Oscar Mpetha

Oscar Mafakafaka Mpetha (5 August 1909 - 15 November 1994) was a South African Trade unionist and political activist from Mount Fletcher. He was educated at local schools and at Adams College. He married Rose Constance Nombunga Mpetha. They had two children.

In 1937 he came to Cape Town as a migrant worker.

He started his union activities when he was a road labourer in 1940.^[1]

He joined the Food and Canning Workers' Union when he worked at a fish canning factory in Laaiplek^[2] and in 1951 he became the General Secretary. In that year he became a member of the African National Congress. In 1958 he became president of the Cape section of the ANC.

He was detained in 1960 after the Sharpeville shootings for four years.

In 1983 he was sentenced to five years in Pollsmoor Prison after being convicted of terrorism and inciting a riot at the Crossroads squatter camp in August 1980. A charge of murder arising from the same incident was dropped. In the same year he was also selected to be a co-president of the United Democratic Front. As he needed to have his leg amputated because of diabetes he spent some time at Groote Schuur Hospital under armed guard. His wife died in 1986 while he was at the hospital. He was eventually released from prison in October 1989. He spent the final years of his life confined to a wheelchair, as both legs were amputated, and he was partly blind and had lung and kidney problems. However he continued to speak at rallies around South Africa.^[3]

On 15 November 1994 he died at his home in Gugulethu.^[4]

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