Life of people's leader Joe Slovo celebrated

JOE Slovo is remembered by some as that uncompromising communist and by others as the master strategist who helped found the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Slovo chose a life of suffering and pain alongside African people and even risked his life.

When apartheid agents failed to assassinate him they murdered his wife, Ruth First, with a letter bomb in Mozambique.

A list of Slovo's achievements can make up a complete book, but he is the only leader I know of who instructed his family and comrades to bury him like an ordinary South African.

Slovo's life will be commemorated on January 6 at the Avalon Cemetery, Soweto.

Maputle Mothiba, Pretoria North