A delegation from the Eastern Cape government will leave for Angola today to exhume and repatriate the remains of political activist, Pascal Macamba.
The delegation will be led by the MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, Dr Pemmy Majodina.
Department spokesperson, Andile Nduna, said that the repatriation programme "is informed by the Eastern Cape Provincial Policy on Exhumation, Repatriation and Reburial of Remains of Victims of Conflict (2013) which is informed by the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that advocated symbolic reparation to ensure families of victims begin healing and finally find closure through programmes of this nature and magnitude."
Nduna said the exhumation and repatriation of the remains was thus another attempt to promote reconciliation, unity, justice, nation building and social cohesion.
He said that Pascal Mlamli Macamba was a political activist who died in exile in March 1982.
"He was born in East London, South Africa on 30 March 1957. He left the country at a tender age of 23 years, fearing for his life after the then South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and the Ciskei police threaten to jail him for his political persuasions," Nduna said.
Macamba died of malaria in March 1982 and he was buried in Mulemba in the Angolan capital, Luanda.
Nduna said that the delegation is scheduled to come back from Angola with the Macamba's on 31 August 2017, to prepare for reburial thereof on the 9th September 2017, at Braelyn Hall and reburial at Cambridge Cemetery, East London.
