Basil David Kivedo – unbreakable Struggle hero who left ANC for DA after Zuma took power

As spring settled over the Western Cape on Saturday, 15 October 2022, and the region’s floral kingdom gave its traditional dazzling display, a funeral service was held in Worcester for Basil David Kivedo, one of the most principled, tortured but unbreakable and courageous people ever to take up arms to free South Africa from racial oppression.

The Umkhonto weSizwe veteran died of a heart attack on 3 October 2022 at the age of 71, a month before he would have added another year to his life. He will be cremated and his ashes will be buried next to his parents, John and Madelein, in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape.

Kivedo, classified as “coloured” by the old regime and still regarded as one by the new democratic order even in death, belonged to a generation of leaders who studied at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and turned that tertiary institution – designed to churn out compliant, grovelling coloured graduates – on its head.

Appointed in 1973 as a sociology lecturer at UWC – which then was controlled by Broederbonders – he saw students as allies in the battle against the minority regime. The UWC campus became a frontline of sorts, as students resisted. 

In 1976, as the resistance spark against the government was reignited in Soweto, he organised a student walk-off from campus.

In the intense security-monitored state which was South Africa then, it was inevitable that he would be detained without trial. In 1980, he was held at Pollsmoor Prison for 14 days. He was tortured but refused to sign an agreement with the agents of the state that he would abandon his political activism.

He was later detained at Victor Verster Prison in Paarl and held for 90 days. Again, torture – and the pain and humiliation that were its companions – were visited upon him as his jailers held him incommunicado.

Released after this spell in jail, he was detained again two weeks later and held for 180 days in terms of South Africa’s then security laws. Again, he held on to his strong political beliefs and refused to sign any agreement despite being tortured once more. He was subsequently detained again and incarcerated indefinitely.

Recalling these harrowing times, his brother, Brian, remembered how in 1980 he had accompanied his parents on a prisoner visit to Victor Verster.

“My father told me afterwards, ‘I don’t think Basil is going to make it’. Our parents were badly affected when Basil was later locked up indefinitely. I feared that I was going to lose my parents and my brother.”

The funeral of Basil David Kivedo. (Photo: Garnett Wicomb / Die Son)

Family members at the funeral of Basil David Kivedo. (Photo: Garnett Wicomb / Die Son)