"Oscar Dondashe refused to be seen as a leader but as an activist among others," mourners were told during the memorial service of the ANCYL regional secretary at Noluthando Hall.
"Oscar Dondashe refused to be seen as a leader but as an activist among others," mourners were told during the memorial service of the ANCYL regional secretary at Noluthando Hall.
Addressing hundreds of mourners on Tuesday, ANC Youth League acting president Andile Lungisa, who also chairs the newly established National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), compared Dondashe’s commitment to the struggle for youth development to the youth of 1976 who risked everything and fought against being taught in Afrikaans.
He took a swipe at the party’s members who assume that their membership entitles them to self enrichment and expressed his gratitude for Dondashe’s willingness to volunteer for party activities. "As we move towards the ANC provincial conference, Dondashe insisted that the [Cacadu] region be united ahead of the conference."
The hall was decorated glamourously in ANC colours with Youth League banners set up on either side of the stage. Over 600 people, mainly the youth, sang and danced as the party’s leaders told them that they shouldn’t only mourn their leader but also celebrate his life.
The party’s regional chairperson Scara Njadayi said the small region of Cacadu is known for producing quality leadership and cited Dondashe alongside the names of Gugile Nkwinti, the Rural Development and Land Reform minister, Eastern Cape Local Government and Traditional Affairs MEC, Sicelo Gqobana and others. He added that he and Dondashe had worked together through difficult times and intra-party challenges to establish the youth league’s first fully fledged regional executive committee.
"We were challenged politically, physically and otherwise. We were once attacked while trying to launch a branch in Ward 6," he recalled.
Khotso Moleli, the Young Communist League regional convenor, said: "What’s even more regrettable is the fact that at his age Oscar was unemployed, I sometimes joked that he should lead the NYDA but he would object and say let others lead it first," he recalled.
Gwen Mvula, the chairperson of the Congress of South African Trade Unions said that she was occasionally at loggerheads with Dondashe because "we were of the same mind" especially in terms of liberating the poorest of the poor. "He spent his life looking at the interests of the mass democratic movement, Oscar was a gallant soldier who left behind a legacy," she said before thanking the Dondashe family for sharing him with their community.
Eunice Kekana, ANC deputy secretary in the Cacadu region, said Dondashe was a disciplined child who despised liars and that he projected a good example for the youth. "He was concerned about the divisions in the ANC of Makana, he died at the time when he was calling for the launch of the ANC women’s league’s regional structure," she said.
Recalling the events surrounding Dondashe’s murder, Ndumiso Madinda, an ANC activist and the owner of Dinangwe Tavern said said he received a phone call that Dondashe was shot shortly after he had left his tavern and "I rushed to the scene and found him lying on his back because I recognised the red he had been wearing," he said. He added that after checking for his pulse he realised that he had passed away and that his body was cold.
He emphasised that Dondashe’s companion in that fatal morning insists that Dondashe did not resist handing over his cellphone to the robbers when they demanded it, driving home the point that Dondashe was shot "unneccessarily".
