JOHANNESBURG: Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, one of Nelson Mandela’s closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule and a fellow Robben Island prisoner, died on Tuesday aged 87. Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the 1964 Rivonia trial, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime. He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town. After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counsellor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Leading a flood of tributes, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as “a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness”, hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

Kathrada’s activism against white-minority rule started at the age of 17, when he was one of 2,000 “passive resisters” arrested in 1946 for defying laws that discriminated against Indian South Africans. The ANC party was banned in 1960, and two years later Kathrada — known as ‘Kathy’ — was placed under house arrest.

Soon afterwards, he went underground to continue the struggle as a member of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). In July 1963, the police swooped on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, outside Johannesburg, where Kathrada and other senior activists were meeting in secret.

At the famous Rivonia trial, eight of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour on Robben Island. His fellow prisoners included Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Denis Goldberg.

“The nation has lost a titan, an outstanding leader and a great patriot,” the ANC said after his death was announced.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation lauded him as “the embodiment of promise” during the apartheid years, saying Kathrada was “a comrade, associate and close friend of Nelson Mandela’s through seven decades.”

Released from prison in 1989, the softly-spoken Kathrada belonged to a generation of freedom fighters untainted by later corruption scandals. Kathrada chose not to pursue a political career, but remained an activist.

He was critical of the current ANC government under President Jacob Zuma, which has been accused of graft, mismanagement and failing black South Africans.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2017