Very much has been said of Pravin Gordhan, yet so much more can be said. Pravin is part of the compact of our history, which is made of many threads. Here is one that I draw out.
On 13 September 1984, Ismail Momoniat, the secretary of the Transvaal Indian Congress at the time, informed comrades in Johannesburg that fellow comrades in Durban wanted someone to go through to Durban urgently. He had no idea what it was about, just that it was urgent – and should be kept confidential.
As a full-time activist in the Mass Democratic Movement, such tasks could often fall to me, unencumbered as I was by other formal employment and more readily available.
I did have an arrangement though to meet my girlfriend of the time, and abruptly cancelled that – no explanations, no questions – and caught the next available flight to Durban that evening.
I was picked up at the airport by Farouk Meer, a leader of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), and taken to an office block in the city. It was night already and the streets were quiet. But I was anxiously alert to any sign of us being monitored. Farouk, I thought, was pretty relaxed.
We took a lift up to a brightly lit, well-appointed office, abuzz with activity.
Farouk led me to the main office, where at the desk sat Pravin Gordhan (PG), holding forth on the phone, and surrounded by a number of activists, including Yunus Mohamed, Mo Shaik and Ketso Gordhan. I later gathered that this was the office of another NIC leader, Zac Yacoob, though he wasn’t present.
The comrades were distinctly displeased to see that it was I who had been sent from Johannesburg. And they made their feelings known. They had expected Cas Saloojee, Treasurer of the United Democratic Front (UDF) and, with other leaders of the Transvaal Indian Congress in detention, the most senior of its executive. Communication lines had somehow been crossed. All the same, PG said, Yunus and Mo should brief me.
They sat me down in another office, away from the buzz, and brought me up to speed. A bold, creative plan, unprecedented in the tactics of the Struggle, was well under way to protect leaders of the UDF who had just been released from detention by court order, and who were in hiding, from re-arrest and to spotlight the repression of the apartheid state to the world.
It was a consultation on a fait accompli. I had just one question: why the British as the vehicle for the planned action?
This provoked a barrage of justification for the plan, but which mellowed when I clarified: why specifically the British (and not any other country)?
I believe this, in response, helped develop the content of the planned action in relation to the particular responsibility the British bore as a former colonial authority in South Africa under whose supervision the 1948 apartheid government was established. But perhaps in truth, it practicably afforded the easiest of means for the prosecution of the plan.
My task, I was briefed, was to immediately inform comrades in Johannesburg of what was imminent, and to facilitate any follow-up media requirements on the “Transvaal” end – but only, it was stressed, once the action had broken.
Farouk volunteered to drive me back to the airport. I remember we drove in complete silence. Perhaps because we were both just focused on doing what we had to. Nothing more. Not an evening for niceties.
In Johannesburg, I went straight to Momo’s (Ismail Momoniat’s) house in Lenasia to brief him, and then on to Valli Moosa, who was in hiding at the home of Struggle stalwart Murthi Naidoo, avoiding arrest as a witness on a serious charge that Amos Masondo, a leading Soweto activist, had been detained for. It was about 2am.
I was up early the next day and on my way out when my late brother-in-law, Ameen Akhalwaya, popped by on his way to work. Ameen was a journalist with the Rand Daily Mail. I debated in my mind as we stood outside in the garden, whether I should provide him with an absolute scoop, but maintained discipline. Word could not leak out before it was time and jeopardise the successful implementation of the plan.
At about 10am, Archie Gumede, president of the UDF, and fellow NIC/UDF leaders Mewa Ramgobin, George Sewpersahd, MJ Naidoo, Billy Nair and Paul David walked into the British Consulate on the seventh floor of the Barclays Bank building in Durban and forced it to provide them with refuge.
It was a dramatic and hugely inspirational development in the anti-apartheid Struggle, and commanded intense local and international attention.
The British did much to pressure the occupiers to leave and made conditions difficult. After a month Ramgobin, Sewpersadh and Naidoo decided to leave the consulate and were immediately arrested on charges of treason. Gumede, David and Nair held out until mid-December and, with the exception of Nair, were immediately arrested as they exited and also charged with treason.
After a lengthy trial, all charges were eventually withdrawn.
The full inside story of this event has yet to be told by those who were central to it.
How the idea for the occupation came to be I do not know. But I was witness to some of its planning and preparation and saw Pravin Gordhan very much behind it.
Such was his strategic and tactical creativity and boldness. DM