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GRAAFF-REINET — Mayor Deon de Vos, members of the ANC and the SANDF, family and friends, colleagues, military veterans and ordinary Graaff-Reinetters bade farewell to Brigadier General David Cebeni during a full military funeral held at the Umasizakhe stadium in Graaff-Reinet on Saturday, October 7.
Speakers and friends described the late Brig-Gen Cebeni as a selfless revolutionary, a strategist and an all-around cadre, a hard-working, selfless man of virtue and great integrity, motivational orator, a gallant patriot who lived a life that exemplified adoration and emulation.
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Cebeni was born in Graaff-Reinet on March 28, 1965, the eighth child of Jackson Peterlo and Elizabeth Nongaliphi.
He became politically active at a very young age as a result of the harassment, detention and banishment of his immediate family members in the Apartheid era.
He joined the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) in its formative year in 1980 while he was still a learner in secondary school.
Cebeni, known as Ponkie, was regularly detained under Section 52 of the Internal Security Act and once under Section 28 during this time.
In 1982, after a 'crash course' in Lesotho, he was involved in the underground structures of the ANC.
He left the country in 1985 through Lesotho for formal training with the ANC's Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) - the armed wing of the African National Congress - in Angola.
In 1986 he was selected to undergo a stenographer's course in Zambia where he majored in Pitman's shorthand writing.
He was then deployed in Lusaka at the Treasury in the Logistic's Department as the National Administrative Secretary.
When the MK was integrated into the South African National Defence Force in 1994, Cebeni integrated as a major and worked at Long Comd in 1995. He was transferred to Cape Town that same year.
He finished all his logistical courses in 1997 as well as All Arms Battle Handling.
He then completed his Junior Command and Staff Duties (JCSD) theoretical and practical course and was part of the final cut who closed the SCSD in 2001.
Cebeni was married to Ntsika Yama Vundle (known as Yama) and was blessed to have a lovely daughter, Ambeswa.
After returning to Graaff-Reinet he didn't rest on his laurels. He involved himself in local politics and was elected as the ANC's branch chairperson of Ward 6 in February 2015.
He also became the ANC's Sub Regional Chairperson and a member of the Constituency Management Committee.
After a long sickbed, he passed away peacefully on Wednesday, September 27.
He leaves behind his mother, wife, daughter, two sisters, brother and his nieces and nephews.
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