"As the times have changed, so must we, and so must our mission to ‘Get The Word Out,’" intoned new RSA Nat’l Sec’y Cecil Plaatjies after the customary "Winter Solstice" meeting and election. Plaatjies, 52, is the former editor and publisher of the once-outlawed Plaatjies Papers, an insurgent broadside against the former apartheid government.

Arrested in 1984, he spent almost seven years in the notorious Robben Island Prison along with such notables as Dennis Brutus and Nelson Mandela before his sentence was commuted with the advent of the Mandela-DeClerc government. His supporters throughout the country and as far away as Mozambique continued publication of his essays and others like them during his incarceration.

Now an elementary school history and language teacher, he also occasionally contributes as a features writer (mostly travel articles) to such publications as the Johannesburg Star, Cape Town’s Cape Times, The Mercury (Kwazulu Natal) and The Sowetan. He received his BA in History from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and his Masters 9in Afrikaans Language and Literature from the University of South Africa. He rides a 1972 Honda 450.