Pietermaritzburg and other parts of Natal on behalf of the ANC in 1953. And in 1956 he was one of the delegates to the "People’s Conference" in Kliptown in Johannesburg, where the historic "Freedom Charter", a document of social justice , was formulated.

FREEDOM CHARTER CONFERENCE AT KLIPTOWN His problems with the white minority authorities began immediately after the successful conclusion of the Kliptown conference. In the same year, he was arrested along with 154 other political leaders, including ANC president, Mr Nelson Mandela, Mr Walter Sisulu, Mr Govan Mbeki , Mr Ahmed Kathrada, Mr Andrew Mlangeni and Mr Raymond Mahlaba, who were all imprisoned for life on Robben Island near Cape Town. Although Mr Gumede was acquitted mid-way through the five-year trial, he was kept under constant surveillance. And when the South African Government declared a state of emergency after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, he was detained from March to August at the Pietermaritzburg jail. In 1963 he was detained again under the 90-day detention law. It was during this period that he was made the "Matanzima offer”. After his first banning order expired in 1958, he was re-banned for a further two years and restricted to Pietermaritzburg. During this period, he worked as a clerk in an attorney's office and later qualified as a lawyer. When his second banning order expired, he moved to Pinetown near Durban where he opened up a law practice and set up house in the township of Clermont. During the late 1960s and early 197Os, police harassment and intimidation was particularly rife and harsh. He kept a low profile and concentrated on building his law practice. But this was not to last too long. Immediately after the June 1976 uprisings in Soweto and other townships of South Africa, he was invited to join an Education Committee and soon found himself back in the mainstream of resistance politics. Mr Gumede, despite the many years of detentions, treason trial, bannings and house arrests, joined the move to heighten the struggles. In August 1983, he was elected president of the newly-established United Democratic Front(UDF), which at that time had co-ordinated the struggle against Pretoria's new tri-ethnic constitution. The new scheme was aimed at co-opting the Coloured and Indian people into the white "laager", while excluding the 20-million African majority at that time from all say in the political decision-making processes.

(Archie Gumede at the UDF launch in Cape Town. With him are a number of leaders of the Natal delegation) UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT AND RELEASE MANDELA COMMITTEE In addition to the UDF, Mr Gumede was also the president of the Release Mandela Committee(RMC) and an official in a host of community organisations and alternative media groups. He had joined leaders such as Griffith Mxenge, Dr A E Gangat, Dr Khorshed Ginwala and this correspondent in the establishment of the Ukusa newspaper. But this newspaper was sabotaged by the security police through bannings, detentions and harassment of its officials. Mr Gumede, who is the father of seven children, had to pay a heavy price for refusing the "Matanzima" offer by the security policeman. Although he was entering nearly 70 years in age when I first conducted an interview with him in 1983, he was as vibrant as ever and full of confidence for the future. As president of the UDF and the RMC, Mr Gumede was on the move all the time and from meeting to meeting. He was revered by young and old alike and was affectionately referred to as "Baba Archie". But Mr Gumede took this all in his stride when he told me: "I am only filling the vacuum until our real leaders return from prison and from exile. We can never fill the leadership positions of people of the calibre of Mandela and Sisulu. "We in the UDF will continue the struggle until our leaders are allowed to return to take their rightful positions in our society. "As far as we are concerned there will never be peace and harmony in South Africa as long as our leaders are banned, imprisoned and forced into exile," Mr Gumede had said.

HE WAS CRITICAL OF RONALD REGAN AND CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT At this time in 1983 he was particularly critical of the role played by the then President Ronald Regan of the United States with the so-called "constructive engagement" policy and the other Western countries. "Mr Regan will never be able to win our support as long as he tries to maintain the status quo and white rule in South Africa. "What we would like to know is that why does the United States and the other Western countries always oppose human rights resolutions against South Africa at the United Nations. Is it that they are worried about their kith and kin here? How would they have reacted if the oppressors here in South Africa were black and the oppressed, white?" Mr Gumede challenged the United States to state whether it was interested in the black people’s struggles for justice and liberty. "We will continue our struggles against white minority rule no matter what the Regans or Thatchers of this world say", he told me. But soon after this interview, Mr Gumede was detained once again along with Mewa Ramgobin, Paul David, George Sewpersadh, M J Naidoo, Billy Nair, and Sam Kikine under the apartheid regime’s notorious security laws. But they managed to bring an urgent court action against their detentions and were freed by the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court. Soon after their release, they raised the struggles to an international level on September 13 1984 by seeking refuge at the British Consulate which was situated in a building at the corner of the former Smith and Field streets in Durban at that time. When Gumede and his colleagues left the Consulate after a month, he was re-arrested on October 6 1984 on charges of High Treason. He was one of the activists who were brought to appear in the High Treason Trial which was held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court. His fellow accused were Isaac Ngcobo, Mewa Ramgobin, Curtis Nkondo, Sisa Njikelana, Aubrey Mokoena, Sam Kikine, M J Naidoo, Mrs Albertina Sisulu, Essop Jassat, Cassim Salojee, George Sewpersadh, Paul David, Frank Chikane and Thozamile Gqweta. Defended by Ismail Mahomed, who later became the Chief Justice of South Africa after the dawn of freedom in 1994, Gumede and all his fellow treason trialists were acquitted on December 15 1985. Gumede and his fellow struggle stalwarts continued with their struggles to see a number of Robben Island prisoners such as Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu, and Govan Mbeki being released at the end of 1989 and the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990. At the same time the ANC, PAC and other organisations were unbanned by the then apartheid President, F W De Klerk. INVOLVEMENT DURING THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD IN THE 1990s During the transitional peace talks and the negotiations process from the early 1990s to 1994, Gumede played a significant role in building the support base of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal. He was elected as an ANC MP in April 1994 and served in this position until his passing on June 21 1998 at the age of 84. At his funeral in Pinetown, glowing tributes were paid about his contributions and sacrifices for the struggles for a “free, non-racial and democratic South Africa”. The ANC said in a statement: “The ANC dips its revolutionary banner to this great patriot, freedom fighter, journalist and lawyer. Comrade Archie Gumede was a revolutionary for the ideas of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa he fought for, for so long and so hard.” GUMEDE WOULD HAVE BEEN DISILLUSIONED WITH THE CORRUPTION AND DEGENERATION Twenty-six-years into our new South Africa on April 27 2020, I am certain that Mr Gumede would appreciate the commitment of many of our leaders, such as President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mr Tito Mboweni and Dr Zweli Mkhize, in the attempts to improve the social and economic lives of those citizens living on the margins of society. But, at the same time, he would be disillusioned and disheartened with the climate of fraud and corruption that have captured certain of the so-called politicians, civil servants, officials and private citizens. This degeneration is one of the main reasons for the deep levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality that continues to plague the new South Africa. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com June 19 2020