BY REGINALD KANYANE

A 64 YEAR-OLD struggle icon was honoured in Matlapeng village, in Taung on Saturday. Jacob Kujane was honoured by South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) in Dr Ruth Mompati district.

The regional secretary, Mika Moeti said Kujane was one of the few people from Taung who fought for democracy. He said the participation of Kujane must go unnoticed and the youth of today could learn a thing from his life.

“We need to honour our struggle icons while they are still alive. Noble people like Kujane dedicated their lives to the struggle. Even though the situation was hard-hitting, he never gave up. Now they deserve all the honour. We need to record our history so that the upcoming generation can take out a leaf out of our legendaries’ book. Kujane is a living authentication, so we must continue to strive and fight for what we believe in.” Moeti said.

Even though Taung was under the hard leadership of Bophuthatswana regime, some of the people went on exile and joined African National Congress to help dilute the apartheid administration.

Kujane whom the Sanco branches in Matlapaneng and Choseng villages named after him, joined politics back in 1970. He said that the apartheid left a fissure in many people’s lives.

“We did not enjoy our lives as the cadres of the struggle. We fought against whites’ monopoly in quest to achieve a political freedom and democracy. I went to Johannesburg to seek employment as any other citizen. The circumstance we found ourselves in was not conducive. I met with other political activists and never looked back. I joined the underground movement and trained as uMkhonto Wesizwe. In 1989 we fled the country and went to Botswana to attend intensive training as a soldier.

“We had four key factors that we planned to execute. We had internal mobility, mass mobility, armed struggle and underground movement. Our plan was to execute all this four key factors and dethroned the apartheid administration. I once worked with the late Mma Ruta and other struggle icons in exile,” Kujane said.

Kujane once worked as parliamentary liaison officer at the department of Social Development during former MEC Mosetsanagape Mokomela-Mothibi.

He said even though he was not working closely with the late Dr Nelson Mandela, he was impressed the way they received commands from other leaders.

“I never worked closely with the late Dr Nelson Mandela and other struggle icons. But we always received messages of support and that alone made us strong. Our aim was to see economic freedom in our lifetime, so even though we have not achieved that I think we moving towards that.

“I also went to neighbouring countries like Tanzania and Zambia. I was later promoted to be instructor where I trained young soldiers. I highly-appreciate the moment and my message to the youth is very simple, make sure what you strive for will be a long term process.” Kujane said.

One of the struggle icons in Taung, Kgosi Sam Makuroane said: “Kujane was a formidable leader. He helped me a lot during the Bophuthatswana tenure. They wanted to kill me and I had to escape by being ferried by an ambulance. He became the leader in many trade unions in Gauteng then. Kujane once formed a funeral club called Tshireletso, which was a disguise. We were discussing other ANC policies during the meeting. He was the acting president of Sadtu and fled the country after the police were summoned to arrest him. We organized meetings across the province like in Potchefstroom, Klerksdorp and also in Hartswater.” Mankuroane said.

-TDN

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