/ MEDIA STATEMENT / The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) conveys its heartfelt message of condolences to the family of Comrade Naphtal “Naph” Manana, a stalwart of our liberation struggle.

The SACP also conveys its message of condolences to the ANC and the uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans, with whom he fought side by side in the trenches against the apartheid system for the liberation of the South African people.

Comrade Naph, as he was affectionately known, joined the ANC in the mid-1970s in exile, Botswana. He also joined the people’s liberation army, the joint ANC and SACP armed struggle movement, the real uMkhonto weSizwe (MK). His structured military training started the following year, in 1977. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with Russia at the centre, played a key role in supporting our liberation struggle. Moses Kotane, General Secretary of the SACP from 1939 until his death in 1978 and at the same time the ANC Treasurer-General from 1963 to 1973, was a prominent figure in this alliance. Building on the tradition of international solidarity with the Soviet Union, which dates back to the formation of the SACP in 1921 and the success of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, Napth was one of many comrades who received military training and civil education in the Soviet Union. His training in the Soviet Union focused on military engineering.

After several African countries and the Soviet Union, he returned to South Africa in 1979 to finish off the apartheid regime, taking part in an important operations mission. He was part of a unit of four fine comrades who attacked Soekmekaar Police Station in early 1980, to destabilise the apartheid regime’s forceful removals agenda. That Police Station was a key centre for one of the regime’s forceful removals agenda at that time. He was arrested following the attack against the forced removals of late 1979, in which the apartheid regime used police vans and dogs as many people resisted, with a number of families being forced into trucks and taken away.

Later, Comrade Napth was sentenced to death by the Pretoria Supreme Court the following year, in 1980, for his brave fight against the apartheid regime. Together with his fellow comrades, Petros Mashego and Johnson Lubisi, they were thereafter taken to the death cells at Pretoria Central Prison, now renamed Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area. 

The apartheid regime, a system of crime against humanity, sought additional charges to prosecute Comrade Napth and other stalwarts of the liberation struggle under the doctrine of "common purpose." He was charged in connection with the 1980 “Silverton Siege”, in which he and other accused were ultimately found not guilty. However, the regime was relentless in its determination to unleash terror without restraint.

Following international mobilisation by our liberation movement against the death sentence, sensitising international bodies such as the United Nations and mobilising the working class here at home through underground organisation and other methods, as well as building the international anti-apartheid movement, the apartheid regime finally relented and commuted the sentence from death to life imprisonment. Comrade Napth served his sentence in Robben Island from 1982 until his release in 1991 following the unbanning of the ANC and the SACP.

He later worked for the ANC, among others in organising and political education, contributing to the task of building our movement to advance, deepen and defend the national democratic revolution through transformation and development, among others.

From 2014 to 2017, Comrade Napth served as South Africa’s Ambassador to Cuba, strengthening our national relations with Cuba. He took special care of our national student exchange programme in Cuba. “He did not relate to the students as a list of names or numbers on that list,” remarked SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila, who visited his family to convey heartfelt condolences on behalf of the Party on Wednesday, 14 November 2024. “Comrade Napth sought to understand the students’ backgrounds and had a solid grasp of their background and its circumstances,” said Mapaila.

Mapaila recalled Comrade Napth’s efforts to secure alternatives in the face of the United States’ illegal economic, financial, investment and trade blockade against Cuba. This blockade, along with other unilateral, illegal sanctions by the imperialist regime, has affected and affects not only Cuba but also other countries through extraterritorial measures. In memory of Comrade Napth, a humble comrade, and in solidarity with the Cuban government and people, the SACP reiterates its call for the United States to end the blockade and its foreign occupation of Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay unconditionally and with immediate effect.

After his return from Cuba, Comrade Napth resumed his work with the ANC, this time focusing on strengthening and co-ordinating Alliance relations at a strategic technical level. We worked closely with him and valued his calm demeanour and level-headedness. He formed part of the Alliance reconfiguration engagement process, which we initiated to strengthen the Alliance’s strategic relevance and political impact. We initiated the process to also reassert the principles of democratic, consensus-seeking Alliance consultation, collective leadership of the national democratic revolution as our shared strategy and collective accountability.

In paying tribute to Comrade Naphtal Manana, the SACP calls for the unity of the forces of liberation. To this end, in line with the tasks outlined by the SACP’s 15th National Congress in July 2022, the Party is deepening its efforts to build working-class and popular power within proletarian communities and across the country. This aims to strengthen both technical and political capacity to defeat neo-liberalism, advancing the national, anti-imperialist, democratic revolution towards non-capitalist transformation, development and societal formation – ultimately, a socialist transition.

Issued by the South African Communist Party,