By 
The African National Congress (ANC) in the Free State province has expressed profound sorrow and a deep sense of political loss on the passing of veteran struggle stalwart, Comrade Dr Pule Matjoa, who rested on Workers Day, 1 May 2026.
The ANC said the stalwart was born in Bloemfontein in 1938, Comrade Matjoa belonged to that fearless generation that refused to bow before apartheid tyranny. He cut his political teeth in the ANC Youth League, participating actively in boycotts, marches, mass meetings, and underground demonstrations across Bloemfontein. His courage was forged early: he was one of the brave dozen from Bantu High School (now Sehunelo Secondary School) who left South Africa around October 1960, choosing the painful path of exile over the suffocation of oppression.
Comrade Matjoa’s exile was not a flight but a continuation of the struggle by other means. In Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), he worked underground alongside titans like Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe. He later served in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) under the Southern African United Front – a pioneering alliance of the ANC, PAC, and SWAPO, led by our movement.
From Tanganyika’s Ministry of Communications, he answered a higher calling: in 1963, he travelled to Cuba for military training, embracing internationalism with the same ferocity he brought to the struggle at home.
But Comrade Dr Matjoa was no ordinary soldier. In Cuba, he trained not only in guerrilla warfare but also in the healing arts. He graduated as a dentist and chose to serve the Cuban people as a community dentist – a quiet revolutionary act of solidarity.
Returning to Dar-esSalaam in 1972, he became a medical officer in ANC camps from 1972 to 1979, tending to the wounds of combatants and refugees alike. His voice, too, became a weapon: he was active on Radio Freedom, broadcasting hope to a captive South African audience.
His revolutionary education deepened. He received further military training and attended advanced courses in the Soviet Union, where he helped form the Directorate of Security and Intelligence. He later joined the South African Communist Party, binding his life to the scientific socialist vision of a free, just, and equal South Africa.
In Lesotho, he served as Chief Dentist for the entire nation while sitting on the ANC’s Security Council – a rare combination of healer and guardian. Returning home in 1992, he worked in the Ministry of Health until retirement, and later maintained a small private practice.
Even then, he never stopped serving: he remained active in community health work, a member of the Dental Association of South Africa, and a quiet mentor to a new generation of activists and professionals. Comrade Dr Matjoa travelled extensively across Europe and Africa on ANC missions, always carrying the flag of liberation.
His life was a library of revolutionary lessons – from the youth league to the underground, from Cuban battlefields to Tanzanian broadcast studios, from Lesotho’s clinics to Free State’s community halls.
