8 March 1986
Moses Mbeki Mncane (Baba) Mabhida, trade unionist, politician, Umkhonto weSizwe commander and Secretary-General of the SA Communist Party, died of a heart attack in Maputo, Mozambique, and was buried there in a temporary grave on 29 March 1986. In 2006, Mabhida's remains were transferred to South Africa by the South African government for reburial at his home in KwaZulu-Natal. The ceremony at Herry Gwala Stadium on 2 December 2006 was marked by controversy as a section of the mourners disrupted the speech of State President Thabo Mbeki.
Click here to read the funeral speech by the African National Congress (ANC) president Oliver Tambo in 1986.
References
Verwey, E.J. (ed)(1995).New Dictionary of South African Biography, v.1, Pretoria: HSRC, p. 146; Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E.|(eds)(1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.