Memorial service for SA High Commissioner

THE South African High Commission in Windhoek said on Friday that a public memorial service will be held on Wednesday for the late High Commissioner to Namibia, Tim Maseko.

Maseko, aged 71, succumbed to a heart attack at the Flora Clinic in Johannesburg last Sindau. The acting High Commissioner to Namibia, Pieter Coetzee, said on Friday that the memorial service would be held at the Polytechnic of Namibia in Windhoek, and that members of the public would be welcome to pay their last respects to the experienced envoy.Maseko was born in Bethal in the Eastern Transvaal, on May 3 1935.He previously served as South Africa’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Ghana and Chile.In 1965, he was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment in East London’s Fort Glamorgan for working for the then banned ANC.After completing his sentence, he went into exile in Swaziland, where he served in the underground structures of his party.In the 1980s he was the African National Congress’s chief representative to Denmark.Between 1980 and 1988 he was also director of the ANC Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Mazimbu, Tanzania.He is credited with helping to build the college.In a statement on Maseko’s death, South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma expressed the South African government’s condolences to his family.”The Maseko family can draw inspiration from the knowledge that Tim Maseko lived life to the fullest, having enjoyed the fruits of his labour to create a better life for all South Africans,” the minister said.The memorial service will take place at 17h30 at the Polytechnic’s Auditorium 1, at the corner of Brahmstrasse and Haydnstrasse.The acting High Commissioner to Namibia, Pieter Coetzee, said on Friday that the memorial service would be held at the Polytechnic of Namibia in Windhoek, and that members of the public would be welcome to pay their last respects to the experienced envoy.Maseko was born in Bethal in the Eastern Transvaal, on May 3 1935.He previously served as South Africa’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Ghana and Chile.In 1965, he was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment in East London’s Fort Glamorgan for working for the then banned ANC.After completing his sentence, he went into exile in Swaziland, where he served in the underground structures of his party.In the 1980s he was the African National Congress’s chief representative to Denmark.Between 1980 and 1988 he was also director of the ANC Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Mazimbu, Tanzania.He is credited with helping to build the college.In a statement on Maseko’s death, South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma expressed the South African government’s condolences to his family.”The Maseko family can draw inspiration from the knowledge that Tim Maseko lived life to the fullest, having enjoyed the fruits of his labour to create a better life for all South Africans,” the minister said.The memorial service will take place at 17h30 at the Polytechnic’s Auditorium 1, at the corner of Brahmstrasse and Haydnstrasse.