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| YOUNG: Andrew Mapheto |
A lettering compendium of an agent of hope, that placed Mapheto’s name into the confirms and archives of the African National Congress (ANC), for the underground; was forged by the unfortunate misgivings of the apartheid system which he was inadvertently born into on the 21st of October 1958, in Soweto, Molapo section, to his father Reverend Makgale Phineas Mapheto, who was the minister in charge of the Sophiatown Branch of Kgopotso Apostolic Faith Church and a member of the ANC and Communist Party (who later joined the Liberal Party, when the ANC and Communist Party were banned in 1962), and his mother Martha Mapheto bringing happiness to the Mapheto family.
As a toddler in 1959 Mapheto and his two sisters Rebecca and Meme were taken to Senekal in the Free State, the birthplace of their mother, by his mother, (where his parents were married in 1954) when his father was arrested under the Group Area’s Act, for entering Johannesburg without a Reference Book; an event that led to the untimely death of his mother, in 1962, to an unanticipated short illness in a Senekal hospital.
In 1963 after his father’s second marriage to, Ms Limakatse Martha Thobena, and a nasty paternity tussle between his father and his in-laws for his three children in the Free Sate, Mapheto and his two siblings moved back to Soweto to live with their father, however due to his father’s obligation to the Bantu Presbyterian Church which he joined in 1965 during a tent gathering by the Dorothea Mission, at White City, in Jabavu, Soweto that demanded him to attend ministerial studies, they were sent to live with their father’s parents in Malekapane Village in Pieterburg, were Mapheto began his scholastic education in GaMphahlele Village – later obtaining his primary school education in Bloemhof were the family had relocated due to his father’s ministerial commitments.
Later in 1965 when Andrew was seven years old, the Mapheto family relocated to Tembisa, were his father was to assume a leadership position as a Reverend for the Bantu Presbyterian Church, therefore was entrusted with a mission to start a new branch for the church. The church was initiated by a small troop of worshipers that gather in the dining-room of Reverend Mapheto’s four-roomed house, at no. 609 Mashemong section – troops, who shortly that same year converted their faith to the Baptist Church when Mapheto senior decided to join the latter.
Mapheto become a loyal follower of his father’s Baptist parish; he was a well mannered young man and incessantly attended the Baptist Sunday Bible School class, as result topped everyone that took part in those classes, in the whole Republic.
In the early days of 1976 Mapheto left Tembisa to visit the Selatle family, in Molapho and decided to register at the Central Western Jabavu High School (CWJ) and started studying there for his secondary education, whilst staying with the Selatles. However, due to the 1976 Student Uprising, and the chaos that ensued, Mapheto decided in June that year to go back to Tembisa and enrolled in Thembisa High School. (Popularly known as Thembisa High)
Immediately after enrolling in Thembisa High, in July 1976, as young comrade, Mapheto was an instrumental leader in mobilizing students in and about Tembisa to march against the injustices and defective Bantu Education system that forced Bantu students in the Republic to learn all their subjects in the apartheid oppressor’s propagated language – Afrikaans.
Following the March, Mapheto was hounded by the Security Branch (SB) and his adopted brother, Thabo Mapheto (born 1960) fell victim to the SB’s harassment tactics, when he was apprehended at Kgatlatso Primary School and beaten to a pulp, for not knowing his brother’s whereabouts.
Thereafter Thabo Mapheto fearful of the SB, clandestinely disappeared only to resurface in Lusaka as Moffet Mapheto, when his letter reached their father a month later that same year. ( Thabo committed suicide in Lusaka that same year – shot himself)
Mapheto’s first attempt to leave the country, with a friend, via a Alexandra Township contact was crushed when Mapheto and his friend, accompanied by Mapheto’s father, Reverend Makgale Mapheto learned that their contact was regrettably detained at a local police station. Nevertheless, Mapheto’s persistence, and “self-starter” attitude led him to an underground ANC route through an educator Teacher Nkosi, that led to Lusaka. (Nkosi was later sentenced for Aiding and Abetting the banned ANC and Communists - Mapheto’s father was asked to testify in his trial)
In September 1976 Andrew Ranjo Mapheto, aged Nineteen-Years-Old (19) succeeded in evading, both the Security Branch and South African Police, when he went to exile, reaching Lusaka, Zambia and pledged allegiance to the African National Congress, and joined Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), the Military wing of the ANC, after an intensive guerilla training in Angola and Lusaka. Mapheto subsequently rose to the rank of Regional Political Commissar in MK.
He was sent back to South Africa in 1979 to reconnoiter, mobilize and execute military sabotage orders for MK and securely, immediately returned to his camp in Lusaka.
Mapheto came back to South Africa with an Identity Document as “Mandla Natalie Khumalo” for the second mission in late 1979 and was captured in Tzaneen that same year, together with Jimmy Ngobeni and others; they were taken to John Vorster Prison, then Modderbee Prison . Later, he was charged for High Treason and sentenced to fifteen years to Robben Island in the famous Pietermaritzburg Treason Trial.
In Robben Island Andrew Mapheto and his fellow comrades, Ronnie Mamoepa, Joseph Molabo, Sakhi Macozoma, Grant Shezi, Mzi Khumalo, Thomas Masukhu (who was responsible for recruiting Solomon Mahlangu), and David Moisi, to name but few - were in the “Paint Span” (Paint Job) and were in charge of the communication network between the top brass and the outside world. And they were all dedicated to their studies.
”We were the scholars of politics and the revolution, studying other revolutions – how to bring other revolutions into our ideology. Understanding the history of humankind and the world, studying the history of the ANC. We were revolutionaries.” reminisced Ronnie Mamoepa (Department of Home Affairs’ Deputy General for Communication and spokesperson)
While in prison, Mapheto had a Junior Certificate (JC), and strived to farther his education, obtaining his Standard Eight to Matric through correspondence, with only four subjects (five subjects were required). He then enrolled for a BSc Degree with the University of South Africa (UNISA), with Mathematics and Statistics as his majors. Leading up to his release from prison Mapheto had almost completed his Degree.
As prisoner 19/5710, Mapheto served eleven years of his sentence and was released, together with Tokyo Sexwale and some of his comrades, on the 9th of June 1990. (PRISONER 19/5710 MAPHETO ANDREW 10 MPHO BAPTIST CHURCH; TEMBISA; KEMPTON PARK DATE ADMITTED : 79.11.15 - DATE RELEASED : 90.06.09 - Robben Island Political Prisoners | South African History Online)
When he was released between 1990 and 1994 Mapheto was involved with the Reorganising Committee for the ANC in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (P.W.V) region branches which incorporated Katorus, Johannesburg, Tembisa, and Greater Pretoria, for the upcoming National Election that summoned the start of our Democratic State.
He was the co-founder of the ANC branch in Tembisa and was elected Chairperson, whilst Doctor Mamathole Motshekga was elected vice-chairperson for the region. He was also extensively involved with the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA).
Later in 1994, because of his “unique qualities” in finance, the ANC sent him to attend in one of the world’s leading and influential Banks, JP Morgan Bank, in New York City, were he stayed for two years refining his trade; returning to South Africa in the middle of the year in 1995. Where in August that year he joined the Rand Merchant Bank as a Senior Manager entrusted with numerous responsibility, including the Restructuring of State Assets.
In October 1995, two months after his return, aged 37 years old, Andrew Ranjo Mapheto’s light of life was prematurely extinguished when his car overturned, in Sasolburg, Free State on his way back from a funeral that he had attended with friends, colleagues and family members. There were three other people with him in the car that he was driving.
Lamented by his family and friends as, “an educator, manager, initiator, leader, organizer, thinker and facilitator – an assertive person on matters of principle”, Tembisa’s iconic radiance to the struggle and freedom, gone too soon.
“The man that the street Andrew Mapheto Drive in Thembisa township is named after”
WORD TO COMRADE ANDREW MAPHETO'S FORGOTTEN REVOLUTION
By Linda Sakazi Thwala
Linda Sakazi Thwala
Occupations: Journalist, Poet and Spiritual Healer
Contact: 0606454754
WhatsApp: 0658384039
WhatsApp: 0658384039
