New Age2.png Indres Naidoo Liberation struggle stalwart Dominic Tweedie, The New Age, Johannesburg, 5 January 2016 Indres Naidoo, a hero of the South African liberation struggle, passed away on Sunday evening, January 3, 2016, aged 79. What follows is a rough sketch, just to indicate a little of what this extraordinary man was in life. More polished and complete tributes can follow later. Indres was a stalwart of the stalwarts. All sorts of comrades will tell you so - it's what you find when Indres is mentioned. Indres (cropped).jpg Indres Naidoo He was loved. He was a reference point. People forget how long the freedom struggle took. They forget that most of the time, and for years at a time, supporters of "the movement" were isolated and burdened with the need to make a living, attend to children, and just generally get by in life. Indres was not an ordinary comrade. He burned like a fire. He warmed other comrades. No matter how mundane life became, or how arrogantly the apartheid regime taunted us, there were a few comrades whom you knew were relentless. Indres was one of them. These were the kind that kept the struggle alive. Indres was not the most brilliant "analyst". Others were better than him in that department. Indres was not the most talented orator, although you would not forget his sincerity in a hurry. He served the movement from the 1950s onwards. Soon after his father Naran "Roy" Naidoo died in 1953, Indres was drawn to the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress. He became the joint secretary of that body, together with Issy Dinat, who became Indres's brother-in-law. Issy married Indres's sister Ramnie. Sadly, Issy Dinat passed away less than a month before Indres, on December 8, 2015. When Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was formed on December 16, 1961, these comrades were among the first to be recruited, forming one of the first two active units. Among others involved were the late Reggie Vandeyar, Shirish Nanabhai, Laloo Chiba, Paul Joseph and Abdulhay Jassat. Indres, Reggie and Shirish were caught in April 1963, tried and sentenced to 10 years on Robben Island. Shortly afterwards, Jacob Zuma, sentenced to 10 years in a different MK case, found them there. They all served their sentence together in the same large cell, with many others. Indres, sometimes known as "Talker" to his friends, suffered in imprisonment. Of course, they all did and too little is said about it. The punishment does not finish when incarceration finishes. After he was released, Indres got a job and worked for a while, but eventually he had to leave the country. He had married Saeeda Vally and they were blessed with a son, Bram. Saeeda and Bram followed Indres to Mozambique where at a certain stage they met up again with Jacob Zuma, among many other now-illustrious and well-known comrades. Indres's daughter Djanine is an architect in Maputo. Indres was sent to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to work in the ANC office there and made a new lot of devoted friends. Indres was a communist, but like the all the best communists, he worked as easily with non-communists as he did with fellow party members. Indres loved people, and they responded. In the GDR he met and later married Gabi Blankenberg, who looked after him for many years in Cape Town after he became ill. Indres was a good friend of Joe Slovo's and after legalisation of the SACP in 1990, worked in the SACP office in Rissik Street, Johannesburg, under new general secretary Chris Hani. After 1994 he moved to Cape Town, and was in Parliament for a few years. Dominic Tweedie is married to Indres's sister, Shanthie From: <http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/05012016/epaperpdf/16.pdf> http://tnaepaper.co.za/DRIVE/main%20edition/05012016/epaperpdf/16.pdf -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
