Friends, family bid farewell to activist Bonhomme
HUNDREDS of old comrades, friends and neighbours gathered at the Holy Family Parish Church in Newlands East on Saturday to pay a final farewell to veteran activist Trevor Bonhomme.
The 75-year-old was celebrated in the community in which he had lived and worked for almost 50 years.
Among the senior politicians paying tribute were former finance minister Pravin Gordhan, ANC Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli, ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu, Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Luwellyn Landers, and ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Sihle Zikalala.
Bonhomme was described as a deeply committed leader with spotless integrity who was always close to the people.
Along with his brother, Virgil, he was one of the founders of the Newlands East Residents’ Association, United Committee of Concern and the Durban Housing Action Committee (DHAC).
DHAC was one of the driving forces of the United Democratic Front.
Gordhan, who was at the forefront of community struggles in the 1970s and 1980s, embraced comrades he had not seen in several years.
Asherville activist Swaminathan Gounden, 89, traced his relationship with the Bonhomme brothers to 1978.
They recalled Bonhomme’s path-breaking campaign in 1996 to get the Durban Metropolitan Council to give a destitute neighbour a basic allocation of water, which had been cut off.
He successfully took the matter to court.
Cosatu then introduced the matter into the ANC’s election manifesto in 2000, making basic water and electricity available to the poor.
Since 2006, Bonhomme had been an ANC MP, maintaining his constituency office in Phoenix.
He was cremated in a private service at Clare Estate.