The biography of Ike Maphoto – The Life and Struggle of a Commander – will be launched in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

The book – part of the Military Veterans Oral History Project‚ which aims to persuade military veterans to publish their stories – was to be unveiled by Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Kebby Maphatsoe and Gauteng Premier David Makhura.

“The final production of a publication by and for a military veteran is an achievement in the process of military veterans telling the story of the liberation struggle‚” the Department of Military Veterans said in a statement.

“The Department undertook to document and profile military veterans historiography‚ experience‚ knowledge‚ education and the suffering endured by military veterans at different stations of their lives.”

Maphotho – born Isaac Lesiba Maphotho in 1931 – one was of the first recruits of Umkhonto We Sizwe when it established in 1961‚ according to South African History Online.

Two years after its formation‚ Maphotho was sent for military training in the former Soviet Union as part of the Luthuli Detachment‚ of which he later became chief logistics officer.

He was captured in 1968 by Rhodesian security forces and imprisoned at the Khami Maximum Prison‚ but he continued to serve the ANC until his release by Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean government in 1980.

Maphotho then travelled around the world canvassing support for the ANC until 1992‚ when the movement was unbanned‚ and returned to South Africa.