Lieutenant General Sipho Binda 15 - 11 - 06

Lieutenant General Sipho Binda

The Congress of South African Trade Union mourns the untimely passing of Lieutenant General Sipho Binda. We dip our revolutionary banners in memory of this fallen people’s soldier, a former MK Commander, and COSATU national organiser. We send our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.

The SANDF Chief of Joint Operations died in One Military hospital in Pretoria on Tuesday night shortly after having minor surgery relating to injuries he sustained in a car accident on Saturday.

In the early 1990s, Comrade Binda worked for COSATU’s Organising Department as the National Organiser then headed by the current General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, who then was the Organising Secretary. He joined COSATU after he was released from prison for his revolutionary MK activities. During his term as the COSATU National Organiser he excelled in our collective endeavour to strengthen COSATU affiliates and to serve its members.

Comrade Sipho Binda was an excellent example of an all-round cadre of the congress movement - a unionist who knew that the workers’ struggle is not complete unless it is combined with community struggles for better housing, health and infrastructure. He knew that workers’ consciousness must be built so that they can appreciate their responsibility, as part of the broader working class, to lead the struggle for liberation.

COSATU will remember him for his down-to-earth humble personality and the meticulous way of following details of his assignments. Comrade Binda formed a team of the COSATU officials who in 2003 spent sleepless nights in the NEHAWU congress to help turn around to the giant it is today. He left COSATU when the transition began to help create a single non-racial arm for a democratic order. He served with distinction in the SANDF, leading an African peace-keeping mission in Burundi.