Rommel Roberts

Rommel Roberts (2 December 1949–17 May 2024) was a South African human rights activist. He was an expert in the study of religion, director of the Hilltop Empowerment Centre, consultant, lecturer and author.

Life

Rommel Roberts was born on 2 December 1949, in Durban, South Africa. He grew up in Mafeking (today: Mahikeng, North-West Province, South Africa), where he was confronted with the effects of apartheid as a child. His father was white, and his mother Maureen Roberts, a qualified nurse and the only medical specialist for the surrounding townships, was of Indian descent and thus classified as non-white according to the categories of apartheid, so the family was exposed to diverse discrimination. Rommel grew up with seven siblings.

Roberts graduated from High School in Cape Town and then studied theology and philosophy at St. Joseph's Theological Institute near Pietermaritzburg.

After his studies he returned to Cape Town, and in the following years committed himself against apartheid working in various human rights groups and organising non-violent actions. He worked alongside Bishop Tutu for many years.

Roberts was married to Celeste Santos, also a human rights activist, and they had a son and a daughter. They were divorced later.

In the years after Nelson Mandela's release, Roberts was involved in various projects to build up democratic and economic structures and take care of returning exiles. In 1994 he was called to Mafeking to prepare and monitor the first general free elections, and also to resolve conflicts in the then ‘Homeland’ Bophuthatswana.

From 1995 Roberts was director of the Hilltop Empowerment Centre in the Eastern Cape. He lived there with his wife Robin, with whom he was married since 2002. They organized numerous projects aimed at education issues and improving the living conditions of people in rural areas.

He was involved in consultancy work with South African municipalities and government departments as well as occasionally guest lecturing at universities, his topics being community development including IT literacy, communication and conflict resolution.

Rommel Roberts criticised corruption and lack of services as well as the unequal living conditions in South Africa.

He died in Cape Town on 17 May 2024, when he collided head-on with a minibus taxi while riding a motor vehicle.

Anti-apartheid and political views

When Rommel Roberts came back to Cape Town after his studies in 1974 he was especially interested in working with children and young people. He came in contact with the Early Learning Centre (today Early Learning Resource Unit, ELRU, in Kewtown that was involved in caring for children and general community work.  Kewtown was a township near Cape Town where mainly coloured people lived. So Rommel Roberts learned about the townships and informal settlements which emerged as a result of the apartheid government’s policy to evict and resettle black and coloured people. Roberts got deeply involved in supporting those people who often lived in poor housing conditions, sometimes only in shacks or provisional shelters. And even these dwellings were not secure as the government often destroyed whole townships, e.g. the township Modderdam in 1977. Through his association with the South African Council of Churches, Rommel Roberts worked together with Bishop Desmond Tutu as his national development officer. Rommel Roberts´ tasks also included building up national and international support networks.

Roberts worked in human rights groups organising campaigns against government oppression and cruel treatment. In the case of Modderdam, after legal interventions had failed, they organised the evacuation of about 10.000 people when their homes were demolished and people were threatened to be deported to the so-called ‘homelands’. The Apartheid policy was that Blacks were no real citizens of South Africa and had to live in remote so-called ‘homelands’ where there were no job opportunities. They could only live in South Africa temporarily, and in order to live in South Africa they had to have a ‘Pass’. The protest against these ‘Pass Laws’ was one of the key issues in the struggle against apartheid and has a long history. Together with others Roberts organised lots of campaigns, boycotts and protest marches. One of the famous actions was the Cathedral fast in the St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town where people fasted for more than 20 days before Easter in 1982 and which resulted in the suspension of the Pass Laws.

Because of his activities against apartheid, Roberts was in prison several times.

Roberts believed that real changes could only be brought about with non-violent means and so did not agree with the attitudes of ANC (African National Congress) and PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) in this point. During the 1980s, when the country became more and more insecure and violence increased, including the infamous practice of “necklacing”, Roberts organised several peace conferences together with Bishop Tutu where they tried to bring together the various hostile factions and find a solution to end the violence.

The Quaker Peace Centre

In 1974 Rommel Roberts joined the Quakers and worked with Quakers since then. Mainly on his initiative the first Peace Centre in South Africa was founded in Cape Town in 1985, the Quaker Peace Centre in whose administration he remained active. They then felt that a great deal of work was required in terms of reconciliation and general peacemaking.

Rommel Roberts was involved in a special Quaker Peace Centre initiative speaking truth to power through the exposure of leadership corruption in the promotion of arms deals.

Writings

• Roberts, Rommel (2018). Seeds of Peace: Stories of Silent Heroes and Heroines in South Africa. ISBN 978-3-9524560-7-1.
• Roberts, Rommel, Stimmen für die Freiheit. Geschichten von mutigen Menschen für ein neues Südafrika, 2. Aufl., Küsnacht: Digiboo, 2018. ISBN 978-3-9524560-4-0
• Rommel Roberts, Wie wir für die Freiheit kämpften:Von stillen Heldinnen und Helden in Südafrika, Bern: Lokwort Verlag, 2014. ISBN 978-3-906786-52-0

Other websites

• The Hilltop Empowerment Centre Archived 2019-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
• Desmond Tutu
• Ohne Gewalt!: Rommel Roberts über den Anti-Apartheid-Kampf