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8 days ago

This is from a facebook post from SANDF: 26 November 2020: A Air Force #ThrowbackThursday | Embracing our Collective Heritage: Brigadier General (ret) Portia Nozipho Sibiya. The importance of stopping to reflect when people are travelling long distances cannot be overstated. With the SAAF 2020: Embracing Our Collective Heritage theme, the SA Air Force has afforded itself a moment of reflection on its current capabilities, successes, conflict-filled history and the ideal role it should play as a component of a Modern Defence. We began the Embracing our Collective Heritage series with a reflection on the SADF commanders; we are currently discussing the non-statutory force commanders with the intention of rounding the series off with the SA Air Force's pioneers. The secondary intention for the series is to collate the data pertaining to the SA Air Force's history and give our South African heroes their flowers while they are still alive. This week, the focus is on Brigadier General (ret) Portia Nozipho Sibiya. Brigadier General (ret) Portia Nozipho Sibiya was born in Soweto, on 11 March 1967. In 1971 her family moved to King Williams town to join her father, who was at the time working for the Department of Works. Her family later moved to Sterkspruit, where she completed her primary and secondary education. As a child, her aspirations had always been to practice medicine; therefore in 1985, she became one of the first students to enroll in medicine at the new faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Transkei (UNITRA). As fate would have it, Brigadier General (ret) Sibiya's family home was frequently visited by uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) guerrillas at night, due to its proximity to the Telle Bridge Border that connects RSA to Lesotho. This was her introduction to the African National Congress (ANC) underground activities and this new-found knowledge coincided with an increase of police raids at UNITRA that resulted in the death of an Student Representative Council (SRC) leader, missing students and forcing others into hiding. Unrest at UNITRA worsened due to the assassination of the "Cradock Four" in Port Elizabeth. Inspired by Nelson Mandela saying "The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight"- and against her father's wishes who felt Nelson Mandela was a bad influence on the youth, she dropped out of Medical School and went into an ANC hideout. Her family found out about her decision to go into exile via a note saying "Please do not look for me, do not go to UNITRA. I've left South Africa." Her mother has kept that note to date. When the news of her departure spread, her family was forced to endure harassment and intimidation by the Apartheid authorities. Brigadier General (ret) Sibiya was amongst the 99% of recruits who chose MK without any information of what this path would entail. General Sibiya now postulates that "they were probably tired of running and dying, and they believed it possible to defeat the system." "Separations, after crossing the border, took place in Zambia. Everyone drew/picked pseudonyms and were given two options: join the military in West-Angola or go to school in East Tanzania." She chose military camps. In hindsight, she views the ones who opted to focus on their education as the mature and courageous ones. Determined to play her part in liberating our country, General Sibiya decided to survive life in the military camps with all its limitations of not being allowed to speak freely; shortages in food and the loss of lives of fellow comrades. The greatest lesson she learned about herself in exile is “that I am strong and capable, both mentally and physically. Remember, these are qualities I would have been limited from recognising under Apartheid. Another lesson is that human beings are more effective as a group than as individuals." She still holds dear the memory of the day she was granted a private audience with Chris Hani at the military camp. In 1998, having completed her studies in Nigeria, General Sibiya integrated into the Air Force at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and had to partake in bridging training, in the midst of some despondency among comrades, as the integration process was not accommodating of all repatriates, especially those with no formal education or those who were mentally unwell. In hindsight, she believes "Some aspects of MK training to have been far superior to the old SADF training." She was subjected to. And she thinks the integration process could have been more accommodating and inclusive of their gained knowledge and expertise. As a Mathematics and Computer Science Graduate, General Sibiya longed to be given the opportunity to utilise her education in the Avionics environment, but she was routed to Technical Intelligence, instead. Her first post was that of Image Interpretation Officer at Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (Jaric) in 1999. In the year 2000, she was promoted to the rank of Colonel as the Officer Commanding (OC) of the SA Air Force Headquarters Unit and became the first female to command a SA Air Force Unit. In 2004, she was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General as Director Corporate Staff Services, at age 36. In 2007, she was appointed as a Defence Attaché in France, where she was the only female General in the region, until 2011. She still holds dear, a phone call from then-President Thabo Mbeki, who said he was proud of her and encouraged her to do her best. "Working in a male-dominated field is challenging, but doubles up when you're black", reflects General Sibiya. She cites her main source of joy in the SA Air Force as "witnessing her subordinates thrive in their careers and lives." General Sibiya retired from the SA Air Force in 2011. Life after the military, allowed her to marry and complete her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in the United States of America (USA) Brigadier General (ret) Portia Nozipho Sibiya deserves continued recognition and celebration for submitting her life and personal aspirations in service of building "a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law" as is described in the Preamble of the South African Constitution. Information by Major Mpho Mathebula and Photographs by Brigadier General (ret) Portia Nozipho Sibiya and SA Air Force Museum.

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