Lieutenant General Gilbert Lebeko Ramano (7 July 1939 – 8 June 2025) was a South African military commander.
Life and career
Ramano was born in
Sophiatown
Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a poor multi-racial area and a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid. It produced some of South Africa's most famous writ ...
on 7 July 1939. He completed his schooling at Madibane High School and worked as a senior clerk at the
WNLA mines depot in Johannesburg from 1961 to 62.
[ ]
He left South Africa in 1962 to join the armed wing of the
African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
,
uMkhonto we Sizwe
uMkhonto weSizwe (; abbreviated MK; ) was the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC), founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. Its mission was to fight against the South African government to brin ...
(MK). He attended a number of military courses in
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
(special operations), and the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, including a Soviet Army Staff Course in 1971. He returned to South Africa in 1992 and attended the
Zimbabwe Army Staff Course in 1994.
In 1995, he attended the SANDF Joint Staff Course and was appointed General Officer Commanding
Northern Cape Command in July of that year.
In May 1997 he was appointed Deputy Chief of the Army and on 1 July 1998 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed Chief of the Army.
Ramano died on 8 June 2025, at the age of 85.
Honours and awards
In 1999, Lt General Ramano was awarded the
Order of the Star of South Africa
Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to:
* A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica
* Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood
* H ...
His awards include the following:
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See also
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List of South African military chiefs
This article lists the South African military chiefs. From 1958 until the 1994 South African general election, first democratic general election in 1994, the present-day South African National Defence Force was known as the South African Defenc ...
References
, -
1939 births
2025 deaths
UMkhonto we Sizwe personnel
Chiefs of the South African Army
Military personnel from Johannesburg
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