The remains of 42 anti-apartheid activists who died in exile in Zambia and Zimbabwe more than 30 years ago were returned to South Africa on Wednesday, setting off a government effort to repatriate freedom fighters.
The South African government says it wants to repatriate the remains of activists who battled white minority rule from overseas to recognize their contributions to the struggle that ended apartheid in 1994.
According to Obed Bapela, an international relations official for the ruling African National Congress (ANC), over 1,000 anti-apartheid activists perished in exile in Africa, including Angola and Tanzania, as well as Cuba and Europe.
“There are plans to also repatriate from other parts of the continent,” South African Defence Minster Angie Motshekga said at a ceremony at a military base near Pretoria to welcome the remains.
The remains had been handed over to South African officials in Harare and Lusaka earlier in the day.
The exile of South African anti-apartheid fighters was accelerated by the apartheid government’s banning in 1960 of parties including the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
This week, the South African government said that Wednesday’s repatriations from neighbouring Zimbabwe and Zambia were the launch of a process to speed up the return of liberation fighters through a “country-to-country model”.
In the past repatriations were on an individual basis, usually at the request of families, it said.
The remains returned from Zimbabwe Wednesday included those of PAC leader John Nyathi Pokela who was given a state funeral in that country following his death in Harare in 1985.
Pokela was among the ANC leaders who broke away in 1959 to create the PAC. He spent 13 years in jail on Robben Island — the prison off Cape Town that held anti-apartheid leaders including Nelson Mandela — and went into exile on his release.
South Africa’s rural development and land reform minister Mzwanele Nyhontso said at the handover in Harare that the repatriations were a significant step towards bringing healing and closure.