ANC Today --------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 1, No. 47, 14 December 2001 - 3 January 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK: * Letter from the President: China visit unites the peoples of the South * Umkhonto we Sizwe: Spirit of service and sacrifice lives on after 40 years --------------------------------------------------------------------- LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT China visit unites the peoples of the South The Bandung Conference of African and Asian countries was held in Indonesia in 1955. It was attended by the governments of 29 independent countries. Reflecting the continued colonial domination of our continent, only 6 of these governments were African. Our own movement was represented by such leaders as Moses Kotane. Ahmed Ben Bella represented the then fighting people of Algeria. The African-American population sent the legendary Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem. Present at what was the founding Conference of the Non Aligned Movement, were the outstanding leaders who had successfully led their peoples in the struggle against colonialism. I refer here to such leaders as Ahmed Sukarno, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Zhou En Lai, Jawaharlal Nehru and Ho Chi Minh. Speaking at the opening of the Conference, President Sukarno said: "So, let this Asian-African Conference be a great success! Make the 'Live and let live' principle and the 'Unity in Diversity' motto the unifying force which brings us all together." He went on to say: "If we succeed in doing so, the effect of it for the freedom, independence and the welfare of man will be great on the world at large. The Light of Understanding has again been lit, the Pillar of Cooperation again erected. It is for us to spread (this) message all over the World." This 'Light of Understanding' and 'Pillar of Cooperation', were reflected in the Final Communiqué issued at the end of the Conference. Among other things, this Communiqué said: "The Asian-African Conference recognised the urgency of promoting economic development in the Asian-African region. There was general desire for economic co-operation among the participating countries on the basis of mutual interest and respect for national sovereignty. The proposals with regard to economic co-operation within the participating countries do not preclude either the desirability or the need for co-operation with countries outside the region, including the investment of foreign capital. It was further recognised that the assistance being received by certain participating countries from outside the region, through international or under bilateral arrangements, had made a valuable contribution to the implementation of their development programmes. The participating countries agreed to provide technical assistance to one another, to the maximum extent practicable, in the form of: experts, trainees; pilot projects and equipment for demonstration purposes; exchange of know-how and establishment of national and, where possible, regional training and research institutes for importing technical knowledge and skills in co-operation with the existing international agencies." Twenty-seven years after Bandung, in 1982, the then leader of the Chinese people, Deng Xiaoping, made the following statement: "We are very pleased that Third World countries have put forward the question of South-South cooperation. Of course, the question of relations between the South and the North should also be resolved. With the Third World so heavily in debt, how will its people be able to survive? If the developed countries don't use their money to help the developing countries expand their economies, they won't have any market in the Third World. As a Chinese saying goes, the richer a man is, the meaner he is. So it is not enough for the Third World to place its hopes on a change in relations between the South and the North. There must also be South-South cooperation. If we want to change the international economic order, we must, above all, settle the question of relations between the South and the North, but at the same time we have to find new ways to increase South-South cooperation." This week, we paid a very successful visit to China at the invitation of President Jiang Zemin. Our delegation consisted of Cabinet Ministers and government officials, members of our country's private sector, the business world, and our mass media. Quite correctly, the Chinese Premier, Zhu Rongji, described ours as a Goodwill Visit. Indeed it was. The warmth with which we were received will remain permanently in the hearts and minds of all of us who had the privilege to visit the great cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The central purpose of our visit was to strengthen the relations between South Africa and China. Both sides agreed that this objective was achieved. This success was, of course, based on exchanges that had taken place between our governments and countries previously. In this regard, I would like to mention especially, the visit of President Jiang Zemin to our country in April last year and our relations that stretch back to Mapungubwe, a millennium ago. I began this Letter by referring to the Bandung Conference of 1955 and remarks made by Deng Xiaoping in 1982. I did this to locate our visit within its historical context. What we cited points to the fact that as South Africa and China work to strengthen their cooperation and their relations, they do so within the framework of a long-shared vision of the peoples of the South, of the strategic importance of South-South cooperation. At the same time, the Bandung Final Communiqué made the correct point that South-South cooperation does not 'preclude either the desirability or the need for cooperation with countries outside the region'. Deng Xiaoping added the equally correct observation that 'if we want to change the international economic order, we must, above all, settle the question of relations between the South and the North'. What all this means is that, as countries of the South, we are faced with three important tasks. These are: * to strengthen South-South cooperation in all areas; * to work in a harmonious and mutually beneficial manner with the countries of the North; and, * to work to restructure the relations between the North and the South for the benefit of both North and South. In the context of South-South cooperation, we agreed with our Chinese counterparts on the further expansion of our economic relations, on cooperation and exchanges in areas of science and technology, education, culture, international relations, parliamentary systems, law enforcement and so on. The Chinese government also informed us of the important decision it had taken to grant our country approved destination status for Chinese tourists. This will enable us to promote our country as a tourist destination among the 1,3 billion citizens of China who constitute almost 25 per cent of the world's population. Agreement was also reached that we explore the possibility of arriving at a free trade agreement, which, inter alia, would facilitate the entry of South African products into the vast and rapidly growing Chinese market. These critically important discussions will begin early in the New Year. With regard to scientific cooperation, we must mention, especially, the development of pebble bed nuclear reactors for the generation of electricity. One of the pre-eminent universities of China, Tsinghua, is conducting important research in this area. Our own Eskom is also working in the same area. These two institutions are already cooperating on this project and will further extend their collaboration in a venture that is focused on helping human society globally to meet its energy needs, in a manner that addresses legitimate universal concerns about safety and the environment. Together, Tsinghua and Eskom, globally, occupy the cutting edge in the development of this technology. During our visit, we also participated in the launch of the South Africa-China Binational Commission. The rapid expansion of relations between our two countries since 1998, covering many areas, necessitated the establishment of this Commission. It will ensure that we develop our relations in a comprehensive and balanced manner. We were privileged to be in China at the precise moment when she became a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which development we have supported over the years without hesitation. The Chinese economy is the seventh largest in the world. Its ranking will further improve in the coming years. China's membership of the WTO therefore helps to address the issue raised in Bandung, of healthy relations between the Afro-Asian region and the rest of the world. Because of the standing of China, which is also one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, while being a developing country, it is clear that her membership of the WTO will also improve the possibility successfully to deal with the critical issue of North-South relations. This includes the life and death matter for us, of Africa's relations with the developed world. Accordingly, we agreed with our Chinese friends that we will work with them for the success of NEPAD and the Sino-African process of cooperation agreed at a Chinese-African ministerial meeting held in Beijing last year. We will also work together to ensure the success of both the forthcoming post-Doha WTO Development Round and next year's Johannesburg World Summit for Sustainable Development. The Bandung Conference expressed its "wholehearted sympathy and warm support of the courageous stand taken by the victims of racial and political repression, more particularly the peoples of African and Indian origin in the Union of South Africa. The Conference also pays its tributes to all those who oppose racial doctrines and have joined their fellow citizens in their struggle for equality, justice and human rights". We were pleased, once more, to thank the government and people of China for what they had done to support us in our struggle against apartheid tyranny, against 'racial and political repression', for 'equality, justice and human rights'. We are enormously strengthened that this ancient and dignified people stand firmly with us, as we continue our struggle to overcome the legacy of colonialism and racism in our country and continent. As the Deputy Mayor of Shanghai informed us, 2002 will be, in terms of Chinese culture, the Year of the Horse. This is the year of the 90th anniversary of the ANC and the establishment of the African Union. The Year of the Horse signifies both aesthetic beauty and fleet-footed speed. Let the New Year be characterised by our beauty as a people and our rapid advance towards the renaissance of our continent. Seasons greetings to all readers of ANC TODAY. Thabo Mbeki Because of the holiday period, the next Letter from the President will appear in our second edition in the New Year. --------------------------------------------------------------------- UMKHONTO WE SIZWE Spirit of service and sacrifice lives on after 40 years 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. MORE INFORMATION: Documents on Umkhonto we Sizwe http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mk/ ANC Submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, August 1996 http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/misc/trctoc.html ANC Second Submission to the TRC, May 1997 http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/misc/trc2.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the last edition of ANC Today for the year. The next edition will be on Friday, 4 January 2002. This issue of ANC Today is available from the ANC web site at: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2001/at47.htm To receive ANC Today free of charge by e-mail each week go to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/subscribe.html