ANC History: Episode 8: uMkhonto weSizwe: Ronnie Kasrils

Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi sits with Ronnie Kasrils on the history of the ANC, on uMkhonto we Sizwe.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I um I want to thank you, Comrade Roni, um as a veteran of uh our people's struggle. I think it's um maybe in to start with the fact that the struggle's history, specifically the struggle as it took an armed form, uh is under attack in public discourse, um you would know that um there's a resurgent right-wing revisionism uh represented by some in the I think it's called um Social Research Foundation, I might have to recorrect. But two books came out by Antia Jeffrey, which um dedicated to rewriting the history of Umkondu is but also National Democratic Revolution. It's actually the same thing, uh but so as a point of introduction, so that I don't have to do it, just take us through the beginnings of your activism and how you ended up being a founder of Nkonduesiz and Nkonduesiz uh the armed military wing of the ANC.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

There's only one genuine MK who just pronounced that. So thanks very much for having me here. It's an honor. Um a little bit then about the background. I I come from a place called Jovel in Johannesburg, quite a rough place, um, Jewish mainly, but there was a mix of people, and therefore quite a bit of anti-Semitism you could find. I'm an old guy, I'm born in 1938. What I'm lucky about is that although my parents were not intellectual, political aware people, they were kind people. My mother, especially, and they were working class, white working class, with a background of Jews from the Tsarist Russian Empire, fleeing uh the pogroms or the poverty, and coming to a place where they heard there was gold paving the streets. So my father was actually born in Vilnus, Lithuania, very right-wing country today, and under the czar, very extreme. My mother was born here. Um and Jewish background, but not very religious, more secular, except that there was the religion. They didn't actually go to the synagogue uh very much. I did as a young boy, you have to do that. And um, what my mother actually said to me is, you know, Ronald, um, what we believe in from our religion. And she quoted from a Hebrew sage, respect all people and treat them as you wish them to treat you. And that stuck here. My father was a very quiet person. My mother was outgoing, he was rather reserved, but a person who would say to me, when I went with him on his job, he was representing a factory in Dornfantin, and they were called travelers, commercial travelers. They would drive actually, um, in his case, to a lot of the locations, so-called, and townships and white working-class areas, or or where you had um Greeks, drops, etc. And um he would say to me in the car that everyone needs to have a fair wage, whatever their colour. Actually said that to me, because we would go into the townships, Alex, nearby, Weinberg, these places, and we'd go into the Indian store, and he would take off his hat, Good day, Mr. Mohammed, good day, Mr. Caswells. Please have some tea and some moose before we discuss the order. Would the little boy like a drink, Coca-Cola, whatever? I'd go out onto the porch and watch the young kids from the township kicking a little tennis ball around, or even a rag ball. And I'd say to my father, why are they playing with a ball like that? He says, Ronald, these are very poor people. They can't afford it. Next time, if you want, why don't you bring your football and give it to them? So I had this aspect. Another aspect was that this was not very many years after the the Second World War and the deaf camps, and not only Jews died there, communist socialists, um, Romani people, the so-called gypsies, um, and Russian prisoners of war by the three million in all, etc. Slavic people and so on. So there was that awareness, and it was not that we knew about these other people, but that Jews had died. But I said to my mother, when I we saw the news reels, it was shocking in the cinemas, and I said to her, um, is this how our black people are being treated? Something along those lines. And she says, No, now, Ronald, it's bad here. She used to tell me, don't use these terrible words about it. They they were naive people, my parents, in those days, to just say natives instead of the bad words, you had to be a decent person. When I became advanced teenager, I taught them to say Africans, and they they then adopted that. But I I said something along the lines of the way the Jews had been treated in Europe, and she explained, and I said, and and here, this is bad how black people are being treated. She said to me, Ronald, it starts this way. When you mistreat people, when you use these bad words, you dehumanize them. When when people get attacked like they are by the police, it leads to what happened in Europe by the Nazis. So those were the lessons I grew up in. To cut the long story short, by the time I was finishing my trick, I was crossing the colourboard line. As white, you never had black friends. But I started going in Hillbrow and places to music and on the um weekends in some of the wealthier houses on the outskirts of Johannesburg, these mansions where you had liberal white English type people, and they had black and mixed-race bands playing. It was almost like going in the underground. You heard about a jazz session, there would be um various musicians, including a few of the whites, and you would be given a password, and you would drive there, and there'd be people at the at the gate, and you would just give the password, and you'd go around the back, and suddenly inside there was this wonderful non-racial scene and the music. So I got to know people that way. And I actually then thought, because I was deeply disturbed about South Africa, getting close to Sharpville, um, 20 or so when this all this is happening, 18 to 20. And I thought I can live in South Africa now, because I've been thinking this is a horrible country. I'm I'm benefiting from being white through black exploitation. And I thought I should leave. And now that I had this contact and it's breaking a simple law of apartheid, integrating, meeting black people, I thought, I can live here now. I'm free, I can choose. Sharpfield comes along. I was shocked. I was at work at a film studio, I had the job by Belfort Park near there, and I heard about this in the morning. Lunchtime we went out. I was a script writer, so there was a group of us, half a dozen. The others were kind of more liberal than the general whites who worked in the film studio. And we came out into the garden area. Um, the white working class guys who who did the technical stuff were all together looking very grim and so on and talking. And in the far corner were my friends from Alex, who I used to buy brandy for them on Fridays. They'd come to be a bus runny kind of thing. I'll give you some money. Can you go to the quarters for? It was on Louis Boot Avenue model store. So we need this stuff. I would do it for them. So I go straight to them and I say, hey, what's been happening? Aeroplanes are flying overhead, checking what's happening in Alex and whether the sharp falls uprising is taking place. And they were grim and they talked to me. They gave me some ANC leaflets that had been distributed. When I was walking back to the other side to go into where our offices were, because these guys were doing, you know, the fetching and carrying a usual kind of thing. These white guys said, Hey, Ronnie, what you're talking to those, and they you'd use the K-word kind of thing. The very guys who worked for them and carried the stuff, the cameras and the props, etc. And uh, you know, I just gave them a filthy look and they said, We'll tell you something, Brewer. In the end, you'll be in the trenches with us when we're fighting. And they used the K-word, etc. I just used swear words to them. Um, anyway, I felt at that point I've got to do something. I'm uh this issue that I thought I'm free and so I said I've got to do something. And I went to Durban because I had a cousin there who was a communist and had been in the trade union movement, who I only had known when I was about 10 or 12, going on holidays. And I met her, her husband was on the run in the underground, people's lawyer Rolly Arenstein. And she utilized me in the underground because the special prompts didn't know me. Ken, cutting the long story short, in no time I was offered a better job by Lever Brothers, who we made films for. And they offered me double what I was getting in in uh Joburg, but it wasn't the money. I wanted to go back to Durban because I knew a lot of the people there, and I became very involved at that particular time. So what happens then? I become, because there were so few whites, most were were banned. I become the Secretary of Congress of Democrats of Natal at the grand old age of something like 22. And within a year after Sharple, I'm recruited into MK. And I'll never forget it. You see, I'd become very active, and I'm a young guy, um and pretty athletic, and so on. So, and they came to know me and trust me. So MP Nica, who was Communist Party, also Indian Congress, and I did some work for him on New Age. He was the editor there. He took me for a work, a walk on the seafront, and he said to me, you know, we this was in July of 1961. He said, We're forming an armed wing. He didn't have to convince me. Um, and and you've been identified as to come on the command. We talked a bit of why arms struggle. I didn't even need to ask him. I could see what was going on, and that, you know, through some of the debates at the parties that I attended, his mixed-race parties in Durban as well. We were discussing that we've got to take up arms. So when MP now puts it to me, he wants to give me like a week to think about it. I said to him, Comrade, um, I accept. I don't need to think about it. He says, why not leave it, sleep on it till tomorrow? I said, I don't need to, because I can see, I've already now, in that year, I'd been at underground lectures, discussions, etc. I came to now understand what apartheid was, what capitalism was, what imperialism was, what methods of struggle, of strategy and tactics were about. And countries like Cuba, which was exciting us, why had they they had they they had turned to an armed struggle? Fidel Castro, for years before 1953, the Mankada Uprising, had been involved in civil aspects of organizing, he was a student, a lawyer. So I had understood um from Algeria, from Kenya, uh the Land Freedom Army of 1953's uprising, and I was reading a lot and discussing. So it was clear that because of Chartville and all the violence and oppression, the banning previous ten years before of the Communist Party, ANC and PAC in 1960, immediately after the Chartville massacre, that the avenues for change, which the ANC had regarded as being for non-violence, had ended, that there was an impossibility of any form of political organization and mobilization in the circumstances of the terror that was unleashed and the banning of any form of organization and resistance. On that basis, it was very clear theoretically, although for me it had been an emotional factor as well, the two go together, that the theory becomes important to grasp and understand that unless the people of this country, the oppressed people, were going to take up arms as a particular method of change in terms of the system, there was no other way, no other way. And that's why it was so readily for me to agree. And within the next few days, through MP, I was introduced to the first commander and deputy of what was going to become a five-person command for Natal. The commander was Kennick and Lovu, trade unionist and ANC, Billy Nyer, his deputy, um Communist Party Kinneck was as well, actually, uh and leading trade unionist, then myself and Eric and Charlie, who was a trade unionist at Pinetown. And unfortunately, within about a month, they recruited somebody called Bruno Mtolo, who is a member of um of the trade unions. Bruno found you, he came after you into the command. Yes, and I became his big friend because the two of us worked very closely together. So it was Bruno, we got the four of us there, and then they um between Koenig and Billy, they said they've they've run a very good guy, he was a trade unionist, who's very good electrician and with his hands, etc. And he was. He had that kind of aptitude as a worker, and I found him very pleasant and pleasant and agreeable and quite funny. So he became the fifth member, and that was like July, August, and we began our training and preparation and initial recruitment of five different units. Each of us was a commander of each unit, three or four people in the unit. Um, and we began receiving training basically from Jack Hodgson, uh, who was had been in the South African Armed Forces during the war, and Harold Strachen from Port Elizabeth, Jack was from Johannesburg, and they had this kind of ability and taught us about making bombs and how to approach targets and so on. Basic initial training, but with the politics to guard you. We it was never just a question of it's going to be armed struggle, the sabotage operations were the immediate ones. Um, and the question that we were serving a political cause and a political leadership. Although at that stage, um the MK, as you can see from its manifesto, is described as independent from existing political parties, but serving the liberation movement. It was just the formulation initially that they wanted to give cover to those elements, the sections of the Congress movement, basically Indian Congress, Congress of Democrats that I was still in, banned in 1962, by the way, and the the trade unions. So we were prepared for this. We were very serious, very dedicated. There was hardly any funds. Um we used our own earnings. As someone who was working for Lever Brothers, their film section, I probably had an income, which was 40 pounds, by the way, then, which was double what Koenick and Billy were getting. We used our own funds. We borrowed cars, we put in the petrol, we went on reconnaissance and so on, uh, and prepared for the day, 16th December, 1961, when MK was announced as a as initially the independent of the of any political organization, but it was basically as clearly for the movement Communist Party and ANC, headed by Joe Slovo from the party and Madiba Nelson Mandela from the ANC. But I stress highly political, um, with the understanding that there was no other way of change other than utilizing revolutionary armed force in support of the people, and in the belief that through the struggle we would help to build up the movement and revitalize organization from underground. But it had that objective. There was an aspect within the manifesto, which was about being prepared to negotiate when it's possible, because we didn't want to have a civil war in the country. I can tell you that we didn't pay too much attention to that because we didn't think that there would ever be a time when they would re we would reach a point where the enemy or elements of the white public were prepared, business or whatever, to find a way of preventing a civil war, which could only come when the masses, the Abantu, were powerful enough in terms of the struggle again and had the means to utilize force to reinforce the multifulfold uh aspects of the struggle. We looked at ways and methods of developing the armed struggle at that very early stage. And the key aspect to start with, and we discussed it with Madiba when he came back from his initial training in Ethiopia in 1962, July, sort of, you know, just six months or so after the emergence of MK. And we discussed with him what about guerrilla warfare? Because we were in a phase of using. Sabotage, in other words, attacking attacking um attacking railway lines, the pylons, the visible symbols of apartheid, such as apartheid officers, etc. So how many did you attack personally? How many did I carry out? Sabotage, yeah. Yeah. Something like seven actual operations in that period. Um, and I would say one of the most important things that we did as an operation, which was with the help of my girlfriend, who I'd recruited into the struggle, and who became my wife in exile, Eleanor uh Logan at that time. Um was very clever. And now I'm just giving you an example because of how women can help and have the understanding, because we had uh identified a dynamite site outside um outside uh Pinetown, that area. They were using it in the felt in the bush as a depot. They were blowing up a road, uh a rail, sorry, the roadway through the hills there, which became the motorway to Johannesburg, by the way. So at night it was it was surrounded by fencing and barbed wire, and inside was the depot uh of dynamite within um within a sort of fabricated uh building. And she and I went to with Bruno, he he had spotted it and reported it to us as the command. And and and Kennick and and Billy, they were busy working all the time. Um by then I'd been fired from Lever Brothers because I'd been arrested at work for supporting the Ponderland Uprising, by the way. So I had all this time, and Bruno was given leave by by his union, by uh Zaktu. So we were doing this work. We went with Eleanor and him, and as though he was like, you know, our our I don't know our our our our servant. And near this site, we laid out a picnic for the two of us, and we were watching this place and working out okay, there's gonna be a way, and I had the masculine idea that we would get um we'd get instruments to break through the barbed wire and get in. Bruno, we didn't know, had been an actual thief, and was very skillful breaking up. Um but she, at a moment when the guards of this place were a bit of way and loading some truck, she went to check the padlock of the main gate. And she just took down my memory the the make and the number, and then was quickly sitting back with me. So we go back to Durban and we're discussing this, and I report to Billy and Kenneth and I said, Man, work out how we're gonna go and break in. In the meantime, she says to me, Listen, I'm gonna find an easier way because I'll I'll I'll tell you I'm gonna find the key to that lock. I said, What are you talking about? Find the key to that lock. She said, Didn't you see? I was looking at the lock to see the make and the number. I said, so what? She said, can't do that. You see, her father was an engineer and also taught her all sorts of things, fishing with him. She's the only child of solitary girl, and he gave her all this kind of information that an engineer could give to an offspring. She went shopping to these hardware stores, and there were some big ones in Durban, and she would go looking for all the locks and find the padlocks, and she would be looking for the trademark, the label, and the number. My God. She meets me after work and we're sitting somewhere having a beer, five o'clock. She says, By the way, I've got a present for you. She produces and gave you the key to the dynamite. Are you joking? She said, Listen here, just try it, and I'll bet you you'll open it. We based our plan on that. And it was Billy, myself, Eric, and Charlie, and another comrade who drove us called Manny Isaacs. He didn't know what we were doing. Um, and he drove us to where this site was, part us off, part off. The three of us went in the dark to the place. We knew from Bruno that the Machingalan at the night watchman, who's left there by the Abelugu with his knobcare to guard the place. Can you imagine? You think after they after sundown and they've guard that he's just going to sit there all night. Bruno had discovered that by uh once it was dark, he went off to the Shimbi. He was away. Oh yeah. It's a this guy became the traitor, but he was clever, Bruno. So there we were, but guard was nowhere to be seen. By God, we go up to that gate. We still got the wire cutters in case in reserve. I go, I put the key in, it fits neatly. I get shocked. Jesus, I turn it, click, this huge padlock opens up. We get inside. Now that's where Bruno is that we could we should have realized it was a clue that he had been a robber. He goes to these uh the the the these big containers and he just puts in here just this uh jammy. You know what was shocking, it was dark, and there's dynamite inside. Oh, he does that. These were metal doors, the sparks were just shooting off. We we were so foolhardy, we didn't even think for a moment that dynamite is stable, but you get sparks nearby that just blow up, yeah, and we opened up about three of these safes um and took away a huge amount of stuff. We come to the manny's car, we put the stuff in the boot and the back, and it's piled up. We drive away, it's so full that Eric, uh Charlie, and myself, it was one of these vans, we lying on top of the boxes, there's no space for us, we drive away. Many Isaacs didn't know what we had taken. By the next day, there's posters in town, which in the afternoon, I think, you know, it wasn't in the early morning paper. Afternoon, he's driving from work, and there's big posters saying dynamite stolen near pint out. Something like a ton we took away. We were hiding it all over Durban and then distributing it to the rest of the country. Wow. And then we were in business. That was from sometime late in 1962, and then we really got going. Railway lines, pylons. Uh the guys in Johannesburg went and blew up the office of the Minister of Agriculture. It was a standalone building. They had the dynamite, the whole building was blown to pieces. In Durban, we hit the pylons. We had three units, one commanded by me with um with David and Darwonda and Justice and Panza. Uh, a friend, a guy who recruited Jacob Zuma, by the way. Later, I'll come to that. And then Billy was in charge of another unit. Koenig with him, I think, and Bruno and another unit. Um, we knew the whole layout of the pylon system. So we attacked it in three different places, which plunged Durban into total darkness and the whole coast like wow dark. Um after we carried that out, the same Eleanor was driving, uh, was the driver of the unit with Justice and Panza and David Underwood and myself. And we dropped them off at Kwamashu. We came to our house in Florida Road. It wasn't this uh this kind of place where people have a great time today. It was real the the the the the Florida Road, yeah, I got you. It was very working class and small kind of little house, little cottage we lived in, etc. So we waited. Now it's like the long street of weight. We had timing devices on these so that we could get home and seem to be innocent because the special bronch would raid us uh the many people after operations, so we had to be careful and be at home. While we're sitting playing chess, the lights go off in our little home. We delighted, but how big is this? Let's check outside. We look up and down Florida Road, it's in pitch black. How far is this? We run up to Mitchell Park right on the hill, and from there we could see the bluff, Durban Center. Everything is in absolute darkness. We did a little dance together, and then we ran back home within half an hour. Nice time of love and revolution. Absolutely. Yeah, love goes with revolution. What did Che Guevara say about that? Revolution is an act of love. And the special bronch arrive, bang, bang, bang on the door. And the guy they come in, oh, are you home? Where have you been? We say, No, we've been here all night playing chess, look at us. I say, what's going on? They say, Yeah, you'll see in the morning. Um, so that's how MK started. So there's all of this kind of homegrown training, but to emphasize it was because there was no other way in which we could make change. We knew that the process would lead to other forms of struggle, but that this was vital and would grow, that we needed to advance it from the sabotage phase, and that it's politics and it's not love of violence or to kill, etc. When we're in the camps training, what is said is we use the AK as a weapon for peace. Yes, we have to resort to revolutionary violence against the violence of the state, of the ruling class, but we are fighting for freedom and to create peace and security and progress for the people. So the politics is always there. The moment that there's no clarity in the politics, you descend into what Lenin said banditry. That's what happens. Another word for criminality, and then that comes in, you see.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Before we go on from here, this interesting name I'd like you to now pin it down for us, Brunum Doll. Uh, he is often evoked as the quintessential figure of Mbimbi, of um a person that turned against uh the struggle. And it turns out you knew him. So when under testimony he became state witness, uh what what did you make of that? Well, um you know let me just contextualize that he testified he was a key, he was actually a star witness against the re the Rivonia trialist.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, and the and the the the Natal trial. Yeah, so we underground by 1963 May, it becomes clear that the regime is notching up its proto-fascism, and it's going to now turn to arresting people without any proof under the 90-day anti-sabotage act or sabotage bill, which becomes an act, and then you know 90 days, 180 days, and then indefinite. Okay. So I remember talking to Billy Nayer and saying, hey, Billy, they're coming for us, and we should start going underground. Sorry. So just to also add that people like Billy, MP Nyker, and others had been in the struggle and arrested time and time again and had been underground and then above ground. Unlike some of our youngsters, like me and EB and others, we were actually looking forward to going underground and being full-time. We didn't even worry about where we were getting the money or so. I was raring to go. And um they said, no, the leadership weren't actually taking a decision, they were prevaricating for, I think, more this kind of subjectivism, I would say. And there were the big arrests, but people like Bruno, E.B. myself, quite a few others, were underground, so we weren't arrested. And I was with being the white guy, and by the way, I had saved money. So I actually had a few hundred bucks, which was quite a lot. I went and rented a house and things like that in a disguise. At first, we stayed in very rough conditions, provided by Eleanor, because her parents had a property outside Dobin at Cluef, which just had kind of Kayas outhouses, and they grew flowers, and she put us there until we could find a proper house. It was Bruno Ibrahim, Ismail, and myself. And um in this period of underground, I started getting a bit worried about Bruno because he started complaining, and you know, I it I I wasn't anti him, but he seemed to be he was talking about money and he was making some reference to leaders who live a better life. And he had been to Joe Berg and been to the Ravonia place. He said in court later that yeah, what changed him was Walter Sasulu had wonderful furniture in his Sowetu house. I mean, you know, Walter Sassulu's Sowetu house is it was like maybe twice the size of an RDB house. But he he was beginning to have second thoughts. But we were underground together and we were connecting with people like Justice and Panza and other comrades from Umlazi and Kwamashu and places, who we were still in contact with, and we had dynamite with us, and we were passing it on to them and giving them instruction. But I'll never forget the day when Bruno went off to meet ostensibly a guy called Stephen M. Charlie, who was from um uh from Kwamaushu, who'd taken over from Justice Impanza, who we had sent out of the country. And we didn't know that Erica, that Stephen M. Charlie had been captured and had confessed. His wife had given him away. So I think that had kind of affected his psychology, psychological position, and maybe fear and so on. So Bruno leaves us and doesn't come back.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

So um Jailo replaced Mpanza. Yeah, he he placed Justice and he replaced Mbza.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

But Mpanza is the recruiter of JZ. Yeah, yes. Only, but JZ wasn't in a U.S. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was simply sent out of the country for training um and was arrested going for training in 1964. So Mimpanza was out but had recruited Zuma and a few others to be sent out, and the people who took over had then sent Zuma out for training, and they were arrested near Zerist, and that then led to them landing up on Robin Island, just going ahead about Zuma. Although people are contesting whether that is what happened to Zuma.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

We'll come back to that. I have any I'm I'm actually interested. Yeah, because you are very much in the area of Etewini as we know it today, yes, operating as a commander, yeah, and these figures, yes, and it's in and around this time that some of them will end up in Robin Island. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Let's finish the story of Bruno. So just to say this about Bruno, um, which came to shock us. Uh we uh as I said, I really liked him, and so did Eleanor. Um and he goes off to meet comrades with instructions. He doesn't come back. So now Eevee and I, it's night time. I'd given him ten shillings to buy some mincemeat for us. We were down to our last few shillings. This was the currency. It was like 10, it was like 10 Rand or something at the time. And he doesn't come back. Now we start thinking, what's happened? You never want to believe a guy's arrested. It's the failure of underground. You want to think he's okay. So we think, I started knowing his weaknesses. So I say to EB, you know, he's been a little bit unhappy being stuck in underground. He's a bit of a womanizer, he likes his alcohol, he's got that 10 shillings. I said, I think he might have gone to a Shebin and found a sponono sort of thing. Maybe he'll come in the morning. God, the morning comes, he's nowhere there. We're sitting around by lunchtime, wondering, God, maybe we should leave. And who arrives? Eleanor. She comes in a pit state, and she says to us, Bruno's been arrested at my mother's um uh at the at my at the plot where we had lived where the flowers are being grown in Clouf. Um, we were somewhere at like 20 kilometers away. Um and she says, How does Eleanor know? Her parents, she went to see her parents, and they say to her, Eleanor, do you know anything about a native who was staying at the plot at Clouf? Eleanor shocked. So she says, uh no why? And they say, It's strange. We've had a visit from the security police this morning to ask us if we know anything about this. And they, of course, had said no, and the police had just accepted. They were just checking. See, so Eleanor of quick thinking gets a car and comes to warn us, and she takes us. From there, we abandon the place because we reason that they're gonna break him, they'll kill him, you know, to the point that. Taught you to find out we didn't think he could just break. And we we were taken, she took us to a safe place in Peter Maritzburg. Um very soon, I'm still in touch with her, we're still trying to organize the underground. And in the process, by the way, EB gets arrested at going on a project to meet some of the Indian comrades, but they also have been caught and they've given information, people under duress, that that they were meeting EB. You know, I was meeting some people and so on as well. But that's where EB gets arrested, and Eleanor gets arrested.

unknown 44:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Now she gets arrested, and at that point, the remaining political leadership, George Punin of the Communist Party, and Vera, his wife, there are a few others who are remaining, they get a message to me to say you have to go to Johannesburg. It's too hot here in this whole area, and it's impossible for us to take care and help you, and so on. We're sending you to Joburg to report there. Um this was at the time when the Ravonia arrests, arrests had alter taken place, so the country was in chaos and the movement. So I'm sent to Joburg and put in touch with the Braun Fisher, and I'm underground at a friend's place meeting Wilton Mkwai. I didn't know Mac Maharaj. He was working with Wilton M. Kwai, but Wilton was now the new commander of MK. And I'm giving him all the information, and I gave him a gun that I had, and so on, and waiting to see whether they're going to use me in the country or send me for military training. And we get news that Eleanor's been arrested. Um, and it's shocking, okay. And I don't want to leave the country. I say to Brahm, look, uh you know, I prefer to remain here and find out, is she going to be released and so on? She manages to get a letter smuggled out of detention to me. And she says to me, Um, I've been arrested, she explains. We knew through the press and and so on that she'd been arrested. She says that the special branch have been grinning her about the following contacts and wanted to know this, that, and the other, and she was refusing. She says to us, I believe Zoom, uh, I believe Bruno has broken and is giving them all the information. Because I've been in the interrogation center and I saw comrades who'd been beaten up. She was telling me, then David and Owanda, and uh who was being a um and so on in in in EB and Sunny's thing. She said, but I saw Bruno sitting in an office smoking. She says, and then the special branch said to me, Your friend Bruno didn't we didn't even have to touch him. He sang like a canary the moment we captured him at your parents' property where the the other flowers were growing this place. I spoke with Brahm Fisher and I I was doubting Ellen. I said, I don't know, maybe he maybe they tricky her and I said that he's got weaknesses, you know, and I told Brahm the weaknesses, but I said, you know, we trust this guy, etc. Anyway, I'm I'm decided that it's too hot for me to be there. And they send me to Darisolan. But by the way, it's a wonderful story. But before I'm going, Eleanor escapes, very clever escape. Escape prison. She had been, she pretended to have a breakdown, mental breakdown, and had gone on hunger strike. So one of the first women, white women who's in detention, and with parents who run the city bookstore and are quite well known, so they were clearly quite jittery. And the psychiatrist who attended to her seemed to be quite sympathetic and had said to them that she's in a very bad way, she must be sent to Fort Napier, the the uh mental establishment where they have lock-up for criminally assayed outside Peter Marisburg. She was there. But once there, it was easier. She started checking the setup and she got the support of an African, not wardress, an African woman who was employed to do ironing and things like that. It's actually all in a play from a book that I've written. I'm going to send you tickets. It's going to show it Pretoria in June. It's been doing that anyway. So she just to get Odin in the world. She manages to escape with the help also of the underground Congress of Democrats comrades at the university in Maritzburg. Um so we actually reunite, and that's we sent both of us out of the country together to Darisola. That's where I am from October 1963 with her, and we get married there. But before marriage, we're working, uh they have her working in the office. They really liked her Oliver Tambo, Kitani, etc. And um they sent me with 150 other comrades to Odessa, but in the Soviet Union where we trained at that time, Chris Hani, Mavuso Semang, and others who must speak to Mavuso founded or training in Moscow. Um that brings us to like 1964, that period. We're out there. In that time, just to finish what's happening in South Africa, there's been the trial, the Ravodia trial, and who's the star witness? Bruno Mdonda. Bruno Toru. So it's clear. He is such an outstanding witness for the defense, for the sorry, for the prosecution, that even Baranjay and the top defense guys who are brilliant could not break him. They had him for three days in the dock. He could stick to his story. And they found that the moment they started pressing him, he was clever, even outwitting the special branch, that he had some information that he kept back. And when they came to start probing and trying to get too far, he would start letting out some information. They cut out that line of questioning, because of course, um, between the accused who had been briefing the defense, uh, they explained by then a lot about what had happened because um Bruno had come to Joburg. We we were very advanced in our activities in Durban, including providing the dynamite, but in other ways, the kind of explosives that we developed, etc. What we discovered was that Bruno had been a real hardline criminal before he joined SACTU and for years had been carrying out break-ins on the railway property and knew how to jemmy open doors and the trains, etc.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Could they have used those previous runnings? Because if he was a criminal, he may have had runnings with the police.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

So the question arose: was he a plant? Is that what you meant? You're getting at so was he an informer in advance? My view is no, because if he was, I doubt if they would allowed have allowed us to carry on so long to carry out some very outstanding sabotage operations. Uh I can't say that, well, in terms of my insight and knowledge of him, I that's why I didn't. Where did he end up? He ended up being freed and working, they gave him a job at the newspaper office called Di Natala. And they loved to give him the job there because we had blown up Di Natala with dynamite in the operation. The person who was responsible for that operation was Justice and Panza, by the way. So they gave him that job. He was there for ages, he must have had a good pension, they must have given him other funds. What when I came back home, he had died of a heart problem in hospital. And Billy Nyer told me that when they were released, I think him and Koenick, they had gone, certainly Billy, maybe he said with a couple of comrades, to visit Bruno in hospital to try and speak to him and try and get more information and insight. And Billy said he was absolutely called to them. He wouldn't apologize. There was no remorse in terms of what he did.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

I mean, his testimony could have led to the hanging, the actual death sentence. Absolutely. And he had no regrets. No regrets whatsoever. Because he visited Johannesburg and realized Walter Sisulu lives in a flamboyant house. Oh good, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

You should read the book by Bruno Tulu. You know there's a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you read it? No, I haven't. You can just see how he writes in his memory, it was really good. But when he writes about I've read the testimony. Okay, but yeah, so you know what he said about Walter's Sullivan. You know this fantastic furniture and being dressed tool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. No, he was now trying to justify. Basically, the argument was no, these leaders were wealthy and privileged. What privilege being sentenced to life imprisonment there in the dark, you know, possible death sentence to Mandela Susulu and Beki and so on. Um, so this is how they manufacture the story. So in his book, he gets the point about the Bantu Stans and how wonderful and magnanimous the Boers are. They recognizing our ethnicity and they're giving us freedom quite correctly in what were the reserves, you know, these Bantus stones. So an absolutely disgraceful, disgusting, counter-revolutionary, treacherous person. I don't shed any tears for him, although I can tell about him and what he had been like and what he actually landed up as. One has utter contempt for people who betray their comrades and who betray the struggle in whatever way. It comes in different forms and sizes. Some because they love money and because they've been bribed and they become corrupt. We see it in the country today, in post-1990. Others who became agents and informers, others who are arrested, who break down under torture and appear in court and become hostile witnesses to the state. You could hear how Walter Sasudu spoke about people like that. We can understand what happens to a person who is tortured to such an extent that they break down. But somebody who gives it voluntarily and doesn't change comes to court and does his or her best and rides a ball to actually see that comrades can go to the gallows later on benefits from you know, like a dog at a table getting the crumbs. This was Bruno and Tolo and others such as as as him.

SPEAKER_01 57:29

What are the I think the next phase uh with Eleanor? You are in Tanzania, but you you actually take or rather ascend for actual military training, those not those dynamites of yours and Bruno Mjol. This was guerrilla warfare. Yes, yeah. Can you just take us through that just briefly? That course I've learned to actually ask because when a person says I went for training in Russia, they could have gone for office training, they could have gone for motivational training. But there's actually different courses. You have to ask what course did you your group go through? We had Mavosom Simang, and you did speak about Odessa and Moscow groups that took place at the same time, and you both didn't know that you were uh there at the same time until some coincidences in some match or commerce of some sort.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

So just to bring it up to you, that point in a little background, um with the um establishment of MK 1961, and then we carrying out the operations, but we also recruiting to send comrades abroad to build up a people's army. And initially they go, they sent to a few like Madiba Mandela to Ethiopia, a short course to Egypt, where there's quite a rough course, by the way, very physically draining and hard. Um, and then to Algeria, it's become liberated to the armed struggle and political mass struggle.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

But um they really interesting you didn't, and I think it's important. I know we we shouldn't take too much time here, but the Moroccans and some of the people in your generation these days like to say Morocco also trained the combatants of Mkondur Cizu. And this is not often clarified that okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:59

I I'll I can quickly deal with that. Yes. Um so let me talk. It's the Algerians who do the training. Who are in Morocco, but in camps in Morocco because they become liberated at the end of 1962 or so. So just earlier, yes, it's Algerian movement of Ben Bela that provides training in their camps, which are in Morocco. So for a brief period. Um however, the training in Africa has got some shortcomings. They really don't have the resources. Cuba, we had huge training in later years. China, the initial leadership group, are trained in China. Uh Jacobi and a few half a dozen others there, um, Andrew Nangeni, and so on. The bulk of the Tains and Magua. And Tainsen Magua. Uh-huh. Yes. And uh the majority, the Soviet Union comes to the fore. Tambo has requested it, the Communist Party, or our Communist Party is very much involved in preparing the Soviets in relation to the South African struggle and so on. But they prepared to take huge numbers and they've got the real resources. Comrades who were trained, it's under these countries, scarcely fired a few shots, a few rounds, uh, because of the problems within Africa and the resources as I've mentioned. So can I just make a point that the GDR also trained a few people, like Mag Maharaj, by the way. But um, the first groups who go to the Soviet Union, they're 25 in each of these groups, one with Chris Hani, another with Mavuso Msimang. Um, they don't interact with each other, they kept apart. In which one we 63. That's 63. A bit ahead, sort of from about the middle of 63. Um, but we want a lot of people trained at a time, like 150, 160. So that group goes to the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1964. I go along with Moses Mabida, the commissar, and the overall commander, Joe Mudisse. It's very fortunate to go in their company. We're there for almost a whole year, and there, unlike Moscow, they do more urban uh underground training, but to shoot and and uh the the understanding, the politics, uh, etc. It's a very good course for command level. With us, there is um it's in Odessa, but that's Soviet Odessa communists in power and who train us, not the the collaborators and the fascists who were fighting with the Nazis who are running the Ukraine today. Yes. Um, and you want to know a little of the courses. So it's something like 10 courses. There's the focus is on the military, on guerrilla warfare, using a whole range of the weapons, training in um ambushing, in carrying out guerrilla raids, in setting up guerrilla detachments, in working in underground, in urban and rural areas, uh, topography, how to move by compass, um engineering, the sabotage that we had been doing already, but with advanced uh mines and um and explosives, etc. High level. We learned how to draft tanks and use anti-aircraft heavy guns. Why? Because a guerrilla army goes from small to big, and you seize the larger weapons and even tanks from the enemy. So you need to know how to use the weapons you're going to take from the enemy. But of course, small arms and AK and uh and RPGs firing bazookas into police stations and army bases and into enemy vehicles and so on. Um and politics, which is a key factor, and they keep saying it, comrades, you can't just learn how to use weapons, you have to know and understand the theory and practice of revolution, which is based on politics and political leadership and so on, and building the links between the guerrillas and the people. So, this is what we're doing throughout that year, and the people training us are the stalwarts who defeated the Nazis, who were in the Red Army and stopped them at Moscow's gates, beat them at Stalingrad, went on to um expel the Nazi forces from Soviet soil and onto Hitler's headquarters in Berlin. That was the Red Army that won that war, not the British and the Americans. That was a sideshow from the West. Anyway, that's this the training. We meet up with the Mavuso group and with the Chris Harney group. When we finish our course at the end of 1994, we go back. Back to Tanzania, 1964. Sorry, we go back to Tanzania to a place in the interior called Congo, where we have our main base, and we find Chris and Mavuso and company there. And this is where the MK Army is now in quarters, waiting for the possibility of infiltration back home. So this brings us up into that period.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:31

We've had a good uh running into you know the different many missions, starting obviously with your Lutuli detachment, many, many, many more, including the incredible Navy attempts, uh uh, but as well as the building of the underground uh up to your activities with the self-defense units and all of that. I just want to ask um two high-level sort of clarities. What was the structural outline? Uh it looked like there was because you were the head of MK intelligence. That's military intelligence. Yes. For MK. For Umkondoese. Yes. But there was an intelligence unit of the ANC. Yes, yes. Can you just clarify what that means? How did it work? Okay. And what are the names uh and what were the relationships? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

So just to first deal with MK. So the military needs its intelligence structure to penetrate the enemy forces with infiltration of our own agents to recruit from within the enemy. There were lots of whites who weren't happy to serve, as we well know, to obtain the information, structure, leadership, weaponry, um regiments, brigades, and so on of the SADF, its morale, its strategies, its battle order, how that is carried out. So you've got to be dedicated, you've got to have a special um unit such as military intelligence, which is serving MK and obtaining all that information. The ANC and the political movement need overall security to protect it from enemy attacks and enemy information infiltration and so on. And it needs at the same time an intelligence aspect or structure itself about the overall situation in South Africa, and also, of course, to recruit people. So there can be something of an overlap, and it's very necessary to have a good synergy between MK military command and intelligence, and the ANC security and overall general intelligence, where there's research about the country and its politics, its positions, etc., very important, and infiltration into the ANC itself, which is counterintelligence for the ANC. So that structure was called NAT, National Security and Intelligence of the ANC. It underwent various changes of title and leadership. So the overall leader or head of that, reporting directly to Oliver Tambo, was Mzwai Paliso. At a certain point in 1980s, there was quite a lot of problems that had emerged in terms of what was felt was too stringent handling of possible suspects, agents, infiltrators. But that did happen, and there was outstanding intelligence and counterintelligence that Poliso obtained about agents within our midst. There were certain agents within MK as well, and and uh and um the commander Joe Moodisi worked very closely with Poliso and helped MK helped to put down a lot of the plots that were being undertaken by agents and infiltrators within the ANC itself. There were key epic periods or events of this, it became more and more dangerous. But what we we often hear is John Sans. Can you look heed John Sunny? Yes, so I want to come to this. I'm saying Peliso, who from the 60s uh was uh was working there and and and very closely with uh with Oliver Tambo and reporting to him. As MK developed up to 1983, where it developed more of its own structures, was when I was made by Mudisi head of military intelligence of MK. Okay, and through myself and Mudisi, and then Chris Harney, who became a chief of staff, we would also report to the commander-in-chief of the military, Oliver Tamba, who's also getting the reports from Poliso and then Enclantler, who's put in place after uh after Poliso is is um put and redeployed elsewhere. Okay. Um, and when Entlantler becomes the overall chief of ANC security and intelligence, in that restructuring, Jacob Zuma is made the chief of counterintelligence of the ANC. Reporting to Antlantla. And he's reporting to Entlantla. He's that's his chief, and that's how they operate. Um that's the structures, if I've given you some understanding of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:50

And and and the final um uh clarity here Operation Vola.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:05

Who and okay, how was it structured? Okay, so after the Cabwe conference in Cabwe, Zambia, eighty-five eighty-five June. Um the resolution is about a response to the rising insurrection inside the country and the need to have a senior leadership in South South Africa. And it's Joe Slovo working with Oliver Tambo that takes on this project and places Mak Maharaj in charge. He's going to be infiltrated inside South Africa at the end of 1919 eighty-seven with his deputy Sapiwe and Yanda to be placed as a leadership group reporting directly to Tambo and Slovo, and through them, obviously, the it's a big secret, so they're not revealed. But obviously, Tambo and with with Slovo, but Tambo himself is is the leader of the ANZ. So it's an ANC project, and the two of them set out on a very brave uh course of training for underground. They've had training in the past, but this is very sophisticated, and the key thing is the development of communication means through computers and um code systems, which was dealing with the big problem we had had in the past of the distance and the links with disparate groups in the country, whether political or MK military, in keeping track of what's going on. This is part of that leadership. So their communication aspect was very important. So the Vula project was not an MK structure project, A, it was AMC, but it's also bringing political military command together. We had always been struggling with the two parallel aspects of the struggle, a military aspect and the political, and trying to create coordination as best we could under very difficult conditions of distance, lack of direct communication and control. So this was a real revolutionary change in the approach, in keeping with the insurrectionary mood and uprising, and to give the leadership inside to build the underground of both military and political units, and to give guidance to the above-ground UDF, the mass democratic movement, UDF, trade union, etc. And they did incredible work through 1988 to 89. And there were some other outstanding comrades who were infiltrated in that period who were assisting them. Janet Love is one of the people who comes to mind, but you know, quite a few key comrades. I come in quite late in the day by something, even after the uh lift the ban is lifted on the uh ANC and Communist Party in uh the beginning of 1990, and a number of comrades come in to reinforce the structures that they have built in the underground, all over the country, from Cape to KZN or Natal, then to Khating, to every part of the country, you know, four provinces then. Children Gaku was one of the people who had joined uh the Vulu command earlier on. But um, with the developments of 1990 and our concern about the transformation and whether Mahabuna, whether the Boers, whether the the national government, party government of apartheid, who was genuine in those negotiations, we weren't sure. And it was so necessary to still build the underground. So I came in and at the end of March, round about that time, and quite a number of others to reinforce the structure, the highly trained comrades.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

You wrote a book, uh, and I want to ask through this question to come to today uh a book, and in the book you have a a story about yourself and J Z. The Simple Man. The Simple Man, the name of the book. Um when many people in the ANC because the book came out, he was still in the ANC when the book came out. I think that's about 2000 2017, yeah. 2023, he forms a party using the names of Umkonces. Usurping, usurping the name. Yeah, usurping the name. Yeah, yeah. My question is in the book, and you you can do it yourself, you give an account of a warning system you had already given to the leadership. You actually reveal that already in the 80s you gave a warning to the leadership about a simple man who is not simple. And even at that time, it's just looks like a factional uh outburst on your part. Sitting today here with where and how the developments have come out, you think you're you're sitting here now vindicated.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

Okay, well, you know, my mind can go back and I see it very graphically. I met Jacob Zuma actually in 1961 into 62, about that time. Um, and I was introduced to him by Justice Imponzo, great hero of the struggle, um, who was one of our first recruits into MK. Um I was Congress of Democrat Secretary, as I said, so I used to go and speak at meetings for COD with Indian Congress and uh and the trade union and SACTU. Of course, it was ANC meetings as well. Comrades were there, but the ANC was banned, not going to 61, 62, and so on, even though I was now already in MK, but above ground unrepresentatives, COD, we were only banned in something like April of 1962. And then I was banned and restricted. But in that period, I was speaking at meetings, and um at that point we're carrying out operations and also recruiting people to be sent out for training. So at one of the meetings, Justice Impans is introducing me to various young people from Kwamachu, Mlazi, etc., and introduced me to JZ. Young chap, he seemed very engaging and so on. And then he tells me this is one of the guys they're thinking of recruiting to send for training, not to the to to um recruit into a sabotage group. Um anyway, we've got a fast forward to an arrest takes place after I've left South Africa in 1964 with comrades from all over the country going out to Botswana as uh so-called football teams, but they actually going for MK training, they get arrested. I don't see Zuma until 1980. I'm now redeployed from Angola, where I was in the camps, uh, training comrades and so on, to Maputu, Mozambique to work for the underground uh that we were building of both MK and um and political underground. At that stage, not quite the synergy that was required, that Vula with Mac and Sapir, where we were dealing with later, a long time later. Um, and I come there to work with Jacob Zuma, and I and we get on very well knowing each other from 62 to Gweny, etc. Um, and it's actually after quite a short time, or maybe six months, that I start discovering some things that's very disquieting. We're building an underground, we're dealing with comrades from home, and we're dealing with structures that we're commanding going into the country, political, and then there are others doing the military, including Joe Slovo. So his activities in Mozambique, are they MK activities or ANC activities? No, so they both, both Zuma and I at that stage are focusing or or or com instructed and set up. But what was he? What was he in MK? Was he in MK? What I know about uh Zuma is that we were recruiting him.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:31

There were plans about identifying young people to be at this stage in Mozambique, is Zuma a commander of MK or a leader? Just well, he's what's what's since you drew that distinction.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:45

Okay, he's the ANC political representative in Maputu. Not MK. We've got Sapiwi and Yanda, Joe Slova, and others who are commanding MK structures. I'm MK, but I've been deployed to help Zuma with the political underground because I've had a lot of underground work from London before I come to where I was deployed at one stage, where I then come to Angola, and then I'm doing just MK work, and then Tambo and Mabida actually deploy me to Maputu to help build under Makh Maharaj the political underground because it's going very slow. Too much resources had been focused into MK activities, you see. So we were trying to create a balance, I see, and that's where Zuma's political chief rape of the ANC. And in terms of our underground structures, we've got a joint command under Joe uh under um and Kadamang, John and Kadamang, and then we've got two structures sub. One is the MK military side with Sapiwe and Yanda and others, and Joe Slovas commanding that. And then the other wing is and Kadamang, as well as being the chair of the whole structure, both, he's also working with Zuma and me in the political side because he was very much in touch with people at home. So that's where we are. He won't Zuma wasn't in the command structure of MK whatsoever. And where you get the real mature development of MK command is in 1983, after the certain decisions that the ANC take, because we're finding that the separate political and military aren't gelling. Okay. And there's also a need to strengthen both the political side, that's where Mack Maharaj is working, with some other senior comrades. And uh on the other side, the MK side, Joe Mudisi, Joe Slova, myself, I'm deployed there now. And that's where the ANC military headquarters is created and based in Lusaka with um with Joe with sorry Joe Mudisi as our commander at that stage. Joe Slovo as the chief of staff, and then we had the commissar, later uh Chris Harney, myself, chief of military intelligence, and um comrade Cassius Markey, chief of our logistics. We had a chief of treasury, basically. If you're asking me where Zuma, he's not in MK at all, he's still up to then the chief rep of the ANC, and also in the political structure of Maputo reporting to the political headquarters of the ANC. Of the ANC.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:17

So chaps like uh uh TM are actually in the ANC. They are not in the rank of the high command of Umkondu Sizizu.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:30

No, because TM was at headquarters and working with overall leadership of Oliver Tambo, who is the commander in chief of everything, MK, but overall politics of the ANC. TM at that stage is in charge, the very important role of the ANC publicity and research department. But of course, Zuma, by the way, is in The National Executive Committee of the ANC, which is only comrades of African black origin, as you know. That changes in 1985 at Dubwe. So of course Zumo, apart from being the chief rep of ANC, involved in the political underground under Mac Maharaj. And I just can't remember the name. It will come back to me. John Motsabi is the actual chief of the political underground. Makmaharaj is his deputy. Under them are people in Maputu, Mozambique, Jacob Zuma, that political, in Botswana, in Lesotho, in Zimbabwe, and so on. Okay, you've got that sort of structure.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:50

Structure.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:52

And then, of course, from Chris and Hani and Zuma, um, they are with TM and others in the National Executive Committee of the ANC, headed by President Tambo. And of course, they are overall in charge of all the structures, including MK. MK is under political command, although we've got our own command as the armed wing, but it's the armed wing of the ANC. Gotcha. So the MK commander and comrades of the command, so Chris with with um with Joe Modisi, they on the executive committee. Later Joe Slovo, Reg September, and others elected at Cubway are on that NEC as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:40

What are the signs then that make you at that stage uh say to the leadership, you've got to be vigilant. Yes. This is not so simple a man.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:53

Yes, yes, exactly. On the surface, he's a simple man. He loves to project that, but he's a very devious, deep manipulator, quite frankly, and you never know what he's doing. So I'm working with him on the political structures. Every day we even go into Swaziland, jumping the fence together, and so on. I find that at night, after we finished work, etc., if I go coming back to his place or so, that there's another group of comrades who he's meeting. And the thing that strikes one, I'm sorry to say, I don't have the eyes that who's black, who's white, who's Zulu, who's Zdwana, Zutu, etc. But it's not just me. Everybody has been aware. They leave me to find out for myself that Zulu that Zuma meets the comrades, not Zulu comrades from Hartech, the comrades from KZN, some very good comrades who I know and like, but he's not reporting this. And it's not me who sees this or notices it or raises an alarm, by the way. Already, when I start discreetly asking a question to say Joe Modisi, who comes to Maputo often, or Joe Slovo, who's really something of a mentor of mine. I worked for with him for 10 years in London, and I say, Comrade Joe, I don't know, Zuma, I like him, I'm getting on, but he's keeping certain information secret to me, which he shouldn't be. And by the way, he's meeting people, the comrades, after dark, and there's no report about it. Are you are you aware of it? And then Slova, and also I think I raised it with both of them at the same time. They both look at me, they look at each other, silence. They say, okay, we wanted to leave you to discover things for yourself. But Zuma, before you came, and we started setting up the structures in Maputu, we put him in charge of ordinance, of logistics. That's a structure talking about sending weapons, smuggling weapons into South Africa. He's uh guy we trusted. But we started discovering that he had a secret structure within the secret structure, reporting to us, because he didn't even report to comrades on his structure who weren't Zulu about a separate line he had into K's into Natal. And comrade Ronnie, what we did was we had to dissolve that structure. That's why when you arrived here in Makutu in 1980, you don't find Jacob Zuma in MK structures. He's been made the chief rep here. A and C feel they meet someone like him with a profile. That's the story. I say to them, well, I'm I'm seeing this and I'm really, really kind of uh very, very worried and troubled. Before long, it happened quite quickly. We had the Nkumati Accord. Um, I was in Swaziland, I couldn't come back into Maputu, they sent me back uh to Lusaka to work in headquarters, and um Zumura was remained on with a small structure for a while. Uh Slovo had to leave to go to Lusaka, and then even a crackdown on that small group at the office. Uh the structure under it, which was more political connection with South Africa, had to retreat to Lusaka. And he continued to work there on the political structure at the time when I now was redeployed to my origin in MK, working now with the with um Mudisi Hani and Slovo in the structure I've talked about, almost right up to the time we came back, and I'm infiltrated quite late to join the Vula structure, basically Maharaj and uh Sapiwe and Yande inside the country. But there were other things about Zuma that was quite disturbing. You know, we were soldiers, we were exiles away from our wives or not married or whatever. And yeah, sure, we had our little affairs or relationships, some quite strong, some where people got married and so on. But there was such gossip about J-Z and how extreme he was with taking advantage of women. I I don't want to delve more into that. Um, it was just too extreme. Not that we were crude about these puritanical, why is this guy? He's got a wife at home or somewhere, but he's now one woman after another, and so on. Comrade and Corsair didn't know anything about that, and I don't want to speak too much about this aspect. But I'm just saying, if we're talking seriously about discipline, integrity, etc., what I can say, while I was outside, he used to dress simply, he drove a very modest little car. Comrades didn't buy their own cars. Uh cars that were were allocated and they were brought out of the pipeline. We didn't have money, etc. But he was quite content driving a little Volkswagen Beetle, I think it was, if I remember correctly, and he didn't seem that inclined to ostentatious living. And that was a very engaging aspect of him. But if you come forward to coming back to the country, and then a report I have to make to Madiba, is that when Zuma comes in, um, like many of the comrades, myself included, I didn't have funds, I didn't have a bank account. I'd worked with the ANC all the time I was abroad. I was just fortunate, as some comrades were, Comrade Taboo himself, Comrade Mack himself, Comrade Joe Sloven himself, comrade Chris himself. They were married to women who had jobs. Um they could have been quite uh modest jobs, but it was enough to help look after the kids, etc. My wife looked after our two sons in London and so on. Um so when we came back, uh it wasn't like in dire poverty, some of us. Uh, and there were comrades who came back um, you know, with absolutely not a wife to help coming back in who had had a job and had been paid off and came back in. So this guy comes in and he's got several wives, and he's got 20 plus children. Um, Amir Kha Teng, he's in Durban, and you know, disturbing things started happening. People started talking about Zuma and aspects of monies and corruption. It can start very small. Someone offering to put one of your wives or some kids in a town apartment, or go to a petrol station when you have to fill up your car or so, and I'll pay the bill. You know, it's a little finger before you know it, they've got you by the whole hand, that body and soul, up to the Guptas in later years. Um, it's in that period that Madiba asks us, who have come from exile, about people who are going to be leaders at home. Not about everybody, but I was with meeting him with Raymond Suttner, and we're having some discussions, and get to a point, he says, uh, Comrade Ronnie, I want to get your view. What do you think of uh Comrade Jacob Zuma? You know, I kind of sit there and I think, how am I going to answer this? I I don't want to demolish a person. I do have very fixed judgment, and I know others who know better than me. So Medibus sees that maybe I'm uncomfortable. He says, Look, please don't take it amiss. I'm just asking you for your your own view, that's all, uh uh Comrade Ronnie. In some cases of appointing people, we need to be sure. There might have been others who are raising questions. I really want you to tell me honestly, what is your view of Comrade Jacob? So I said, look, I know him way back. I've told you a bit about that. He's a comrade I've liked. I enjoyed working with him, Comrade Madiba at the beginning. And then I tell him about this ethnic factor and then the secrecy in relation to operating in terms of home front. And I say to him, I am telling you this because I can refer you to others and not just myself, because maybe my my judgment's not sound. Please, Madiba. There's Joe Moudisi, there's Joe Slovo, there's Comrade Chris Harney, who had very serious misgivings about Zuma emerging out of aspect of what I've told you. And also, by the way, and I can remember this, when Chris joined us from Lesotho, for a while he was working with our command, and I was trying to make arrangements for Chris to meet the underground in Swaziland. And behind my back, when I was away, Zuma sabotaged this by telling Chris it wasn't safe for him. And I had created a very safe route and reception. When I came back to Maputo, I'd been away somewhere on an operation or so. He said to me, Hey, I didn't manage to get to uh Maputu to meet the comrades despite all your arrangements, because when you were gone, Zuma said to me, Hey, no, I'm having second thoughts, it's going to be too dangerous. You know, so Chris had that view that he was just wanting to keep Chris out of these things. But very soon Chris was like myself having to operate out of Lusaka with the high command. But in terms of Madiba, I say to him, please, you can speak to Chris, you can speak to JM, you can speak to JS. So I spoke to Comrade Walters' Sulu about this and informed him. And he said, No, Comrade Runny, you know, you did the right thing, you need to give that report. Don't feel bad that you're betraying someone, you have factual stuff and others to back you up. So I said, You see, Comrade Walter was a guy you could actually ask questions that could be embarrassing, which I'd want to ask the new but I said to Comrade Walter at that stage, I said, you go after all the points that I made, that the two Joes made, that even Chris would have made. Why is it that Zuma, okay, see, he wasn't made given a national position. When we came to government, it was put in case. So maybe that was an aspect, but I think there was something more to that, by the way, in his favor. But I said, and I'll come to it, but I'll said to Comrade Walter, you know, I told Madeeba and this doubt, and it's now we can see it's growing bigger and bigger. And we heard how Comrade Mandela, knowing that Zuma was in debt, had given him a million rand. You know the effect on other comrades, how they resented that and what they knew of Zuma, and and thought and wouldn't say to Madiba, Comrade Madiba, you think that you're curing this guy, that all he needs is a million, forget it. Though Comrade Walter says to me, No, Comrade Droni, you must understand. We in the ANC going way back, there's always been this issue from Case from the Telfth of finding leaders, reliable leaders. We always have fingers pointed at us about causa domination. From early period, we were grappling with this, and that's why you saw we found the most wonderful leader, Chief Albert Lutulli. And we've been always needing to build leaders from that province. And Medibo was having to take decisions, who else was there at that point, and hand it to Zuma. He did very well in this early period of the 90s in helping to neutralize the IFP Butalesi factor. And I would say that's why that leadership had decided that look, we'll keep him in KZN and deal with the problem. Okay, that's a good reason, but we can see how disastrous it has been. We've never had a betrayal to this degree of someone who through lies, absolute deceit, and demagogy has pushed himself to the fore as another Butulesi, by the way, that's what I'm saying, on an absolute ethnic basis and bamboozling people in terms of what he's standing for, because the country's having problems. The ANC's having problems. There's disquiet, and it's easier then for someone who can manipulate to say, look at this leadership, look what they've done, pointing at various leaders of the ANC who are credible. Um, and that's the kind of thing I could never forgive him for. So I came to write the book, The Simple Band. 2017, it was sorry, yes, 2017 it was published. See in that book how hard I am on Amabonvo, the party I come from, the South African Communist Party, who at Polakwani, pre-Polakwani, from early days 2004-2005, I'm Minister of Intelligence. I start seeing that there's schemes, there's plots, there's activities, even within my intelligence structure, aiming at the transition to the new leadership and the build-up of a campaign against the sitting president who delivered the highest level of points, election percentage to the ANC ever. And that was in the 2004 election. We we had over two-thirds. And within three years, there's this absolute, it's a conspiracy, it's a plot to remove Tavo Mbeki. It happens at Polakwani. I've got comrades there who are being interviewed from the Communist Party, who are saying to the reporter from the French Communist Party, Humanité, that this is the major revolutionary change in South Africa. And that same reporter then comes to me and says, This is what members of your party will say. What's your view? I said, This is not revolution, this is a counter-revolution. The guy was shocked. He didn't believe me. It took years. He came to me, the same journalist, high-ranking communist journalist from France. He said to me by about 2017, you were right 10 years ago. I want to hand it to you. I didn't believe you. I took the word from the party group that helped to topple Mbeki and our stem. And that's where the problems in our country. I'm not saying it's the beginning of the problems. There's certain aspects that I didn't in, and more in retrospect, perhaps, agree with Madiba and even Tabo Mbeki and Joe Slova in terms of the transition. It's very difficult transition. The judgment aspects, they didn't sell out, they weren't traitors, but I at all. But I have an issue, and I raise it in my book very openly that about errors that perhaps we made in the compromise with the regime and white business, etc. Open, it's not just secret. Madiba was at the helm of that, and Slovo supported it. I had doubts. But it's the question is you then find on the basis of the undermining of Mbeki, the Communist Party and Kusatu in particular, they help to aid the new era, revolutionary era. My foot of Jacob Zuma's ascendancy, which is the beginning of the real slide into the problems we have today. So in the book, I take issue with the communist leadership. The book starts with a chapter of our Central Committee text in 2004 or five. From that time, um I'm I'm not crying. Or anything, but I'm no longer a person that they they they're listening to. I'm able to go to ANC leaders, to the party, Kusatu, and expose what Billy Massettler, the Director General of Intelligence, was up to. And may he rest in peace, but we're talking openly how he was involved behind the scenes in the fraudulent uh emails that I exposed, that they all accepted as true, which were purporting to show that Tabo Mbeki and Pumzili, his deputy, were engaged in a plot against Zuma. Um, and I could show that this is all fraud and lies. I called it the hoax email. It was so easy to expose. I went to Kesatu, I went to the Youth League, I went to the ANC, I went to the party. I'm the Minister of Intelligence. I was talking into a brick wall, all of them. I could say they couldn't argue against the facts that I was presenting, how fraudulent these emails were. They wanted to believe them. And they did. And that's why, but you know, I went through a period. I didn't resign from the ANC or the party, but I began a period where really, with Zuma in power, coming in after Pulakwane, wanting to form his cabinet, he called those of us who had served with um Tavo Mbeki's presidency. Will we carry on? He wanted just an interim, probably wouldn't have kept us. Okay, you can you can hive and you can deploy and so on and choose yourself. We all of us virtually, something like 10, 12 of us, Aziz Pahad, Isop Pahad, and and others there, um, who said to know look, um, we were appointed by the former president, so comrade JZ, good luck to you. But you know, we we we we resigning. Uh thanks for the offer. And that's when I left in 2008. And quite frankly, after that, with the way Zuma was running the ANC and the way the party was towing that line, I could not in any justice stick to the parties concerned, and I basically allowed myself to lapse for a while. I was, you'll remember, I was very active now with civil society and Palestine. I would have been involved in solidarity work anyway. It was only after Zuma leaves in 2017 plus that I start coming back in the belief that now I can play a role in helping the party and the ANC. And I'm glad I'm back in that fold. I'm not uncritical there. Um, we we're facing too much challenges, including this absolute treachery from the side of Jacob Zuma and the people he's bamboozling. Who knows what kind of a plot this is? It stinks to the high heavens, quite frankly. Um, and that's why I prepare to talk out so openly. And I'm certainly glad that the Communist Party now have broken with the past, so has Vavi. He's the only one who criticizes himself and his decision publicly to his credit.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:55

Maybe the the the final parts, I mean everybody knows uh where Umkonduis is your party is, and personally I have meddles understanding what they represent politically. Uh you are calling them the new project of ethnic nationalism. But what about the party and the state of the alliance? The Communist Party has taken a decision, it is not supporting the ANC as it is always the case. They are going to contest the ANC in the 2026 elections. What should we make of this? Is this not the end of the alliance as we know it? And perhaps another force of dismembering the mass democratic movement.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:02

Okay, so look, um I don't say at all that the party is working against the ANC. And that necessarily there will be the break, we need to avoid it, and we need to keep the alliance alive. We've got to resuscitate it, we've got to renew it, the ANC's having to do that itself. We hope that they get on with that job. I think there's been too much of a lack of real deep, mature discussion between the the leadership of the party and the ANC, and that subjective factors and tensions uh arise as a result because despite that, and despite the fact that the party's taken a decision for two congresses of the party, by the way. Um, I've come back into the party leadership just recently. So I can't argue to the party that you've got to undo your decisions of two previous congresses of the party. Um, you can only get a reversal at a congress of the party. We've got one in a few years coming. So the party leadership, and it's a new leadership under Comrade Solimpayela. I believe he's a very courageous, honest, genuine comrade. He's what you see in him. But he's also got his concerns about the disrespect shown to the party subjectively by some ANC comrades and so on who feel aggrieved at the party's stance. And perhaps there's not been enough clarification. It's a very sophisticated and complex reasoning when we come into the nitty-gritty of it. But on the surface, the argument from these previous congresses of the party, including the one um during the Zuma period, was that the party's off track, the party's simply following the ANC, the ANC has gone rotten, um the party's not speaking for the workers, the party needs to have an independent voice. It started that way, which led up to the election of Solimapayel as general secretary. Um and in terms of that groundswell in a communist party, you can't, as a leadership, just discount it. So going into then a decision to contest elections, which also goes back, which all I can say to them, because I wasn't part of this decisions from, as I've said, national uh congresses, is are we explaining ourselves um sufficiently to the ANC to understand? Are we meeting them on a mature basis in that respect? Can we not work out a composite or common electoral pact to stand together? And this is the kind of thing I'm in the ANC branch where I live, I'm in the ANC Veterans League, uh, who are a very good factor in all this. I'm in the Communist Party and at leadership level. So I'm trying to speak to everybody and explain, and I go back to an example, and you know, we've used a lot of examples from the Afrikaner National Party when it was in power as an example. I know it was only for whites, but how it set up trade schools and you know, uh industrial schools, railway work, workers, and um ISCO and Sassel and the state, the state establishments that worked very well for the Afrikaners and the whites, etc. But they had an electoral pact, the National Party, with what was called the Afrikaner Party in 1948. An Afrikaner party out of the Rand revolt of white mine workers who represented a certain element of the Afrikaners, more working class, and the National Party was the party of a rising petty bourgeois nationalist formation. So that Africana Party was not quite confident about the national party, and they had their discussions to have a pact and to stand in the 48 elections. I think it was nine seats that the national party, it was a national election, of course, allocated to the national party. Their leader was given Alowell North, which he well, I can't remember his name, and they came into that pact. So a bigger party as the ANC is, even though it's losing percentages, I would think, in terms of a well-thought-out approach, understanding each other's constituencies, and I believe how the party could in fact reinforce the ANC and the NDR if we had, let's say, five, ten communists, not as part of an ANC in parliament, but representing the Communist Party. And and supporting the government, not of the government of national unity, a government of the ANC with maybe one or two other parties, possibly, whatever the outcome of the election. But wouldn't that be something exciting for the country? And you can argue and see that it can reinforce the ANC, including acting against a leadership of the ANC or a presidency. I'm not referring to any incumbent who might go somewhat off track. We're very worried about privatization in this country. It's actually happening. And where on that kind of basis a Communist Party could call a government out in parliament as well. That's more democratic. So, you know, that Africa Party was there for about two, I think the third election into the new apartheid era. And by then, if my memory serves me correctly, and one could do research, they had decided on a complete merger. Yes, because that grouping felt confident in the party of Foster, Foster, and so on. It's only later when the reform process of business, because they've now become big business in the national party, now they are being prepared to be a bit reformist, but still refraining from keeping a universal franchise from the darkies. You know how that process went to it in short. So it's only then that that element revives itself in the Conservative Party of Trina and is now in rebellion against its mother body. Okay, because they see it's going off the track. Very good. So we could, you know, I use this quite frankly as something of an example that we could understand. Maybe it's more complex, it's not quite the same thing. But all I'm saying is that there needs to be more of an understanding and a repo rapport. And I think this would be very good for the ANC as well. But we we do see very positive signs from the ANC. I mean, there are comrades who feel kind of ultra-critical and maybe correctly, but you know, when you see, as we were meeting this last weekend, the Central Committee, we were back from a Friday to the last Sunday, and uh back home and we're having our press conference. I'm waiting to watch it, but the screens are dominated by the president of the ANC speaking on all three of the channels here, up in Lumpopa. And you know, apart from certain things which maybe the communists wouldn't like, my God, what is he saying about the international situation? We are opposed to imperialism, we are opposed to the attacks on Iran and the blockade of Cuba and the attacks on the Palestinians. This is what the Communist Party looks for, that internationalism, and needs to get across to our people. And you can look at the ANC and find your concerns and look at the national, the domestic situation, etc., and be not too happy and critical in other parts, their positives, and then you look at our international position, and what other country, not many in the world, have that kind of courage, including taking Zionist Israel to the International Court of Justice on the genocide charge. So for a Communist Party to go for a break and then weaken an NDR, I don't think that the party's looking for it. But when you have a situation where the two sides aren't coming together and meeting each other, then of course that can happen. But I, you know, for me, I'm prepared to do everything, my little strength, to say, look, comrades, we've got to find a better solution and live. You've got to live with it. There's no way the Communist Party leadership can go back on decisions enforced on it by its two previous congresses. You know, it's we could go on and on, just giving you a flavor in response to you of the very taxing question. Maybe I'll be expelled, who knows?

SPEAKER_01 2:05:42

I see that uh we could have a round two, uh, but uh we could uh put it to rest now. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Look, it's lovely to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:53

And as I said to you when I came in, you know, we you like me, we've also had our little weaving this way and that, where we've upset leaders, etc. But I know you and the way in which you were so so strong on the question of Palestine when you were much younger. And um that's how I know how true you are, because you were prepared, and those comrades you worked with always said to me we had the comrade here in solidarity. He was honest and he was brilliant. And I've seen this, I know it from you. So congrats to you, comrade.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:33

Thank you, comrade Ronnie. Thank you so much.