On 26 January 1963, Joe Gqabi was arrested with nine fellow members who had undergone military training in Ethiopia and were deported back to South Africa after being captured in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for leaving the country illegally. Upon completing his prison term, he was re-arrested and charged under the Sabotage Act and was convicted and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on Robben Island.
Joe Nzingo Gqabi was born on 6 April 1929 in Aliwal North, Cape Province. He completed the tenth grade and found work as a construction labourer after coming to Johannesburg in 1951. Gqabi joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1952 and later joined the underground Communist Party (SACP). At the same time, he also joined the Johannesburg based militant newspaper called the ‘New Age’ as both photographer and reporter. His job of exposing the hidden crimes of Apartheid proved a remarkable experience in investigative journalism. Gqabi was one of two thousand political detainees after the 1960 PAC-led Sharpville Massacre and the consequent State of Emergency in 1960. After his release from detention in 1961, he went into exile to join the newly formed military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).
In October 1961, Joe Gqabi, Raymond Mhlaba, Wilton Mkwayi, Andrew Mlangeni, Abel Mthembu and Steve Nandha Naidoo began their military training in Peking (Beijing), as the first six MK Cadres earmarked for training a
