SACP to commemorate struggle stalwart, Joe Slovo

JOHANNESBURG - The SACP will commemorate the 29th anniversary of the death of Joe Slovo on Saturday.

General-Secretary Solly Mapaila will speak at Avalon Cemetery next to Slovo's tombstone.

Slovo, and his wife Ruth First, were the earliest members of the ANC's armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe.

He left the country in June 1963 on an external mission and spent much of his time in exile in Mozambique.

Ruth First was killed in a parcel bomb explosion in Maputo in 1982.

On his return from exile in 1990 he participated in talks to form a new democratic government.

Slovo became the first Housing Minister in President Nelson Mandela's Cabinet.

He died of cancer on 6 January 1995.