DailyNews.gif Tributes for MK pioneer Naidoo Struggle hero dies aged 79 Daily News Reporter and ANA, The Daily News, Durban, 5 January 2016 Struggle stalwart Indres Naidoo, who died on Sunday night, has been hailed by the ANC for being among the first members of its armed wing to take the fight to the apartheid government. The Presidency announced yesterday that Naidoo had died at 2 Military Hospital in Cape Town. He was 79. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the Naidoo family and his comrades in the liberation struggle at the moment," President Jacob Zuma said in a statement. "Indres Naidoo will be remembered for his fearlessness in the face of the most brutal of oppressive systems. We wish to convey our heartfelt condolences on his sad passing, and may his soul rest in peace." Naidoo was one of the first uMkhonto WeSizwe operatives "to go into action", the presidency said. Indrasena (Indres) Elatchininathan Naidoo was born in 1936 into a family which had been politically active for over 100 years, his forbears being colleagues of Gandhi. He was elected to the executive of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress in 1953, and recruited into Umkhonto WeSizwe in 1961. He joined the South African Communist Party in 1961. Naidoo was arrested in 1963 following an attempted sabotage of a railways signal box. Shot He was shot in the shoulder before capture, and kicked when he fell on the floor. He was taken to the hospital to remove the bullet and then to his home for a search with his shirt saturated with blood. He was beaten and tortured during the next few days. He was jailed for 10 years and spent most of these on Robben Island, a period he remembers in his book, Island in Chains. In 1973 Naidoo was released, but put under house arrest. Mozambique In 1976, with the Soweto uprising engulfing the country, the ANC arranged for him to escape from South Africa. He left the following year and spent the next 15 years in exile, initially in Mozambique. Testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997, Naidoo said: "I was there when, in 1980, the SADF killed 13 of our comrades in Matola. I was there when the South African Air Force bombed Maputo and killed one ANC person and four Mozambican civilians. I was there when Ruth First was blown up in 1982." In 1986 he was asked by the Mozambican authorities to leave that country for his own safety. GDR Naidoo was transferred to the ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1987. After a year, he was sent to Berlin, East Germany, where he was deputy representative of the ANC from 1988 to 1991. He survived a number of attempts on his life while in exile, according to the ANC. Naidoo returned to South Africa in 1991 and served as an ANC member of Parliament from 1994 until 1999. ANC veteran and former minister Mac Maharaj yesterday paid tribute to Naidoo. "I counted Indres as a special friend and comrade. We had many friends during the struggle years, but until you went through certain experiences, you couldn't know how committed those friendships were. Indres was one of about five people who I believe would've taken the bullet for me. He was brave, and he was deeply, unwaveringly committed to the ANC and the SACP," he said. In a statement, the ANC mourned "the passing of a stalwart and a revolutionary". "His loyalty, commitment and sacrifices have endeared him to the historically downtrodden of our country," the party said. -- -- 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.
