Fallen cadres honoured in Cala

JOHANNESBURG -- A memorial to three fallen liberation movement cadres -- two from the ranks of the ANC's then armed wing, uMkhonto weSizwe, and the other from the PAC's Azanian People's Liberation Army -- was unveiled on Saturday in their home village of Cala in the Eastern Cape.

Called the Xalanga Heritage Memorial, it will honour Batandwana Ndondo, Phumezo Nxiweni and Vuyani Namba.

The memorial was built from R50 000 given to the Cala community by the directorate of museums and heritage resources in the province.

"The government believes that, through its involvement in programmes such as these, the dignity of communities is restored and meaning is given to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process," said a statement issued by the Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture.

The statement said the two former MK cadres, Ndondo and Nxiweni, were murdered by apartheid-era police.

Ndondo died in Cala in 1985 after he went underground, having been accused of planting a bomb in Umtata.

Nxiweni was killed in 1988 after he refused to become a police informer, having been acquitted due to lack of evidence in a political trial in Durban.

In 1997 Nxiweni was reburied in Cala.

Ndondo had been a student at the University of Transkei and Nxiweni at the University of Natal medical school.

The statement added that the former Apla cadre, Namba, had died in 1993 on his way to a mission in Durban, when the limpet mine he was transporting exploded.

A founder member of the Pan Africanist Student Organisation, Namba had been involved in the promotion of African culture and had organised the youth under the ideology of Pan Africanism.

The unveiling was attended by the Eastern Cape MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, Nosimo Balindlela, and the mayor of Cala, Thanuxolo Nobhongoza. -- Sapa