The Late Dr Motsoko Pheko

Issued by the office of the PAC President, Comrade Mzwanele Nyhontso

The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania is deeply saddened by the passing of its past president, Dr Motsoko Pheko.

He was a tree of knowledge on the position of the Africanists, articulating the national question at every stage where he engaged a variety of people.

He was in the first executive committee of the Dobsonville branch, Soweto, of the PAC in 1959. When the organization was banned in 1960, he was mandated to lead the Poqo Insurrection in his area, for which he was detained and charged with treason. He left the country to Lesotho, then Zambia, and ultimately represented the PAC at the United Nation’s. He returned to the country in 1994.

He belongs to the generation of political activists that promoted African Nationalism and the right to self-determination for all colonised people, soon after the Second World War.

He intersected with various generations, from the Black Consciousness movement, leaders of the 1976 Uprisings, the militants of the 1980s, and the followers of the Lion of Azania who overlapped into the post 1994 generation.

The PAC leadership is honored to have engaged with him and other past presidents of the PAC such as Clarence Makwetu, Dr Stanley Mogoba, Letlapa Mphahlele and others, who were all steadfast in their support for the growth, unity and stability of the liberation movement.

Pheko leaves behind more than thirty books he wrote on theology, international law, history of the dispossessed, the hidden facts of Robben Island political prisoners, the political legacy of Mangaliso Sobukwe, and many others.