Monday, 20 January 2025: The South African Communist Party (SACP) conveys its message of heartfelt condolences to the family of Major General Keith Mokoape (RT). We specifically send out our deepest condolences to his wife and partner, Magirly, and their two children.

The SACP also conveys its message of condolences to the entire South African liberation movement, which he served with diligence, and the South African people.

General Mokoape was a veteran of South Africa's liberation struggle and former Chief of Military Intelligence of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the joint military wing of the SACP and the African National Congress launched on 16 December 1961.

He was not only a military man as he also served as a respected activist in the South African Students’ Organisation in his younger days, and would later, following our 1994 democratic breakthrough, make sterling contributions in the development of South Africa’s governance and economy, reflecting his dedication to South Africa’s transformation.

Mokoape distinguished himself as a detachment commander, having completed his training at the Simferopol Military School in Crimea, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR. His commitment to the liberation struggle took him on numerous missions for our liberation struggle, through the MK, to the Soviet Union and Cuba. Between 1975 and 1986, he served as a front commander, operating in Botswana, Mozambique and Swaziland, advancing the cause of the struggle.

In 1987, while based in Lusaka, Zambia, Mokoape stepped into the role of MK’s Chief of Staff, pending the arrival of Chris Hani from Lesotho. In 1988, he was part of a six-member unit led by the late Lieutenant General Lennox Tshali, deployed alongside the guerrillas of the Polisario Front in Western Sahara. The unit returned with tactical insights from the Polisario Front, which were instrumental in operations such as the successful attack on the Slurry Military Base in the former Bophuthatswana.

In memory of Major General Mokoape, the SACP reiterates the call for Morocco to end its occupation of Western Sahara. The hardships faced by the Saharawi people under Morocco’s occupation are immense, compounded by the complicity of imperialist France and Spain. Together with Morocco, the two imperialist regimes want to stop at nothing to maintain the oppression and dispossession of the Saharawi people, to exploit their natural resources and political economy. Mokoape fought against this system in South Africa for the liberation of the oppressed.

As we approached our victory over the apartheid regime in the early 1990s, he showed a deep concern for the welfare of MK members, particularly those who might face challenges integrating into a future defence force. Driven by his commitment to development, he pursued further education in this field.

He earned qualifications in the Management of Co-operatives at the Co-operative College in Lusaka, Zambia, and in the Management of Rural Development Projects at the Pan-African Institute for Development (East and Southern Africa) in Kabwe, Zambia. In his memory, the working class needs to unite, forge a popular left front and build a powerful, socialist movement of the workers and poor to build a thriving co-operatives economy and advance and deepen rural development. These two objectives must be among our nation’s apex priorities to tackle economic inequality, empower the working class and systematically end uneven development. 

In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the liberation struggle against colonial and apartheid subjugation, in 2018 President Cyril Ramaphosa honoured General Mokoape with the Order of Luthuli in Silver.

In tribute to General Mokoape, the SACP calls for the unity of the liberation forces in the struggle for total social emancipation. The SACP reiterates its call upon our movement to keep the legacy of the MK alive, not least in, and through, the arts and academic spaces. The MK’s legacy would also be best preserved by uniting our democratic and peace-loving forces to strengthen the struggle to eradicate poverty, overcome the unemployment crisis, record-high inequality, the associated crisis of social reproduction and an end to the exploitation of one person by another.