Flag Boshielo

In 1920, Marutle Flag Boshielo was born to a poor family in Phokoane village, in the Sekhukhuneland district in Northern Transvaal, now Limpopo Province.

In the 1940s, Boshielo joined the ANC and CPSA and served in the ANC Transvaal Executive Committee. The CPSA helped he to pursue his studies through evening classes. He was one of the participants of the 1952 Defiance Campaign. 

In 1954, he was a founder member of Sebatakgomo, a migrant worker-based movement. The movement played a leading role in the 1958 Sekhukhuneland Revolt. Boshielo moved to Johannesburg, where he was employed as a driver for a bakery. He recruited bakery workers to join the Bakery Workers’ Union and broader liberation movements. His leadership qualities saw him elected to the national leadership of SACTU. Boshielo became a prime target of the oppressive apartheid machinery and he was prohibited from attending political gatherings. He was ordered to renounce membership of all organisations.

Later, the ANC sent him to Moscow for political and military training. After which he went to Tanzania where he became part of Kongwa Camp of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). In 1972, he was captured near Caprivi (bordered by Botswana, Namibia and Zambia). At this stage the then Rhodesian security were trying to infiltrate South Africa with other freedom fighters on a MK mission. During a shootout, his fellow MK combatants were killed, but it is believed that Boshielo was captured and incarcerated by Ian Smith’s forces in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Since then, he has not been seen. In 2005, Boshielo was awarded the Order of Luthuli in Gold by President Thabo Mbeki for his contribution in the liberation struggle and workers’ rights.