Statecraft & Independence
Landmark
Govan Mbeki
1910 – 2001
Rivonia trialist, sentenced to life in 1964
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Sentenced to life at the Rivonia Trial alongside Mandela and Sisulu, he served twenty-four years and was the intellectual of the group — and the father of the man who would succeed Mandela as president.
Govan Archibald Mvuyelwa Mbeki took degrees in politics and psychology by correspondence while teaching, ran a co-operative store in the Transkei, and edited New Age, the left-wing paper the government kept banning and he kept restarting under new titles.
He was the theorist of the group. The Peasants' Revolt, written partly underground and published in 1964, argued that the rural reserves were the foundation of the whole system and that the resistance in Pondoland mattered as much as anything in the cities — a case almost nobody in the movement was making.
He was arrested at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia in July 1963 with most of the high command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and at the trial that followed he told the court he accepted responsibility and expected the death sentence. He got life, and served twenty-four years on Robben Island, where he taught and argued with Mandela about strategy, often sharply.
He was released in 1987, ahead of the others, and became deputy president of the Senate in the first democratic parliament. His son Thabo Mbeki, who had gone into exile as a teenager and whom he barely saw for three decades, became president of South Africa in 1999.
He was the theorist of the group. The Peasants' Revolt, written partly underground and published in 1964, argued that the rural reserves were the foundation of the whole system and that the resistance in Pondoland mattered as much as anything in the cities — a case almost nobody in the movement was making.
He was arrested at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia in July 1963 with most of the high command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and at the trial that followed he told the court he accepted responsibility and expected the death sentence. He got life, and served twenty-four years on Robben Island, where he taught and argued with Mandela about strategy, often sharply.
He was released in 1987, ahead of the others, and became deputy president of the Senate in the first democratic parliament. His son Thabo Mbeki, who had gone into exile as a teenager and whom he barely saw for three decades, became president of South Africa in 1999.
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