Pondo Revolt veteran laid to rest in Amadiba
Mourners gathered to honour a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and defender of the land, who fought his whole life for what he believed in.
Mbhabham Mathumbu (1930 – 2020) was buried in Bekela village in Amadiba on the Wild Coast in Eastern Cape on Saturday, July 11. He died of natural causes at his homestead after a short illness and stay in hospital.
Mr Mathumbu was laid to rest surrounded by his large family, friends, the indunas of the Head Woman’s Council and his comrades from the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC).
They gathered to honour a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and defender of the land, who fought his whole life for what he believed in.
He was a veteran of the 1959-61 Pondo Revolt that succeeded in defending the communal land in Pondoland, an induna to the father of the present chief of Amadiba, and was part of the founding of ACC at the Komkhulu in 2007.
In his speech, Mashona Wetu of the Umgungundlovu Council reminded everybody how Mr Mathumbu always defended the Council against all attacks, and explained how important this was for Umgungundovu.
Nonhle Mbuthuma from the ACC described how Mr Mathumbu was a staunch opponent of the opencast mining project on the coast.
In the short movie published on ACC Facebook, he is seen participating in the struggle on crutches, moments after stun grenades and blank shots were fired to disperse the community during a visit by Mineral Resources minister, Gwede Mantashe on 23 September 2018.
After this Tata Mathumbu was honoured at Komkhulu for leading from the front, even though he was almost 90 years old.
NOTE FROM THE ACC: Although it was hard to respect the 50-person rule and turn people away, everything was done to make the funeral as safe as possible. The Corona pandemic is respected on the Amadiba coast. All visitors were wearing masks. Their hands were sanitised by youth volounteers when going in and out from the funeral venue and after the burial ceremony. As ACC, we appeal to all to be vigilant and respect this invisible enemy. We are doing everything in our power to try to keep the virus pandemic away from our area as much as possible.
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