Ahmed Kathrada, a key South African leader who worked side-by-side with Nelson Mandela, has passed away following a surgical operation. The French Communist Party sends our condolences to his family, his loved ones, and his comrades in the ANC.

Ahmed Kathrada first became engaged politically as a youngster. He was a member of the Young Communist League and later became a leader of the ANC, a member of the South African Communist Party, and was elected to Parliament. He fought against the apartheid regime and paid for it dearly, spending more than 20 years in South African prisons alongside Nelson Mandela, to whom he was very close.

Throughout his life, his political commitment focused resolutely on internationalism; as a student he worked at the headquarters of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. In particular, he was active in the defense of the rights of the Palestinian people and the movement for peace in the Middle East. Through his foundation, he called for intensifying the struggle for a non-racial society in South Africa and elsewhere.

Ahmed Kathrada was committed to a fair and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and in particular he condemned the apartheid politics of B. Netanyahu; he rallied for liberation of Marwan Bargouthi and supported his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The French Communist Party joins South Africans and progressives around the world in their abiding grief: we have lost a great activist and a determined humanist.