Lawyer’s life of dedication, service
RAMESH VASSEN was a prominent human rights lawyer, activist and community leader from the Western Cape. He was born on March 10, 1947, and attended Steven Regan Primary and South Peninsular High School. His teachers included Richard Reeves and Ma Wessels, two icons of the New Unity Movement (NUM).
Although VASSEN lived in Rosebank, Cape Town, and thus at the foot of UCT, owing to apartheid, he was forced to attend an ethnic Indian university located on Salisbury Island, in Durban’s port. At university he met and interacted with influential student leaders, including Steve Biko.
VASSEN graduated with a law degree in 1971 and did his articles with Paul David, who was a prominent activist and brother of Phyllis Naidoo, whose husband, MD Naidoo, was a member of the Communist Party and served time on Robben Island. Phyllis herself was a prominent ANC activist and later had to flee into exile.
From the very beginning, VASSEN represented the poor people in the rural areas of Natal, including Empangeni. During lunch recesses instead of sitting in the lawyers’ tea room, he instead chose to sit with the interpreters and workers who had lunchtime braais on the street.
Having completed his articles, he returned to Cape Town in 1975 and joined the firm of Dullah Omar as a professional assistant where he later became a partner in Omar, Vassen and Company. Immediately he joined Omar in working with political prisoners at Robben Island and other prisons throughout South Africa.
They represented political prisoners from across all political parties, including the ANC, PAC, Communist Party, Azapo, NUM and Swapo, who were persecuted by the apartheid system.
Omar and VASSEN also spent a lot of time defending and protecting political prisoners who faced charges brought by the prison authorities for violating repressive prison rules which were meant to humiliate them, break their spirit and keep them isolated from current events.
These prisoners included the Rivonia Triallists, the PAC leadership such as Japhta Masemola, John Nkosi and Zeff Mothopeng, Toivo Ja Toivo from Swapo as well as other leaders.
Through the South African Prisoners’ Education Trust (SAPET) VASSEN provided funds for the education of all political prisoners. He believed these skills were necessary for the leadership of our awaiting democracy. VASSEN also devised strategies which enabled him to compile a database of all political prisoners and where they were held.
VASSEN, after persistent applications and letters to prison authorities, finally forced a concession that Raymond Mhlaba be allowed to get married. This was followed by the marriage of Wilton and Irene Mkwayi.
VASSEN and his wife, Veena, who helped run his practice, went to Robben Island on a weekly basis.
They not only took care in defending prisoners rights but also took care of their many personal needs such as communicating with their families, arranging visits, informing them of deaths and other personal matters. VASSEN formed a link between the ANC leadership on Robben Island and the leadership in exile. Under the guise of attending conferences and family holidays, he met often with the leadership in Harare and Lusaka.
This included Oliver Tambo, Thabo Mbeki, Chris Hani, Joe Slovo and Steve Tshwete. Of concern to VASSEN was how easily MK operatives were being ambushed and captured because of infiltration by the apartheid state and they worked to narrow this. Many times he arranged safe passage for those combatants leaving the country.
VASSEN also smuggled money and military information back into the country on instruction of the leadership.
As a lawyer, he defended many high profile political triallists including:
Oscar Mpetha and 22 others which lasted three years.
Oliver Nqubelani, who placed a bomb in the Cape Town Supreme Court.
Lizo Nguwngwana, who was longest-serving uncaptured MK commander in the Western Cape.
The Yengeni triallists including Tony Yengeni, Lumka Yengeni and Jennifer Schreiner.
VASSEN and the legal team also made history when they also defended Mxoli Petani, an MK commander.
In this trial for the first time, the defence team applied that their client be regarded as a prisoner-of-war fighting an unjust system in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Since the 1976 student uprisings until the early 1990s, Ramesh also represented and defended human rights activists who were detained without trial or who were charged with breaking apartheid laws. Notably, he lent a team of lawyers to defend political activists throughout the Western Cape, which then included Port Elizabeth.
In addition to political prisoners and activists, he also generally came to the aid of those ravaged by the apartheid system’s unjust laws.
His wife, Veena, says that while he was not a man of rules, the one golden rule of his practice that was never broken was that anybody who entered it looking for assistance would be helped, irrespective of whether they had the means to pay.
Nobody was ever turned away because of a lack of money. VASSEN’s belief was that even those charged with criminal offences were socio-economic victims of the apartheid state and winning a case for him was scoring a victory against it.
At a time when the Law Society of South Africa did not act in the interests of black lawyers or the community, in 1986 VASSEN, Omar and other progressive lawyers formed the National Association of Democratic Lawyers.
He was also an active leader of the community in his own right.
VASSEN was a founder member of the Thornhill Residents’ Association, which was active in organising grassroots support in the Athlone area. When he spoke of community, it was in the non-racial sense and he never referred to himself as Indian.
While VASSEN and his family were forced to live in an Indian area with an ethnic Indian school nearby, he insisted that his children did not grow up with a blinkered tribal indentity and went to great lengths to ensure that they attended so-called coloured schools instead, even though it was far from home. VASSEN was a kind and generous soul who lived a life of dedication, commitment and service.
He cared not for money, fame or position and is survived by his wife and children, Mukesh, Priya and Trivesh.
This obituary was prepared with the assistance of the Vassen family