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National Heritage Council: Africa Liberation Workshop
The National Heritage Council reports that:
“Southern African Development Countries are concerned about the lack of readily available documented liberation heritage and history on the continent. This finding emerged from the Africa Liberation Workshop that was organised by the National Heritage Council (NHC) of South Africa and the Africa World Heritage Fund that was held in Pretoria from 16 – 18 August 2011. This meeting was a preparation for a focused agenda by the Sub-Saharan countries to channel resources towards liberation heritage and align their preservation programmes to the current international legislation and Conventions. The countries that were represented are Swaziland, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, Seychelles, Zimbabwe, Angola, Malawi and definitely South Africa.
The National Heritage Council of South Africa has started working on the development of a Liberation Heritage Route which will be submitted for consideration by UNESCO as a World Heritage property. This route has some of its roots in other African countries where the struggle was fought especially in countries that hosted freedom fighters in exile. Adv. Sonwabile Mancotywa, Chief Executive of the NHC says “South Africa will review the current tentative sites that are listed by UNESCO and prepare the country for celebrating the success of being the first to have a recognised route on the continent”.
The country representatives agreed that, firstly, each country need to ensure that research and documentation of their roads to independence take place as a matter of urgency. Secondly, South Africa is supported to proceed with the enlistment of the Liberation Heritage Sites (route) that will later stretch into other countries on the continent. Dr Daniel Ndagala of UNESCO referred to his organisation’s resolution of the General Assembly on 31 January 2011 that “the history of the African Liberation struggles may be lost unless collected, documented and made accessible to the public”.
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Source National Heritage Council website.
