Cape Town - Former South African president Thabo Mbeki is among the few ANC members who met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, when he accompanied late ANC President Oliver Tambo to Moscow.
Mbeki shares his encounter with Mikhail Gorbachev, as he took notes for President Oliver Tambo.
Gorbachev passed away at the age of 91, with his political career crowned by the glasnost and perestroika reforms he initiated in the late 1980s, to transform the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and to end the Cold War, which marked geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States.
The 1st and only meeting between the ANC and the leadership of the Soviet Union. The only existing records of the meeting are in the Thabo Mbeki Presidential Library and Moscow. Rest well Cde Gorbachev! ✊🏾 https://t.co/41we3LotvX
— Thabo Mbeki Foundation (@TMFoundation_) August 31, 2022
4 November 1986
The then African National Congress (ANC) leader, Oliver Tambo met Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)’s Central Committee, according to SA History.org.
In his meeting with Gorbachev, Tambo was accompanied by Thabo Mbeki who would succeed Nelson Mandela as President of the ANC and of the Republic of South Africa.
This meeting was the first ever between the Congress and the Soviet Union.
It came three weeks after Gorbachev met with US President Ronald Regan. The meeting reportedly ran for almost two hours, though it was scheduled for 45 minutes.
This week, President Cyril Ramphosa said South Africa was greatly indebted to the support provided by the Soviet Union over an extended period – including Gorbachev’s term of office – to South Africa’s liberation movement and to anti-colonial struggles in Southern Africa.
Ramaphosa has expressed his sincere condolences at the passing of His Excellency, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Laureate and last leader of the Soviet Union this week.
IOL