Obituary by Ronnie Kasrils
Johannes "Joe" Modise who served under Nelson Mandela as Minister of Defence in South Africa's first democratic government from 1994-1999, died in Pretoria on Monday 26 November 2001, aged 72, after a short battle with cancer.
The liberation struggle's foremost military commander, "JM" as he was fondly referred to by comrades, was first and foremost an activist of the African National Congress for his entire adult life. Although he stepped down from government office in 1999 and went into business, he was still up to a few months prior to his demise, building ANC branches on weekends in the distant province of Mpumalanga where he was deployed for party work. As militant black priests in South Africa like to say of deceased freedom fighters: "he died in harness, he ran a good race and he kept the faith."
Regarded as a tough disciplinarian during three arduous decades of underground struggle, he commanded the armed wing of the movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) under difficult circumstances, which required firm leadership. His reputation had long preceded his return to South Africa from Lusaka in 1990 after the ban on the ANC was lifted, Mandela was freed and negotiations started. The apartheid-era generals preparing for talks had indulged in role-playing exercises in which one was modelled on Modise as an uncompromising, revenge seeking, die-hard. They were flabbergasted to meet a sober, responsive pragmatist who spoke fluent Afrikaans, traded jokes and rugby assessments, enjoyed a drink over an evening barbecue, and was committed to the creation of a professional military.
The establishment of a credible defence force, out of the tricky integration of no less than seven statutory and non-statutory forces - unprecedented anywhere in the world - together with his crucial role as commander of the ANC's guerrilla forces makes Modise's contribution unique and illustrious. Shortly before he died President Thabo Mbeki bestowed the country's highest award on him - the Star of South Africa gold class (SSA).
Modise was a no-nonsense commander, unafraid of dirtying his hands. He sought out resolute cadres to work with, and would not tolerate shirkers. He was hard on indiscipline because duty was a life and death matter. Accounts of ill-treatment of enemy agents and dissidents have been greatly exaggerated and although lapses did occur - understandable in a grim, drawn-out struggle - it was not Modise's responsibility alone but that of a collective leadership. He had the highest regard for ANC leader Oliver Tambo and would never dream of doing anything without his consent.
Getting to know the real JM was a rewarding experience for the tough exterior enclosed a soft centre. He was a warm, friendly human being with the proverbial heart of gold. I had served under him from MK's formation in 1961, when peaceful means of struggle had been closed by the apartheid regime. Modise served directly under the Mandela leadership as a field commander organising MK structures in various provinces. This brought him to Durban where I served on the regional command. We complained that our home-made explosives were not very effective. Go get dynamite he retorted. I piped up that the Johannesburg mines where he came from were the best source and could he not assist us. He gave me a withering look and told me there were plenty of quarries in the Durban area. His expectations propelled us into action and before long we had pulled off the theft of over a ton of dynamite. He came back to us with scarcely a commendation and confiscated three-quarters of the haul for distribution throughout the country.
Over two hundred acts of sabotage later, with Mandela and the Rivonia leadership behind bars and the underground network effectively destroyed, I followed Modise into exile and met him in Dar Es Salaam where the ANC was setting-up transit camps. He took my wife, Eleanor, and I for a walk on the beach and we found him to be kind and considerate about our welfare. I soon joined him on a year's long training course in Odessa, and nearly forty more years of joint service and friendship followed. In that time Modise organised bases and camps throughout the front-line states; organised training for MK cadres in a dozen African and socialist countries; commanded the 1967-68 ZAPU-MK incursions into then Rhodesia; assisted FRELIMO with arms and support; carried out joint operations with the MPLA against Unita in Angola; set-up forward staging bases in Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho, where he funnelled combatants and weapons into the country and received fresh recruits from home; and directed combat actions deep inside South Africa to reinforce the political mass upsurge of the post-1976 Soweto rebellion.
He formed an MK headquarters based in Lusaka that included Joe Slovo, Chris Hani, Steve Tshwete, Jackie Sedibe, and myself. Jackie was a young recruit whom he met in exile. She became his life-long companion and devoted wife. She came up through the ranks and post-1994 became South Africa's first ever woman general. Her promotion, when he was Minister of Defence, should have been virtually automatic. MK officers junior to her had become generals but Modise held back, sensitive to charges of nepotism. It was I who forced her promotion through, as his Deputy Defence Minister.
The exile years were arduous and faith in the cause had to be kept for there were times when we could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. There was constant dangers, aerial bombardment of our camps, massacres of our cadres, bombings of ANC offices and assassination. Modise and Hani narrowly escaped with their lives when a mutineer flung a handgrenade in a camp mutiny in Angola.
Modise never wavered always convinced we would win in the end but never falling into the error of believing it would be by arms alone. In fact he grounded MK in the art of a "people's war" whereby armed actions were an inspirational reinforcement of the mass political struggle. The big actions he helped mastermind such as the rocket attacks on the Sasol oil refinery, the Voortrekkerhoogte military base, and the Koeberg nuclear plant were essentially armed propaganda blows to inspire the people and undermine the regime. They had the necessary effect.
Johannes Modise was born of working class parents in Doornfontein, Johannesburg. His father, Ezekiel, came from a village near the Botswana border and worked as a sweeper in a Johannesburg factory. (By a quirk of fate it was the same factory where my father worked, as Joe and I discovered when we talked about our backgrounds). His mother, Motla Borefe, was a domestic worker and Joe grew up in the back yard of a white home. He was taught to be self-confident which gave him a natural ease of relating to anyone in the world of whatever colour or class, friend or foe. His parents separated and he moved with his mother to Kliptown. He attended a local school and excelled in sports, particularly soccer and boxing. He learnt to swim in the local mud ponds and rivers and became a powerful swimmer.
When Joe Slovo arrived in Dar Es Salaam they went for a swim and Slovo made the error of assuming Modise could not swim and proceeded to teach him. Modise went along with the game and at a certain point, announcing that he thought he understood what was required, proceeded to stroke out and swam right across the harbour leaving a dumbfounded Slovo in his wake.
Poverty required that Modise leave school before completing his studies and after a variety of odd jobs he became a bus driver for Putco, the municipal transport company. He joined the ANC under the leadership of Mandela, Sisulu and Tambo and was soon a leading activist in the anti-pass campaign and resistance to the Sophiatown forced removals. This inevitably led to his arrest in 1956 with 155 other Congress leaders of all races charged with high treason in the trail that dragged on until 1960. His militant background made him an early recruit into MK after the Sharpeville massacre of March 1960.
Joe is survived by his widow Jackie, two daughters Boipuso and Lesede aged 14 and 16, and by three daughters from a previous marriage. Two sons who joined MK and the SANDF passed away in the late 1990s.
Modise's tenure as Minister of Defence saw the major transformation of the country's armed forces. Foremost was the integration of the previous adversarial forces into the new SANDF, a force which he ensured would be representative of the country's demographics. He is credited with ensuring black generals in the top posts together with a good mix of whites. It was his vision and tact that ensured the smooth transition with all loyally committed to the new South Africa. Whatever problems remain to be resolved in the defence force it is a testimony to its effectiveness that it has become credible in the eyes of the people and already participating in peace keeping missions in Africa.
Modise produced a policy basis and framework for the new defence force through a White Paper followed by a Defence Review which is regarded as the most transparent and consultative in international experience. It was unanimously adopted by the South African Parliament and is the basis for the new force design and weapons procurement programme. The latter has created controversy with accusations of corruption but the extensive investigation into impropriety has failed to live up to the expectations of its detractors. Modise learnt just a few days before his death that he had been cleared of accusations of wrong doing.
He will be deeply mourned by his family, by the ANC, government and ordinary people. Just a few months ago I met a man in the street who enquired about Modise's health. His wife had been a tea-lady in our ministry. I could scarcely recollect her but he told me how Modise telephoned her every year on her birthday to wish her well.
This article appeared in ANC Today, Vol.1, No.45, 30 November 2001. Ronnie Kasrils is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee.