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sobukwe honoured

HERO REMEMBERED: Waters Toboti speaks at the launch of the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe memorial on Robben Island on Friday.29/03/09. Pic. Mpho Mathelane. © Unknown.
HERO REMEMBERED: Waters Toboti speaks at the launch of the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe memorial on Robben Island on Friday.29/03/09. Pic. Mpho Mathelane. © Unknown.

Anna Majavu

Anna Majavu

"If Sobukwe were to rise from the dead, he would condemn this ANC government."

These were the words of PAC veteran Bishop Waters Toboti, speaking on Friday at Robben Island where a memorial to the PAC's first president, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, was unveiled.

While ANC leaders Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki have long been commemorated on the island, this is the first time that Sobukwe's six years in solitary confinement have been officially recognised.

The gathering of about 100 PAC veterans, founder members, stalwarts of its armed wing Poqo and several Sobukwe family members lashed out at the ANC for "writing the PAC out of history".

While the party's founder members Nana Mahomo and Poqo stalwart Da Gama Ngqibisa said the memorial "should have been done a long time ago", others could not contain their anger at the ruling party.

"We are not happy that Robert Sobukwe was not recognised for quite some time.

"They just treated him like an ordinary person for all these years," said Sobukwe's granddaughter Nelisa Sobukwe.

Toboti said the ANC had ushered in "a sham freedom" on April 27 1994, and blamed a lack of democracy within the ANC for the birth of Cope.

"We are being discriminated against by all institutions in the hands of the ANC.

"This government hates the PAC. It hates Sobukwe. If Sobukwe were to rise up from the dead he would condemn this government.

"We have got Cope today because there is no democracy in the black organisations. People are running away from the black organisations," Toboti said.

Another PAC veteran, Kwedi Mkalipi, who spent 20 years on the island, said, "Today we are hearing so little about Sobukwe it is as if this country was liberated by one man alone, Nelson Mandela."

Sobukwe's son Dini Sobukwe said his father taught Africans "to be anti-nobody but to be pro-Africa".

Sobukwe was born on December 5 1924 and died on February 27 1978.

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