Former premier of the North West Job Mogoro pens this tribute to Paul Daphne, with whom he worked with since the early 1980s. Daphne died January 27 2023.
The North West province has lost a great and humble giant in the person of Paul Daphne. For as long as I have known him, Paul has been selfless, committed, dedicated, and revolutionary.
I met Paul in the 1980s when we were both lecturers at the University of Bophuthatswana. We both served in the staff association, which I led upon succeeding Dr Naledi Pandor. When I was elected president of the association, Paul became the secretary.
We both joined UDUSA (Union of Democratic Staff Associations), an affiliate of Cosatu. Around the same time, Paul, I, and several other activists formed the Mafikeng Anti-Repression Forum. Political conditions in Bophuthatswana at the time demanded that change be urgently addressed. There were similar developments in the country and from those in exile. The harsh repressive practices mainly perpetrated by the brutal security forces in Bophuthatswana worked very hard to isolate us from the rest of South Africa. Despite these forces, we had to creatively find ways of engaging in activism.
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Another structure we became part of was the Anti-Bophuthatswana Coordinating Committee which linked us directly to the UDF in apartheid South Africa.
One driving force behind our work was Paul’s then-wife, Laura Taylor. She was simply a powerhouse. She was very effective and efficient in the engine room supporting and leading our various political programmes. In anticipation of Tata Nelson Mandela’s release, Laura bought large pieces of black, green, and gold material, which she sewed into a massive flag on the night of 10 February 1990.
Mafikeng’s first ANC branch
I had insisted that the time was ripe for us to launch the first-ever ANC branch in Mafikeng because we had been doing a lot of groundwork. As a result, we were given the go-ahead to accelerate preparations for establishing an ANC branch. To effect this, we held a critical meeting at Cooke’s Lake. This decision came to be affectionately known as the Cooke’s Lake Minute.
Mafikeng fell within the Northern Cape region of the ANC at that stage, and we first traveled to the newly opened ANC office in Vryburg, where we met with Cde Jomo Khasu, the regional organiser for the ANC. We returned to Mafikeng with a load of membership cards and joining forms.
One breakthrough worth highlighting came when we managed to smuggle membership forms into the Rooigrond Prison and recruit Sergeant Timothy Phiri and around 130 former members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force who were serving time for their role in the abortive coup of 1988. They joined en masse, and we released a statement that they had ejoined the branch. The authorities reacted with rage and indignation, claiming that it was impossible for these prisoners to have joined as they were being held in the maximum security section of the prison.
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For the establishment of an ANC branch, it was necessary for over 100 paid-up members to be present at a launch meeting. Given that the police were breaking up ANC meetings throughout Bophuthatswana, it was decided that the best strategy would be to have an “underground” launch of the branch with the required 100 members and then announce the launch to the public. The intention was not to operate as an underground structure but rather to ensure that the launch could succeed and then to operate and recruit openly after that. Dr David Green, a Mafikeng doctor and a member of the branch offered his surgery which had a large enough space to be used as a meeting venue and the date was set for the night of 20 August. The plan was for comrades to meet in small groups and then travel to the surgery together. All communication was done one-on-one by word of mouth to try and ensure maximum secrecy.
The plan went off like clockwork.
At the appointed time, 110 enthusiastic but disciplined paid-up members of the Mafikeng ANC were crowded into Greens surgery, and the Mafikeng ANC was re-born almost 30 years since the people’s movement had been banned across the county by the apartheid government. The meeting did not have to go on for long. I gave a report on recruitment where I explained the strategy that had underpinned the decision to hold a secret launch. Khasu addressed the meeting and indicated that the Pretoria Minute, which had been signed between the ANC and the apartheid government, applied to every inch of South Africa, and Mafikeng was no exception. He went on to indicate that despite the signing of the Pretoria Minute, it was necessary to build structures for the defense of the people as the tyranny of apartheid was continuing in many parts of the country.
Khasu presided over the election of office bearers, and a nine-member executive was elected comprising myself (Job Mokgoro), Chairperson; Paul Daphne, Secretary; Mandla Magwetyana, Treasurer and a further six executive members whose portfolios would be finalised at a later date. The other six members were Silas Mbipha, Thaka Seboka, Kaelo Maropefela, Mmoloki Legodu, and the late Jane Matsomela.
On 24 August 1990, almost 33 years ago, we surprised (and shocked some) everybody when we appeared on the front page of Mafikeng Mail under the title “ANC launched in Mmabatho”.
Daphne, the non-bureaucrat
Paul was a committed ANC activist as well as a public service “revocrat”. He was not an unduly politicised senior manager but a highly politically sensitive senior official. His management and application of government prescripts were underpinned by his deep understanding and appreciation of the urgency to tackle poverty. He was not a mechanical, rules-driven bureaucrat. To him, prescripts were meant to enable and accelerate the war on poverty, inequality, and unemployment, not to hinder it.
After the 1994 elections, I was appointed director-general, and Paul was deputy director-general in the Office of the Premier, serving under Dr Popo Molefe.
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In the new democratically elected government, MPLs were housed at the ministerial residence (where ministers in the Bophuthatswana cabinet had lived). They were charged a paltry sum of R120. For some strange reason, they refused to pay. I was highly embarrassed by this behavior, as it was a bad way to usher in a democratic dispensation. Paul and I were housed at the embassy and had to pay about R200. I discussed this spectacle with him, and we both agreed that on the basis of some assessment of the houses we were living in, we should pay R1200 just to lead by example, and we could be reimbursed later. We never bothered to claim our money back.
That is the Paul our province has lost. That is the comrade we no longer have, the advisor we now have to do without. But his values live on.
My condolences to his family, including his fiancé, Disa Ramagaga, his children Daniel and Matthew; foster children Jeana, Tshidi, and Itumeleng; his brothers Jeremy and Robert; and his ex-wife Laura.
May his revolutionary spirit rest in peace.
– Job Mogoro is the former North West premier
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