The South African Communist Party expresses its profound revolutionary solidarity and condolences with the family of Riot “Makomanisi” Mkhwanazi on the passing of the struggle veteran. Comrade Riot was arrested in 1964 while he was crossing the South African Border to Botswana and was sentenced to ten years in Robben Island with other revolutionaries.

The country has lost a disciplined veteran and a true revolutionary who sacrificed his youth and risked his life for the liberation of South Africa.

After his release, Mkhwanazi subsequently went into exile after a series of abuses by the oppressor regime. He spent many years in Mozambique, until the Nkomati Accord forced him and other ANC cadres to move out. He returned to South Africa in the early 1990s, along with others who had been in exile.

Cde Riot together with his old comrade and friend Comrade Stalin Mtshali remained the only two comrades who had districts of the Party  named after them whilst they were still alive.

He was passionate about political education and development programmes.

We deep our revolutionary banner in memory of Cde Riot “Makomanisi” Mkhwanazi!

 

Issued by SACP