|
UMKHONTO WE SIZWE
The selfless
actions of the first volunteers to join Umkhonto we Sizwe,
the people's army, four decades ago serve as an inspiration to all South
Africans as they work to tackle the challenges of the present.
The fortieth anniversary of the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)
is being celebrated on Sunday, 16 December 2001 with events across the
country, including a visit by MK's founders to Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia,
Johannesburg, the site of their former headquarters.
A special edition of the ANC's political discussion
journal, Umrabulo, says: "This culture of voluntarism, of struggle,
service and sacrifice are rare and precious qualities that cannot be
neglected."
"Let us learn from the history of Umkhonto we Sizwe what it means
to be patriotic, what it means to contribute selflessly to the freedom
and dignity of our people," it says.
Umkhonto we Sizwe carried out the first acts of sabotage against selected
apartheid government targets of the enemy on 16 December 1961. These
attacks, launched in several centres in the country, were accompanied
by the appearance of the MK manifesto.
The manifesto said: "The time comes in the
life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight.
That time has now come
to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit
back by all means within our power in defence of our people, our future
and our freedom."
The successful conclusion of negotiations for an interim constitution
and the holding of democratic elections in 1994 saw the dissolution of
MK and the integration of its soldiers into a new national defence force.
The volunteers who joined the ranks of MK at its inception were drawn
principally from ANC and SACP structures. Several had fought in the Second
World War and had seen action in Egypt and the Sudan. In its first 18
months, MK carried out over 200 acts of sabotage. However, in 1963 its
headquarters at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, Johannesburg was raided and
most of the MK High Command arrested. The Rivonia Treason Trial resulted
in key leaders of MK, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan
Mbeki, being given life sentences and sent to Robben Island. Some MK
cadres, like Vuyisile Mini, Zinakile Mkhaba and Walter Khayingo in the
Eastern Cape, were sentenced to death.
This generation of MK combatants provided the first recruits to set
up base outside South Africa. The first batch had arrived in Tanzania
in 1962 as Mandela was concluding his mission to several African states
seeking support and training facilities. Among the first cadres to leave
South Africa were Moses Mabhida, JB Marks, Moses Kotane, Dr Yusuf Dadoo
and Joe Modise. Modise later became Army Commander of MK.
Apartheid South Africa was surrounded at that
time by a laager of colonial states hostile to the ANC. This early
detachment trained in places as
far-flung as Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. Oliver Tambo described their
journey: "They traveled by land from Cape Town, now on foot; now
on trucks and then on boats in the night; then by train through the Sudan
until Cairo - through immense difficulties, a journey that, incidentally,
fulfilled Cecil Rhodes' dream of a link from Cape to Cairo. We did that
in the course of the struggle. And every phase of that trip was a challenge."
Alliances
In 1967, MK launched a joint campaign with ZIPRA, a people's army fighting
for the liberation of Zimbabwe. They aimed to find a route into South
Africa by first crossing the Zambezi River from Zambia into Zimbabwe,
then marching across Zimbabwe through the Wankie game reserve, and crossing
the Limpopo River into South Africa. The Wankie Campaign was MK's baptism
of fire. Its cadres acquired valuable experience in combat but were unable
to reach South Africa. In the aftermath of the battles some MK cadres
managed to retreat and others were arrested only to join colleagues on
Robben Island.
The Wankie Campaign was fought by the Luthuli Detachment, named in honour
of ANC President Albert Luthuli, who passed away in the same year.
The victory in 1975/6 of the liberation forces led by Frelimo in Mozambique
and the MPLA in Angola significantly altered the geo-politics of the
region in favour of the revolutionary forces. The apartheid government
responded by invading Angola, and were stopped just 12 kilometres outside
the capital, Luanda. They provided support to the UNITA rebel group in
Angola and the Renamo group in Mozambique as part of a broader effort
to destabilise the region.
The 1976 Soweto uprising, which spread countrywide, resulted in the
exodus of thousands of young people who left the country in search of
the liberation movement, through Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland and Mozambique.
The ANC was able to cope with this influx thanks to the assistance of
the MPLA, which offered rear bases for MK training in Angola.
Most of these recruits were trained at the Nova
Catengue Camp, in the Benguela province. they underwent a complete
course in political and
military theory and combat preparedness. Instructors include stalwarts
like Francis Meli, Mark Shope and Jack Simons. They taught the fighters
that without politics, there is no soldier but a mere mercenary. The
camp was known as the "University of MK".
Catengue is synonymous with MK as it is with the Cuban Internationalists.
They were the military advisors; they provided logistics in the lean
season and staffed the defense at a critical juncture in the life of
the detachment.
One of the first cadres of the June 16 generation to return to South
Africa was Solomon Mahlangu, who was captured in downtown Johannesburg
after a clash with police in which two civilians were killed. Mahlangu
was tried, and, despite an international campaign for clemency, was executed
on 6 April 1979. The ANC's school in Tanzania, the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom
College (SOMAFCO), was named after him.
Black September
In September 1977 political classes at Catengue were interrupted by
cadres complaining of severe stomach pains and an outbreak of diahorea
and vomiting. Units that were in the terrain that night were recalled
and discussions cancelled. About ninety percent of the more than five
hundred people in the camp were affected. The two doctors at this time
were unable to cope and the camp did not have many trained medical orderlies.
Some comrades had to go to the Cuban medical post in the camp. Cuban
reinforcement from nearby Benguela were also called in to assist. The
Cubans provided doctors and other cadres to staff the guard posts. This
was the camp's first experience of poisoning by enemy operatives that
had infiltrated MK. The full facts behind the poisoning would unravel
years later and lead, among other things, to the formal establishment
of the Security Department, and the establishment of a detention centre
at Camp 32, known also as Quatro.
The graduation of this group of cadres was a grand occasion, attended
by ANC President Oliver Tambo. They became known as the June 16 Detachment.
The graduate detachment was succeeded by a second one in 1978, known
as the Moncada Detachment in honour of the Cuban Internationalists.
In 1979, after intelligence reports suggested preparations by the South
African Defence Force (SADF) to attack Catengue, the routine of the camp
was changed. Every day the detachment emptied camp before dawn and retreated
to sanctuary in the mountains. Only sentries staffing the defense and
the anti-aircraft gunners remained.
The enemy planes attacked on 14 March 1979, dropping
heavy bombs on the camp. The workshop went up in flames together with
its dump of fuel.
One of the planes was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed into the
Atlantic Ocean. Catengue had been levelled by the bombing. The apartheid
government later claimed to have destroyed a "Cuban missile site" in
the south of Angola.
Though Catengue was no more, it had given birth to the Amandla Cultural
Ensemble, which was to be the cultural ambassador of the South African
people throughout the world. Amandla made its first appearance on the
world stage at the World Youth Festival in Cuba in 1979.
Special operations
Besides the formal detachments, the Military Headquarters and the Revolutionary
Council - later renamed the Politico-Military Council - saw the need
for a special military element of highly skilled and proficient combatants
to strike at selected targets of importance. This was the reason for
the formation of the Special Operations Unit of MK.
The Special Operations Unit is credited with the attacks against the
SASOL refinery, Voortrekkerhoogte Military Barracks, SA Air Force headquarters,
Koeberg Nuclear Facility and many more. The operations by this unit and
others within the country inspired many cadres and youth who constituted
successor detachments in Angola. Several camps were established, including
Pango, Camalundi, Moses Mabhida and Caculama in the east of Angola.
Together with efforts by the apartheid government to seal its borders
through secret pacts and destabilisation of the front-line states, special
forces were unleashed to carry out attacks wherever the ANC was found
-Matola, Maseru, Harare, Gaborone and Swaziland. A full-scale invasion
was launched into Angola.
In the interior of Angola, particularly in the east, the apartheid regime
supported Unita to open a front that sought to cut off MK locations from
Luanda, and thereby starve it of supplies. MK had little choice but to
enter the war in Angola, and engage in what were later known as the Eastern
Front battles.
Prior to a full-scale opening of the front in the north, Unita mounted
hit and run attacks on the villages around the camps of MK in this part
of Angola. In the wake of Unita, villages were deserted and ghostly,
herds roamed loose and the fields lay fallow. They ambushed MK vehicles.
On many occasions Unita was repelled by MK. In a number of instances,
the peasant population came to look upon MK for protection.
Unita's effort to break the cordon in the north to reach Luanda and
provide reprieve for the invading SADF army in the south was frustrated.
The tide had turned against the invading columns. Six thousand troops
of the SADF were encircled in Cuito Cunavale. Behind the scenes a flurry
of diplomatic negotiations between the USSR, USA, SA and Cuba was under
way. The result provided for the safe passage of the encircled SADF troops
in Cuito, the holding of elections leading to Namibian Independence and
a pledge by the countries not to harbour those destabilising them.
The victory of Cuito in 1988 was a defeat for the imperial ambitions
of apartheid South Africa. The changed regional conditions and the re-alignment
of forces had profound consequences for MK. The political and military
leadership of the ANC and MK issued the order for the army to move from
Angola to Tanzania and Uganda.
The defeat of the SADF in Angola was critical to the unbanning of the
ANC and release of political prisoners which took place in February 1990.
To assist the negotiations process, the ANC suspended all armed actions
in August 1990, but indicated it would neither disarm nor disband MK
until the goal of a democratic South Africa had been realised.
Negotiations for an interim constitution were accompanied by talks on
the establishment of a new South African national defence force which
would integrate the forces of the SADF and bantustan armies with the
forces of MK and other non-statutory forces. This new force, the South
African National Defence Force (SANDF), came into being on 27 April 1994,
the same day that all South Africans went to the polling stations for
the first time in the country's history. The historic mission of MK was
complete. |
