by Mukundi Mutasa and Phyllis Johnson – SANF 06 No 94
Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo was leader of the African National Congress (ANC) for 23 years in exile, while Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
His clear vision, quiet dedication and total commitment, and his consummate diplomatic skills, led the movement through difficult times of the liberation struggle, the hopeful times as the neighbouring countries gained independence, and through an extended period of negotiations that began in the 1980s when he had the courage to authorize contact with the first Afrikaner delegation that sought meetings with the ANC.
In the Foreword to the biography Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains, published in 2005, President Thabo Mbeki described Tambo as the “key architect of our revolution who carried the South African nation to the eve of freedom and democracy.”
Tambo’s “life and character are a metaphor of our struggle,” Mbeki wrote.
It is widely acknowledged that Tambo sacrificed his own health and eventually his life to drive the negotiations, based on the Harare Declaration, which was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations, and became the foundation for negotiations that brought an end to the apartheid regime.
“But like Albert Luthuli, OR had a clear vision of a non-racial, nonsexist and democratic society,” wrote a member of the ANC Executive Committee this week as commemorations began, leading to the renaming of the main South African airport.
“His humility drew us to him and strengthened our own vision,” Kadar Asmal wrote. “He was never seduced by the demands of powerful forces who attempted to prescribe to us.”
Nor did he regard himself as a hero, reserving that status for the children and people in the townships of South Africa whom he believed provided the courage for the struggle that he knew would, one day, successfully remove the apartheid system.
OR, as he was affectionately known by all, provided the heart and the inspiration to a liberation movement in exile, that eventually carried it through to the majority rule elections of 27 April 1994, a day he did not live to share as he died the previous year. But he was home.
In the decade following 1994, with attention focused on his close friend and former legal partner, Nelson Mandela, and his personal assistant and protégé, Thabo Mbeki, sometimes it appeared that the major contribution of this humble man had been forgotten.
But not by those who mattered, and on his birthday, 27 October, South Africa’s main international airport will be renamed OR Tambo International Airport. Tambo would have turned 89 on this date.
Nothing could be a more fitting memorial to Tambo than the busiest airport on the continent, the hub of Africa, visited by millions of people every year.
The renaming comes at a time when the country is upgrading the airport’s infrastructure as part of its preparations for the hosting of the 2010 World Cup. The airport was named the leading airport in Africa at the 2005 World Travel Awards, having won the Skytrax Best Airport in Africa award from 2002 to 2004.
OR Tambo International Airport will join other airports in the region that are named after veteran nationalists.
The former Dar es Salaam International Airport was renamed in October 2005 after Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the founding President of the United Republic of Tanzania and first Chairman of the Front Line States.
Botswana has the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in Gaborone, which was renamed in 2001 in honour of the country’s first independence President.
The Bulawayo Airport in Zimbabwe was renamed the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Airport in 2000, a year after the death of the late Vice President.
Along with former president Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, Tambo was a founding member of the ANC Youth League in 1943.
Tambo became the ANC Secretary General in 1955. In 1958, he was elected as the organisation’s deputy president and, after a banning order issued by the apartheid government, went abroad to mobilise opposition to the apartheid system.
He became de facto leader of the ANC following the death of Albert Luthuli in 1967 and acting President in 1969. In 1985, at the height of the struggle against apartheid, Tambo was formally elected president of the ANC.
He returned to South Africa in 1991 after spending more than 30 years in exile, and died from a stroke at the age of 75 in April 1993, a year before South Africa’s first democratic elections.
