MANNIE BROWN

1926 - 2003

CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF MANNIE BROWN

If you were to ask his comrades in the ANC and the South African Communist Party about Mannie Brown all of them will comment on his generosity of spirit and cheeky sense of humour. Mannie was always shy of any limelight but was nonetheless a dependable 'friendly giant' of the struggle. To his family he's been a tower of strength but to his comrades over many years he' s been a brother and a friend. In his more recent years Mannie Brown was an important father figure to many young comrades. His loss will be felt not only in Britain where he lived for many years but also in South Africa from where he was exiled in 1963 until his return in 1994.

From his flat in London he led an underground operation that delivered tons of weapons into South Africa on daring missions under the noses of the unwitting regime between 1986 and 1993. The operation was kept completely secret and no-one was ever caught.

Emanuel (Mannie) Brown was born on the 14th July 1926, in Jerusalem in British occupied Palestine, a legacy that would have a profound influence throughout his life. At the age of three his maternal grandfather was killed in a surprise ambush and when the British bombed the Atlantic Hotel in reprisal for the bombing of the King David Hotel four members of his family were killed. In 1940 with the German panzer divisions drawing closer, Mannie's family were evacuated to start a new life in South Africa.

At school in South Africa there was a debate on the viability of allowing black students to use the classrooms for literacy lessons. Out of four hundred students, Mannie was one of only ten who voted in favour of the motion.

He left school before completing his matric and in the early 1940s found himself on a factory floor with a certain Joe Slovo who encouraged him to join the strike for better wages. When the strike was successful and their wages doubled, Mannie decided that the Communist Party was a pretty good bet and never looked back. Every Sunday night comrades were at the City Hall steps in Johannesburg protecting the speakers from attack by brown and black shirted fascists. The fighting was often vicious and on one occasion Mannie landed up in hospital with concussion.

His friendship with Joe Slovo continued into the decades that followed and together they formed a formidable and effective comradeship.

At the tender age of 20, Mannie became involved in the great Miner's Strike of 1946. With several other communists he was later charged with sedition for instigating unrest between black workers and the government. The charges were not proved and he was acquitted. During the 1960 State of Emergency, Mannie was involved in organising the escape of J.B. Marks, the leader of the mineworker's union.

Mannie loved to confront authority and was full of pluck and daring. During the Treason Trial in 1956 he smuggled a super 8 film camera under his coat and managed to surreptitiously film some of the proceedings including Mandela in the dock which is the only material of this kind that exists.

Mannie completed a teaching degree in 1951 and taught for a few years. In March of 1953 he met Babette Kotkin at a meeting preparing for the formation of the Congress of Democrats (COD). A few months later Babette and Mannie were married and soon after that they held an inaugural meeting of COD at their Yeoville flat.

In 1954 Mannie left teaching to set up a sales business called "Jenny agencies" named after his first daughter. In the late 1950's Mannie was listed by the government as a prohibited communist, and in 1960 he was arrested with Joe Slovo and hundreds of others during the first State of Emergency. Joe says in his unfinished autobiography that he was pleased to see Mannie arrested because finally they would be joined in jail by someone with a sense of humour. Initially they were kept at the Old Fort in Johannesburg and were then transferred to Pretoria. They were never charged and after 100 days Mannie was released.

After his release he purchased an ailing magazine -'Amateur Photographer'. By using some clever subscription offers and unique promotions he turned the magazine around to become a profitable enterprise. The office was used a cover for several ANC underground operatives such as Mac Maharaj and Indres Naidoo.

In 1962 he was banned by the government under the Suppression of Communism Act and restricted from being involved with any kind of publication. He was forced to sell the magazine but continued to sell advertising in other magazines.

In 1963 Mannie was involved in planning and implementing the escape from jail of Charlie Jassat; Harold Wolpe; Arthur Goldreich and Mosie Moola. The escape was successful but the massive manhunt and police operation led closer to Mannie and he was forced into hiding while his family went into exile. Mannie was convinced that he could lie low and that his family could return but the situation became ever more dangerous and he was soon forced to also escape the country.

The family settled in Britain in September 1963. Babette helped lead the family through the troubled years of the emergency and exile and became an active member of the ANC in London. During this time Mannie met on several occasions with the then president of the ANC Oliver Tambo and with Communist Party strategist Michael Harmel where they discussed among other things the role of the Communist Party in exile.

Mannie found a job as a salesman for leather skins which he did for a few years until he managed to set himself up in a small operation making leather clothes. Even though he would pioneer leather hot-pants and chamois fringed fashions that found a place in the trendy stores of Carnaby Street, the enterprise was a struggling family business for many years. In the late sixties Mannie put some of his designs into a suitcase and went to Europe seeking sales. His mission bore some success and fairly soon he was churning out leather fashions for export. When the conservative Heath government challenged the British miners to a show-down the conflict plunged Britain into a four day working week, and the pound sterling plunged to historic depths. Bad news for England but great news for Mannie Brown whose business flourished so well on the favourable exchange rate that in 1973 he was awarded the Queens Award for Export.

In the early eighties Mannie was approached by Joe Slovo to help develop ways to infiltrate arms into South Africa. Mannie also worked with the late and great Chris Hani to develop supplies of weapons from China via bogus business enterprises in Zimbabwe. Ships were designed, overland container transporters, all kinds of smuggling devices were considered but eventually discarded. Even an intricate plan to blow up the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was set aside at the eleventh hour on the orders of ANC president Oliver Tambo who feared the probable loss of civilian lives. But when Rodney Wilkinson presented his plans in 1985 for hidden compartments that could conceal a ton of weapons under the seats of passengers on Africa overland tourist trucks, Mannie immediately saw the talent of pure genius and the potential to safely transport large amounts of weapons. It was daring, dangerous and a little bit crazy, right up Mannie Brown's street. So was born the 'London Traders' and an overtly respected tour company- "Africa Hinterland" that recruited drivers Stuart Round, Jo and Mike Harris, Menno Shreuder and others who drove the truck and distributed the weapons inside the country. The passengers were completely unaware of what they were sitting on as they travelled across the plains of Africa and into the heart of the then apartheid regime. The operation was part of a wider military campaign that included operation Vula, which was designed to bring personnel and leadership structures into the country. Unfortunately, operation Vula was broken in the early nineties but at this time the liberation movement as a whole was moving closer into the negotiations process which had rapidly gained ground in the late eighties and extended into the early nineties.

The ANC negotiators were strengthened by their knowledge of the large weapons caches - some of which were also distributed to arm the self-defence units. To some people the arming of the defence units were seen to fuel a fire of violence but the ANC and the Party saw this really was a case of arming the masses in self-defence and that the so called black on black violence was actually fuelled and fanned by the state. Eventually the violence on all sides gave way to a negotiated settlement and a peaceful solution. An appropriate result for the country and for Mannie who was a man who despised war and was at heart sceptical of the armed struggle.

Mannie returned to South Africa in 1994 and settled in Observatory Johannesburg.

In his later life Mannie married Ning Liu with whom he spent some wonderful years in Johannesburg and Cape Town and finally in London where he died on Wednesday 19th November 2003. He is survived by Ning, his ex-wife Babette, their twin sons David and Peter, their two daughters Cathy and Jenny and eight grand children.