12 January 2015
The South African Communist Party sends its deepest condolences to the entire Diale family for the great loss suffered. Comrade Letsau Nelson Diale, a stalwart of our struggle for liberation who served all the leading formations of our Alliance with outstanding dedication, passed on at 79 after a short illness on Thursday 8 January 2015.
The SACP will remember Comrade Diale as one of its finest cadres who served the Party on the ground, and in most difficult circumstances, having devoted his life to the struggle for national liberation and socialism. In memory of Comrade Diale, a finest revolutionary, a courageous stalwart of our movement who suffered a great deal of his life for the liberation of our people, the SACP will deepen and defend the struggle for the completion of the National Democratic Revolution and the achievement of an advance to socialism. The SACP will continue its programme to build working class power and hegemony in all key sites of power and struggle!
Born on 1 January 1936 at Ga-Masemola in Limpopo, Comrade Diale spent much of his early life in this largely working class, peasant and poor area in the heartland of what is now Sekhukhune District Municipality. In 1952, he left Ga-Masemola for the City of Tshwane in search of employment. Upon arrival he was arrested by police, his "crime" being that he was not in possession of the hated dompas (identity document). He was brutally assaulted by police and taken to jail. This was to be the beginning of much brutal treatment he was to suffer at the hands of the police during most of his life.
After his release he later found employment at a hotel and did not enjoy working there at least for two reasons; he was tortured and harassed by his employer, over and above being exploited in the capitalist relation. He joined the domestic workers union affiliated to the ANC-SACP allied South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), around 1958, two years after he joined the ANC. Comrade Diale was active in the ANC until it was banned in 1960, after which he was among the first cadres to join the people`s liberation army, the joint ANC-SACP armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) following its establishment in 1961 and joined its underground operations inside the country.
In January 1964, Comrade Diale`s MK unit was arrested, tortured and beaten for three months. Comrade Diale was sentenced and sent to Robben Island where he served an eight-year term. He was released in 1972 - but in the true spirit of a revolutionary he never demobilised. Determined to pay the ultimate price for freedom, he continued to serve our movement underground. He was arrested three years later when the underground network of the former Northern Transvaal was rounded up and was later acquitted.
Following the April 1994 democratic breakthrough Comrade Diale was elected as a Member of Parliament representing the ANC and continued to serve our people with dedication in Parliament as one of the key sites of power and struggle to take forward the National Democratic Revolution.
Comrade Diale was awarded by our Presidency, Republic of South Africa, The Order of Luthuli in Silver for his excellent contribution and selfless sacrifice to the struggle against apartheid and for freedom for all in our land.
The SACP says: Tsela tšhweu mogale wa bagale; Robala ka kgotso molwela tokologo!
Issued by the SACP
Contact:
Alex Mashilo - Spokesperson
Mobile: 082 9200 308
Office: 011 339 3621/2
Twitter: @2SACP