ANC History: Episode 6: MK, Exile and The Long Road to Liberation: Prof. Thula Simpson

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi sits with Dr Thula Simpson on the history of the ANC.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Morogoro Conference, the chaps that have written the memorandum are all under suspension, but nonetheless, the conference takes place as a couple of reflections, self-criticism. We all have often heard of the strategy and tactics. National Democratic Revolution, I think, is prominently featuring in the ANC official document. What becomes from that conference a plan or a strategy to improve the armed struggle?

SPEAKER_03 0:44

There's two important decisions made by the Moragoro Conference which set the future of the next phase of the armed struggle. One of them is that the delegates agreed to establish a revolutionary council. And what's important about that is that it's a non-racial structure. Why that matters is that previously, the reason why the Congress Alliance had a Congress of Democrats, the African Indian Congress, is that members of other races were not part allowed to be part of the ANC. It was about preserving the African nature of the revolution. With the Revolutionary Council, members like Jose Lova and Youssef Dadu are now able to become part of this structure, which is given a specific mandate of responding to the internal criticisms by this council. This council is tasked with advancing the struggle within South Africa. That's a specific mandate. That's important. And it is tasked with advancing the struggle within South Africa in terms of the other important decision of the conference, which is the adoption of the strategy and tactics paper drafted by Joe Slova principally, which inter-alia it begins by saying the South African struggle is part of a global shift towards socialism. So it identifies the ANC explicitly with that camp. It brings them into the Cold War, for want of a better word. That's in a sense you can't not be part of the Cold War if you're receiving Soviet and Chinese communist training, but this becomes part of the official ANC strategy and tactics paper. And the other important part of the strategy and tactics paper is it deals with the issue of how to get armed struggle going. And it says that we need to reconsider the mix of political mobilization and military action. And this general sense is that the ANC needs to be more preoccupied than it has been in the past about political mobilization.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

This would have been eight years. Eight years of the unconduicias, if I'm not mistaken, maybe 61 to 69, it's eight years. So in the actual criticism in the memorandum, the honey memorandum, up until that time, the ANC is conducting the armed struggle in a very, very African nationalist way. Because they are working within the networks of African nationalists within the continent. Morogoro represents precisely a point at which that particular commitment to really be distinct from the communist party, to be distinct from you know the we are influenced and driven and by whites. That sort of comes to an end, so to speak, with this formation of the Revolutionary Council and the now major participation of sort of non-Africans, so to speak. Is this more or less a correct reading?

SPEAKER_03 4:31

No, let's complicate that a lot. Firstly, MK is a formation of the ANC and the South African Communist Party, essentially a joint project as far as that is concerned. And also we've had the situation where the most advanced military training is in communist countries. Already. When we speak about Ambrose Makuana, he gets the nickname of Mbobo Hosepipe. And what that is about is that he actually starts inflicting cuts on ANC members who've come from exile. Because they start bringing this Sino-Soviet split into the Congo camp. They start having Maoist Soviet disputes. They split themselves into camps, you know. And it's about who's the who's the real communist. Because the Chinese trainees start saying, we have the true path of guerrilla warfare, and you're got this conventional Soviet. It's very thickly. Factions, rather. And it's not communists here, nationalists there. In a way, a way of proving yourself to be the purest nationalist is by proving your willingness to fight and its communist doctrine and ideas, much more than what Africa is offering. So if we speak about Egypt and Ethiopia, that's not really where the cutting edge of military training is. It's very heavily impregnated with the Sinus-Soviet split. And there's an understanding, you know, if we speak about they're getting the idea of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, they're getting sort of global ideas about the world is splitting into these camps and we're part of the freedom fighters. So I wouldn't go there. I mean, if we were to go to Palestine and we were speaking and we were to go to the exiled Palestinian camps in Jordan and we would go to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, it wouldn't be we're Arab nationalists, no, we're communists. I think amongst freedom fighters it's that we're revolutionaries. We respect Castro, we respect Mao. We're part of we're not anti that.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Agreed. The other thing then, which um I think you should speak to before we move from Rogoro is the criticism of uh the personal lifestyles of the leadership. One you uh characterized it earlier as um Tabo Mure, who is uh Joe Mudice, sipping wine and all of those things. But there is this criticism that uh honey and them come back to the camps, they are not debriefed, uh, they are not even welcomed, they say, in the memorandum by the deadership. And they find the situation as if these people had given up on the struggle. But then they go for the children of the leadership uh who uh are either in South Africa or in Europe. The second one is a criticism of the students who we know to have been sent by the ANC in exile. There is a student contingency uh that includes uh, I think Mandosha Walam Simang, Tabom Beggy, and others that is sent to Europe, different universities to go and study. Beki is engaged in student politics and he's mentioned in this memoranda that is a a bogus youth leader. Second part of the criticism. Third part seemingly relates to the weaknesses of the Secretary General to provide any political report about the situation in South Africa, but also a situation where there is no internal interaction. The leadership, no one in the leadership has not even ever been to South Africa. So they decry a sort of delinking of the activity in exile to the activities in uh the country. It would seem to me that uh there then there would have been some form of how are we going to correct these things? Uh in light of the summary of the memorandum. Why don't you take us to after Morogoro to maybe the period of the speech or the broadcast of rendering the country ungovernable in 1983, I think?

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Barely has the ANC managed to feel as though it's got itself back on track after the Moragoro conference when Julius Nereri's government throws a curveball, basically says, You've been in the camps for so long that you're now constituting a threat to the security of the Tanzanian government. If you don't infiltrate South Africa within two weeks, we're going to reclassify you as refugees. And that would have meant the liquidation of the struggle. If they had infiltrated all the caders within two weeks, that also would have meant the liquidation of the struggle. Because relating to what you're saying, all this pressure to be infiltrated, the test has been run in 67 and 68. If you throw these caders over the Zambezi River, they're not the local contacts. There's not the infiltration routes that is going to lead to the liquidation of Nkonto Assizue by destruction. And we've we we know that. There's no prospect that just throwing another military mission is going to succeed. So you've got to have sympathy, I think, for the predicaments in which the leadership is concerned. Many things can be true. There could be corruption as far as individual leaders are concerned. That could be true. It could also be true that nobody's getting rich in exile. You don't become an exile leader if you want to become lavishly rich. That can also be true. What is also true is if we look at Melissa Armstrong's history of the health department of the ANC in exile, people in the camps are suffering malnutrition-related diseases. So people can be stable as far as receiving a salary. They're not rich. We're not talking about Aristotle analysis or whatever the standard is of lavish richness, but they can be leading a stable existence, and their kids can be receiving an education, not Harvard or Stanford, but fine. And that can be completely of a different scope and scale and standard to what is happening with decaders in the camps. And that could be if all of this stuff can be true. And I think it probably is true. Well, the ANC starts developing during 1960s. The ANC is saved from liquidation by the Soviet Union, which sends a letter to New Earl's government and says, we're willing to take the whole Mkonto A C Woner refresher course. And so what you've got is that they go to the Soviet Union in 1969. During 1969, there's a development of an operation which is known as Mother. And what that is is about developing naval infiltration. Another case for the mitigation of the MK commanders. We speak about the Wanki Sipalilo campaign. We speak about another campaign, the third one in 1968. I've mentioned that one. But there's another one, which is an attempt to launch a naval infiltration, and that involves uh Bifana Matthews and Mobile, uh, Temba Lamini, uh, and one other. And they are stowaways on a ship called the Clan Ross. They actually manage to get to South Africa, they get to the um KwaZulu region. Some of them meet uh Mangosutu Butalesi, but they're arrested also in 1960. So that they're trying by land and sea. What Mother is is an attempt to, okay, we're blocked by land. We've tried to get through Mozambique, hasn't worked. We've tried to get through Rhodesia, hasn't worked. But Swana, we don't want to link that again. And in August uh 1970, there's um flag Boshielu. He leads a group of four MKKaters. He's an ANC NEC member. He tries to lead a group of four through the Caprivi strip. They try to get through Namibia, they get killed. August 1970. So there's a sort of iron curtain over land. You can't wish it away. You can't say, why aren't you sending us home? Because the ANC knows what happens. They're their capacity that they've got is going to be destroyed. We're speaking about destruction of capacity. Why is I spoken about how Swanu rather than Swapu they left in the Zapu also, um, if we're speaking about the organizations which have the greatest credibility, it's Zapu, which has, you know, it's it's the ANC of the Zimbabwe struggle. Why does ZANU become the victor in 1980? Samurai Michelle goes to Joshua Nkomo. He starts liaison in 1969. You mentioned about how Malawi is not coming to the party as far as infiltration, but they do come to the party in 1969 and they say, we're willing to open this window where you can now infiltrate via Malawi to Tete Province. Samura Michel goes to Nkomo and he says, This is a breakthrough. We can actually not be blocked in Cabo, Delgando, and Nyasa, we can go through Malawi to join us. And Zapu's response is we haven't got the capacity. We've suffered such heavy casualties. When we speak about imprisonment, death, and desertion as well, MK has lost a lot of its capacity. There just isn't the capacity.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

If I don't understand, then how do you not maybe it's a discussion for another day. Today we are trying to lay out this history. I'm very suspicious of the memorandum. There's something that is not being said about what happened there. As you talk, as you keep speaking, uh it seems to draw such personalized but also extreme conclusions about the circumstances of the struggle or the possibilities of any form of success. You know what I mean? Like uh even uh with a full cooperation, for instance, or once Mozambique is liberated, and you you're gonna take us through that, it's a war, it's a bloody civil war. Zimbabwe, um Swaziland and Lesotho become you know some point of protectorate through which you know Lesotho fights this thing of being a liberated zone, but there's like internal consistent self-sabotage. Then you've got Botswana, uh, it's not fully committed. Uh it just allows them to operate at some point, but their policy. And Namibia depends on the so-called Battle of Kutokonaval, which is mid-80s.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

The training that you are talking about would have needed a lot of uh naval capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

One, but secondly, to meet to to meet this army that is everywhere, but also eh chaps that could fly flights and fight war on the sky, but also the capacity to have these things, helicopters and and all of that. I mean, when you look at Cabo Delgado, that's why there was a a sort of protracted war. Both sides, you know, had uh very, very well equipped, well-experienced uh military uh personnel and military equipment. But I'm I'm leaving it to you. By seventy, even C the sea is defeated. So now you know I can't get in by the land. I don't have anything to do with the air. The sea uh is also another difficult area. Everybody that keeps coming into South Africa doesn't go back. No one. Maybe up until Makmaharaj, but nobody comes in the country of the senior leaders. And if they had done that, as you say, it would have been a liquidation of the same, if not worse, form than we saw just after the sort of Rivonia trial, which liquidated, which was a form of liquidation in its way. But anyway, Umkonto is what do they do from 1970 to do this armed struggle?

SPEAKER_03 18:42

The naval training which they receive is in Azerbaijan in Baku, and it's uh in 1971, uh, as part of this mother, which is about naval infiltration. It's in February 1972 that they are flown from uh Moscow, so Baku to Moscow to Somalia. Why Somalia? Well, firstly because there's still the tension with um Julius Nerer's Tanzania, and also because Siad Barre has launched a coup in Somalia and he's moving the country in a socialist direction. You've got to try and imagine Somalia as a Soviet socialist type republic. So um it's from there that they get a ship. It's called the Aventura, and what is called Operation J, it's about landing recruits in Port St. John's, and from Port St. John's, that's where the groups will branch off to the different regions that Joe Medisa had identified in 1965 for starting guerrilla warfare. So, what the difference is between that and the Wanki campaign is that the Wanki campaign was to try and find a Ho Chi Minh trail over land. The um Operation J is about an in uh an Indian Ocean uh infiltration route. When we speak about the London command, Joe Slovo, um, Yusuf Dadu and all the rest of them, Ronnie Castrels is also based there. They start recruiting members of the Young Communist League and also members students, sorry, at the London School of Economics. And as white Westerners, they have camouflage in racist South Africa. So you've got that's the story of that has been told in the um film and the book, The London Recruits. And one of them is the name of Alexander Mumbaris. He goes to Port St. John's and he starts reconnoiting the coastline, but the Aventura has technical problems, and that Operation Joy fails. It leads into Operation Chelsea. And what Operation Chelsea is, it's about flying the recruits from Somalia to Swaziland. First iteration goes well because Mumbaris goes to Swaziland, picks up recruits at the George Hotel, drives into the border, they cross the border, they get into South Africa, but six days afterwards, one of them um surrenders himself to the police at um McClear in Cape Province, and that will the beginning of the end of that whole operation. And when Mumbaris goes to Botswana to drive four recruits over the border, he's arrested at the border because they've been penetrated. And that leads to the rounding up of the underground. So as a result of that, the ANC has tried land infiltration, failed. Naval infiltration, failed. Air infiltration, flying them and then driving them across the border, that's also failed. So they're really at a uh at a loss. They've taken on Tanzanian wives, they've developed family commitments, they're not really available for infiltration anymore, they've moved into a different phase of their life.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

The external army Because Heine would have been 25 years, uh, or he was in his twenties. Uh 1962, you'd have 10 to 20 by 67 in one. He's about twenty five years. I can imagine the chaps that were older than him. They are in their late 20s, early 30s. The leadership is they were in their forties. It makes sense. If you left in 63, by 1973, you've been there for 10 years and you have children now.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Yeah. So something needs to change, and three things change. Number one, under the Sabotage Act legislation, although it went up to um death penalty, the man, you know, if you haven't taken lives, what you get is 10-year terms. Because the apartheid government is vindictive, it doesn't do parole or early release. So people who are arrested in 1963 are going to be released in 1973. Among them, for example, is Jacob Zuma, who was arrested just before the Ravonia raid on a convoy which was headed to the Botuanaland border. He's released in 1973. He comes out, he starts working with people like William Canyile, Albert Lormore. It's about rebuilding the Natal underground. And what they do is they send one of them, Albert Lormore, to go to Swaziland. And it is in Swaziland that Lormo meets an ANC structure which exists around somebody by the name of Moses Mabida. And what the ANC is also doing is it's trying to move its external leadership close to South Africa. And what that amounts to is that Tabo Mbeki, he was sent to Botswana, but then he went to Swaziland, and he's able to connect with this Natal underground. He meets up with Lomo and he forms a ANC structure there. Chris Hani is also now reintegrated into the ANC. He's deployed to Lesotho. What this involves is a beacon of hope for ANC. No, no, no, they're not ANC yet. Young South Africans like Musima Sechhuale, Naleri Tziki. They tried in the early 70s to contact, they're members of the Black Consciousness Movement. If you know the macro history, obviously, the students movement, they're student activists. They tried to contact the ANC in Lisak early in the 1970s, couldn't find anything. In March 1975, when Taboombeki gets located in Swaziland, that's the connection. That's the route out. So the underground starts reviving as a result of these people who are released. There's also in the um Johannesburg area, Joe Barbie, who had been a part of that group before Raymond Mklaber, Walton and Kwai, he's released and he joins this ANC Alexandra-based structure. Martin Ramakadi, uh Petrus and Jabaling from Secretary Land in Jabaling. Um, and that's called the main machinery. So these just nucleuses of ANC structures within the country, they start reviving around ANC basically. I think Here Iguala as well. Yeah. That in the in the Midlands, yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

In the town. And it's very precarious. A group gets arrested on the border. You're by any chance. I mean, there's a you mentioned Zuma. You seem very confident that he was part of a group that was trying to go towards Botswana. Yeah. And um they get arrested in Rastenberg.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

I wouldn't be sure about Rostenberg, but it's around the Zerast area. They were trying to cross out around that area. How many? If I were to reference the book, I'd be able to tell you exactly, but it's around 50. But what's important about that is that they've been recruited from all over the country. So one of the earliest ANC members to die in custody, he's called Lux Martin Gudler. He's based in the Western Cape where he'd worked alongside um Dennis Goldberg. He'd sent a group and they were part of this convoy. Zuma obviously recruited from Natal area. What they're arrested by who? Recruited by the Durban Command. I can't tell you exactly who, but the Durban MK structure sends them out.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Yeah, because you see, this is this is the the thing I do want to ask. This would 50 people, you say. Around. This would have been the biggest trial. A monster convoy, yeah. This would have been the biggest trial of the ANC. And um I only hear about it superficially, uh, but you never hear where did it take place, who were the lawyers, and collaborating public evidence like the public coverage of the trial.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

I wish there would be more attention paid to it, but the trial records are there. I mean, they're at the University of the Ritvaster and Historical Papers. I think they've probably digitized some of them and made them available. But those who've got the inclination to go through the fantastic resource of historical trial papers that they've got.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

You have seen the details of this trial.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Yeah, all of these small groups of um MK. The first uh academic book by on MK was by this American Edward Fate, and it's called Urban Revolts in South Africa. That's based on the trials. It's based on these ordinary rank and file people.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah, but I mean uh I I I've got a different account around this trial that uh many people can't tell us who were the lawyers, uh what were the charges. Uh you only know that they were sentenced. And 50 people, that's big. You've got photos of Rivonia trialists, you've got photos of treason trialists, you've got I do you can't find evidence photographically of a 50-member trial of a contingent.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

No, it wouldn't have been the whole 50. It would have been them being tried in small groups and dribs and drabs. It's a tragedy for the archives of the liberation struggle that not all of the for example, one of the photos which I took in the book was when we spoke about the group who met Mandela, who got trained in Ethiopia. One of them There was a photo taken as they graduated of the after they'd completed their train. That that is one of the exhibits within the trial record. So there's incredible. I wish there'd just been more captured. I think it's a case that it just simply hasn't survived. These are small local try trials in all over the country. Um In 1963, 64, 65, that's when they would have been tried.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

But there it's an incredible So he would have uh been arrested in 65 since he came out, sentenced in 65 since he came out in 75.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

I think he was no, no, he served a 10 year he served 10 years, and I stand to be corrected. I think he would have been arrested, convicted, tried in 63, served 10 years. I know he's definitely out in 73. I don't think they would have left him.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

And then he's under um so-called those conditions for two years, you can't go anywhere. Blah blah blah. Yeah, quite possibly can't. Okay. Uh I mean there's always there's a debate around the circumstances because um some people who have had sight of the same archives can't find the records of that trap. Here's uh his particular one, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yes. I mean, that's why I was like, have you seen it? The actual records of the trial in which here is a trial of Zuma. The judge said this, the lawyer said this, the evidence was led.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

I think they're there. I think they're there as far as I can recall. I think that there was a Natal trial.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Um now, you see, the book, some of the books say it was trialed at the Palace of Justice, not Natal. I'd have to make it but that's the thing, you know. Um I I was maybe we we will together try and do this on the side, find some of these trials uh and specifically the controversy around this specific one. Uh so '75, there is an open corridor in Swaziland.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

It opens up and it closes in March 1976 because there's a group which is recruited in Natal, they escape from custody. Uh, Mark Givisser's Tabo Mbeki biography tells this quite well. A group which they find out that they're going for military training. It's not quite what they're expecting. They report to the Swazi police, and Mbeki and Zuma are arrested and they're um deported from South Africa. So that's a setback. But within a couple of days, the South African Defense Force is forced to retreat from Angola as a result of 36,000 Cubans who managed to defeat a South African invasion. So the region is turning. What has turned? Well, the fact that the Cubans are in Angola is a testament to the fact that in April 1974, you've got the coup in Lisbon, where the Portuguese army have basically said, we don't think we can win these war in Africa. We've had it. And that creates a basis for Mozambique to achieve independence. So Albert Lomo, he's sent out in 1973 to contact the ANC abroad. He comes back to Natal after April 1974 saying, I've made contact and we can now resume this activity. So, number one, the re the the the re the beginning of the reconstitution of the ANC underground, that's the first thing that changes. I mentioned three things have to change. One of them is the rebuilding of those structures. The second is the Portuguese coup, which enables the ANC to break out of this buffer. I spoke about the Iron Curtain, Mozambique, Rhodesia, uh, Namibia. Now that curtain has been broken. ANC members, because when Fulima gets a share of power from September 1974, it says to the ANC, we'll allow you to transit through this territory. Our only condition is don't cross directly into South Africa from Mozambique because that will lead us to be victims of retaliation. Go fire us to Swaziland, and then in Swaziland you branch out and you're just five hours away from Johannesburg and Durban. That's what enabled Tabo Mbeki to come to Swaziland. In March 1975, he's able to contact the Zuma Canile group in Natal, the main machinery in Alexandria, they've got these contacts. Sechwale is able to use that channel, and he's in Tanzania, and then he goes to um East Germany, I think, where he receives military training. So that that network. So even though the Swazi structure is rolled up in March 1976, you've still got caders like um Slilo Ramusi, Naledi Tsiki, Mosima Sehuale, they're receiving training in East Germany. And just after, the third thing that needs to change, because whilst you've got these small underground structures, it's very precarious, they're operating under very difficult conditions. But in June 1976, Sweat uprising. And from that point, the Sweat uprising is not a one-day affair. When you look at the Commission of Inquiry, it's from June 76 to February 1977. What's important about June 76, it is marks the beginning of sustained urban insurrection, which is going to sweep the country. What you've got, in other words, is the revival of mass resistance, which had not ex-isted since the 1950s. So not only is it reviving, though, it's reviving not as nonviolent protests with people getting arrested without fighting the regime. This is now insurrection. And that gives the ANC a potential base within South Africa. So the situation is completely turned around within this period. And within a very short space of time, an ANC, which was looking as though it was at a loose end, not able to affect the armed struggle with an aging army as a consequence of the repression that accompanies the Swedish uprising. You get a new generation of recruits who it will now be 3,000 and 4,000. A lot of the same problems because 4,000 Caters are not going to be able to defeat half a million South African Defense Force troops. So whilst it's better than it was, still many of the same problems. How are you going to activate them as is okay? They're activated within South African insurrection, but how are you going to organize them under the ANC and build disciplined guerrilla structures? So still a lot of problems, but a very different strategic situation has been created. And now the South African government is on the retreat. And as we know, with the benefit of hindsight, it's a retreat that they're not going to be able to stop. So that's the importance of what happened from around 1973, the rebuilding of the internal underground, 1974, the collapse of the buffer, 1976, from small underground units to mass internal insurrection. Next stage of the struggle, how is the ANC going to respond to this? How does it respond to this new situation?

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Please proceed. I I was wondering as well, around the 70s, another important thing are the Durban strikes and the seeming uh uh evolution of uh before the students. I mean, so where too, specifically, because the impact of university demonstrations and resistance is not felt in communities per se until high schools and primary schools. They've got a huge impact in the sort of what you call insurrection. But something else is happening, the trade union movement. From 1976, 73 Debian strikes, you've got uh your initial organizations, uh NUMSA, the CIW, uh, and ultimately they culminate in the commission that gets formed and legalizes trade union organization in the late 70s, is it Vieham Commission? So in the A. How did that as well, like the trade union movement, have impact in the armed struggle?

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Many of the people who are involved in the underground are unionists, for example, um Canile and other members who are operating around um uh uh Jacob Zuma in Natal, they are trade unionists. Um also many of the activists in Alexandra, they are linked to the trade union movement as well. So when the ANC speaks about the four pillars of arms of the liberation struggle, um, it's uh mass political struggle, it's underground struggle, it's armed struggle, and the fourth pillar is international diplomacy and solidarity. So there's fluidity between those three internal structures where many trade unionists are getting involved in the underground struggle and some are sending recruits out. And so there's that fluidity, which is also part of this revival of internal political resistance in the country, um, because a lot of the trade union militancy begins to assume a political form, especially in the late 1970s. So the trade revival of the trade unions along with the Sweat Uprising, it's part of aspects of this revival of underground activity. With regards to how the ANC responds, well in 77 Medisa becomes um the commander and Slovo the political commutar, which is deputy commander of a new MK structure which is called Central Operational Headquarters. Medisa gets responsibility for what the ANC calls its um Western Front, which is infiltration via Zambia and Botswana. A problem they have is that whilst Rhodesia is down, it's not yet out, and that makes it difficult to operate there. Whereas Slova gets responsibility for um Mozambique, Swaziland, and that corridor. Those Eastern Front and Western Front commands are given responsibility of adjacent zones of South Africa in which to start armed struggle. And therefore, on the Eastern Front we get the Transvaal and Natal Machineries. There's a Transvaal urban machinery and Transvaal Rural, and also Natal urban and Natal Rural. A problem that the ANC faces in this new phase of struggle is illustrated with one of the most famous MKKaders, and his name is Solomon Mashlangu. He is a member of the Transvaal Urban, which is uh commanded by Slilo Ramusi. They are infiltrated in 1977 to conduct operations around the first anniversary of the Sweater Uprising. What happens is at a Sweta taxi rank, uh somebody asks to just see their bag, it's an off it's a plainclothes policeman, and then they split, and then that leads to a whole incident at the Gosh Street warehouse in Johannesburg, where um it's not McLangu, but it's his um colleague, just a hair trigger incident. He goes into a warehouse and there's these four white men having coffee and there's a sort of hair trigger incident, and he opens fire and he kills two of them. He's eventually unable to stand trial because he's beaten to a pulp by these men when they overpower him, and McLangu is arrested in a warehouse, you know, just a few back. What I'm telling you is it's just a nonsense, innocuous incident. But if you're infiltrating into a situation where you have not got people to provide you logistical support, housing, and transport, you've got a problem. The ANC's response to it was to send people to areas which they knew. In other words, you've got contacts there, but then you got problems, which is when you arrive there, you've been missing for a year or so, and you suddenly return, people say, Okay, I didn't know. Hey, hey, welcome back. People know you, and the South African police, what they do is they develop, and Jacob Lomini has written a book about it, it's called The Terrorist Album. Literally, terror suspects. If somebody within this age profile, military age, has gone missing without a trace, you put them in this album, you send the album to all police stations, and you've got the police and say, tell us if this person has come home. You get people, so you either go to an area you know, in which case you're suspect, or you go to an area you don't know, which you're suspect, who's this guy? That's a problem. You need to have the supporting political structures. I'm sorry if I'm taking too long, but what the problem that develops is MK, whilst the conditions for escalating the armed struggle are improved in the late 70s, it starts suffering high casualties because it hasn't got the supporting political structures. So in 1977, the armed struggle is at a higher level than in 1976, but in 1978, by October, it's actually lower than in 1977 because they're suffering such high casualties. And this is what leads the ANC to send a delegation to Vietnam. Vietnam's revolution is completed in 1975 with victory when they reunify the country. And Oliver Tumbeau leads a delegation and they go there to learn the lessons.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

And the delegation, who is in the delegation?

SPEAKER_03 43:13

Oliver Tumbeau is the leader. Joe Slow is a part of it. If you put me under pressure, I can't recall now who the other members are, but it's a small delegation which go there and they receive briefings. And these are the guys that wrote the Green Book. I'll get to the Green Book in a second, and I'll you need to find you need to speed me up.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

You need to speed me up. You're right on you're right on pace, don't worry.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

And what they get is a briefing. Some people say it's um General Giap. If General Giapp did brief them, it's not in the ANC archives. If you go to the ANC archives at Fort Hair, you literally have Oliver Tambo's notes. It's an incredible record. And he basically lists what they've said. Now, when I speak about the strategy and taxes paper of 1969, people can read and they can debate and they can contradict me. When they speak about political It's called mobilization having to be greater in the future. In my reading, it's very speculative. It's not a clear idea of how it's done. What the importance of the Vietnam trip is, is they get very detailed briefings about how the Vietnamese revolutionaries did it. And what the Vietnamese tell them is that how we started armed struggle in specific areas is we sent armed propaganda units. What they would do is they would conduct operations, assassinate collaborators to raise confidence of the masses in our military capacity. Because if you're going to support guerrillas, you're taking a risk. And if people are going to brave themselves to take that risk, they need to have confidence that these people are serious militarily. So he had these, they would conduct military operations, they would disseminate propaganda, and therefore you would prepare the people to be able to receive larger military units. But it started with armed propaganda. And what is very rich about these records, and you can see it in Tembo's magnificent handwriting, it's very legible and you can follow it. Very detailed outline of what the Vietnamese told them. The reason why I'm emphasizing this, and I think it is worth pausing here, if people will tell you about this Vietnamese trip, and there's all sorts of legends about what the Vietnamese told them. We don't need to rely on legends because we've got the actual briefings in detail. And this leads to a conference being held in Luanda in late 78. So the trip is in October, December, January, there's this meeting where they receive the delegation's report and they decide to establish a political military strategy commission to consolidate the findings of the delegation. And it's in March 1979 that that political military strategy commission will deliver its report, which is known as the Green Book, after the color of its bound cover. And that basically contains a recommendation that what MK should focus on, if it's going to build a sustainable armed struggle, is armed propaganda in which operations are not aimed at directly targeting the enemy, not military combat, but armed propaganda to prepare the masses to be able to support guerrilla use.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

So what does armed propaganda then unfold as it it would seem to me is the stage of the 80s? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

So what does it constitute this armed propaganda? In terms of specificity, uh there's the establishment of the Solomon Mishlangu Special Operations Unit. It's after Solomon Mishlangu who is executed by the state in April 1979. And it's around August 1979 that Joe Slovo is given command of this unit, special operations unit, which has a specific mandate to undertake armed propaganda. The first operation of the Solomon Mushlung Special Operations Unit, it's June the first, nineteen eighty, when they target Sassel complexes in Secunda and Sasselberg, two areas. One of them fails because the drums which they target are non-inflammable, but then the other one, it causes the largest inferno in South African history. And in terms of propaganda impact, you've got the pictures of the flames being broadcast, sorry, being reported in London, the Daily, the Times, the Telegraph. So it's making global headlines, spectacular uh operation. And that starts to create this impression that the ANC is on a roll and it's moving forward and it's advancing. Another important um operation is the anti-republic campaign because what the ANC, the government tried to do was celebrate 20 years of the republic, and it was going to be in um 1981, obviously. And what the ANC does is let's hijack this and let's make it a counter-festival, counter-celebration. And you've got MK units, they enter the country, they distribute pamphlets, they organize military operations. The ANC views as being one of their most successful operations, and ANC looks as though it's on a roll in August 1981. Um you've got on the 13th, remember I spoke about the Battle of Inyatua, which started the Wanki campaign in 1967. On the 13th of August, it's time to coincide with that. What the ANC calls Wanki Day, um, MK unit led by Bani Molokwane, member of the Special Operations Unit. They target the Voterkahuchter military headquarters of the South African um defense force with um grenade launchers. They try and attack it in that way. Um they cause some damage there. So ANC is creating spectacle with regards to its military operations, it's generating headlines, it's generating buzz. It looks as though this is an army which is developing in an increasing capacity. But then there's obviously the response and the retaliation of the ANC. Sorry, of the South African government. Government regime, yes. Two days after the Sassel raid, a group called led by Dirk Kutzia, uh, he's a unit which is um headquartered at Flak Plus Farm. They launch an attack in South Africa, in Swaziland, sorry, where they kill basically two civilians in targeting a couple of houses. And then also in January um 1981, there's the Matola raid where a South African Special Forces unit targets special operations units headquarters. Uh Monsum Kabudi, who's um Slovos deputy, he's killed in an attack on the special operations headquarters. They also target SACTU, the South African Congress of Trade Unions, and MK Natal um machinery headquarters. They killed 12 people. So, what I'm speaking about is you've got this, you've got this tit for the thing so yeah. So after the Matola raid, which is the South African attack on Matola headquarters, you've got the South African ANC coming straight back at them with the Fort Jacter attack in um August 1981. But the ANC's being the ANC's rising in status because whilst it is a tit for tat, whilst they're taking casualties, they're also showing signs that they're able to engage in this sort of back and forth. Um, part of the tit for tat, um, Eugene DeCoke, who will become one of the most effective counterinsurgent fighters, um, he leads uh can we edit that out? Eugene De Koch's attack on Maseru that I'm speaking I'm focusing on is in December 1985, not in um December 1982. But there's a Maseru raid in 1982, which leads to 40 refugees being killed, and not just refugees but locals as well. And Chris is there. No. Okay. Um Chris Harney, the ANC had made it clear, and the ANC is actually furious about this, they had made it clear that Hani is not there. They'd made it clear that he's leaving the country. He's left Lesotho. And what you had after the Maseru raid is the South African Defense Force saying all of these things, we're sure that we got, you know, we killed Chris Hani, we've got the fingerprints to prove it. Um and then Chris, you know, Chris Harney was able to produce himself a few days later and say you actually didn't get me. So what the ANC thinks that it was actually a murder mission to try and kill his kill his family, but his family fortunately survived. Days after Maseru, you've got um Kuburg nuclear facility, which is attacked from the inside because ANC Special Operations Unit has recruited Rodney Wilkinson, who's a white member who's there. Um, four reactors are uh are targeted. Um, or there are four explosions in the reactor um days after. Another important one is the church streets. So whilst MK doesn't have the capacity to respond within days by attacking Kuburg, that was a plan which they'd um organized long before the Maseru raid. The response to Maseru massacre is the Church Street bombing, which is in May 1983, where two MK caters, they try and target the defense, the Air Force headquarters, and um kills eight uh 18 people are killed in the in that attack. I don't want to get too bogged down in detail. What I'm emphasizing to you is that in the minds of South Africans, the ANC is 18. But we're able to we're able to go toe-to-toe um with them. But they're not able to build these underground structures and in 1901.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Wounded in people in the perfect gorilla sense. Yeah sense. So feel free to edit out some of my, you know, I do want to come to the famous speech then. I mean, we are in '83. Uh, and I'm sure we can from rendering the country ungovernable, which leads. I I I often get confused. Is it before or after the Val uprising?

SPEAKER_03 53:30

No, it's in January 1984. 84. And what the ANC's calculus is, is that if we've got this happening, it will create spaces for us to be able to step in there, move in military cadres and start organizing the masses. Um but the ANC realizes that has a problem. In 1983, the Politico Military Commission replaces the Politico Military Council replaces the Revolutionary Council and it develivers a report that November. It basically says that whilst mass resistance to the regime has stepped up, our objective of building ANC structures around those mass centers of resistance, it hasn't made headway. And if we don't do that, we're going to be in trouble because the South African government has articulated its strategy of forcing us out of the region. The South African government has already recorded its first major success in February 1982. It gets a secret non-aggression agreement with the Swaziland government to jointly combat terrorism and subversion. This had followed a long campaign of South African diplomatic and military pressure, putting the squeeze on the Swazi government, and the Swazi government capitulates. After the uh Maseru massacre, Mozambique's government starts entering into talks with the South African government. After Church Street bombing, South African Air Force retaliates a couple of days later by targeting Matola airstrikes. After that, the Mozambican government moves MKKaders to Nampula province in the north. Basically, it's, you know, we we were we we because Mozambique is also facing the Renamo insurgency and the country is in is in a state. Um and whilst Tumbo introduces the January 84 render the country ungovernable speech, in March 1984, the negotiations between the Mozambican government and the ANC will reach finality with the Nkamati Accord. Um, and that's a non-aggression pact between um Frelimo and the ANC. And that's a huge setback. That's a huge setback, yeah. But this is all before September 1984. This is all before before the Waal uprising. But what you've got there is a solidification of what the Politico Military Council had said, because that is literally now a sustained township insurrection, but the ANC is not able to capitalize because it's been forced onto the retreat by the Nkamati Accord.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

I want to do two things in the interest of time, or ask two things. Um we know what follows the vulgarizing is two states of emergency that are sustained uh up until the unbanning of the ANC eighty five to nineteen ninety which is a huge achievement because the state of emergency basically gets defeated. But in that intervening period, you've got the battle of Kutokonaval. Yeah. Can you just take us through that and its impact? You've got mass sustained mass struggle, uh stay aways, yeah, demonstrations and all of that in these five coming years. Uh proper propaganda, you've got uh UDF, Kosadu, you've got the mining strikes, there is sustained mass action internally. What impact did the Battle of Krute Conoval have on the South African struggle? And was there any form of involvement of Umkondu I Sizwe?

SPEAKER_03 57:42

There is involvement of Umkontu Sizwe in the following sense, which is that as a result of the Angolan government being engaged in the southeast of the country, MK is involved in what it calls its northern campaign, and that involves it taking over responsibility for defending its camps in Angola. Now the fighting in the southeast of Angola involves an attempt by the Angolan government to defeat Jonas Savimbi's UNITA. South Africa intervenes and forces that attempt back at the Lombo River and they go back to Quito Que Naval. And the South Africans feel as though it's a great victory. You know, some people speak Magnus Milan in his memoirs, the greatest ever victory. But what Fidel Castro does is he decides to escalate. He says, when the MPLA government appeals to him for support, he says, okay, we'll send troops to defend Quito Queenval, but we're also going to send troops who are going to go from Lubango on the coast, and they're actually going to go straight down to the border. Because South Africa has been involved in 1966 in what it calls a border war against Zwapo, which is that we're going to protect the border, prevent Swapo infiltration. And what we're going to do, and how we're going to do that, is we're going to create this buffer zone, a no-go zone in southern Angola. And it's going to be a free fire zone. And South Africa has actually occupied Angola since 1981 with what's called Operation Protea. And after they'd invasion, invaded, they refused to retreat. What Fidel Castro does is he basically says, not only are we going to defend Crito Conoval, but while we're going to challenge the South Africans and we're going to enter this so-called no-go zone, we're going to reclaim it for the Angolan government, and we're going to do it by sending in overwhelming military forces, and we're going to reclaim it for the Angolan government. And what they do is they move into Southern Angola and they force the South Africans out into Namibia. The significance of that is that the whole strategy of the border war has essentially been defeated because that buffer in Southern Angola has been has disappeared. To cut a long story short, and the long story is that from the early 1970s, the South Africans had accepted that they're not going to be in control of Namibia forever. They tried first to a turnhala plan. And what that was was we're going to give Namibia independence under some Bantistan structure. The international community said no way. So they formed this contact group, the five Western powers in the late 1970s, and they had Resolution 435, which was about UN supervised elections. But then the Reagan administration, the American ones, introduced this linkage, which is that if South Africa leaves Namibia, the Cubans have to leave Angola. So the whole thing revolved around what the order of retreat would be. Because if the Cubans leave Angola and the South Africans are still in Namibia, the South Africans are going to be able to intimidate the MPLA government. Vice versa. If the South Africans leave Namibia and the Cubans are still in Angola, Swapo is going to be in a massively advantageous position to infiltrate Southwest Africa and dominate that country. So what it's called in Chester Crocker's memoirs, he's the leading American diplomat, is it going to be Namibia first or Angola first? And what the importance of the Battle of Cuito Cornoval is, is that South Africa, after having insisted it's going to be Angola first, get the Cubans out, then we implement Resolution 435, which would enable South Africa to dominate the region. It actually becomes a Namibia first process. I'm sorry if I'm losing everybody. Hopefully they've got the rewind button and they can follow me. It becomes resolution 435 has got to be completed. And then the Cubans will slowly leave Angola in stages which will end in 1991. That enables Swapo to be in a much stronger situation. And that it helps SWAPO to win Namibian independence elections, which are held in November 1989. The importance of the Battle of Quito Conval is that it facilitates that diplomatic victory which forces South Africa to accept a Namibia-first process, which is that Namibia will become independent first, and only after Namibia is independent will we see the Cubans slowly withdraw in stages. It enables a slight domination.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

And what tactical advantage, if any, do you lead towards the South African struggle? What does that do for the Umkondu Cs or ANC effort?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

The South African government launched Operation Agree to try and subvert the Namibian elections, and it was based on the calculation that if Swapo wins these elections, it's going to create huge demoralization amongst the white population because this is not the Portuguese leaving Angola or the Rhodesians accepting majority rule. This will be us withdrawing from a territory which we promised would never be surrendered to one of these liberation movements. What they said in those internal documents is that it is going to create a psychological effect that nationalist movements cannot be defeated by us, and that it's only a matter of time before the same happens in South Africa and before the ANC will therefore take over South Africa. Namibia's strategic importance is purely in the South African context. What sort of precedent will it set? So they really go all in. People may have heard vaguely about organizations such as the Civil Corporation Bureau, the assassination of Anton Lubovsky, all of these incidents related, it's all part of this South African operation in Namibia. But it fails. And uh Swapo wins the elections. But it does not win with a two-thirds majority, which will enable it to draft the Namibian constitution unilaterally. That's one thing. The elections from the 7th to the 11th of November 1989 overlap with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. And that leads a reformist group within the South African government, led by F. W. De Klerk, who takes over from PW Boote in um August 1989, to think that might be the that might be good enough. That might be the best we can get, and that might actually be good enough. If the Soviet Union is no longer around to support the ANC, and we enter into negotiations with them, that will ease the international pressure on us. It will restore our good reputation in the West, and we can actually now put the squeeze on the ANC. And maybe, maybe we can force them into a negotiated solution in which they will not be able to totally dominate.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

What are you doing in those years?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:44

Let's try and put some uh things together. As part of the agreement that leads to Namibian independence, there's a non aggression pact between South Africa and Angola, and part of that involves closing down MK's camps, and what happens as a result of that is that. That MK is flown by the Soviets to Tanzania and Ethiopia. What that means is that Mkontu is with bases are farther away from South Africa than they've ever been. And also now they have to reconnoitre new logistics lines. Basically, towards the end of 1989, people are saying, has MK suspended the armed struggle to facilitate negotiations? And Chris Harney tells journalists in January 1990 in Lusaka, look, no, no, we haven't. It's just that we've got major logistics problems. So this South African government, in a sense, has managed to contain South Afri MK's insurgency by forcing it back further than it than it had been before. That influences FW Clerk's February 1990 speech to unban the ANC. But what that does is that if the ANC is now legalized within the country, ANC members can return from exile. And there's nothing that says MK members can't be part of that process. So now you've got ANC members returning to the country, but you've also now got the ANC being unbanned inside the country. So the problem the ANC has always had is how do we build structures amongst the masses? And they can now do that openly. And what you've got as a result of that is that MK is now able to contest domination of the townships, which are going to be critical in democratic elections. MK members are able to return from abroad. They're able to establish themselves openly in the townships, build clandestine structures. Chris Harney, um, in May 1990, he meets underground structures within the country and he says, keep going, because we still don't know whether we can trust F. W. DeKlerc. And what is a consequence of that? Some people, like Tula Simpson, he wrote his thesis on People's War of Incontra Caesar, and it ends in 1990. Did you just refer to yourself? I just referred to myself, and people will sometimes speak about the armed struggle as having ended in 1990, it did not end in 1990. As Incarta will tell you that after 1990, the bloodiest phase of the armed struggle began. And whilst there is cachet for a narrative which said it's all the third force, it's all the states and Encarta against hapless civilians, Incarta will be able to show you the bodies of hundreds of Incarta counselors who are gunned down, AK-47s, which is a sign that the capacity of MK to escalate its kinetic violence has been transformed. The armed struggle enters a new phase after February 1990, and it's a much more violent phase because the ANC has succeeded in reaching a stage where the whole security force apparatus for containing the armed struggle has now been dismantled. And the ANC is now able to contest control of the townships under much more favorable conditions than it has in the past. And we've got this leading to an escalation of violence on a scale that's not been anticipated previously. And the significant and decisive aspect moment of the negotiations happens in the second half of 1992, because in the first half, the ANC pulled out after the Boipotong massacre. In 1989, F. W. De Klerk had promised the country that within his five-year term he's going to negotiate an inclusive solution. He's going to engage in negotiations which will provide justice for everybody. If you're reaching the end of 1992 and you've barely begun negotiations over a new constitution, this process is at the risk of failure. It's at that point where the government decides to readjust its strategy and it prioritizes reaching a negotiated settlement with the ANC, with the idea that with the government with its authority within the white population and the ANC with its authority amongst the black majority population, if they're on the same page, they can drive this process through. They reach an agreement in February 1993 on power sharing, where they're basically on the same page when negotiations resume in April 1993. With the ANC and the government on the same page, people who are opposed to the idea of majority rule start becoming more desperate. What forms does the desperation take? You've got people like Yanus Valush. He tries to, well, he assassinates Chris Harney trying to start a race war with the idea that this is the only thing that can collapse this process. Doesn't work. The negotiations continue. The AWB, it occupies the Kempton Park World Trade Center, where the ANC and the National Party are negotiating alongside others. It occupies it. It crashes tanks through the entrance, but it fails. Days after the ANC and National Party reach agreement on merging their forces together. Basically, you've got a negotiations juggernaut. By the end of 1993, the negotiations will be complete. The negotiated settlement is reached late in 1993. All that remains in 1994 is conducting successful negotiations. Elections. Successful elections, that's right, in April 1994. The successful conclusion of the negotiations enables MK to organize a final parade in December 1993. It's going to be the last one as a liberation army. What will happen after that is that MK members are going to become part of training for what will become the South African National Defense Force. South Africa enters the election campaign. And what you've got in the early months of 1994 is the collapse of the coalition of organizations which had been formed to try and oppose those negotiations from happening successfully.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

Maybe as a concluding, then I mean this is elaborate. I imagine that we still have a lot of details left out, but uh our audiences have gotten a picture you can read further. Two claims as an expert on this subject. This bloody war. And this violence claimed more lives of black people proportionately much higher than those of the enemy. That is in this elaborate nineteen sixty one to nineteen ninety-three. What is that? Umkondu Sizu killed more black people than it did white people. What's your reaction to that? So of course in the country there are more black people, but the idea there, which I think you get, you can't run away by saying, well, proportionally there are more black people in the country than this is an army that is liberating black people. What do you make? Firstly, is it something you would say is true? And secondly, what do you make of it?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:37

I would run to the question in the following way, which is that from the time of Theophilus Shepston onwards, the system of white minority domination in this country has always rested on some form of what was then called indirect rule, which is governing the African majority through black proxies. And when we speak about the VAL uprising of September 1984, who were the main targets? They were black counselors. It's this idea of eliminating this buffer without which the whole system cannot endure. So if you're targeting apartheid structures because of the way the system works, you are going to be targeting black, for want of a better word, so-called collaborators. This does not mean that I'm getting into some slippery-slide argument of saying that Incarta was merely or purely or superficially a collaborationist organization. What I would be saying is getting into the ANC's mindset is that looking at the situation of the early 1990s, they would say you cannot separate Incarta from the power structure in the following way. What I'm saying is this. The ANC by the early 90s has come to the conclusion that the white government has realized that exclusive white minority rule is simply a no-go. It's not going to be sustainable. They have to find a new solution. What they're trying to do, according to the ANC, is co-opt black organizations. And according to the ANC, what they have found in INCATA is a plausible black organization, which is going to be pliable to a whole set of policy prescriptions which are going to stop short of pure and absolute liberation. The whole concept that the ANC advanced of a third force is literally that secret elements within the South African white state apparatus are plying NCATA members and creating a situation where they can engage in violence against ANC supporters to pr prevent true emancipation. The ANC's calculus is what you can't say that, you know, you can't define it that there's a sort of black organization and the ANC is just engaging in what the state would call black-on-black nihilistic violence and they've lost sight of the regime. They would say that there is now a plan for a modified system of white domination. It manifests itself through the third force. And if we're going to break this system, and if we're going to break that structure, we need to win this war for the control of the townships, and that's why we need to target there.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:28

I know that a conversation happened where Madiba picks up that the head of the military, I always forget his name. They've now gotten a plot to disrupt the elections. Constant volume, maybe. Madiba picks up that and uh convenes this uh chap and says, Look, I'm aware. But can you confirm that you've got this plot is working with uh Savimbi? You've got a farm there, uh, and it includes kidnaps of key leaders, which included Madiba, Ditlerk, uh those chaps that were negotiating, that they would be taken then be forced to sign an agreement to continue. Apartheid in some form. This general agre says, no, indeed, this is true. Madiba says, you know, the the reality is that uh you know, in such a situation, you might actually defeat us. I don't know if you're aware of this. Uh Diva says, you you'll defeat us. You know the country better, you've been running it for many, many years. As the generals, you've got you know, more knowledge, more equipment. Uh, but this will only succeed in the short run. Yeah. And I mean, the chairb is like excited by the fact that Mandela appreciates that Umkondo Caesar stood no chance against the South African National Defense Force, maybe. And uh Madiba, you know, after having spoken to Dlerk, spoken to Border, who was still alive, trying to get this general and his people back to the table. Military intelligence or defense intelligence, I can't recall what it was called. They literally come to the table only about what, a week before the elections to sign an agreement facilitated by Tabombeki. This is the final act, as it were, of a military neutralization that sees an un a largely peaceful military uninterrupted 27 April election in which the ANC takes a majority and many people argue is Majibba magic. But uh my my final invite or my invitation is for you to make this final reflection uh about that final act of the leader, the founder of Mkondu Essize, finally being on a table with his greatest enemy, and seems to defeat him with a stroke of a pen.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:14

I'm not 100% aware of that story. I couldn't tell you whether it was the former SADF chief Constant Vullian, who's involved in the Africana Volksfront, or George Maring, who would have been the final SADF chief. I do know that one of the apocryphal stories is that the SADF general said, yeah, we could seize key points in the country, nobody could stop us, but then what would we do? How would we hold the country when people are dead sets against the idea of um white minority rule? And then they realized we could seize the country, but we couldn't hold it for very long, which is similar to what you're saying. Yeah. And then there was this great fear about the idea of a white right-wing backlash and the idea that they would be able to call on members, not just serving members of the Defense Force, but also um you know civilians who are affiliated to reserves of the South African Defense Force. That was tested in the Battle of Baputatswana, which happened in March 1994 after Lucas Mangope announced that Baputotswana wouldn't participate in the elections, and he called on the Africana Folks Front, and that was the time for the white right wing to put up or shut up as far as their military capacity was concerned. And the Baputa Defense Force basically drove them out. They massacred them. Well, you know, they drove them out, and then they massacred a group of three which was involved at the end. And I think that showed that the white right wing didn't have as much white support as they thought, that the white majority, white minority, who a majority of whom had backed F.W. de Klerk's negotiating strategy in March 1992 when he put a referendum to them. Do you support the process that I began in February 1990? And two-thirds basically said yes. FW de Kirk had won a lot of support as far as the white bureaucracy and state uprights was concerned as a result of securing agreements from the ANC of what the ANC would call historic compromises. When I speak about the power sharing agreement, which was concluded in February 1993, part of that was that there would be no mass retrenchments, that there would be no Nuremberg-style tribunals. So I think there was enough that had been negotiated in the settlement to make people within the state operates think that it's better to go with this process than to try and engage in this adventure of trying to seize military power when we don't know what we would do next.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

South Africa would, in the following few years, uh encounter a few uh attempts. Uh Buremach is one of them. Uh and um we have a few minutes, so there are some people who are fantasizing now about if or can the union hold together? The South African can Madiba's deal, Madiva's new nation, uh the ANC's new nation, the ANC's constitution. Can it hold the country together? Can the country hold together? Many are saying maybe we are facing another big test. And within that big test are ambitious uh military motivated uh people who are fantasizing about a military takeover, an insurrection, a revolution. Maybe to constitute, I don't know what, maybe to remove BEEE laws or transformation laws or employment equity laws, uh, make sure that there's no land expropriation. I don't know what else they want, which they don't have on the one end. They will in the same way find uh indirect rule, external uh colonial potentates, collaborators, who are willing, you know, to to do as it were what the Fed force phenomena did at the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:37

Do you think we might face that on the one hand?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

And secondly, is it related maybe to the fact that over about 30% of the section of the white population didn't agree with it lak? But there was a section of the white armed, trained military that may have just gone underground because it could see that we don't have this day after, which would have said one day uh we will reconstitute and we might still win South Africa that can be dismembered. Do you think this possibility in 2026 moving forward exists to undo Madiba's new nation?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:31

I don't think there's a high likelihood of territorial partition. And if people are watching this interview in a few years' time and partition has happened, the reasons why I would have said it was unlikely is the following. If you look at post-colonial Africa, for all the instability that has existed, borders have been fairly stable as far as that is concerned. Whilst there have been secessionist movements, it's rarely resulted in a shift in those borders. And one of the aspects that did for apartheid is that they were all about creating territorially separate states. But what you've got is an urbanizing economy where people are moving to those areas and it scrambles the demographic pattern. In other words, if there's going to be a breakaway, what would this breakaway region be that would be ethnically homogenous and able to exercise self-determination? If we look at the Volkstadt idea, yes, it is now centered on Irania, but you've got to remember that Irania was supposed to be a nucleus of a Volkstadt, which would potentially, hopefully, have its capital, according to its advocates, in Pretoria. What happened in the first municipal elections after uh the 94 is that even the white population realized that that's really a non starter. The center demographically and increasingly so are going to be urban areas, which are going to be ethnic melting pots. And in terms of defeating B and Laws, I think there is opposition to that, but I think the commitment there is to defeat it politically and electorally. It's another important aspect of the transformation that is achieved in 1994. There's a theory I would advance, which is resistance takes the form of opposition takes the form of least resistance. Part of the whole point of the struggle, if you're not happy with how the government is run, there is one option where you can choose the path of exile, underground resistance, have the risk of your life being taken, and stay in that for 30 years. But the whole point of democracy is if you're not happy, you can exercise your choice at the ballot box. You can see how popular you actually are. And I think our consumer, increasingly middle class society would much rather go to the test of the ballot box. And if you lose at the ballot box and you realize you're not popular, for example, the Cape Independence Party, you accept that the people have spoken, you're not very popular, you need to try and either refine your message and come again with a better message, what you don't do is resort to arms because that doesn't make sense, and you're not going to be able to get enough people to support you to do that. So those are the reasons. So if we're speaking in a few years, if you're watching in a few years' time and the South African state has broken up into its fragmented parts, and you've had white people who are willing to go to the bush and fight for some rural homeland and it's been successful. The reasons why in 2026 I thought that was not likely are for the reasons I've explained, I don't think that's a high likelihood. It's possible, but it's not likely. It's not possible. No. It's not likely.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

Thank you so much, Professor. It's been uh a great pleasure. Uh, I'm sure it will not take too long for us to reconvene. Uh the a serious uh uh points of uh debates that I think might be thrashed out. I hope we can get the trial of uh the big, big, big uh Mr. JZ. Uh I am interested. I've not found it. Um I've looked. And I do think there's something important there. Uh also because, you know, unlike the rest of the chaps in East Germany, he didn't get military training. He was not militarily trained in some East Germany, Russia, and any of those things. And yet there's this speculation which now sounds like the truth. Just like the fact that he was the head of the ANC intelligence, which is not true, because Joan Chandler was. But you've got some of speculation and all of myth around MK, other than that, you know. Uh, but if you do get a hold of the trial record, I'd be interested to hear it.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:09

I shall be I shall pass it on to you if I find it. But I must say thank you for this opportunity. It's been a tremendous honor to be invited here to speak, and thank you for taking my work seriously enough to have such a detailed conversation. I hope it will be helpful to the listeners. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:26

Nazu.