Sonia Bunting

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Sonia Beryl Bunting (born December 9, 1922 in Johannesburg , † March 24, 2001 in Cape Town ; born Sonia Beryl Isaacman ) was a South African politician and journalist. She was a leading member of the South African Communist Party (CPSA, later SACP). Together with her husband Brian Bunting , she was also politically active in British exile .

Life

Sonia Isaacman was born to Dora and David Isaacman, who fled to South Africa as Jews from pogroms in Eastern Europe. After her matric she began studying medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In 1942 she joined the CPSA. She finished her studies a year after she enrolled to work at the party headquarters. There she met her future husband Brian Bunting, whom she married in 1946. They moved to Cape Town. After the party was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950, she worked for the opposition newspapers The Guardian , New Age and The Spark. In 1951 she was a guest at the 3rd World Youth Festival in East Berlin together with Ahmed Kathrada . In 1953 she took part in the founding of the underground South African Communist Party . At the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955 , she was a panel speaker. In the subsequent Treason Trial , she was indicted alongside 155 other opposition activists, but was acquitted in 1958. In 1959 she and her husband were placed under house arrest. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, she was imprisoned for over three months. New Age was banned in 1962, followed by the follow-up newspaper The Spark shortly afterwards.

The family then went into exile in London, where Sonia Bunting campaigned for economic sanctions against South Africa within the anti-apartheid movement founded in 1960 . She also organized the World Campaign for the Release of South African Political Prisoners , which called for the release of political prisoners in South Africa. This included a campaign in support of the Rivonia trial defendants , who face the death penalty . She headed the SACP party office in London for 20 years and from 1968 coordinated the publication of the quarterly magazine The African Communist .

In 1991 she returned to South Africa with her husband. In 1994 and 1999 she supported the African National Congress in the election campaign. She was a co-founder of the Cape Town Friends of Cuba .

Sonia Bunting had three children with her husband Brian.

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i biography at sahistory.za.org (English), accessed on October 14, 2018
  2. ↑ a b c d Obituary in The Guardian, June 7, 2001, accessed October 14, 2018
  3. ^ History of the New Age , accessed October 14, 2018
  4. ^ The Presidency: Sonia Bunting 1922–2001 (English), accessed October 12, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Bunting, Sonia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bunting, Sonia Beryl (full name); Isaacman, Sonia Beryl (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African politician and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 2001
Place of death Cape Town