Memoir that reads like a spy novel
LAUNCHING his memoirs last night, ANC veteran Charles Nqakula fondly recalled how he had gone to ground in Cape Town during the 1980s.
“These comrades looked well after me, it was nice being in Cape Town,” said Nqakula.
Launched at the Castle of Good Hope, Nqakula’s book, The People’s War: Reflections of an ANC Cadre, gives an insight into his life – from being a journalist in the Eastern Cape to the inner workings of the ANC, and the ascendency of President Jacob Zuma.
Recalling his stay in Philippi, his life in the shadow of the apartheid police seemed straight out of a spy novel, with the possibility of arrest always imminent.
Nqakula is also critical of Zuma in the book, calling on him to relinquish power after the election of a new ANC national executive in December to give the party’s new leadership space to exert its power.
The book starts at the ANC’s Kabwe consultative conference in June 1985, where Albie Sachs was instrumental in drafting the document, which would be akin to a bill of rights, on how the ANC would treat its captives.
Nqakula praised the role of Sachs, who was also present at the launch, along with several figures from the liberation Struggle including Nomaindia Mfeketo, James Ngculu, Mary Burton and Naledi Pandor.
Earlier Nqakula’s wife, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, told a packed room of comrades and supporters of the love story which had taken them from the Eastern Cape into exile in Lesotho and then on to Angola.