Park renaming hails trade unionist Aggett
LABOUR activist, medical doctor and the first white South African to die in police detention, Neil Aggett, was honoured by the City yesterday for his fight for justice and the country’s freedom.
Yesterday, mayor Patricia de Lille named a Somerset West park the Dr Aggett Memorial Park. It is the same park where he played with his siblings as a young boy.
The process of renaming took place in April when the City Council approved a proposal to rename the Quinan Road Park.
De Lille quoted from two of the submissions.
The first said: “Dr Aggett contributed to our democracy. Naming the park after him would be a reminder of the great price that was paid for our freedom.”
Another said: “Fighting injustices, bringing unity among the unions, and offering his time for the underprivileged and disadvantaged. He did it with passion.”
Aggett was born in Kenya on October 6, 1953 and moved to South Africa with his family in the 60s.
In 1971 he enrolled at UCT, where he studied medicine.
He worked in hospitals in Mthatha and Gauteng, and it was while working at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto that he became involved in the trade union movement.
He was later appointed as organiser of the Transvaal branch of the African Food and Canning Workers’ Union, and De Lille said Aggett’s work made him a target of the apartheid government’s security forces.
“As a union organiser, he championed workers’ rights, working full time without pay and often used his own money to help their cause by paying for transport for union officials to factories where they organised. Neil Aggett worked tirelessly negotiating for improved working conditions, and spent his evenings mobilising people to join the union,” De Lille said.
“Back then, unions recognised that they could not detach themselves from the Struggle and the problems in their communities.
“They became a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, today, our major unions are embattled as a result of divisions, factions, political allegiances and politicking, instead of strengthening their unity in advocating for the rights of workers.
“Neil Aggett’s work made him a target of the government’s security forces and eventually led to his arrest and detention towards the end of 1981.”
Aggett died in detention on February 5, 1982, and it was ruled as suicide. An inquest into his death was launched, and on December 21 that year, the presiding magistrate Pieter Kotze concluded that no one was to blame for his death. Years later, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found his treatment at the hands of the apartheid police at John Vorster Square was “directly responsible for his death”.