‘Airport renaming must be fast-tracked’
THE ANC in the Northern Cape has renewed its calls to have the Kimberley Airport renamed after one of the city’s iconic Struggle veterans.
While no time frame has been given at the ruling party’s midterm lekgotla earlier this week, ANC provincial secretary, Deshi Ngxanga, called for the airport to be renamed after the late Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) veteran, Ulysses Gogi Modise, who played an integral part in the early days of the armed struggle and later made a significant contribution to intelligence services in the Province.
“The lekgotla has resolved that the matter has been coming on for a long time and as such has tasked the MEC for Sport, Arts and Culture to ensure the fast-tracking of the renaming of the airport,” said Ngxanga in a statement released yesterday afternoon.
Born Julius Gogi Kgabegenyane on December 23 1942 in Kimberley, Modise was one of the first youths from the Province to skip the country and join the ANC’s military wing.
He underwent military training in Lusaka, Zambia, and became part of the Luthuli Detachment, and proved to be an integral part of the ANC’s first armed military operation in 1967.
Modise went on to lead covert intelligence and counter-intelligence operations, exposing spy rings within the movement, and served as a member of the Department of National Intelligence and Security Directorate between 1976 and 1980.
After the 1994 elections, he was appointed Intelligence Head in the Northern Cape before he was promoted to the position of Co-ordinator of Intelligence in the Province in September 1998.
The Struggle veteran was also part of the Eminent Persons Group and was instrumental in the formalisation and welfare of the MK Military Veterans in the Northern Cape.
Modise died in 2007 at the age of 65 but was honoured, posthumously, with the Order of Mendi by President Jacob Zuma last year, for his extraordinary acts of bravery and for risking his own life for the benefit of others.
“Comrade Ulysses Gogi Modise made an immeasurable contribution to the ANC and to the people of this Province,” added Ngxanga.
Other Struggle icons whose names have been suggested for the Kimberley Airport include the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Robert Sobukwe, who was a practising attorney and resident of Galeshewe until the time of his death in 1978, as well as Thomas Morebodi, a 15-year-old student activist who was shot dead by riot squad members on April 11 1985.
Thomas’ funeral a few days later attracted thousands of Galeshewe residents who were later dispersed when police opened fire as they embarked on a march.
According to reports from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, strategic communication (stratcom), pamphlets were distributed by the Joint Management Centre to disrupt the funeral, while Morebodi’s killing triggered an escalation in conflicts, peaking between July and October that year, when arrests for arson and public violence, along with the use of rubber bullets, tear gas and birdshot by police, proved a regular occurrence.