ANC mourns anti-apartheid stalwart

The ANC in the Eastern Cape is mourning the loss of one of its stalwarts, Government Zini, who died on Friday after a short illness.

The party’s provincial spokesperson, Gift Ngqondi, said on Monday that Zini’s political activism started at an early age, when he devoted himself to civic politics and the trade union movement.

“Government Zini served in the Mass Democratic Movement, in particular the United Democratic Front, with the likes of Allan Zinn, Dr Basil Brown, Afrika Maqolo, Sipho Nodlawu, Raymond Uren, Qaqawuli Godolozi, Ihron Rensberg and many others,” Ngqondi said.

Zini was also the founding member of the Motor Assembly Components Workers’ Union of SA,  creating a force which sought to defend workers’ rights and challenge the apartheid system.

“He worked at Ford Motor Company as a mechanical engineer where he became active in the labour movement,” Ngqondi said.

“In the early ’90s, he worked at Algoa Bus Company as a director.”

Ngqondi said Zini had travelled the world, including to Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok with the late Kholekile Frans of the SA National Civic Organisation.

On a trip to Chicago, he met the Rev Jesse Jackson to negotiate the reinstatement of dismissed Ford Motor Company SA workers at the Cortina Struandale plant.

“He fought against job reservation and in support of equal opportunities at the workplace at Ford Motor Company in Port Elizabeth and he was part of the human agency that consciously made history even as history imposed itself on them.”

Along with his contemporaries in the trade union movement such as Thozamile Botha, Sipho Hina, Fikile Kobese, Sicelo Duze, Dennis Neer, Dumile Makanda and Max Madlingozi, Zini responded to the imperatives which impelled those who suffered oppression to rise up against apartheid, Ngqondi said.

“Comrade Zini, like many of his generation, was a prolific writer and loved music — jazz in particular — and the ANC would like to extend sincere condolences to his family, friends and to the ANC Veterans League.”