by James Tweedie

SOUTH AFRICANS have paid tribute to African National Congress (ANC) stalwart Ruth Mompati, who passed away yesterday following a long illness.

President Jacob Zuma joined the ANC, trade unions and communists in remembrance of the veteran women’s leader.

“The whole nation is mourning. We feel an immense void,” he said.

“She joined the struggle for the liberation of South Africa when she was a little girl and continued to serve her country and her people till her very last days.”

Mama Ruth, as she was affectionately known, was born in North West province in 1925 in the district of Bophirima, since renamed in her honour.

There she worked as a schoolteacher from 1944 to 1952 before taking a job at the Johannesburg law practice of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Thambo, both future ANC presidents, from 1953 to 1961.

She was involved in the 1952 Defiance Campaign before joining the ANC in 1954 and being elected to the national executive committee of the Women’s League.

Ms Mompati was also a founding member of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) in 1954 and was one of the leaders of the historic 1956 women’s march.

Following the banning of the ANC and the imprisonment of its leadership, Ms Mompati went into exile in Tanzania in 1962.

There she underwent military training.

She served as the ANC’s chief representative in Britain from in 1981 and 1982 and was involved in the first talks with the apartheid government in 1990.

In 1994 Ms Mompati elected to the first democratic parliament. She was ambassador to Switzerland between 1996 and 2000, when she was elected mayor of her native Vryburg.