Oliver Reginald Tambo
Born five years after the birth of the ANC, Oliver Reginald
Tambo spent most of his life serving in the struggle against apartheid.
'O R', as he was popularly known by his peers, was born on 27th October
1917 in a rural town, Mbizana, in eastern Mpondoland in what was then
the Cape Province (now Eastern Cape). His parents had converted to
Christianity shortly before he was born.
At the age of seven he began his formal education at the Ludeke
Methodist School in the Mbizana district and completed his primary
education at the Holy Cross Mission. He then transferred to Johannesburg
to attend St Peters College, in Rossettenville, where he completed his
high school education.
From St Peters, Tambo went to study at the University College of Fort
Hare, near Alice, where he obtained his Bachelor of Science Degree in
1941. It was at Fort Hare that he first became involved in the politics
of the national liberation movement. He led a student class boycott in
support of a demand to form a democratically elected Student's
Representative Council. As a consequence he was expelled from Fort Hare
and was thus unable to complete his Bachelor of Science honours degree.
In 1942, he returned to St Peters College as a science and
mathematics teacher. At St Peters he was to teach many who later were
to, play prominent roles in the ANC. Among these were Duma Nokwe who
became the first black South African Advocate of the Supreme Court and a
Secretary-General of the ANC.
It was while he was in Johannesburg that Tambo threw himself body and
soul into the ANC. He was among the founding members of the ANC Youth
League (ANC YL) in 1944 and became its first National Secretary.
He was
elected President of the Transvaal ANCYL in 1948 and national
vice-president in 1949.
In the ANCYL, Tambo teamed up with Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela,
Ashby Mda, Anton Lembede, Dr William Nkomo, Dr C.M.Majombozi and others
to bring a bold, new spirit of militancy into the post-war ANC.
In 1946
Tambo was elected onto the Transvaal Executive of the ANC. In 1948 he,
together with Walter Sisulu were elected onto the National Executive
Committee. This was of great significance to the ANCYL's efforts to
change the ANC.
Instrumental in achieving this transformation was the Programme of
Action, piloted by the ANCYL from branch level to the 1949 national
conference at Bloemfontein O.R. Tambo served on the Committee that drew
up the Programme of Action, which was adopted as national policy in
1949.
The Programme of Action envisaged the transformation of the ANC from
an organisation that held public meetings and occasionally petitioned
the government to a campaigning movement that would draw in large
numbers of people through mass actions, Involving civil disobedience,
strikes, boycotts and other forms of non-violent resistance.
It was
through these means that the ANCYL hoped to change the ANC from an
organisation addressing the African elite to a movement of struggle
involving the mass of uneducated and unskilled Black workers.
Tambo left teaching soon after the adoption of the Programme of
Action and set up a legal partnership with Neslon Mandela. The firm soon
became known as a champion of the poor, victims of apartheid laws with
little or no money to pay their legal costs.
During the Campaign of Defiance of Unjust Laws of 1952, Oliver Tambo
was among the numerous volunteers who courted imprisonment by
deliberately breaking apartheid laws. His law firm partner and
colleague, Nelson Mandela was the National volunteer in chief.
The South African government's attempts to suppress the Defiance
Campaign resulted in one of the first mass trials in South African legal
history. Though he himself was not among the accused, Tambo was close
to the trial. It resulted in the designation of Sisulu and others found
guilty of organising the Defiance Campaign as statutory "Communists".
(That is, though they were not Communists, in terms of the violations of
the Suppression of Communism Act they had committed, the judiciary
declared them "Communists" in terms of the statute.) One result was in
1955 Walter Sisulu, Secretary General of the ANC was banned in terms of
the Suppression of Communism Act and ordered to resign his post as
Secretary General.
Oliver Tambo was appointed to fill the post, pending ratification by the annual conference.
Hounded by banning orders and other restrictions, many of Tambo's
peers were unable to attend the Congress of the People in June 1955.
Oliver Tambo was not only on the platform but also served on the
National Action Council which headed the mobilisation for the COP. It
was because of this role that Tambo found himself among the 156 accused
in the marathon Treason Trial in 1956.
In 1958, Oliver Tambo left the post of Secretary General to become
the Deputy President of the ANC. The following year, 1959, he like many
of his colleagues was served with five year banning order. After the
1960 Sharpeville massacre, Tambo was designated by the ANC to travel
abroad to set up the ANC's international mission and mobilise
international opinion in opposition to the apartheid system.
Working in conjunction with Dr Yusuf Dadoo he was instrumental in the
establishment of the South African United Front, which brought together
the external missions of the ANC, the PAC, the SA Indian Congress and
the South West African National Union (SWANU).
As a result of a very
successful lobbying campaign the South African United Front was able to
secure the expulsion of South Africa from the Commonwealth in 1961.
After this initial success the SAUF broke up in July 1961.
Assisted by African government, Tambo was able to establish ANC
mission in Egypt, Ghana, Morocco and in London. From these small
beginnings, under his stewardship the ANC acquired missions in 27
countries by 1990. These include all the permanent members of the UN
Security Council, with the exception of China, two missions in Asia and
one in Australasia.
The suppression of the 1961 stay-at-home strike led to the ANC
adopting the armed struggle as part of its strategy. Tambo was again an
important factor in securing the co-operation of numerous African
governments in providing training and camp facilities for the ANC.
In 1965 Tanzania and Zambia gave the ANC camp facilities to house
trained Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) combatants. In 1967, after the death of
ANC President General Chief Albert J. Luthuli, Tambo became Acting
president until his appointment to the Presidency was approved by the
Morogoro Conference in 1969.
During the 1970s Oliver Tambo's international prestige rose immensely
as he traversed the world, addressing the United Nations and other
international gatherings on the issue of apartheid. He became the key
figure in the ANC's Revolutionary Council (RC) which had been set up at
the Morogoro Conference to oversee the reconstruction of the ANC's
internal machinery and to improve its underground capacity.
When Portuguese colonialism collapsed in 1975, the ANC stood poised
to take maximum advantage of the geo-political changes. Angola offered
camp and training facilities for MK, and the long- standing relationship
with Frelimo enabled the ANC to acquire diplomatic facilities close to
South Africa.
In 1985 Tambo was re-elected ANC President at the Kabwe Conference.
In that capacity he served also as the Head of the Politico-Military
Council (PMC) of the ANC, and as Commander in Chief of Umkhonto we
Sizwe.
Among black South African leaders, Oliver Tambo was probably the most
highly respected on the African continent, in Europe, Asia and the
Americas. During his stewardship of the ANC he raised its international
prestige and status to that of an alternative to the Pretoria
Government. He was received with the protocol reserved for Heads of
State in many parts of the world.
During his years in the ANC, Oliver Tambo played a major role in the
growth and development of the movement and its policies. He was among
the generation of African nationalist leaders who emerged after the
Second World War who were instrumental in the transformation of the ANC
from a liberal-constitutionalist organisation into a radical national
liberation movement.
In 1989 Oliver Tambo suffered a stroke, and underwent extensive medical treatment.
He returned to South Africa in 1991, after over three decades in
exile. At the ANC's first legal national conference inside South Africa,
held in Durban in July 1991, Tambo was elected National Chairperson of
the ANC. He was also chairperson of the ANC's Emancipation Commission.
Oliver Reginald Tambo died from a stroke at 3.10am on 24 April, 1993.
SOURCE: ANC website
