21 September 2015
The South African Communist Party (SACP) dips the Red Banner in memory of one of its stalwarts, Comrade Reggie Vandeyar who passed away last week at the age of 84. The SACP expresses it message of heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, comrades, our entire national liberation movement as led by the African National Congress and all the democratic people of our country.
Comrade Reggie was a member of the SACP, the ANC and was a founder member of the people`s army, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961. He was born in 1931 of poor Indian immigrant parents and started his political career as a member of the Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) and was active in the Defiance campaign of 1952 as a young man.
The TIC, led by Comrade Yusuf Dadoo and the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) led by Comrade Monty Naicker together formed the South African Indian Congress (SAIC). It was during the 1930s that Dadoo and Naicker formed the National Bloc within the SAIC and took the leadership away from the sleepy bourgeois elements that had till then been in control. The name "National Bloc" referred both to the fact that they supported the resistance campaign in India led by Mahatma Gandhi AND that they supported the national movement in South Africa led by the ANC.
The South African Indian Congress led by Dadoo, linked arms with the ANC during the Defiance Campaign, and it was here that the young Reggie Vandeyar first really entered the struggle.
It was Comrade Yusuf Dadoo again who in 1961 played a major role in obtaining arms from the Soviet Union for the newly formed Umkhonto we Sizwe which was joined right from the beginning by Comrade Reggie who played an active role in the early sabotage campaign in Johannesburg, especially in Newtown and Fordsburg. Soon after, he was arrested together with Shirish Nanabhai and Indres Naidoo. These three became the first South African Indians to be arrested for activities of MK in what was then Transvaal province.
In 1964, Comrade Reggie was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island together with stalwarts like Comrades Jacob Zuma, Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim and Steven Dlamini. After his release he was kept under house arrest for another five years. Though arrested many times, he still played a major role in the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the 1980s.
Comrade Reggie is survived by a wife and two children, to whom, with the rest of his family and the entire Lenasia community, the SACP sends its condolences.
The SACP says:
Hambe Kahle Comrade Reggie Vandeyar, Communist and Nationalist.
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