27 November 2015, Maseru, Lesotho
Dear Comrades, we are gathered here in memory of Comrade Mokhafisi Kena, just a day after the world has lost another internationalist revolutionary, Comrade Fidel Castro, the historic leader and Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution. Let us stand for a few moments of silence to mourn the death of this revolutionary par excellence...
The people and government of Cuba offered an outstanding solidarity support under the leadership of Comrade Fidel Castro in our own struggle against colonial oppression, apartheid, economic exploitation and African continental independence. The defeat of the forces of apartheid South Africa in Angola that paved the way to the dislodgment of the apartheid regime in South Africa in 1994 would not have happened without the people of Cuba and Comrade Fidel Castro`s exceptional leadership.
Cuba`s contribution in the struggle for freedom by the democratic people of our country, Southern African region, the African continent and elsewhere came without any strings attached. This revolutionary culture continues to this day, the latest example being the excellent work done by Cuban healthcare professionals in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus in our continent. South Africa is also host to Cuban healthcare professionals working in rural areas where there are few or even no South African doctors looking after the health needs of our people.
The revolutionary organisation of the Communist Party of Cuba should serve as an inspiration to the revolutionaries and the progressives of Lesotho. The importance of building and uniting revolutionary and progressive left forces of this country; the importance of reviving open Communist Party organisation in Lesotho, that is, the importance of building the Communist Party in Lesotho to become a large vanguard Party of the working class, many of whom are in South Africa, cannot be over-emphasised. Here we are talking about the mineworkers, farm workers both in the peasant and commercial farming sectors, domestic workers and those affected by irregular forms of employment, floating, latent and stagnant unemployment. This is the main task facing the working class of Lesotho working together with the working of South Africa especially the South African Communist Party (SACP). In memory of Comrade Mokhafisi Kena, this revolutionary task has to succeed.
On 25 September 2016, South African Communist Party (SACP) received with profound sorrow, the sad news that the founding member and longest serving General Secretary of the Communist Party of Lesotho (CPL), Comrade Mokhafisi Jacob Kena had parted ways with the world of the living. The old man was hospitalised. He died at the age of 91. Ntate Kena, as he was also known, was born in 1925.
On behalf of the SACP, I led a working group of our Umsebenzi Online publication to visit Comrade Kena at his home in Tsoelike, Qacha`s Nek District early this year. The visit was a rare moment in the process of research and documenting the history of our shared struggle for liberation and socialism. Our history of struggle is an integral part of the history of all the people of Southern Africa and Africa, as well as of the oppressed and exploited people of the world at large. This came out strongly during the three-day discussion we had with Comrade Kena at his home. To quote him, he in fact said to us that:
"The dislodgement of the apartheid regime in 1994 and the ascendency of the ANC, the main mass political organisation of the revolutionary alliance of South Africa, marked not only the end of the first phase of the African revolution but also the beginning of a new radical phase. The new phase should focus on production development, economic transformation and emancipation, self-sufficiency and the total elimination of neo-colonial and imperialist domination across Africa and the world over. The ANC, in alliance with the progressive and revolutionary forces of South Africa, inclusive of the SACP, has a leading role to play given that the ANC-led government is presiding over the largest and most advanced economy with strategic capacity in Africa."
Comrade Kena`s first interaction with anything to do with communism was when he went to the Second World War between 1939 and 1945, among others against the German imperialist dictator, Adolf Hitler`s forces of Nazism and broadly fascism. He vividly recalled how he wanted to go to war accompanying his King as a patriotic Lesotho boy, despite being young and underweight - weight played a decisive role in the selection of soldiers in Lesotho. Kena had to find other means to increase his weight as quickly as possible. He did just that.
He recalled how, during his participation in the war, he was impressed by the high level of discipline, dedication, combat brilliancy and intelligence of the Red Army of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Marshal Zhukov, General Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. While Kena participated in the army that was led by Britain, they used to receive reliable intelligence gathered by the Red Army and the communist underground in Europe known as the "Red Orchestra". Due to that admiration, Kena was nicknamed "Zhukov" by other combatants.
After the war, Comrade Kena went back to school in Lesotho, at Eagle`s Peak High School where he completed his secondary schooling and then left to work in the mines of South Africa. While he was working in the mines, he met White South African Communists, who were part of the Springbok Legion, who fought alongside him in the Second World War. Their discussions about the Red Army and the Soviet Union further increased his interest in communism. He later left the mining industry to further his studies.
It was at Fort Cox College of Agriculture in the Eastern Cape that he began to be more consciously involved in liberation politics. He actively participated in political education and mobilisation activities at the University of Fort Hare, situated not far from his college. His political consciousness was sharpened during this period, after which he returned to Lesotho where he participated in the Basotholand Congress Party (BCP).
Comrade "Zhukov" Kena`s politics were refined as revolutionary left after 1956 when he met Comrade Joe Mathews and other underground SACP activists in Lesotho who were on a mission preparing for exile work against the apartheid regime that had banned the Party in 1950 under the Suppression of Communism Act. Little did Comrade Kena know, at that time, that a law with the same title - the "Suppression of Communism Act" would later be passed in Lesotho against him and his comrades and banning his Party eight years after it was founded. It was in 1961-1962, after meeting in 1956, that Mathews advised Kena that the SACP directed that he and his comrades form the Communist Party of Lesotho. This directive had three objectives.
The first objective was to establish a Communist Party in Lesotho to lead the working class in alliance with the peasants in pursuit of the struggle to achieve social emancipation from economic exploitation and develop democracy to its full potential through the creation of a socialist republic.
The second objective was to construct an exile base not only for the SACP but also for the entire South African liberation movement in the struggle against apartheid oppression and capitalist exploitation. The SACP did not have a reliable ally in Lesotho and the ANC had also been banned, in 1960.
The third objective was to connect the class struggles in South Africa and Lesotho, weld them together into a single whole, the Southern African, African and broader international struggle of the working class and its allies against national oppressors, capitalism and imperialism.
The formation of the Communist Party of Lesotho
The Communist Party of Lesotho was thus established, on 5 May 1962, with Comrade John Motloheloa as its founding General Secretary and Comrade Kena as part of its founding leadership. Kena became the General Secretary of the Party in 1964. This decision impacted on him financially as he had to leave his full-time job. Nevertheless he soldiered on guided by the ultimate goal of the struggle.
The long lasting relationship between the SACP and the Communist Party of Lesotho was established through processes leading to the formation of the CPL.
Among others Comrade Kena worked with SACP General Secretaries, Comrades Moses Kotane - who he had met in the Soviet Union at a political school, Moses Mabhida, Comrade Joe Slovo and Comrade Chris Hani. Comrade Kotane died and was buried in Moscow alongside another Party leader Comrade JB Marks. Their remains were returned from Moscow and reburied in South Africa last year. Tomorrow I am going to Russia where I will on behalf of the SACP form part of a discussion and efforts to restore their initial graves as memorial sites.
Comrade Gilbert Hani, the father to Comrade Chris Hani, was based in Mafeteng, Lesotho. Coincidentally, Ntate Kena`s predecessor Comrade Motloheloa was also based in Mafeteng. Comrade Gilbert Hani harboured me at his place in Mafeteng when I was in exile here in Lesotho. This is the role he played to many other comrades especially those in uMkhonto we Sizwe cadres destined for transit for clandestine deployment in South Africa.
Ntate Kena`s home in Tsoelike played the same role. I was also harboured at that home, like many other uMkhonto we Sizwe combatants. Among others there was Motolo Khaketla, whose son mysteriously disappeared in the hands of the South African security police. This brings to another important task facing our in South Africa and Lesotho. That is to strive to ensure that the history, including names and tallying of all numbers, of those who disappeared at the hands of the successive colonial and apartheid regimes, those who were tortured, those who were imprisoned and those who were murdered is fully recorded. This includes both the sung and the unsung heroes of our struggle and the victims of oppression. This includes comrades Afrika Khaketla, Sixishe, Montsi Makhele, among others.
Comrades Chris Hani, Kena and Sixishe are widely credited for the formation of the Committee for Action and Solidarity for Southern African Students (CASSAS) in 1976. The National University of Lesotho, also known as Roma, 34 kilometres Southeast of Maseru, the Capital of Lesotho, served as the centre of student politics and by and large a base for political education and activism for the South African liberation struggle in Lesotho. CASSAS`s main objective was to recruit students and build leadership in the struggle against oppression, including neo-colonialism and apartheid.
However there were serious challenges. There was a massive anti-communist propaganda in Lesotho, identified, in the main, as emanating from the church. This disadvantaged the Communist Party of Lesotho in many ways, including in the first post-independent elections in which Kena stood as a candidate. One of the Arch-haters who propagated for the suppression of Communists and communism in Lesotho was a prominent South African religious figure. What struck Kena about this was the contradiction between the person, on the one hand portraying himself as supporting the South African liberation movement in Lesotho and on the other hand, just across the border in South Africa, being vocally anti-communist even saying things he did not say in Lesotho about the communists and the ANC.
While there was a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa led by retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the role played by churches, especially the contradiction involving an anti-Communist Party and anti-ANC posture that came from within some of, and highly influential, churches, was never probed.
This should not escape the recording of history in its proper context. Things were not as cordial as others would like us to believe. There were serious problems to the disadvantage of the struggles and struggle organisations at times. This truth must not be buried. Time has come for it to be unearthed.
Kena`s resilience was toughened in the struggle and traversed different unfavourable circumstances. He played an active role in recruiting SACP, ANC and the joint SACP-ANC military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe operatives among migrant and other workers in the mines and elsewhere. His home became a transit operation centre for MK as well as for SACP and ANC exiles, with members of his family playing a supportive role. The SACP`s sincere gratitude to the whole of the activist Kena family cannot be over-emphasised.
Kena wrote extensively, and published internationally, including contributions to the World Marxist Review. As part of this work he wrote mostly under the alias name "Jeremiah Mosotho", given by Kotane. He worked among others in the ANC with Comrade Alfred Nzo and Erick "Stalin" Mtshali, an SACP, ANC, progressive trade union and internationalist veteran. Kena recalled that it was Mtshali who organised his passport through the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).
Selected Principles of Communist Party Organisation that the Communist Party needs at present in Lesotho
Dear Comrades, I cannot conclude without either mentioning or talking about important principles that the Communist Party organisation needs here in Lesotho. The basic unit of the Communist Party is the branch. A branch may be sub-divided into units and cells. Branches must be linked together through geographically in manageable areas, such as districts, up to the national level forming national Party Organisation according to respective spheres and organs of leadership as well as delegates. This system of Party Organisation is based on the recruitment and training of members and leaders. And Political Education never ceases in Communist Party Organisation and is not limited to new recruits. It is continuous and covers all members and leaders to develop vanguard cadres.
But political education alone is not enough. Communist Party Organisation is based on the principle, elaborate by Karl Marx; that philosophers have interpreted the world in various but the point is to change it. Political education cannot be complete without practical activity. Political education is tempered in practical activity to change the world, which is what the Communist Party seeks to achieve. At the end of the day, political education must be transferred to the masses. The masses are facing massive volumes of propaganda from all angles. Without combating that, and without mobilising them in revolutionary activity there is little that will be achieved to realise revolutionary change.
It is a very important principle for Communist Party Organisation to be where the masses are to give leadership and learn from the masses` firsthand experience.
It is very important, in this and other Party work, to adhere to the correct practice of the principle of democratic centralism. Linked with this, it is very important to ensure accountability and Party Control. Without Party Organisation there can be no revolution. The status quo will prevail.
Thank you, comrades.
