African Renaissance Podcast - ANC History Series
The African Renaissance Podcast hosted by Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi provides a stage for vital conversations with actors working to improve the lives of African people. It provides sharp analysis & critique of Africa's social, political & economic history. On this new Series, Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and guests focus on the History of the ANC.
African Renaissance Podcast - ANC History Series
ANC History: Episode 5: The Making of Umkhonto Wesizwe: Dr Thula Simpson
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Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi sits with Dr Thula Simpson on the history of the ANC, The Making of Umkonto Wesizwe.
A lot of South Africans would uh today when we say um conducies I think of something very different as you know. Incidentally, um one of the problems with this misunderstanding that you would in many rooms today have to clarify which um conducies are are you going to discuss?
SPEAKER_01We're talking about um conducies where one we're talking about the one established by Nelson Mandela in uh 1961 as a response to the apartheid policy, yeah, and we're going to be speaking about it until its disbandment in December 1993 when it had its final passing out parade. And as a military unit, as an authentic military unit, it's supposed to now be absorbed within the South African National Defense Force. So that's the one I'm hoping we're gonna speak about.
SPEAKER_00It's the one I'm when you say one in English the often should be two, except there is no two to that one.
SPEAKER_01There's the Mkuntues where Veterans Lee, which is Kabimaf Hatswe, and now there's a party, which is MK3, I would say. So MK.
SPEAKER_00Alright, so what would you sum as the key conditions uh and the circumstances under which Umkondu Sizwe is formed in 1961?
SPEAKER_01Umkontube Sizwe's formation is a foundation of a dynamic which is related in the creation of South Africa as a political entity. Let me explain what I mean there. If you go to the first president of the ANC, John Dube, in the Peter Meritzburg National Archives, you've got a copy of his acceptance. He was elected in absentia. It's a different world. The world he's speaking about is one which is influenced by African American thought. Booker T. Washington, he speaks about onwards and upwards of raising the African majority in South Africa through self-reliance. He also speaks about liberal British imperial ideas, the idea of fair play and justice. But there's a fundamental flaw, which is that the ANC is formed in 1912, and in 1910, the Union of South Africa is established, and that involves passing authority within the British Empire from London to white politicians in South Africa. You can almost see the tension in his um acceptance letter where he's speaking about appealing to British ideals of justice and fair play, but the political center has been moved to South Africa. He can almost feel the tension is going to come in there. The idea originally is that South Africa, the ANC is going to be an organization, it's called the South African Native Nationals Congress in 1912. It's going to be a sort of liaison group which is informing the white politicians in Cape Town and Pretoria about the opinion, the consolidated opinion of the black majority, and we'll work together in creating opportunities for black social and economic upliftment. It becomes very clear with a barrage of racist legislation that that's not going to be a viable strategy. The most important legislation is the 1913 NATO's Land Act. Some people will speak about the ANC being influenced by the Soviet Union and the Bolshevik revolution to move in a radical direction, but that's not true. If you look even before October, November 1917 and that revolution, you see in newspaper archives and records fragments of ANC evolving discourse. You've got encounters such as rallies which are held between ANC leaders like Saul Msane and members of the International Socialist League. Different discourses, but they're speaking the same language. One of the names of the rallies is called Manufacturing Slave Labor, and the analysis is the same. This South African state is organized around the artificial production of cheap labor to drive mining, capital, and agricultural growth for the white majority. That creates a problem for the ANC because if that's the strategy of the state, if that's the true nature of the state, then your policy of dialogue, you're going to be in a situation to borrow a term the ANC started using in the 1940s, it's a toy telephone. You think there's somebody on the other side of the line, but they're not listening. If that strategy is not going to work, what are you going to do? If you're going to go to London as the ANC did in 1914 and 1919 and the British say it's not our responsibility, we've passed over authority. You go back to Pretoria, they're not listening. What is your response going to be? You've got to escalate. That is a fundamental dynamic which is set off by the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, and its logical conclusion will be a push for a violent solution. That is literally the logic of the liberation struggle in South Africa. That's the dynamic which is unfolding. We can speak about important watersheds, the Defiance Campaign, the Congress of the People campaign. We can speak about the anti-pass campaign in 1960 launched by the Pan-Africanist Congress, but these are all landmarks which are key points in a coherent dynamic which will lead to the push for a violent solution.
SPEAKER_00You seem to suggest that violent confrontation was inevitable. If you organize the protest, sorry, but you guys have to stop now. I I I'm getting distracted. You said you are ready. Is there a problem? My lips are dry. But why does it need to be ready? I get distracted because I don't know the problem so we can eat a general interaction. And the floor, yeah. Is it okay? Alright. The framework you're setting up is that what becomes the resolution to form uh Umkondu seized to resort to violence was actually an evitability, if I've understood you correctly. And if the answer is yes, which I suspect you'll say it is, we know that in other jurisdictions a mere handing over of power where the British did the same, the struggle did not go as long as it did here, and it didn't actually also turn violent. Are there for are there for other conditions which produce the confrontation?
SPEAKER_01Well, that gets us entangled in all sorts of imperial dynamics. The British decided to fight in certain territories, but the defeat there led them to reappraise imperial strategy, for example, the failure of the Suez invasion led the British to recalibrate their imperial policy. Those sort of things can happen. You know, the French getting bogged down in Algeria will lead them to grant independence to Morocco and Tunisia. You've got those determinants. But what is different in South Africa, and I would say also in Southern Africa generally, we've got to include Rhodesia, for example, here is the existence of a white settler population and the development, therefore, of settler colonialism, which means that there can't just be a handover of power as part of the logic of imperial retreats. Um that's a fundamental and different dynamic.
SPEAKER_00But why then is in your reading the inevitability of violent confrontation in South Africa?
SPEAKER_01Because the nature of the South African state means that they would not be prepared to make the concessions which would lead to majority rule without a struggle. When Africa is decolonizing uh north of the Zambezi, the response of white politicians, not just in South Africa but elsewhere, is we enjoy and we benefit from the status quo and we're prepared to fight it out rather than to hand over power. It's only after long, exhausting, protracted struggle that you get the shift in that dynamic to try and negotiate a different solution.
SPEAKER_00And of course, this had to be a debate in the ANC, possibly along the same lines. But in terms of detail now, as a history professor, if you were to take us to these events and conversations, you know, what I love in the book, which everybody should get, this is an important book. I mean, Happy Penguin allowed you to write it the way you did. It's a very strange uh concession you got. Yeah. I mean, I don't imagine them allowing anyone else to ever write, organize a text in the way you did. Articulate the twice, yeah. Yes, it's um what you do in most of the cases is to always let us remember at the same time the significant shifts in the regime itself. And often people, I don't think it's a very well-known fact which you bring up about Fervoot, that he at the same time as the conversations since 1955 were going on about turning to arms, there were these attempts on his life. Uh actually, firstly with an actual gun. And then you say that same day a conversation of this nature happens elsewhere. Uh, but also this group of people accused of treason, when their treason trial concludes, half of them are already speaking about the things they were accused of. And acquitted of, yeah. Yeah, but I mean patiently give us that evolution to the formation of the ANC in December of the 16th, 19 of Umkondu, December 16, 1961. And also like these without forgetting these important meetings and also organizations that allow some people in the ANC to have a voice and an interaction with the regime they wouldn't be able to have within their ANC ranks. Just that activity that leads uh to 1961. Uh, I know it's a long question because I don't want to restrict you in any form.
SPEAKER_01Well, the first um attempt to put Inc. on paper with regards to the history of Uncontwa Cizwe is a pamphlet, uh, and it's called Action, Reaction and Counteraction. And I think that's a good framing of describing the acceleration from 1948 when the apartheid regime uh is installed following those elections. And in 1949, the ANC, which has been speaking about moving toward mass action during the 1940s with the establishment of the ANC Youth League, which involves uh the likes of Nelson Mandela, Walter Susulu, they decide to they engineer the uh ANC's adoption of a program of action, which is about embarking on mass action to push for majority rule. The initiation of the mass action policies in 1952 with the Defiance campaign, the government, the state responds to mass action with mass arrests. By the end of 1952, over 8,000 people are arrested. And that leads members of the ANC, like Nelson Mandela, who was the volunteer-in-chief for the Defiance campaign, start thinking in the long run, is there going to be a sustainable way, path to liberation through nonviolent mass action? And they very quickly start thinking no. It's in 1953 when Walter Sasulu is scheduled to leave South Africa for a youth congress in Bucharest, just before he goes, Nelson Mandela, who's the president of the ANC in the Toronto, says, Whilst you're out there, why don't you go to China and ask them whether they'll be willing to support us in an armed struggle? Sasulu comes back and the Chinese they hear him out and they say, You're not quite fully prepared or serious about armed struggle yet. These are not fully formed ideas, so he comes back empty-handed. But there is an archive of immense importance. People dismiss it because it can be identified as being part of a discredited regime trying to malign its opponents. But I'm speaking about the treason trial archive. One of the responses to the defiance campaign is that from about October 1952, the state starts putting policemen in mass meetings of the ANC. They're not hidden, literally, white men in there with native translators, and they start taking notes of what people are saying. People speak about the ANC in the 1950s as being nonviolent. What is important about that archive is that you've got these people going to these meetings and taking records of what spee people are speak talking about. They're talking about Algeria. They're talking about Indochina, Vietnam, the battle of Jian Ben Fu. They're talking about Korea. They're talking about the Egyptian Revolution and they're talking about NASA. They're talking about the Chinese Revolution. They're talking about freedom fighters around the world in Asia and Africa who are taking up arms and achieving liberation. Well, that's a bit later in the 1950s. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But the ANC is, but the yes, yes, yes, in the trial, in the defiance campaigns of 52. Okay. And the a and Mal Mau.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Mal Mau is most. Yes. And the state feels there's something brewing here. They can't quite tell what it is, but there's a shift here. It's not really a commitment to non-violence. What the treason trial is about is the state basically puts two things together. What these people are saying at these meetings and the Congress of the People, which leads to the Freedom Charter, and what they're literally tried for is that the ANC, according to the state's case, is ANC members are using these meetings to try and incite the masses for a revolution which is going to unfold in accordance with the Freedom Charter. They say this is a plan for violent revolution. The state can't get a guilty conviction. Why? Because just because people are saying I support Mao Mao, I back the Kenyan freedom fighters, that's not proof of a conspiracy. But we know now that if the state knew what we knew now of voyages which have been organized to China to see whether you can gain arms, they would have been guilty. They would have been convicted. So the state is not wrong. You can just feel a shift in the Zad guys that something is changing here. And that's part of the progression that we're on. So the ANC has responded to the mass arrests, which is the state's response to mass protests by starting to speak about moving to the next stage. That feeling gets accentuated. You've got things like the Congress of the People, you've got the anti-Western areas removals that's associated with Safariatown. What you start getting during the late 1950s is that the public response to the ANC's calls for nonviolent mass protest, people starts the response starts weakening. People start saying, why should we risk getting arrested, criminal records, not being able to obtain employment for these campaigns, which don't seem to advance us any further? What really moves this whole process into a different gear is 18 days between the 21st of March 1960 and 8th of April 1960. What happens there is Sharpville, the Sharpville massacre, PAC anti-pass protests, and it leads to 69 people being killed in Sharpville and Langer, as people know.
SPEAKER_00And we should now no longer say 69, because there's conclusive evidence that there were more than 69 people that were actually killed, because the Sharpville Foundation, working together with some scientists, historical historic historians in the US, actually uncovered that there are lists of individuals. And uh people in Chapville always carried a myth. Well, something that was called a myth. But if you are around Chapville's celebrations most of the time, people would always say because the burials were very strange. The regime through the police just said on the day of the funeral, you come get your coffin and you go straight from police station, which is not far to the cemetery. Most of these people never actually opened to see inside the coffins. They would say, inside here is Jablanin Glows and they go buried. But they talk all of them about how extra heavy the coffins were. So in some of the police reports and forensic whatever autopsy reports, they've now come across an archive which details more names of people who've been missing. People have not known whether these people were killed or what happened to them. The names are coming out. So the official number is standing at 98 or so. This is this is the historic break from about a year ago. So, anyway, uh just a small important small but important detail that Chapville is still going on as to how many people, and if you think about it, let's say the state's official line is 69. But let's say they killed, had it been reported that 200 people died, um, the events you are about to describe gain even a much more powerful weight.
SPEAKER_01That's very powerful. I mean, it but uh Minyon Brayer, she um won the Alan Payton Prize uh for evidence that in I think it's in East London in 1952, there's another incident where exactly the same thing. Um the number of casualties has been understated. To move back to the crisis of March, April 1960, there's the state of emergency which is introduced. That's the state's response to the Sharpville crisis. And then on the 8th of April, they um ban both the African National Congress and the PAC. You've got this new situation where the government has responded to mass protest and manifestations of unrest by essentially trying to prohibit and outlaw all opposition. So the ball is now back in the court of the resistance liberation movements. How are they going to respond? The treason trial is still on. You've got these activists meeting together and they're discussing what should the next phase be. It's from those discussions that two important meetings are held in December 1960. One of them is a meeting of the South African Communist Party, where they decide to form the nucleus of an armed force to prepare for a new stage. That's the wording which they use. The idea is that they're going to make this provisional preparation and they're also going to foster discussions within the ANC about moving towards that next stage. Two of the people who attend that meeting are Nelson Mandela, Walter Sasudu. We know them from 1953. They've been convinced from all of that period that an armed struggle is necessary. So they come out of that meeting determined to foster that discussion within the ANC. The other important um December meeting is a meeting of African leaders. Many of them are ANC and PAC, but they can't meet as ANC and PAC because the organizations have been banned. And they decide to form a um committee, an all-in-African committee, to oppose the making of South Africa a republic. Since 1912, South Africa has been part of the British Empire, a dominion of the British Empire. But an a referendum in October 1960 is for it approves a whites-only referendum approves making South Africa a republic with the 31st of March 1961. 31st of May 1961 being the day at which the republic will come into effect. The All in African Committee decides to appoint Nelson Mandela as the organizer of the campaign against the republic, and he decides to call a um strike from the 29th to the 31st of May 1961. On the first day, he phones the Iran Daily Mails um correspondent Benjamin Paul. Ogrind and he says the public response is not what we were hoping for. This closes a chapter on our methods of armed struggle. And on the 31st of May, Mandela makes his first televised appearance. It's an interview with a British journalist, Brian Whidlake, very, you know, the the interview and um It's online. Yeah, it's up from it. And he uses very similar wording. He says, based on our experience, the state's response, um, arresting thousands of people. We need to seriously consider whether our methods that we've pursued so far are still appropriate and applicable.
SPEAKER_00We cannot continue to be peaceful. That whole statement, I wish I could read it. Oh shall I put it memorized for Bateson? But that's that's for the there, you see, I'm too far. For the same reason, for what you're about to say, I think it's important to sort of place it on record. Um and he gets into a lot of trouble. There are many people who feel that the reaction of the government to our stay at home ordering a general mobilization, I mean the white community arrests 10,000 of Africans, the show force through the country, notwithstanding our declaration that this campaign is being run on peaceful and nonviolent lines. Close a chapter as far as our methods of political struggle are concerned. There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people. And I think this the time has come for us to consider in light of our experience in this stay at home, whether the methods which we have applied so far are adequate.
SPEAKER_01Very similar wording, as I say, to what he uh used two days earlier. Another yeah, so he's getting the word out there that policy is being reconsidered. And it's after this that for the first time he raises the possibility of a change of policy within official ANC structures. And the first place he goes to is the ANC National Working Committee. He meets um strong opposition from Moses Kutane, who is also the um South African Communist Party Secretary General. But after that, Walter Sasuji's mediation enables a situation where Katani allows Mandela to raise the issue again within the working committee, and the working committee agrees to authorize Mandela to raise it within the National Executive Committee. And that meeting takes place in Natal to accommodate the ANC president Albert Lituli, who's banned and restricted. Sorry, he's restricted to the Natal area. And the ANC meeting decides to approve Nelson Mandela's call for the creation of an armed force to supplement and move away from strictly non-violent strategy. But then there's a meeting held the following day in Stanga of the executives of the Congress Alliance, because the ANC is a member of an alliance structure alongside other Congress organizations, the Congress of Democrats, which is white, the South African Colored People's Congress, the South African Indian Congress, and we can go on. It's a means of mobilizing different communities under a common banner. And to Mandela's dismay, Lutoli opens the meeting by saying, let's consider the matter of violence afresh, as if the ANC has not made this decision. Because of the dynamics of the Congress alliance, with the ANC being by far the most strongest constituents, if the ANC had come in there saying we've taken this policy, it would have set the Congress alliance in that particular direction. But Lutoli has basically authorized them to start again the whole discussion from scratch. The discussion is long, it's protracted. Mandela for a long period seems feels as though he's losing because the leaders of the South African Communist Party, Katane, the ANC, Albert Lituli, and the South African Indian Congress, Monty Nica, they're all speaking out against nonviolence. So he feels as though it's going the wrong way. What eventually breaks is Moses Katane, who basically says, let's have a compromise. Let Mandela go forward and form this military structure with those who are willing to work with him. We continue as the ANC with our policy of nonviolence, and the only way that that can be changed is by a national conference. So an Anorak fact is that the Mkontua Seizwe is not the military wing of the ANC, properly speaking, until October 1962, when a national conference decides to embrace the policy of armed struggle. That's the Libati the Lobati Conference, which is held in Betronaland. Yes. But under that agreement which is reached at Stango, Nelson Mandela is authorized to go ahead and build this military force. He will not be disciplined by the ANC, but he has to report back. ANC policy, official policy, is nonviolent until a national conference decides otherwise. That gives Mandela the leeway to join with Joe Slovo because under the terms of the South African Communist Party's December 1960 resolution, where they decide to form the nucleus of an armed force, the ANC has decided this so the South African Communist Party has decided to build that nucleus. For example, by the time Mandela gets this authorization, you've got ANC leaders including Raymond and Flaber, Wilton Munkwai. They're in China. They're meeting Chairman Mao towards the end of December 1961. They're outside the country. They're going to be receiving military training. Four of them will be receiving military training in um Nanking. Slovo and Mendela, they bring their forces together, and the name that they decide to give this force is Uncontu Assiza, Spear of the Nation. And by the end of 1961, MK, the abbreviation of Unconto Assizer, will be officially operating. It's got regional command structures in Port Elizabeth, in Johannesburg, and in Durban. They were supposed to launch on the 16th of December, but something got lost in communication, and Durban understood the message to mean that conduct your operations so that when South Africa is celebrating the day of the vow, the headlines will be the launch of this new armed force. So it's actually on the 15th of December that MK units in Durban decide to target Bantu Colored and Indian Affairs buildings. The two which target the Indian and Colored Affairs buildings fail, but there's one in Ordnance Road in Durban where it's not a dis, it's not a devastating explosion, but it is an explosion. Subia Moodli, Ronnie Castriel's, Bruno Mtolo, that's the unit of three, and that is actually the official launch. So officially, it's the 16th of December. Actually, it's the 15th of December when Mkontua Cswe is launched. 16th of December, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg units go into action. Before the operations start, their handbills which are distributed and posted up in those two cities containing the Mkonto E Cswe manifesto outlining the principles behind their rebellion.
SPEAKER_00Another character that is not in the country when these discussions you're speaking about uh are unfolding, in which Gordani, Luthuli are reluctant that we have not exhausted peaceful means Oliver Tambo is already out of the country. Just take us through that and the reunion, as it were, uh of himself and Madiba in exile because then they start this journey of setting up uh the ANC in exile on the one hand, but they start having to look for support.
SPEAKER_01It's a tough story. Look, um it's during the Sharpville crisis, it's in March 1960 that um Tumba leaves the country to establish the external mission. So this is before Mkondewazizwe is formed. There's actually an incident before he meets Mandela. He meets this group containing Raymond and Flaubert and Walter, Wilton Mkwai. These are ANC members. They're returning from China. When Tumba meets them, he's actually upset because he's supposed to be the leader of the ANC in exile. He's supposed to know everything that's going on. There are these ANC members who are outside the country. He doesn't know what they're doing outside the country. They start briefing him about how they've been receiving military training. And he's like, Mandela will be arrested, as people will know, in August 1962. And after that, Mflaba becomes the commander of Mkontua Seaswe. But um after MK launches in December 1961, Mandela, who's still the commander-in-chief at that time, he goes abroad for his tour of Africa. He leaves South Africa in January 1962 for a conference in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. And he's there to meet with leaders of independent Africa about securing agreements for military cooperation to enable Mkontu Issizwe to escalate its armed struggle. Just to explain, if we go back to the MK Manifesto, which is distributed on the 16th of December 1961, there's source. My interest in forming Mkontua Ciswa was based on a sort of paradox in that founding manifesto where they speak about we've always tried to avoid bloodshed and civil clash, and we do so still. Paraphrasing what they're saying there. Very interesting concept about going to war to avoid war. They want the first acts to be warning shots. And that informs their decision, which they will follow for at least the first year of Mkontoiza operations, that their military operations are going to be sabotage. The aim is to make them bloodless operations. Why? Because they want to alert South Africans of the need to avoid civil clash and hopefully lead to a negotiated settlement which will avoid civil war. At the same time, they're making provisions for escalation. And that's why Nelson Mandela is out of the country in January, February 1962. What he's doing is he wants to form these links with independent African countries, which will provide MK with the training to enable them to escalate if needs be. So Mandela and Tambo, they meet in Ethiopia. Mandela reads the ANC's address. If you read Fatimimir's Higher Than Hope, it's about how he announces the formation of Mkontoa Cswear, and there's a Ugandan diplomat who says he's exultant, you know. The idea that South Africa is moving towards fighting back against white minority rule. Mandela's first military training of any sort is when he is in Morocco in March, where he and Robbie Resha, who's also a member of the ANC, they have firearms bananas. He goes to, there's photographs of him in London, Mandela, where he meets um British politicians. He's in Morocco, but he's been trained not by the Moroccans. By the Algerian freedom fighters who are just about to achieve their independence.
SPEAKER_00The Evian Accords. I mean, this is important because these terms and these names today are very important. Mandela is not getting a military training by the Moroccans. It's important because Morocco likes to have that claim. Of course, they had allowed the operations of the uh and it's called what? NFL. But it's those chaps, the Algerians that are. The Algerian freedom fighters that are training Madiba. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_01When he's in Algeria, it's just days after the Algerians and the French, though, have signed the so-called Evian Accords, which will provide for the referendum, which will provide for Algerian independence. It's sort of well, he's there in March, and it's about June, July that Algeria achieves independence. So they're really on the eve of Algerian emancipation. After he comes back from uh having gone to Europe, he goes to West Africa. I'm speaking about Mandela now, and he receives formal military training uh in a suburb of um Addis Ababa from the Ethiopians. And but he's recalled whilst he's there to come back because it's a message from South Africa that he needs to be closer to home because recruitment is being upscaled and he needs to be at home uh coordinating and commanding. And actually, as he comes home, his path takes him to Tanganyika, Tanzania. And in Dar es Salaam, he meets ANC recruits who have been sent out to the country, the first group, and he says, I've received training in Ethiopia, you're going to be trained in Ethiopia, I'm on my way home. And he meets them for the first time. It's the first time he's saluted by MK Kaders. He returns to South Africa. He's by now known as the um black pimpanel or the scarlet pimpanel of Africa. But as we know, well, we we uh as I mentioned, the Stanga resolution is you've got to report back. He comes back, he goes to Lillisley Farm, which is an underground headquarters, which is purchased in Ravonia. He briefs the other members of the ANC Revolutionary Underground about his trip abroad, the money he's received, the promises of training. He's got to go to Natal. He briefs um Albert Latoul about the same. He also meets the ANC's Durban command, um uh led by Koenik and Lovu, but also other members are Ronnie Castrels, who we've met previously. Umick, because I'm sure everybody knows that he's arrested on the um on the 5th of August 1962. Um he's going to be tried for leaving the country illegally and inciting a demonstration because the state doesn't quite have enough information yet to implicate him for uh being the leader of Nkonto A Ceswa. The immediate commander after Sasulu's arrest is sorry, the immediate commander after Mandela's arrest is actually Walter Sasulu on an interim basis. Yes. But then the permanent one is going to be Raymond Mflaba, because he's got the most military training, being part of that group which had gone to, yeah, that's right. Um, but Sasulu Mflaba, Dennis Goldberg, Andrew Mlangeni, who's also one of the China group, they are all arrested at the Lillisley Farm Underground Headquarters in Ravonia in the 11th of July 1963. And as part of that arrest, um the state obtains documents which give them enough information to also in killed Mandela Mendeley, yeah, as if number one.
SPEAKER_00There are interesting things in this short history that I want to get into. Very funny, in fact. There's the rival organization, obviously, the Pan-Africanist Congress. It is also embarking on a similar path. In conversations with myself, I think that's what the book is called. Mandela extends some of the observations he makes in Long Walk to Freedom about the difficulty in these meetings with leaders of the continent where they say, Yeah, you know, ANC, you chaps though, why don't you wait for Subuque? And then you can talk about this thing when Subuko is back from cruising. Because they are thinking he's just serving a five-year sentence or so. Madima and them begin to realize the PAC is not only big in the continent, it has made a huge impression. But seemingly the story is that the ANC is actually a front of white communists and the Africanists in the continent are uncomfortable. And they keep raising this challenge. So part of the perception they have to fight in the continent is that, uh and Mandela talks about it very openly, that in some meeting it was so uh put on the table in strong terms that when they left, he's like, we've gotta start having organizational programs that are distinctly ANC.
SPEAKER_01To make clear that the ANC is a very popular is an organization of its own. But that dogs them for many years. Listen, for the longest time, uh people like Dreslova, who is the co-founder of Mandela's the commander-in-chief, but Slova is the co-founder, he's not able to operate in Africa because there is such a stigma over this idea that the ANC is dominated by white and Indian communists, that people like um Yusuf Dadu and Joslova, they're not able, they're not able to operate in Zambia and um Tanzania. They've got to go to London to form a command group there. Only after 1969, when they're integrated into the Revolutionary Council, don't want to get ahead of ourselves that they're able to really be integrated into ANC work.
SPEAKER_00The second thing is um the the of importance, I think, in these few years that you've just traversed. Um the the activities in the in the regime now. And I want you to, as you put them in the book, who is the president and um uh there is escalation over the ANC. SACP is long banned with the anti-communist act, but who's the president of South Africa or the head of state at the time? What is happening to them?
SPEAKER_01Oh, South Africa becomes a republic. South Africa's first state president is somebody by the name of C.R. Swat, but the real man in charge, the hard man of the cabinet who's involved in the day-to-day running of governance is HF Vivut. He's the Prime Minister. Until the 1980s, the Prime Minister is actually the person who's in charge of the operations of the government. So the ANC basically sets the challenge, sorry, in Conto Easy or sets the challenge to the governments. Let's try, will you will you respond to our initiative and avoid civil war by engaging in negotiations? The response of the government is well, it is that they introduce what is known as the Sabotage Act, which basically introduces um punishments up to the death penalty for being involved in sabotage. So they're not going to um compromise. So one of the things that Mandela reports back on when he comes back from Africa is money which has been received, the idea for the ANC to develop a more independent image, as you've been saying, not to be seen to be dominated by white and Indian communists. But then the other one is that we've got to make preparations for guerrilla warfare. And that's the origins of what will be known as Operation Maybuya. Because when the Ravonia Raid takes place in July 1973, one of the documents which they find is a document called Operation Maebuya, which is drafted by a member of the South African Communist Party by the name of Arthur Goldreich, in whose name Lillis Lee Farm was rented out. Um and it's a plan for guerrilla warfare. So yeah. 1963. 1963. Sorry if I made a mistake there. July 1963 is the Rivonia raid.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so the the the Czechs are arrested, and this is the famous treason trial. Uh uh no, Rivonia trial. That's right. Yes. Um I guess it's time to focus now on Umkondu now being taken over uh by Mqaba. Yeah. But what is Ortambo at the moment? I mean, he's the deputy president of the ANC to Lutoli as the president. Lutoli, uh, you will tell us. Take us through 63 to 69.
SPEAKER_01Okay, 63 to 69. Let's start with October 1962 when the uh conference officially adopts armed struggle as a policy and therefore it becomes officially um the ANC's military wing. Um Kuntuci becomes the ANC's military wing. We've spoken about the path towards the Ravonia raid where Mshaba is arrested. Walton Mkwai, who's one of the members of who enter the group in in China, he comes back to Lilisi farm on the evening of the 11th of July um 1963. He sees big police dogs on the farm, he realizes something is wrong, and he retreats to Soweto. And by October, November 1963, he is going to establish the second high commander from Contour Seas where alongside um Lionel Gay is um one of the people who's with. Them and um uh John Matthews is another, but they're operating under severely constrained um conditions. Um training continues in places like China. There's a group which comes to South Africa in 1964, and Mkwai tells them to organize to train recruits as best as they can. But by then, um Lionel Gay and John Matthews have already been arrested as part of a sweep in sort of June, July um 1964. Umkway will continue operating until September, October 1964. He meets somebody by the name of um Bartholomew Klapane. Um, but then the day after the meeting, Klapane gets arrested, and then a month later he's going to join the police in the police raid, which we'll see Walton Mkwai arrested. And you've got a slow, gradual process by which the command of Nkonto Cswe will shift. Yeah, the underground structures will be eradicated, and there's a slow transition to command and control being exercised outside the country. Somebody by the name of Ambrose Makiwane becomes the commander of Nkonto Esewe, that lasts until November 1965, when the leadership will pass to Joe Medisa, and he's going to be the commander of Encontur Seesware until uh it's basically disbanded in '93. Joe Medisa's plan is he organizes MK recruits in exile. Rough estimates and not very precise numbers is that there are about a thousand recruits of MK who managed to leave the country and receive training in places like um China, the Soviet Union from 1964. It's in April 1964 that Oliver Tamba goes to Moscow and he signs an official cooperation agreement. By the end of 1964, you've got like 400 recruits who are in the Soviet Union. From about December, they start receiving training in a military camp in Odessa, present-day Ukraine, where the Soviets have this facility for training freedom fighters uh from all over the world. But others get trained in places like Algeria, places like Ethiopia, um Egypt. By process of elimination, the Soviet Union gets established as being the default place where you know MK members will be trained. Training in places like Egypt is Ethiopia is um is inappropriate because, amongst other things, the people coming back saying we got trained in fatigue marches, it's not really appropriate for guerrilla warfare, so Egypt won't work. And Egypt is the African country with the most advanced military establishments. China, there's the Sino-Soviet split, and eventually, you know, Moscow and Beijing tell people you got to choose, it's either them or us. And the ANC for various reasons says we're going with Moscow under those circumstances. The Soviets are able to provide much better holistic training. Joe Medisa's plan from 1965 is we're gonna send small units to different parts of South Africa to cede armed struggle.
SPEAKER_00And what happens now, because maybe you are about to say that, because the strategy up to uh the elimination or the destruction of the command structures, the structures inside the country before high command moves outside, but also the massive arrests of the sort of first generation. It's we are targeting what they call symbolic uh places, symbolic areas, and in a general uh sabotage. When does that change? And under what circumstances? Is there a debate, is there a meeting where they say enough with sabotage?
SPEAKER_01The first indication is in the second manifesto of Nkunto Esis, where which is distributed on its first anniversary, that is going to be 16th December 1962. And there's a statement there where the high command says, we don't believe that sabotage actions by and themselves are going to eliminate this government. We're going to have to escalate the struggle. I've spoken about how when Mandela came back from Afri the South Africa is in Africa, of course, but you know what I mean. From his tour of the rest of the continent, he said that we need to start. The government has shown that they're not going to compromise. We need to start talking about guerrilla warfare. So those discussions are basically there. The seeds of the discussion are there. Operation Maibuye is Arthur Goldrush being commissioned by the high command to actually start developing these plans. But the plan is not implemented by July 1963 because literally it's the plan is out there on the table and they're going to discuss it because some people are saying this is far too ambitious. You're speaking about landing people on the coastline of South Africa, but we're having increasing trouble operating and moving throughout Africa because by then what is known as the Central African Federation, which involves Southern Rhodesia's white minority government, is dominated by them, they start beginning to arrest um ANC members as they're as as they're traveling. So what we get in the archive are fragments. If you can piece them together, if you've got comprehensive enough um discussion where you see the evolution in the ANC's thinking, it's towards the second half of 1962 that they're starting talking about the need to move towards guerrilla warfare. The Walton and Choir command is not able to do it because literally after the Ravonia raid, the underground is on the back foot. They can't be planning guerrilla warfare, they're just trying to survive. Uh, and eventually the underground is eradicated. But the plans for guerrilla warfare are resumed by Joe Medisa. His plan is let's send small groups to different parts of South Africa where they will start mobilizing the masses, forming guerrilla bases, and then we can start developing armed struggle. The problem is, how are you going to get from Tanzania to South Africa? Because what South Africa benefits from is a corridor of buffer states which are ruled by white minority governments that include Rhodesia, but it also includes Portuguese-controlled um Mozambique and Angola, which shields South African-controlled Namibia. So it's uh how are you gonna get there? And for a long time.
SPEAKER_00Something happens in Botswana.
SPEAKER_01Well, just before Botswana becomes independent in um 1966, there's a group of seven um ANC members who are trying to reconnoitre an infiltration route. They get arrested. It's on the 26th of September 1966. Um Botswana is independent four days later. Suretikama's incoming government decides after how after having threatened to deport them to South Africa. Yes, to face the full mind of the law. He says, We're gonna actually send them back to Zambia, but if this happens again, there's gonna be tough action, and that's obviously indicates or threatening.
SPEAKER_00Prof, you you you're jumping, and I keep thinking you might do that. The setup, something has to happen for Lusaka to be set up. Uh, and we know for a couple of few years, the Zambians are not comfortable with liberation forces that are not from immediate countries. And so NC or South Africans have problems in Zambia. It's covered in here until Kenneth Gawunda opens a conversation with Mabutu Suseko on the one hand to say, Chief, Zambia can't handle everybody alone. Yeah, Tanzania must be responsible for Mozambique, the DRC must be responsible for Angola. Yeah because Malawi is not coming to the party, and then Zambia will be responsible for Southern Africa, but with the help of Tanzania. But already there is a setup in Tanzania in Lusala that Nerere has indulged. Just that um important history because it's going to be immediately critical to the missions that Joe Moodise is about to design. Because they include joint operations with other liberation forces. But the actual thinking of these people is precisely along the lines that you are drafting. We're confronted with a wide controlled area, but this control is across countries. And the whites cooperate, intelligence, they themselves have joined military operations against liberation forces. I just want the initial point about the setup in Lusala.
SPEAKER_01To get to Lusaka, you need to have the opportunity to proceed from Tanzania. After the recruits in the Soviet Union start coming back to Tanzania, they start forming the first, well, they start forming an ANC military base at a place called Congo. And at that Congo camp, the ANC shares it with freedom fighters from other countries, including the MPLA, Angola, SWAPO, Namibia, Frelemo, Mozambique. From Tanzania, you can cross the Ravuma and start an armed struggle as Frelimo does, I think it's in August 1964. SWAPO after Zambia achieves its independence in 1964, that enables SWAPO to get to Namibia via Zambia. The problem is that number one, there's just a practical thing. Zambia doesn't necessarily have an armed force. The force it had been part of the Central African Federation, which is dominated by Southern Rhodesia's whites. After Southern Rhodesia becomes independent, November 1965, unilateral declaration of independence. If you go to the newspaper reports, that evening there is a standoff across the Zambezi where Ian Smith moves Rhodesian armed forces there. Against them, there's a sort of token Northern Rhodesian force. But who is commanding this independent African force? It's basically Southern Rhodesian whites. That's the military capacity. Basically, Zambia has no military capacity. And what Kenneth Kawunda is terrified by is Zambia becoming a crossroads of all of these conflicts, and the country literally imploded as a result of Portuguese incursions, South African incursions, if it becomes a central highway for all of these conflicts. So he starts speaking about, he develops this philosophy. Well, he has this philosophy of humanism and it's a non-violent philosophy. And for the first couple of years, he starts speaking about how I'm going to use a nonviolent path of dialogue with these white governments. It takes a couple of years, but it also costs the ANC a couple of years where it's not really able to operate through Zambia. It's when Zambia becomes a target anyway, when you've got the Portuguese government launching incursions into the country, where Kenneth Coinder, that the mess, the letter that you mut to Mabuta that you spoke about, is basically saying whilst we've tried to stay out of this, we have to realize that we're in it. And what we need is a division of labor where we cooperate in terms of the cooperation that we offer. And that's the deal which he offers, the one that you've outlined.
SPEAKER_00But also there is a committee within the African Union, which is committed to assisting liberation movements. The Liberation Committee, yes. The Liberation Committee. What is the interaction of that liberation committee with South Africa's efforts and maybe the role of Southern Africa's efforts to set up camp, to set up campaigns for liberation?
SPEAKER_01Well, the premise of the Liberation Committee is that we're going to support fighting units. That's the only language that makes sense because the white minority governments have refused all approaches to negotiate a settlement. And what you literally have is if you're not engaged in an armed struggle, you're not going to be recognized by Africa. There's a very interesting analogous case. And what I mean by this is that in Namibia, the ANC of Southwest African Namibia is not SWAPO in 1960, 1961. It's SWANU, the Southwest African National Union. Yes. But SWANU is never able to coordinate an armed struggle. And so it gets it doesn't get official recognition. And how this works in the diplomacy of this is that if you're not fighting, you've just got diplomats in exile who are empty-mouths, who are demanding subsidies from the Organization of African Unity. And the OEU's basically said, we're not going to support you unless you can show that you're fighting. And it's that dynamic which leads to SWANU being superseded by Swapu. What I'm saying is that some people will look at the armed struggle during the 1960s and they will say that because South Africa is not, because the ANC is not establishing guerrilla zones in South Africa, therefore that the armed struggle is not being effective, but there are many uses. It's politics by other means, as Klausovitz says. And one of the politics is basically remaining viable as an organization. And I would submit to people that if the ANC took the advice which some people are recommending after they've been repressed within South Africa, forced to go in exile, if they'd gone to Tanzania and said, um, we're not going to fight, but we want independent Africa to subsidize us, they wouldn't have got recognized. That would have created an opening. We've spoken about these narratives of the PAC. That support, which went to the ANC, would have gone to the PAC. And diplomacy is a hard business. And what I mean by that is the Soviets, this is real real politic on their side. They're not going to jeopardize their relations with independent Africa to support rebel and pariah organizations. Sometimes, in a military unit, you have got to undertake what would amount to basically being suicide operations. If I may take an analogy, if we go back to the Second World War, if I was speaking within the realm of white South Africans, South African Air Force was compelled to take missions into Poland during the Second World War, where there was basically no chance of success. And one of the interesting interviews with one of the South African commanders, he goes to Italy to protest about these suicide missions. And one of the people he meets is Winston Churchill, and he speaks them out and he says, and after he's made his case, Winston Churchill turns to him and says, You're right. This isn't a military operation. This is a political operation, and you're going to have to go and perform it. Now, people, military experts, will say, oh, there was no chance with these operations in Tharodesia in 1967 of ever reaching South Africa. And there's a very good chance that they were right. But there's also a very good chance that if ANC didn't undertake this, because African governments are already saying we're spending subsidizing these guys in this camp in Congo. They keep talking about armed struggle and producing pamphlets. But they haven't done anything. Absolutely nothing. They had to do it.
SPEAKER_00Let's go into Moody's. I will return to this, uh, maybe at a later stage. I think we're still building momentum. There is a worry in the debate, both in the private and in the meetings, that Kortani keeps saying to Madiba about the organizational capacity for an armed confrontation, that why do you insist on this? You will just be subjecting our people into massacres. And I wonder, despite the fact that the conditions were, you know, uh completely against peaceful demonstration, pickets, and all of that, I wonder if we'll return to the nonetheless important strategic question in Kotani. The organizational military organization is different to you know mobilization. Military organization is something fundamentally different. If there was immature, half-baked uh attempts that did not fully appreciate uh the last time Africans had engaged in a military confrontation, they were not even fighting with guns. We could say in the war they participated without being given guns. They were not allowed to carry guns, even in the world war. So in the Anglo Bo War, some maybe did, but uh to a large extent, you know, they were not allowed. And then in the World War, this so in many ways this was a very demilitarized community. Yeah, a community without any training. I mean, even the police, the African police were not heavily trained, um in a sophisticated so so there is an argument to be to be made for this was a leap.
SPEAKER_01That is the dominant that is the dominant argument. But if I were to go back in time and I were an advisor to the ANC leadership, I would speak against that dominant argument. And when I speak about the dominant argument, if you go to the literature, this is the, you know, people will say it was premature. If you look at the 30 years of armed struggle, that there were limits to the effectiveness. But if I were to go back in time and I were to be an advisor, I would say an assumption behind that critique is that there's some sort of inevitability and predestination that the ANC is um somehow automatically, inevitably, and eternally the leader of the black African population, and that there's nothing that will ever lead to a rival emerging. The argument presumes that there weren't people inside South Africa who tried to resist the government nonviolently, that we don't know what happened or what would happen in those cases, that there's some sort of suspense about whether they would have been able to operate and resist the government, whether they would have been arrested, they would have been tortured, and many people.
SPEAKER_00I make it- I mean I'm not interested in the not-making of the decision. I think the decision is a correct decision. I'm I'm I'm asking for a different assessment. Once you you take that path, you ought to deal with the kotanywoni military organization. Military organization, uh from the point of view of the circumstances I'm describing, Mandela, these are not soldiers. They are in their forties already. Uh Lutuli, Mklaba, these are lawyers and uh peasans and uh industrial workers who um in military terms, you know, you you gotta be conscripted at 16, sometimes 18. And um, by the time you are 40, you have understood physically and mentally and uh, you know, war, particularly gorilla. It's the most complicated uh of the wars that uh you know one can embark on. I'm just saying the Boers had just been defeated and they had much more military, they had lived their entire lives as a military community. Yeah. And they made their embarrassing defeats at the hands of the British, uh, and the British cut them a deal of the unification of the white community. Yeah. But they fought bravely, obviously, blah, blah, blah. But you have that example. You know, this is not this is not your community. So Kotani's warning is what what you are talking about, Madiba, is not just arming people. Uh it is uh it has to have a serious level of organization. And I wonder from 61 when Moodsa takes, so of course, you're fighting symbols in your trained so. That if they then you have to fight your way, you must fight your way to, they say, you must fight your way to the last man, they put it like that. But nonetheless, this is a very, very underprepared, under-experienced, uh, and under-equipped um force. Uh so let's go to Maibuye, and when now they they do what you call I think they call it that too. Uh the missions that are trying to come into the country uh under guerrilla warfare. Um yeah. When they try now to work into uh, and we'll return to this critique um about what does preparation, what does transformation into a military organization really look like? And does the ANC at any stage ever achieve this? So let's go to Moudisa and then maybe after Swanki and Sipolilo and Morogoro, we can return to the same question.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, after the failure of the infiltration that we discussed into Botswana, um the ANC adopts a strategy of fighting alongside other liberation movements. So you're not operating through black African countries which don't want ANC members there, that you're operating alongside fellow liberation movements. And so that leads to two operations. One is more a reconnaissance than an operation, where ANC members, a group of seven, go alongside Frulimo in June 1967 to try and see whether there's a route to what is basically the Kruger National Park. Um they go into um the Nyasa and Cabo Delgado provinces, but neither of them finds a route through. One of them gets ambushed, but that doesn't succeed. The other much more famous and well-known operation is what known it becomes known as the WANKI campaign, where a group of 81 um ANC Zapu members, so it's a mixed um group. What is Zappu? Zapu is the Zimbabwe African People's Union, which is the Zimbabwean liberation organization fighting to overthrow Rhodesian uh UDI. And so the Zapu contingent is known as the Lobengula Detachment, and the idea is that they will infiltrate alongside ANC members. A group of 20 ANC members are going to stay alongside Zapu in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, and they're going to fight in Lupane and Trolocho, whilst another group of ANC members, a group of 30 ANC members, are going to go to South Africa. And that group of 30, which is scheduled to go to South Africa, is known as the Lutoli detachment, after Chief Albert Litoli, who is killed just before the infiltration begins. I can't remember the exact dates of his death, but it's just as they're preparing, they receive news that Latoli has been hit by a train. And so it becomes known as the Litoli detachment. But that's the idea. Two guerrilla zones in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, and then another group of 30 and ANC platoon is going to go to South Africa. And once that group, once the Latoli detachment gets into South Africa, it's going to separate into small groups, which is going to start armed struggle in about seven areas of the country.
SPEAKER_00It is at this stage that I think you must define conceptually for us what is a guerrilla warfare? Because of the units, the sheer numbers you are speaking about, the total is 81. 30 of which end up with a mission to somehow they hope to arrive in South Africa. But maybe what is a gorilla warfare? So that we understand what are these people uh what are in a what are they in a mission to go and achieve?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the idea that these a group of 30 is going to be able to defeat the South African Defense Force, which can mobilize hundreds of thousands of men, literally, that's not going to work. But what might work, and this is the ANC's plan, is that you can mobilize the masses because South Africa is a majority black country. So you've got these people with military training. They're going to go into communities, they're going to start recruiting local communities, they're going to start giving them military training. And once that happens, the ANC is going to be able to use what it calls this Ho Chi Minh Trail, after the Zimbabwean example. You build a Ho Chi Minh trail through Zimbabwe, which leads to South Africa. And once that trail has been established, you can bring supplies of military weaponry and also the rest of the ANC's a thousand odd members who are in exile to come and reinforce those groups once they've laid the groundwork. And once you've got those guerrilla zones, but the crucial decisive impact is being able to bring in local communities because South Africa is an overwhelmingly black country, and that is how you redress the asymmetry. So it's a very long road. Even once the even if the Ho Chi Minh Trail had been completed, there's a very long road from there to actually starting guerrilla warfare.
SPEAKER_00So let's map it for everybody. We'll try and have the images. What is the point of departure? Okay, firstly, where is the unit based when this mission is conceived, agreed upon, the unit is constituted? Where are they?
SPEAKER_01Well, they are in Zambia because Kaounda, who up until that point had had a policy of no groups larger than six will be allowed into the country, and no extra groups will be allowed in until that group has gone. The OAU puts pressure on him and he eventually says he he he reaches a point early in 1967 where he will allow larger groups to go. So they come from Tanzania into Zambia.
SPEAKER_00They're at various The plan is conceived in Tanzania. Yes. And then they go to Zambia. Yes. And where is the drop off where they finally now are addressed for the last time by Mudise, Tambu, and uh it's close to Victoria Falls.
SPEAKER_01It's on the um the actual infiltration infiltration is on the 2nd of August 1967. Um and it's you know, Tambo Mudise and Thomas Nkurve, who's the treasurer of the ANC, they go there, they give them the final briefing before they infiltrate. Um and the infiltration is on the 2nd of August 1967.
SPEAKER_00And it's interesting because the names, I think we must read them to the record. Uh the the leader of uh Luthulli unit, the Luthulli detachment, is a chap uh by the name of I wanna read uh because I've got I've got it somewhere, Mongameli Charlie, but uh T S H A L I. It's Charlie, it's Charlie. Is that causa? Mongameli Charlie. Charlie or Charlie? Charlie. This is the chap. Uh his name is not that known, you know. And the chap called um John Dubay. He's not the John Dube of the Not the Founder, the founder, yes. And Chris is a political commissar. Harney, yes. Yeah, Chris Harney, yes. Uh, but the the two main commanders of as you put it, as I understand, uh, of this unit. Uh maybe if I I mean I think I find this interesting.
SPEAKER_01Uh so Duba is the overall commander because as they're going to be operating in Zimbabwe, they want a Zimbabwean commander, but Charlie is the leader of the Lutuli detached, which is going to be South Africa.
SPEAKER_00There you go. Uh but uh there are there are all other names, and if I uh keep uh paging until I find them, please proceed. Uh the members of the reconstance team, Zolilenose, Rachidi Kawawa, Eric Nduna, Joseph Nduli, Piri Malama, who are still in the company of Mzala, Don Masego, Amos Ndrov. These are the names.
SPEAKER_01But the problem which is being explained there is that it's very difficult to operate because they go into thick bush. So it's very good with regards to concealment, but actually navigating is very difficult. Another difficulty which they face is that the escarpment up there is very dry and it's very difficult to get water, and it creates a problem once you're detected. You become predictable because you need water to survive, and therefore ambush positions can be set at watering holes, and that becomes a very big difficulty for them once they're detected. So they have all sorts of problems with regards to rec reconnoitering the way forward. Members of the unit get lost. Um, about six or seven days after the crossing, um, one a member of the unit gets discovered by the Rhodesians, who thereafter decide to establish a joint operations center, and the hunt is then on. The first battle is the um Battle of Nyatue, which is on the 13th of August. So it's just 11 days after they're infiltrated, and this involves the Lupane group who've branched off already, and that battle ends up in a draw. But this is the problem, which is that the Rhodesians are able to bring in reinforcements, and these groups which become isolated, the ANC ZAPU groups are not able to. So they're not able to reinforce. They're not able to reinforce, so the odds become increasingly unfavorable as time goes on. And then there's another battle on the 18th, um, where that Lupane group is basically destroyed, where John Dube is the only person who manages to get away without being killed or captured. Then the hunt is on for the Trolocho group, which is the other group which is going to be operating in the southern part of um Zimbabwe and the Lutuli detachment, so they're still together. Um, and just south of the Huange um game park, uh Wanki campaign, that's where it gets its name from. They get detected from the Rhodesians. The South African Zapu unit wins consecutive battles on the 22nd and the 23rd of August. But the problem of reinforcements means that even though they're forced to flee, the Rhodesians are able to fly in reinforcements, and it becomes increasingly unfavorable. And eventually, two or three days after their second victory, Charlie and the commanders they hold a meeting and they say, We're not going to be able to make it through to South Africa. We've got to retreat to Botswana, and that's what they do. So that's decision, which leads to um the uh Wanki campaign failing without having achieved its objective. The Sipolilo campaign starts in December. The differences from the Wanky campaign.
SPEAKER_00Before we go to Sipolillo, how many losses did they suffer from 81 in?
SPEAKER_01The exact figures I don't recall, but they're in the book. Basically, about 40 of them managed to get to Botswana, half of them. Yeah. Almost. And the remainder are killed or captured. Um a small one, a couple managed to infiltrate South Africa, but they get arrested um quite soon afterwards. So ANC and the Zapu, they try again. Um Lilo now. That's right. About 119 members are going to be involved. The differences from the WANKI campaign are the following. Rather than one infiltration, there's going to be echelons. So the infiltration is from December until February, where they infiltrate in small groups. That's one difference. Another difference is that whereas the um Wanki group they got they were mobile and they got isolated and they were cut off from reinforcements, the difference in the Sepulu campaign is that they're going to build a network of base camps which can reinforce and supply each other a continuous pipeline. The problems which they face in alien are food. That leads to you exposing yourself. I mean, amongst other things that they do is they start hunting big game, but that causes patterns in big game migration where people see that there's distress amongst animals, so there's a sign that something is wrong there. Another group sort of um they try and source food from a local farm. People see that these people are outsiders, it leads to the Rhodesians being tipped off. There are all sorts of problems. Um another is that even though they're trying to operate without being detected, there's another incident where a Rhodesian um parks and wildlife official he notices footprints of a large group of people leading to a mountain. All of these signs lead to the um Rhodesians operating uh uh establishing a joint operation center. And when aerial reconnaissance starts being stepped up, Mofat Hadebe, who is the commander of this detachment. This this infiltration is it's known as the pyramid detachment. Yes. And after this reconnaissance starts stepping up, Mofat Hadebe, who is Zapu, he calls on the guerrillas to assemble in one of the camps, which is base five. By then they'll have established six camps, but then they he calls on them to establish base five because if they're too um separated, they won't be able to resist the Rhodesians if they're attacked. What happens is that on the 18th of March 1968, the um Rhodesians bomb base five. The problem there is that it causes them to disperse, and the they are dispersed in such small groups that they're not able to put up effective resistance, and it becomes a mopping-up operation as far as the Rhodesians are concerned. That leads to the failure of the second of the three infiltrations. There is a third infiltration which has not received a name, but this is what causes a crisis within the ANC because even before that, members of the ANC and ZARP who are in their camps, the news gets back of the failure of these two infiltrations. And when there is news that there's going to be a third infiltration, there is dissent within the military camps, you start having a problem of desertion of people fleeing ANC camps to go to Kenya, where many of them appear. They don't want this third infiltration, but the third infiltration happens nonetheless, and that one gets um quickly detected and eliminated by the Rhodesians, upon which the crisis mutates in the following sense, which is that members of the Wenki campaign they start getting released by the Botswana government in 1968 and they start returning to the camps. Yeah. And people like Chris Harney start saying, Where's the armed struggle? It looks like we've given up. They haven't given up. It's that a lot of the military capacity has been destroyed that the ANC had. There's huge dissent within the camps with people who don't want to go on these missions because they feel as though now that these are suicide missions. So if you've got to look at it from Joe Medisa's perspective, on the one hand, he's being pressured by members of the ANC who don't want to be infiltrated. And other members of the ANC who are coming back and saying you've given up on the struggle and you're sipping fine brandy, and he gets all of these criticisms. And that is what leads a group of seven, which is led by Chris Harney, to draft a memorandum which basically says that the MK command is no longer interested in fighting at home, but they're not alone. There's another group which had fought, well, not fought, but they'd been part of this infiltration in Mozambique. They draft a document which is titled What the Group Feels, and they basically raise the same criticism that the armed struggle has reached an impasse, and there has to be a conference to organize the way forward. And that is what leads to the famous Moragoro conference where the ANC comes together, one of two consultative conferences that they will hold during the years of um external mission leadership where they recalibrate the struggle.
SPEAKER_00Maybe it's a good place to take a break, but um two quick strategic questions. I do think you must say more about these memoranda. What was the code? Because Chris was met with severe consequences such that he was not even in the conference in Morogol. Maybe you could conclude uh by what did the memorandum really mean in terms of ANC discipline?
SPEAKER_01Well, fortunately, we've managed to uh researchers, and I'm speaking about um Janet Smith and Buregart Trump and Hugh Macmillan, they've managed to source the original document in its entirety, which includes the criticisms of having been distracted from the struggle at home. They speak about mysterious business enterprises, so they're really going in for the MK High Command, basically accusing them of having betrayed the struggle at home, and they want to have the ANC military refocused at home. One perennial issue which has come up in the sources, and the historians who have worked on it in depth are not able to fully confirm whether Chris Honey was ever condemned to death or whether he was merely disciplined by the organization for having um speaked out of uh having spoken out of tone. But certainly there were severe consequences for him, which led at the very least for him not being a participant at the Moragoro conference. So those are all sorts of measures. But the ANC did decide to accede to the demand for a conference which held in which was held in Moragoro.
SPEAKER_00Maybe the original, there's a resurfacing, obviously, from time to time of what Chris and the chaps actually said in the memoranda. I don't know if we maybe that's the place we can start at um because from time to time when there are disagreements, the memoranda is provoked or it's evoked to say this and that about uh this one and that one. We'll come back to it. Please keep that in mind. Um at this stage in 69 or at the end of the C Bolilo campaign, how many ANC military recruits are in the camps?
SPEAKER_01If there are precise numbers, I've not been able to access them. My best estimate about the total number which managed to leave South Africa and become militarily trained is based on Ronnie Castro's estimate that we're speaking about no more than a thousand, but it's certainly in the upper hundreds.
SPEAKER_00Do we know like in light of this ambitious campaign? I mean, that the reason I wanted you to draw that uh distance that what they had to do is um is that this was almost already almost already an impossible mission. I'm thinking about the Rhodesians. I mean the Rhodesian is a heavily experienced military. It's an international military. These are Brits. They've just they've just defeated Hitler maybe a decade ago, two decades ago. Very experienced generals and whatever. So were the South Africans. But in no way comparable across the continent. I mean the white settler, there's no such a phenomenon. The next best thing to it was Algeria in terms of white settler community. And as all white settler communities go, they are militarized communities. This is a very ambitious project. As far as equipment and uh is concerned when you look at that distance and the many problems you're going to meet you need reinforcement as you said firstly of ammunition. You may have the guns but you know you need reinforcement of we need more bullets because we just had a at some point they had a six hour confrontation with the Rhodesians. A six hour standoff of open fire. Six hours is a very long time. And they would have more of those confrontations as wonky.
SPEAKER_01And when they did Sipolilo, you say you know they managed to do this capacity for reinforcement but the distance is uh and they've got uh less than a thousand people at that stage less than a thousand people at that stage militarily trained to carry on this objective I pose again the question of Kotani was this premature yes in the following sense that if we take the ANC's own critique of its practice in 67 and 68 it's manifested in a document called the Strategy and Tactics Paper which Joe Slova principal author Joe Matthews secondary author and it's adopted by the Morigoro Conference and their response is in future greater attention needs to be paid to what they call all-round political mobilization. There's a central dilemma which they're facing which is may face themselves there's no way of defeating the government according to the strategy and tactics paper except through violence because the government has shut itself off to all other methods. At the same time, how do you start violence? That's the fundamental problem. How do you get armed struggle going in South Africa? And they pose the problem as follows if AMC is not able to show its military capacity, people will not flock to the military structures. So they need to form their military credibility. On the other hand, without political support how are you going to be able to launch armed operations? Because fighters can't just be free floating they need to have logistical support they need to have food they need to have people who will provide them cover. You need that support from the local population. So they're not able to fully work it out. It's not really thrashed out in the strategy and tactics paper in any definite way.
SPEAKER_00But before that before that you've already engaged in Wangi and Sipolilo.
SPEAKER_01So what their recommendation is is that we need more attention to all round political mobilization. Whatever the correct mix of military and political action is there needs to be greater attention paid in the future to making sure local communities are mobilized to be able to house us welcome and yeah. But we got to get them first. Yeah. To get to them it's a chicken and egg situation as the saying goes and that is something which is going to keep recurring during the armed struggle. Okay.