Henry Fazzie, a stalwart of the struggle against apartheid, was buried on 20 August in a ceremony at the Ethiopian church, in Alexandria.
ANC top brass Trevor Manuel, along with land reform minister, Gugile Nkwinti, and Eastern Cape premier, Noxolo Kiviet, attended the funeral to mourn the loss of a national hero.
Henry Fazzie, a stalwart of the struggle against apartheid, was buried on 20 August in a ceremony at the Ethiopian church, in Alexandria.
ANC top brass Trevor Manuel, along with land reform minister, Gugile Nkwinti, and Eastern Cape premier, Noxolo Kiviet, attended the funeral to mourn the loss of a national hero.
Fazzie died in Port Alfred at the age of 87 after battling with an illness the week before his funeral.
Fazzie went into exile in the early 1960s, joining Umkhonto weSizwe and undergoing military training in Ethiopia. During his journey back to South Africa, Fazzie was captured in Rhodesia and later deported to South Africa.
In South Africa he was imprisoned on Robben Island, where he practised as an unofficial surgeon, conducting circumcisions on young fellow prisoners. It was a skill he had learned from his father.
Fazzie was a leader in the United Democratic Front in the Eastern Cape during the 80s, but was arrested in the mid-80s during the state of emergency. He was jailed in St Albans Prison, in Port Elizabeth, for three years.
There he was a great source of courage and inspiration for his fellow inmates. He was a regarded as a teacher and respected authority on the history of the ANC, as he gave regular history lessons in prison. Fazzie leaves his wife, Hilda, children and grandchildren.
