Return to Contents PageWhy they sent us to Angola we never discovered; they must have had their reasons. Perhaps they felt that Mozambique was too close to home and that apartheid agents might attempt to abduct us if we remained there. It would not have been the first time that such a thing had happened.
The ANC accommodated us in a flat in the centre of Luanda overlooking a large square. In the square a festival was taking place and on display, amongst other things, was an exhibition of captured weaponry from the 1975 South African invasion. It was a cheering sight to see other people celebrating a victory over our enemy on top of the one we had just scored. What was most inspiring of all was a sight we had dreamed of but not seen before - the black, green and gold flag of the ANC fluttering freely alongside other national flags. It reminded us that we were truly on friendly territory.
From the ANC office in Luanda Alex and I were able to phone Marie-Jos and Robin respectively. The calls were not the first to let our families and friends know we were safely out of the country: from Swaziland the ANC had contacted our families to let them know that we were safe. But they were the first calls we made personally and the first time we were able to speak directly to our loved ones. Robin was over the moon. We were both so excited that we did not know what to say, apart from asking each other how we were feeling. The sound of her voice was perhaps the highlight of the short period I'd been free. It was confirmation that I would soon be in a position to freely decide my own next moves.
A few days after arriving in Luanda message came that Stephen was to join us. Alex and I were jubilant - Stephen was safe and the fact that we'd all made it meant that we had well and truly beaten our enemy. We had grown increasingly apprehensive that something dreadful had befallen him because it was then about ten days since the escape and there had been no word of him. If he had been recaptured it would have meant that the project had been a failure: the effect that the escape had had in proving that the racist state's defences were not impregnable would have been lost and the apartheid regime would have used a recapture as counter-propaganda that it is not so easy to evade their security apparatus.
Together with some comrades from the ANC office in Luanda we arrived at the airport early because one of them had to be at the passport control to explain why Stephen was arriving without a passport. But no one matching Stephen's description arrived at the control. While those of us waiting near the arrivals gate were craning our necks to see over the heads of the awaiting crowd, someone from behind us shouted 'Comrades!' It was Stephen. How the hell had he managed to get out without us seeing him? The answer was that he hadn't come through the regular entrance: he had grown impatient with the slow-moving passport queue and had casually walked through an open door he saw and into the waiting-area of the concourse. The comrades were horrified: this was taking hatred of bureaucracy too far. One of them hastily escorted him back into the passport area and fortunately for him, no one had noticed what he had done.
Back at the flat Stephen who had dyed his hair dark-brown told us how he had holed-up in Johannesburg for several days with friends and how he had been escorted to and accompanied across the Swaziland and Mozambique borders by ANC members. From Mozambique his story was much the same as ours: he had also been kept in a flat and been fattened on Hotel Polana food; he had also been bought a suitcase-full of new clothes and travel goods.
Our stay in the Luanda flat was broken by a number of visits to ANC residences in and around Luanda. On each occasion we were required to address the comrades and tell them a few brief details of our escapades - an experience which, for me, was more frightening than escaping from prison itself. I had always had an excruciating fear of speaking in front of people and these few addresses to the comrades were but the first of very many such talks to follow.
On one occasion we were taken some distance out of Luanda to an ANC refugee camp to speak to the comrades there. The freedom songs they sang in appreciation of our coming so far to tell them how we had defeated the enemy, were so beautiful and evocative that they brought tears to our eyes. Despite the clearly austere conditions under which the comrades were living, their spirit and morale was inspirational.
Meeting the comrades in Angola gave us confidence that in the coming battles with apartheid they would be more than a match for the racists, in every field. Although the ANC did not have the resources of the apartheid regime and Umkhonto soldiers did not possess weapons as sophisticated as apartheid soldiers', they had one weapon which no racist had - politics and a conviction that what they were fighting for was just.
On 30 December the three of us were flown to Lusaka where our official surfacing was to be announced in the early new year. Again we were accommodated in an ANC residence but this time under heavy armed guard. Our comrades were determined that the South Africans were not going to make a snatch and grab raid while we were in Zambia - a truly 'front-line' state that has long had to bear the brunt of racist and colonialist attacks for its support of Southern African liberation movements.
On New Year's eve we were taken to meet the leadership of the ANC. The meeting took place in what appeared to be a woodworking factory. Among those present were Oliver Tambo, the President of the ANC, and Alfred Nzo, the Secretary General. It was the greatest honour to be able to meet our friendly, indefatigable leaders, so often portrayed by the South African media as demonical terrorists and enemies of freedom.
The gathering heard our report and then discussed the press conference which was to take place on the 2nd of January. It was decided that a press statement should be prepared which could be read out and distributed and the plans of the prison that I'd drawn for the Mozambicans should be redrawn, reproduced and also handed out. Someone also came up with the idea that it would make a propaganda impact if the three of us were photographed in military uniforms holding automatic rifles and the pictures were handed out to demonstrated that we had been reintegrated into the ANC and were ready to continue the fight against apartheid (see picture on p.xx).
Steve and Alex prepared the statement while I redrew the plan of the prison for duplication. The photos of us dressed in uniform were taken and developed in time for use on the 2nd, but someone high up decided at the last moment that it would not be a good idea to distribute them, so they never were.
The press conference was taken very seriously by the ANC. The trio of fugitives were driven in a convoy to the centre of Lusaka. Near the centre our car broke away from the convoy and drove into the grounds of a hotel where we were surreptitiously transferred to another car. In this car we were driven, with the other cars keeping a safe distance, to a conference centre in a tall building. There we were ushered into the building surrounded by a ring of bodyguards.
Gathered were a large contingent of the press corps who had been given notice by the ANC that the President would be making an announcement. President Tambo introduced the three of us and Alex read out the statement:
We are certainly very glad to be in Lusaka. Our presence here is more eloquent than any statement. We have emerged from a maximum security prison in the heart of the Pretoria regime, passed clear through the enemy's territory, and crossed heavily guarded borders. You see us now in a country whose commitment to the liberation of Southern Africa is well known.
A battle has been won whose significance goes beyond the number of prisoners that escaped. We have shown that for militants of the Liberation Movement, capture does not mean surrender. Although placed behind walls and bars, and closely observed by armed guards, for apartheid prisoners - the struggle continues.
In the course of our escape we were reluctantly forced to damage the front door of the prison, and so leave evidence about how we got out. This damage, however, also constitutes important evidence about the mentality of our captors. It should show that we were not supplied by our captors with keys and other help. In spite of this, a Prison Department official has been arrested. Characteristically the authorities have seized upon a scapegoat in order to conceal from the people the extent to which it is possible to overcome the security of the state.
The eleventh of December marked the last day of our captivity. In this bitter captivity remain our comrades: on Robben Island, in Pretoria and in Kroonstad. Tens of thousands remain imprisoned, for both direct and indirect political offences, throughout South Africa. Many of these face torture by the racist butchers.
Although for security reasons we are unable to give details, the underground machinery of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and our People's Army, Umkhonto we Sizwe, all of which we are part, played an essential role in getting us to where we are now. Once again our Liberation Movement has successfully thrust its spear deep into the enemy's body.
The three of us now look forward with heightened enthusiasm to contribute with our full strength to the ongoing struggle to liberate South Africa from all forms of oppression.
While we join our voices to those of concerned humanity in the demand for immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in South Africa, our foremost concern is in the fate of our dear comrade James Mange to whom we bow our heads in respect for the heroism and self sacrifice and whose murder the fascist oppressors intend to add to their sinister constellation of crimes. We shall not rest until James Mange and all other political prisoners of war in South Africa are liberated.
Amandla Ngawethu!
Maatla ke a Rona!
All power to the people!
After the statement was read out I described in some detail how we had done it, using the diagrams which had been handed out to simplify the explanation. The exposition ended with our emergence from the front door of the prison. We were, for 'security reasons', not prepared to divulge any details of how we had got to where we were, apart from saying that we could not have achieved it without the assistance of our Movement.
After Stephen and Alex had explained how the three of us happened to be in prison in the first place the meeting was opened to the floor. The questions asked by the reporters were the same ones that got asked at every subsequent press conference, namely, why had only the three of us escaped?; what were out conditions like?; what did we plan to do in the future? To the first we answered that for 'technical reasons' it was not possible to get everyone out, but that we would have if we could have; to the second we explained that our conditions were not good but far better than our black comrades'; and to the last we said that we wanted to get back into the struggle and that we were putting ourselves at the disposal of the ANC.
Most of the South African newspapers reported on the conference fairly dispassionately, quoting at length from the statement. Some were worried about plans of the prison being handed out in the presence of reporters from the 'communist countries'. Despite denying that we had escaped as joggers, most reports repeated that at the time of the escape we had broken out of prison dressed as joggers in shorts, T-shirts and running shoes. This story was presumably more appealing than the correct one which we gave.
Knowing the truth behind the reports we were able to read gave us a unique opportunity of being aware of some of the downright lies that get published in newspapers. Some of the lies we read about ourselves were so preposterous that they could not simply have been sucked out of reporters' thumbs. They must have been concocted by the dirty-tricks departments of intelligence outfits and then passed on to the gullible reporters.
One such report appeared in the Johannesburg Sunday Express of 6 January. The headline read 'Joe Slovo planned the Big Escape'. The article in question began: 'Former Johannesburg advocate Joe Slovo was the mastermind behind the spiriting away of three political prisoners who broke out of jail in Pretoria last month, according to informed sources in Pretoria'. It was 'Joe Slovo's network [that] spirited the fugitives safely through one of the most extensive police search operations in recent times. The three men were able to reach Swaziland within hours of escaping from jail'. One can only guess who the 'informed sources in Pretoria' were.
To the South African propagandists Joe Slovo is the arch-villain and apartheid South Africa's enemy number one. Being a prominent member of the ANC and SACP, and being white, Joe Slovo is the mastermind behind everything that happens with regard to these organisations. He plans every armed action inside the country, instructs every 'terrorist' how to carry out their dastardly deeds, and runs things singlehandedly (of course with the backing of his KGB masters in the Kremlin!).
Another article, actually published before the press conference by the regime mouthpiece Rapport, claimed that the Soviet ambassador in Lusaka, Vladimir Solodovnikov - 'a KGB General' - had been the master planner behind the escape. This piece of information came from 'Western intelligence sources'. Read: Pretoria.
The high-ups in the regime's propaganda factory knew as well as we did that these stories were a pack of lies, but they need to repeat them as often as possible to stoke white prejudices of communist infiltration to win support for any actions they take against the ANC and to play on anti-white sentiments of blacks to create splits and opposition to the ANC and SACP. But such lies also show that the apartheid rulers fall victim to their own racist mentality by believing that every time they suffer a blow there is a white person behind it and that black people need whites to show them how to liberate themselves.
Our departure from Zambia took place on the 3rd of January when we were flown to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania accompanied by the Umkhonto Commander, Joe Modise.
On the way the plane stopped unexpectedly in Malawi and all passengers were told to disembark while it was being refuelled. One glimpse out of the window of the plane convinced us that we were not going to move: a short distance across the apron was parked a South African Airways Boeing and a military helicopter of unknown origin. Malawi has - to its shame - strong ties with the apartheid state and colludes with the racists in providing support to mercenaries and counter-revolutionary gangs throughout the region.
At Dar airport we were met at the bottom of the gangway by Eli Weinberg, the renowned photographer of the ANC and executive member of SACTU. He drove us directly to his home where we were to be lodged; all our entry and documentation matters had previously been sorted out. [See photo]
The friendship of the Tanzanians was demonstrated in a large way during our brief stay. Unfortunately Dar must have one of the most unbearably humid climates in the world. During the three weeks that I was there I did not manage to get a single wink of sleep. An oversize fan blowing full blast on me at night did not help at all. To pass the time the three of us spent most of our days at the beach. Although we had swum in Luanda it seemed to be more enjoyable now that we were 'above ground' and had announced to the world that we were free. On the first occasion that we were taken to the beach at Dar the three of us could not stop ourselves laughing as we bathed together. The scene of us floating on our backs in the tepid tropical water with tall palms hanging over the beach was suddenly too incongruous for belief. Less than four weeks previously we were languishing behind the high walls of captivity where such a scene could not even have been contemplated. Our uncontrollable guffaws made people on the beach look up, but we were not embarrassed by our appreciation of freedom.
On January the 8th, the anniversary day of the ANC, the three of us were taken to the Soloman Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) at Morogoro. SOMAFCO was set up by the ANC on land donated by the Tanzanian government and through contributions from all over the world to provide for the educational needs of refugees from South Africa. For a long time the enemy's propaganda had maintained that Umkhonto freedom fighters were press-ganged into fighting after being lured out of the country by false promises of higher education. The establishment of the college in 1978 put paid to these lies: the ANC has since then had its own means to allow people who have had to flee apartheid repression and persecution and who have joined its ranks to complete their education. The College provides an academic and technical education of a standard and quality far superior to anything any black person could expect in South Africa. The aim of the college is to provide cadres for the ANC and to go some way towards providing for the educational needs of people who will be the future leaders of a liberated South Africa. It is also a laboratory where people are working out the forms of democratic education that will be applied in post-apartheid South Africa.
On the following day Alex left for France, having obtained clearance from the French authorities to arrive in Paris without documents. At the airport to give him a rapturous welcome were his wife, Marie-José, whom he had not seen for seven years, his mother, his seven-year-old son Boris and many friends and wellwishers. When Alex appeared out of the arrivals exit there were tears and cries of joy as Marie-José and Alex's mother clung onto him for several minutes with Boris jumping up and down shouting 'papa!, papa!'. Boris had got to know his papa through his twice-yearly visits to Pretoria Prison with Alex's mother; Marie-José had never been permitted to visit Alex despite having applied for a visa every year since he was imprisoned.
Stephen was the next to leave, arriving in London on Sunday 13 January. Since our 1974 trip to Europe he had possessed dual South African/British nationality and shortly after arriving in Pretoria he had renounced his South African citizenship. This made things easier for him when he tried to leave Tanzania: the United Kingdom High Commission swiftly issued him a temporary permit to enter Britain.
As the only one without a claim to some other friendlier passport, I had the most difficulty obtaining papers to enter Britain. As a temporary measure I was issued with a travel document by the Tanzanian government in terms of the 1951 Geneva Convention, otherwise known as a United Nations 'passport'. In effect I was granted Tanzanian asylum.
Robin in London, through the Anti-Apartheid Movement, pressurised the British immigration authorities from her end while I harassed the High Commission in Dar for a visa. The Commission could promise nothing and kept advising me to be patient and wait until they had heard from London. Extra telexes produced no results.
Finally, on Friday 18 January Robin phoned to tell me that I should forget about the visa and just arrive in London: everything had been sorted out and all I would have to do was explain my case to the passport control when I arrived, and they would let me in. When I informed the High Commission of this they were horrified and said that I would be entering Britain at my own risk and against their best advice.
Ignoring their 'best advice' I took the Sunday (20th) flight to London, my ticket having been booked for some time in anticipation of a hasty departure.
The plane arrived at Heathrow in the late evening. After presenting myself at passport control with no visa and a story that permission had been given for me to arrive without one, I was accompanied to a room behind the control. I explained to the immigration officials the circumstances of my arrival and said that I was being expected by the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. The officials of course pleaded ignorance and used the opportunity to go through all my belongings. In my briefcase were the plans of the prison as well as the photographs of the three of us dressed as guerillas and holding AK rifles. The case was carted off in defiance of my protestations and obviously had its contents carefully perused and copied as it was only returned two hours later. The contents certainly excited their interest and prompted a long session of heavily-loaded questions. I felt as if I was back at Caledon Square being interrogated by the security police.
After detaining me for several hours while they 'checked up' on my story, the officials agreed to see if there was anyone waiting for me. True enough there was and they must have known it all along because those waiting had been making frantic enquiries through the enquiries desk from shortly after the plane had arrived and an MP had even made an intervention on my behalf. Eventually I was allowed to go on condition that I reported to the immigration authorities at the airport within two days.
Relieved at overcoming that ordeal, I made my way down to the arrivals exit. As I turned the corner I saw Robin and Stephen, who were hanging over the railing looking as if they were about to give up hope and go home. But as soon as I appeared their eyes lit up, flashes started popping and people started cheering. There were quite a number of people standing with them, but as I recognised none of them I did not know at first that they were waiting for me. I hope those good people have forgiven me for not appearing appreciative of their having waited into the early hours of the morning. I was blinded by happiness and relief in finally winning the long struggle to be free.
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