Neil Aggett
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Neil Aggett (1953 or 1954 - 5 February 1982), was a South African trade union leader and labour activist. According to the South African security police, he committed suicide while held at the John Vorster Square police station, by hanging himself with a scarf that a friend had knitted for him. However an inquest on 29 June revealed that his death was as a result of police torture.
Aggett was born in Kenya, and his family moved to South Africa in 1964, where he attended a boarding school in Grahamstown (from 1964 to 1970, and later the University of Cape Town, where he completed a medical degree in 1976.
He worked in Black hospitals (under apartheid hospitals were segregated) in Umtata, Tembisa and later Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, where he became a popular and active trade union member, learning to speak Zulu. He was appointed organiser of the Transvaal Food and Canning Workers’ Union, and helped organise a successful strike against Fatti’s and Moni’s in Islando, which later spread further afield.
Harassed by the security forces, he was entrusted with organising a mass action campaign in Langa near Cape Town. He was detained by the security police shortly afterwards, and his death marked the 51st death in detention, and the first white person since 1963.
About 15000 people attended his funeral on 11 February 1982, and his union called for a stayaway on the day, to which about 7000 Volkswagen workers in Uitenhage responded.
Johnny Clegg includes a tribute to Aggett in one of his songs.