Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) had Chris Hani. The Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) had Sabelo Phama. The Azanian National Liberation Army (Azanla) had Nkotsoeu Skaap Motsau.
Motsau, 66, who was secretary for defence of the exiled Black Consciousness Movement of Azania (BCMA), died on Friday morning, June 28 in Cape Town.
He had been mostly bedridden since a near-fatal accident that left him a quadriplegic in 2006.
Hani and Phama did not live to see the democratic transition of April 1994 as both of them died the year before. Hani was shot and killed by Januz Waluz, while Phama died in a mysterious car accident in Tanzania.
Maybe both Hani and Phama were lucky that they did not live to see the false dawn of the so-called new South Africa that condemned many freedom fighters to poverty and unemployment, while the defenders of apartheid continue to enjoy better privileges and benefits.
Wapapa, as Motsau was affectionately referred to by Azanla combatants who saw him as their political and revolutionary father, is one of the unsung heroes of the Azanian revolution yet his immense contribution is largely unknown. He literally gave his entire life to the struggle against colonialism and for total liberation of the country he called Azania.
He had just completed his matric at Moroka High in Thaba Nchu in the Free State when he was arrested for reading a poem at a political rally. The poem was considered by the National Party regime to be so dangerous because it was communist inspired that they not only detained the young man but sent him to Robben Island, where he served his jail term from 1973 to 1979.
Motsau was the second Black Consciousness leader to be jailed on Robben Island. He joined Mosibudi Mangena, who was also serving a five-year jail term. In 1972, Motsau had joined the Steve Biko-inspired Black People’s Convention (BPC) and attended its first congress in the same year in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria. He led the Sharpeville branch of the National Youth Organisation (Nayo) – BPC’s youth wing.
It was his association with BPC and the fact that he wrote the poem that led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1973. He was released from Robben Island in 1979.
In 1982 he left the country for exile after he was called to serve in the BCMA as the secretary for defence and military affairs. His immediate task was to consolidate the military efforts of the BCM into Azanla.
In that capacity, he travelled to countries like Libya, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, Tanzania and a number of Asian and European countries to plead the Azanla case. To build this guerrilla army, Motsau was sent to Eritrea as part of an Azanla unit where they had to learn the skills required to build and run a people’s army. They were hosted by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, who were at the time in the middle of bloody war for self-determination from Ethiopia. His dangerous stunt of venturing into the country resulted in him being arrested in the then Bophuthatswana homeland in 1993. At the dawn of democracy in 1994, he returned to South Africa as part of the exiles of the liberation movement.
Azapo and BCMA boycotted the 1994 general elections, arguing that the Kempton Park settlement would not deliver true liberation because it compromised on the key issue of land and the transfer of the ownership of the wealth of the country.
Twenty-five years later, it has become obvious to all that indeed April 1994 only delivered the vote but failed on the critical issue of land, which was the principle demand of the liberation struggle. Azanla soldiers were not integrated into the SANDF. Motsau was one of those who were not integrated.
At the 1994 merger congress of Azapo and BCMA, Motsau was elected as the political commissar and served in the national leadership until his car accident in 2006.
The near-fatal accident changed Motsau’s life. He could not put the pieces of that accident together. He lost control of his car on a curve as he was driving out of Sharpeville.
Inspection of the car after the accident showed that the left front wheel had no bolts and the shock absorber had been loose. His passenger later died in hospital.
Motsau was certified as a quadriplegic, meaning that he had a severe spinal cord injury resulting in him being paralysed from neck to toe.
He could not feed himself, wash or move his limbs. He hardly lost his sting, however.
The other day I saw him shouting angrily at an annoying comrade he promised to kick “very badly”. After the accident, he spent almost a year in hospital. A quarter of that was spent in Johannesburg where the doctors thought he would not make it, and approached the family to allow them to “release” Comrade Skaap in his sleep. Obviously, the family refused.
He was later referred to a Cape Town hospital where the battle to save his life intensified.
In 2008 he was elected the national chairperson of Azanlamva, a position he held until he stepped down at the association’s congress in June this year.
Motsau, who was born at Top Location, a dusty township that later developed into what is today known as Sharpeville, on June 20 1953, is survived by his wife Nosiphiwo and his daughters, Mojabeng, Tsiboho and Holokile.
A memorial service will be held in Sharpeville today, Thursday July 4, at 5pm, while the funeral will be on Saturday July 6, from 9am in the same township
Nelvis Qekema is Azapo national chairperson.