Death of freedom fighter Coetzee

[caption id="attachment_36078" align="alignright" width="405"] OFF DUTY: Michael Coetzee, right, and family member Neeran Naidoo relax under trees. Coetzee died on Friday after a long battle with cancer[/caption]

MENTOR, hero and freedom fighter. These were just some of the descriptions to emerge of Michael Coetzee, 55, the secretary of parliament, who died peacefully in Cape Town on Friday after a long battle with cancer.

ANC chief whip Stone Sizani said although Coetzee's poor health had been known for some time, his resilient and tenacious spirit had given everyone hope he would get stronger.

President Jacob Zuma remembered Coetzee for his dedication to the struggle for liberation.

"Mr Coetzee epitomised humility, dedication and service to the people in all the tasks he had been given as an activist and also as a professional," he said. “He was diligent in his work as secretary of parliament until his last days. May his soul rest in peace.”

After the first democratic elections in 1994, Coetzee became provincial secretary to the Gauteng legislature. In 2002, he became deputy secretary to parliament and in 2012 he was appointed its secretary.

Coetzee – the son of teachers – spent his early years on a farm in the Loerie and Thornhill district of the Eastern Cape. In 1965, he started school at the Loerie United Congregational Church Laerskool, where his father taught.

Although his family provided a politically conscious home environment at a tender age in which, at 7pm every day, they gathered around the radio to listen to the news, Coetzee’s career in politics began when he was exposed to the Black Consciousness Movement in high school in Uitenhage, and was involved in setting up a branch of the South African Student Movement in 1976.

While enrolled at the University of the Western Cape, he was instrumental in the revival of the Student Representative Council and was involved with various organisations.

Coetzee’s friend of 30 years and co-activist in the apartheid years, Leslie Maasdorp, said: “It is when he came back to Port Elizabeth from UWC in 1981 with activists like Derrick Swartz, now the vice- chancellor at NMMU, that I first met Mike.

“He was one of the political catalysts in a time when Port Elizabeth went through a political repression. He truly was inspirational. He was a leader who never wanted to take stage centre – an attribute which distinguished him from the rest.”

Maasdorp, chairman of AdvTech, spent the last three years close to Coetzee fighting his battle with cancer. He said it was Coetzee’s vigour and ability to stand up for what he believed in that he would remember best.

“Just before the state of emergency in 1985, Mike’s mother’s house in Kemdrick Street in Gelvandale was where he and Matthew Goniwe had their last meeting before Matthew was murdered just outside Cradock. After all those years, Mike named his son Matthew after Goniwe,” Maasdorp said.

Former local activist and now Rural Development and Land Reform Department chief of staff Errol Heynes said he remembered Coetzee as a true leader from their days as members of the United Democratic Front.

“He was instrumental in the mobilising of many of the underground movements and activities in the Eastern Cape, and in particular the northern areas,” Heynes said.

“He was a silent worker who never expected any recognition.”

Upon reflecting on their journey as friends over the apartheid era and beyond, another former activist from Port Elizabeth, Donny Nadison, remembered the time he and Coetzee were detained together in the 1980s.

“We were arrested at the Jan Smuts Airport [now OR Tambo International] and kept in solitary confinement in Port Elizabeth. For those seven months we spent all our time talking to each other.

“Eventually, we spoke so much that there was nothing left to talk about and we just sat there in silence. It is Michael who kept me and the others motivated and we pulled each other through when it got tough,” Nadison said. Although Coetzee was reluctant to speak about it, he suffered torture at the hands of the Eastern Cape security police, and was dangled by his feet off Van Stadens bridge.

“He is a true example of a local person making it to parliament. Although he reached the heights he did in his lifetime, he remained the humble, people’s person and servant he always was.”

Coetzee is survived by his wife Bridgette, son Matthew, 21, his mother Bertha and sister Alexandra.

“Bridgette and Matthew were his entire world,” Neeran Naidoo, a family member said. “They helped him live a balanced life. When he was diagnosed, together with Bridgette, they decided to take regular long holidays as a family, making good memories and sharing special moments.”

A memorial service will be held at the Famhealth Medical Centre in Gelvandale at 7pm on Thursday. - Alvené du Plessis