Obituary: Henry Fazzie: Struggle stalwart, MP

Henry Fazzie, who has died in Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape at the age of 87, was a stalwart of the struggle against apartheid.

Fazzie went into exile in the early 1960s.

He joined Umkhonto weSizwe and underwent military training in Ethiopia. On his way back to South Africa he was captured in Rhodesia and deported to South Africa.

Back in South Africa he was imprisoned on Robben Island. While there he practised as an unofficial surgeon, conducting circumcisions on young fellow prisoners, a skill that had been passed down to him by his father.

Fazzie was instrumental in the formation of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation along with people such as Champion Galela, Qaqawuli Godolozi and Sipho Hashe, who were later murdered by the security police.

He was a leader in the United Democratic Front and one of the leaders of the consumer boycott of white shops and businesses in Port Elizabeth.

During the state of emergency in the mid-'80s he was imprisoned in St Albans Prison in Port Elizabeth for three years. Many of his fellow inmates were teenagers or not much older, and Fazzie was a great source of courage, inspiration and hope to them, as well as a teacher. He was an authority on the history of the ANC and gave regular history lessons in prison.

After his release from St Albans he played a leading role in the South African National Civics Organisation.

After the first democratic elections in 1994 he became a member of parliament.

Fazzie is survived by his wife, Hilda, and children.