[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 29, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E410-E411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             HONORING THE LIFE OF AHMED ``KATHY'' KATHRADA

                                  _____
                                 

                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 29, 2017

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I awakened today to the news of a gentleman 
from South Africa, who was a man of historic proportion, an anti-
apartheid activist and a blessed man, Ahmed Kathrada, known as Kathy, 
passed away.
  I had the privilege to meet this great man on two occasions, once in 
August 2009 and again in June 2016 while on a Congressional Delegation 
honoring the 50th Anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy's famous June 6, 
1966 ``Ripples of Hope'' human rights speech. I was totally awed by his 
life and his peaceful nature.
  Kathy Kathrada spent decades in jail with Nelson Mandela, then spent 
the first years of democracy helping to shape South Africa's government 
after the fall of apartheid.
  Kathy was an Indian gentleman and when he was eight years old his 
family moved from Schweizer-Reneke two hundred miles away to 
Johannesburg because there were no schools for Indians. Not only were 
there no schools for Indians, but when he was sent to prison there were 
no cells for Indians either.
  He became, at a very early age, an activist for social reform and 
against apartheid, first for Indian rights and then against apartheid 
and for South African rights. He became a political activist at 12 
years old and at 17 years old, he was arrested for the first time after 
he left school to join the Transvaal Passive Resistance Council.
  Kathy came into prominence in July 1963, when he was arrested with 
other anti-apartheid activists in Rivonia. That October, he was 
indicted on charges of trying to overthrow the government, start a 
guerrilla war, and open the door to invasion by foreign powers. On 
April 1964, he was sentenced to life in prison, at hard labor, along 
with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Denis Golberg, Govan Mbeki, Raymond 
Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, and Andrew Mlangeni. The Rivonia trial became 
a signature moment in the struggle against apartheid. Mr. Kathrada 
spent 26 years and 3 months behind bars, 18 of them on Robben Island, 
the apartheid regime's most notorious prison.
  When he was in prison, he was sent to work in a limestone quarry for 
more than a decade. At one point, Mr. Kathrada, Mr. Mandela, and Mr. 
Sisulu were put on a meager ration of rice gruel as punishment for 
supposedly not working hard enough. Because Kathy was a mixed-race 
convict, he was given long trousers while black convicts had to wear 
shorts without socks and even rations were distributed by race. Mr. 
Kathadra refused to accept his privileges unless they were also 
extended to his black comrades. He and other African National Congress 
(ANC) leaders helped Nelson Mandela draft his memoirs in prison and 
smuggle them out. While in prison, Mr. Kathrada obtained four 
university degrees, two in history and two in African politics.
  When he was released from prison, he wasn't bitter, he practiced only 
peace and was committed to resolving race relations in South Africa. He 
was elected Parliament as a member of the ANC in the first all-
inclusive democratic South African elections in 1994 and was appointed 
to be a political advisor to President Nelson Mandela in the newly 
created post of Parliamentary Counsellor. He left parliamentary 
politics in 1999.
  After his release, Kathy preached forgiveness. He befriended the 
people who had been his guards and who had subjected him. He actually 
moved back to Robben Island in 1999--this time to a private house, 
where he lived for nearly five years as the president of the Robben 
Island Museum where he led tours of the museums. On my second trip to 
South Africa, where I met him for the second time, it was remarkable to 
see the prison guards hand the key to the prison to the former 
prisoner.
  Kathy remained dedicated to the ANC for the rest of his life and he 
was never afraid to speak his mind. He was a member of his neighborhood 
branch and attended national functions of the ANC. Last April, he 
called on President Zuma to resign, after South Africa's highest court 
found that the president violated his oath of office by refusing to pay 
back public money spent on renovations to his rural home. He was never 
afraid to criticize corruption and promote the values of love and 
peace. He lamented that South Africa remained so geographically divided 
and economically disparate. He always worked for a non-sexist, non-
racial, democratic South Africa.
  He received four honorary degrees in his life including from the 
University of Kentucky, Michigan State, and the University of Missouri. 
He is rightly revered in South Africa and around the world. Kathy was a 
great human being and a humanitarian individual who served the Indian 
people, the South African nation, and humanity in a superb fashion. 
Kathy is survived by his longtime partner Barbara Hogan, a former 
political prisoners and government minister. His was a life well-lived. 
I was fortunate to have met him, and I am sorry for his loss.

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