OR Tambo Passes On
On 24 April 1993, after suffering complications following a stroke, Oliver Tambo passed on at the age of 75. His death came 14 days after Chris Hani’s assassination and one year before the 1994 general elections. Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo was an outstanding South African revolutionary, a gentle freedom fighter, who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991, and Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Army, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).
When Tambo assumed the Presidency of the ANC following Inkosi Albert Luthuli’s passing on, he had no doubt of what lay ahead of him, as the leader of a massive movement, which the oppressed masses of South Africa looked up to. He correctly inferred and asserted that “The only real solution lies in the victory of the revolutionary forces, the dismantling of the apartheid machinery and the transfer of political and economic power to the democratic majority”.
As a Military Commander, Tambo was directly responsible for organising active guerilla units and successfully straddled the Eastern bloc with the West, the Non-Aligned Movement and also independent Africa, obtaining their support despite his refusal to repudiate non-racialism. He had borne witness to Albert Luthuli’s crafting of the “moral high ground” and retained the principle into the MK’s concept of armed struggle.
For instance, in 1968, Tambo accompanied the MK group on a number of occasions when they went on re
