As tributes continued to pour in for former Defence Minister and the Congress of the People co-founder Terror Lekota Vaal based clergy Bishop Dr Marumo Nkopake also said “Farewell to Comrade Terror” on behalf his late father and Lekota’s comrade Mbuti Naphtali Nkopane.
The son of the late anti apartheid activist Mbuti Naphtali Nkopane, Bishop Dr Marumo Nkopane remembers the late Terror Lekota as a brilliant, hardworking and an avid reader.
Bishop Marumo Nkopane from Sebokeng in the Vaal area, said his father also worked with other comrades like Reverend Gift Moerane and Sol Tsotetsi at the Vaal Council of Churches, and was arrested and tried together with the late Terror Lekota and other accused in the Delmas Treason Trial, the famous and the longest trial in South African history at the time – over 450 days.
“Comrade Terror Lekota was arrested with my father.They were in the case that was called The Delmas treason trial.The second biggest treason trial after Revonia Treason trial” said Dr Marumo Nkopane”
“He was indeed a brilliant man, a straight forward person, who was passionate about South Africa and its people. He will forever be remembered” added Nkopane.
The defendants faced treason and subversion charges for allegedly inciting the 1984 Vaal Triangle uprising. The Trial ran from October 1985 to December 1988, Included among the defendants were three senior UDF (United Democratic Front) leaders, Moses Chikane, Mosiuoa Lekota and Popo Molefe, who were known as the “Big Three”.
Eleven of the accused were found guilty in the same courtroom where Nelson Mandela was tried in 1964. Their sentences were overturned in 1989 after an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Nkopane said his late father was the veteran of the African National Congress, and sadly passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and was buried under the Category 2 Special funeral.
