ANC stalwart Ruth Mompati dies

JOHANNESBURG - ANC stalwart and former MP, ambassador and
mayor Ruth Mompati has died after a short illness, ANC deputy
secretary general Jessie Duarte told ANA.
A former typist at Mandela Tambo attorneys, leader of the anti-pass
law march on August 9 1956 and a negotiator at the Groote Schuur
talks in 1990, Mompati was 90.
The district municipality in the North West where she was born and
later served as mayor is named after her.
Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati was born in Tlapeng village, near Vryburg,
in the then Western Transvaal on 14 September 14 1925.
She started working as a teacher in the area in 1944 but her teaching
career was curtailed in 1952 when she got married and had her
employment terminated under apartheid laws.
She later relocated to Soweto where she worked as a typist for Nelson
Mandela and Oliver Tambo at their law firm and became an active
member of the ANC.
During this period, she became a member of the ANC Women’s League
National Executive Committee, became involved in the 1952 Defiance
Campaign and helped form the Federation of South African Women
(Fedsaw).
She was among the organisers of the historic women’s anti-pass law
march to the Union Buildings on August 9 1956, alongside Helen
Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi and Gertrude Shope.
In 1962 she went into exile and received military training in the Soviet
Union. She then served the ANC, most notably in the presidents office,
and Fedsaw in Europe and on the African continent, including in
Tanzania and Zambia.
In the early 80s, she served as an ANC representative in the United
Kingdom, and was to later form part of the delegation that opened
talks with the South African government at Groote Schuur in 1990.
On 10 August 1992, a day after the anniversary of the historic Women’s
March to Pretoria in 1956, she addressed the United Nations Special
Committee against Apartheid in New York on matters affecting women.
In 1994, she was elected among a first generation of ANC MPs to the
National Assembly, where she served until 1996 before being posted to
Switzerland as an ambassador for four years.
Her life and career came full circle in 2000 when she returned to Naledi
municipality in Vryburg to serve mayor until May 2010.
She was granted an honorary Master’s degree in education by the
North West University an honorary doctorate by Medunsa.
- Africa News Agency

Pictured above: Dr Ruth Mompati receives the OR Tambo Life Time

Achievement Award from President Jacob Zuma and Minister of

International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana Mashabane at

the Inaugural Ubuntu Awards, February 14, 2015 at the ICC in Cape

Town. (GCIS)