Joe Nzingo Gqabi

Joe Nzingo Gqabi (6 April 192931 July 1981) was a South African African National Congress activist who was the ANC's chief representative in Zimbabwe at the time of his assassination by the South African Defence Force in Harare (then Salisbury), Zimbabwe, in 1981.

Early life Gqabi was born on 6 April 1929 in Aliwal North in what is now known as Joe Gqabi District Municipality. His first language was Xhosa.

Political activity In the 1950s Gqabi was a journalist for New Age, during which time he was in frequent contact with ANC leader Walter Sisulu. As a member of the South African Communist Party and UMkhonto we Sizwe he was sent for guerilla training in China in the early 1960s. He was captured with 28 fellow members who were undergoing military training in Rhodesia and deported back to South Africa, where he was sentenced to two years' jail for leaving the country illegally and then ten years for crimes under the Sabotage Act, after which he was jailed at Robben Island. In 1976 he became co-chairman, with Martin Ramokgadi, of the clandestine ANC organisation in Johannesburg, known as the Main Machinery. During this time, the South African security services attempted to assassinate him by placing a bomb in his car, but it was discovered before it could detonate. but the police, with little evidence, were unable to make a case against him. His body was repatriated to South Africa in 2004 and he was reburied in Aliwal North on 16 December 2004.