On a clear winter’s evening at Liliesleaf in Rivonia, Johannesburg, Denis Goldberg and Bob Hepple walked towards each other.
“Long time,” says Goldberg holding out his hand.
The two men embraced near the spot where they were chained together by police, left to the mercy of a snapping dog nearly half a century before. The two anti-apartheid activists were in Johannesburg with another survivor of the Rivonia Raid, which occurred on July 11, 1963, Ahmed Kathrada. They were there to celebrate the raids 50th anniversary—when police drove hidden in the back of a delivery van to arrest the entire leadership of the South African underground including: Walter Sisulu; Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba. The decisive raid paralyzed dissent for nearly a decade and saw the trial that sent Nelson Mandela to prison.
In the wake of the trial, Goldberg served 22 years in prison before being deported into exile. Hepple, who suffered under interrogation, was freed by the prosecution in the hope that he would turn state witness. He skipped the country to England, where he became a professor at Cambridge University and a knight.
At the time, Goldberg, now retired in Hout Bay near Cape Town, feared Hepple may give information about his comrades in the dock.
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“That’s a long time ago, I am always happy to greet another comrade,” says Goldberg after the brief reunion.
Hepple, who will retire in England, retains his sense of humor about South Africa and his exile from the land of his birth.
“It was very difficult to talk to people about Nelson Mandela in the early days. Margaret Thatcher used to call him a terrorist. Now, he is very popular and a hero, it is a lot easier,” says Hepple with a chuckle.
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