SA award given posthumously for Sweden’s Olof Palme

SOUTH African cultural activist and well-known poet Zolani Mkiva has flown to Sweden to posthumously present the country’s late Prime Minister Olof Palme with an Mkiva Humanitarian Award (MHA) for his role in the freedom struggle.

The Global Champion of People’s Freedom award will be presented to Palme’s family in Stockholm today.

“This posthumous honour is bestowed to Mr Olof Palme for his courageous leadership and outspokenness against injustice and brutal exploitation of the poor and underprivileged in the world,” said Mkiva, who is the MHA president.

“He is being remembered as a statesman and a warrior of social justice who had a passion for a free and peaceful society.”

This year marks the 30th commemoration of the assassination of Palme. He was gunned down close to midnight on February 28 1986 while walking home from the cinema with his wife. Some believe apartheid agents may have had a hand in his death, but the crime has never been solved.

Palme was a Swedish Social Democratic politician, statesman and prime minister. He was a pivotal, renowned, and polarising figure in Swedish and international politics prior to his murder.

He was steadfast in his nonalignment policy towards the superpowers, accompanied by support for numerous Third World liberation movements.

“As Africans we take this opportunity to remember this hero who laid down his life for our freedom,” said Mkiva.

“His background as social democratic leader and icon of the masses managed to influence societies of the world for the betterment of the lives of the people, deserves to be saluted and honoured with the highest accolade for leadership in Africa and world over.”

Previous recipients of the award include former South African president Nelson Mandela, former Cuban president Fidel Castro, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, a former Organisation of African Unity secretary-general, Jerry Rawlings, the former president of Ghana and the late Hugo Chavez, the former Venezuelan head of state.

The MHA were established in 1999. They were formed in the context of celebrating the life and times of the late Richard Mkiva from Bholotwa village in Dutywa who was a community activist. He died in 1959 after being poisoned. —