Tony Yengeni

Tony Sithembiso Yengeni (born 11 October 1954) is a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist.

Yengeni was born on 11 October 1954 in Cape Town.

He grew up in Gugulethu and Nyanga, both townships on the Cape Flats, and matriculated at Fort Beaufort College in Cape Town.

Yengeni grew up on the Cape Flats but joined the ANC in 1976 and went into exile with the party's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.

He entered anti-apartheid politics through the Black Consciousness Movement before joining the outlawed African National Congress (ANC) in 1976.

He went into exile with the ANC in the Frontline States, receiving military training at Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) camps in Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, and Angola; he also travelled to Moscow in the Soviet Union to study for a social science diploma in 1982.

He was later seconded to the South African Congress of Trade Unions in Lesotho, where he was regional secretary.

In 1986, he returned to South Africa as the commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe's structures in Cape Town.

In 1986, Yengeni returned to South Africa to lead the MK underground in Cape Town.

The following year, in a crackdown on his MK network, Yengeni was arrested and detained indefinitely under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act.

Awaiting trial in Pollsmoor Prison, he and the others mounted a hunger strike which received public attention, demanding improvements in detention conditions, including that they – the defendants – should not be held in racially segregated facilities.

In what became known as the Yengeni Trial or Rainbow Trial (for the racial diversity of the defendants), the state pursued terrorism charges – a step-down from the initial treason charges – against Yengeni and 13 others, including Jenny Schreiner and his own future wife.

They were accused of planting two bombs (which had not harmed anyone) and illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

The defendants exploited the prosecution for political purposes; for example, they refused to plead guilty or not guilty and instead entered a lengthy plea which reversed the charge of terrorism and treason against the state and ended with the statement, "Victory is certain. South Africa shall be free."

He was detained for his activism between 1987 and 1991, awaiting trial on terrorism charges, but he was indemnified and released in March 1991 during the negotiations to end apartheid.

In March 1991, during an adjournment of the trial and amid ongoing negotiations to end apartheid, Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee announced that Yengeni and the others had been indemnified and would be released.

By the time of Yengeni's release in 1991, the ANC had been unbanned by the apartheid government, and Yengeni became secretary of the party's new above-ground branch in the Western Cape.

He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from May 1994 to March 2003, including as Chief Whip of the Majority Party from November 1998 to October 2001.

He was a member of the ANC National Executive Committee between 1994 and 2022, though he resigned from legislative politics after he was convicted of fraud in 2003.

After that, he was the regional secretary of the ANC in the Western Cape until the 1994 general election, when he was elected to the National Assembly.

In the National Assembly, before his appointment as Chief Whip, Yengeni chaired the Joint Standing Committee on Defence in the first democratic Parliament from 1994 to 1998.

His activities in the committee gave rise to a criminal charge during investigations into alleged corruption in the Arms Deal.

He became a popular figure in Western Cape politics, aligning himself with populist leaders like Winnie Mandela and Peter Mokaba and campaigning militantly for the ANC ahead of the 1994 general election.

In the April 1994 general election, South Africa's first under universal suffrage, Yengeni was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament.

He was also appointed as chairperson of Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Defence.

At the ANC's 49th National Conference in December 1994, Yengeni was elected for the first time to the ANC National Executive Committee.

He served on the committee throughout his tenure in Parliament, gaining re-election in December 1997 and December 2002.

Also during this period, Yengeni gained national attention for his July 1997 appearance at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he cross-examined Jeffrey Benzien, a former member of the South African Police, who had severely tortured him during his apartheid-era detention on terrorism charges.

In a commission hearing, Yengeni asked Benzien to demonstrate the use of the "wet bag", a form of suffocation torture that Yengeni had been subjected to.

Yengeni's comrade Mcebisi Skwatsha volunteered to act as the prisoner in the re-enactment.

Later in the same hearing, Benzien accused Yengeni of having betrayed his ANC comrades, providing information about them under torture; Yengeni called this "bullshit".

In November 1998, the ANC promoted Yengeni to succeed Max Sisulu as the Chief Whip of the Majority Party in the National Assembly.

He resigned from that office on 4 October 2001, the day after he was arrested and charged with corruption.

Yengeni was arrested in October 2001 and released on bail of R10 000 during an investigation by then National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, into allegations of misuse of power by Yengeni and Jacob Zuma.

According to the Sunday Times, EADS admitted that the company "helped" approximately 30 South African officials to obtain luxury vehicles.

Yengeni was specifically charged with defrauding parliament by accepting a discount on a luxury car during the tendering process for a controversial arms deal while he was the member of a parliamentary committee reporting on the same deal.

Yengeni pleaded "not guilty" and placed full-page advertisements proclaiming his innocence in all the Sunday newspapers (except The Sunday Times).

In 2003, he was found guilty of fraud.

He was sentenced to four years in prison, but only served four months, for getting an unlawful discount on a Mercedes Benz he purchased.

He remained an ordinary Member of Parliament until 5 March 2003, when he resigned from his seat after his fraud conviction; his resignation followed reports that he had been encouraged to step down both by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Frene Ginwala, and by the ANC secretary-general, Kgalema Motlanthe.