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Ebrahim: South African anti-apartheid veteran jailed with Nelson Mandela dies at 84

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Agency Report

Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, a veteran of the fight against apartheid who spent years imprisoned on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela, died Monday aged 84, South Africa’s ruling party announced.

Ebrahim passed away at his Johannesburg home after a long illness, the African National Congress said in a statement.

He “was a longstanding member of the ANC, a patriot who served his country in different capacities with humility, dedication and distinction,” the party said.

A largely unsung figure in the chronicles of apartheid, Ebrahim joined the struggle against white-minority rule in his early teens, becoming an ANC youth activist in 1952.

His life followed the arc of the liberation movement — beginning with non-violent protests, becoming a guerrilla fighter, getting imprisoned on Robben Island twice, and eventually joining the democratic government.

Known as “Ebie”, he was born in Durban on July 1, 1937. As a child, he saw his father get arrested twice for breaking laws that prevented Indians from travelling freely within South Africa.

By the time he was 13, he was already taking part in liberation politics.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance campaigns in India, Ebrahim attended speeches by Albert Luthuli, the ANC leader who in 1960 became the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

He tried joining protest campaigns, but the liberation parties would not let him because of his young age.

As an Indian, Ebrahim initially was not allowed to join the ANC. He instead joined the Natal Indian Congress and became a delegate to the landmark Congress of the People in 1955.

That meeting gathered activists of all races, pulling together a massive public consultation on how South Africans wanted to be governed. The result was the Freedom Charter, now seen as a foundational document underpinning South African democracy.

As with many others in the movement, the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 changed Ebrahim’s mind about peaceful resistance. The sight of police shooting 69 protesters dead pushed him to join the ANC’s armed wing.

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