THE LAST SALUTE: Crash claims the life of struggle hero Ronnie Matshaya
By Zenoyise John:
Former Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) commander Mfanelo Dan “Ronald Ronnie Dlamini” Matshaya has died in a tragic car accident that occurred on Thursday, 18 August 2025, between Cedarville and Kokstad.
Matshaya, a respected soldier of the liberation struggle, left South Africa in the early 1980s to join the African National Congress in exile. He received military training in Angola and Yugoslavia, becoming a firearms and military tactics instructor at Caculama Camp. Over the years, he served as Base Commander, reconnaissance leader, and later Deputy Commander of the Zola Dubeni Icing Unit, which operated inside South Africa against apartheid collaborators.
In 1987, he and his unit were captured in Bophuthatswana and tortured before being sen...