Dennis Goldberg

1. Related links
2. Speech by Dennis Goldberg, ANC at the meeting of the Special Committee against Apartheid in observance of the Day of Solidarity with South African Political Prisoners, website: anc.org.za
3. Denis Goldberg, website: wikipedia.org
4. Source(s)
5. Joyce, P. (1999). A Concise Dictionary of South African Biography, Cape Town: Francolin, p. 101

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Dennis Goldberg, an engineer by training, was born in Cape Town. He was a Executive member of the Congress of Democrats, allied to the ANC in the Congress Alliance from the mid-1950s.

During the State of Emergency Goldberg and his mother were detained for four months. After his release he was dismissed from his job for his political activism. In 1963 he was served with a stringent banning order.

Goldberg was tried from June 1963 to October 1964 in the Pretoria Supreme Court along with Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and others in the Rivonia Trial. Goldberg was charged under the Sabotage and Suppression of Communism Acts for ‘campaigning to overthrow the Government by violent revolution and for assisting an armed invasion of the country by foreign troops’. The charge sheet contained 193 acts of sabotage allegedly carried out by persons recruited by the accused in their capacity as members of the High Command of uMkhonto we Sizwe.

Goldberg was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in Pretoria Local Prison. At the time of his imprisonment his wife, Esme, and two children were living in Britain. From the time of his arrest Goldberg was in jail for a total of 22 years before being released in 1985.

After his release he went into exile in London where he joined his family. In London he resumed his work in the African National Congress (ANC) in its London office from 1985 to 1994. He was a spokesperson for the ANC and also represented it at the Anti-Apartheid Committee of the United Nations. A large group of US organisations presented Denis Goldberg with the Albert Luthuli Peace Prize in recognition of his work against apartheid.

After the first non racial elections in South Africa Goldberg founded the development organisation Community H.E.A.R.T. in London in 1995 to help to improve the living standards of black South Africans. With the support of German friends he established Community H.E.A.R.T. e.V. in Essen in Germany in 1996. He was involved in the early days of Computer Aid International in London, and is now CAI's Patron and Ambassador.

Goldberg returned to South Africa in 2002 and was appointed Special Adviser to Ronnie Kasrils MP until 2004, then Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry.