T H E T H I N K E R14 INTERNATIONAL The history and fortune of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) is the history of the South African liberation movement in the period 1960-1990 culminating in the triumph of democracy over apartheid in 1994. The creation of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961, its achievements, reversal of fortune and recovery, culminating in the people’s victory over apartheid in 1994, must be seen in the international context, the collapse of the colonial system in Africa from the late 1950s, and the armed contestation for change in Algeria and Southern Africa where colonial racism refused to budge. The impact of the Rivonia arrests of July 1963, possibly the biggest setback in the liberation struggle for South Africa in the 20th century, has been well documented. A more considered assessment is needed for the aftermath years 1965-1975 when MK in an organised sense had ceased to exist inside the country.1 Despite some heroic attempts in the wake of Rivonia to keep the underground and the nascent armed struggle alive (Wilton Mkwai and Bram Fischer groups)2 the internal organisational structures of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) along with those of the ANC and SACP were smashed. MK operations which according to the Rivonia Trial indictment amounted to 193 acts of sabotage between 1961 to 1963 dwindled to less than half a dozen and then petered out by 1965. There was of course far more to this reversal than the incapacity to mount operations as, important as that is in assessing the success or failure of armed struggle. It was only after the 1976 Soweto uprising that operations would be resumed inside the country although there were MK’s brave incursions with ZIPRA forces into Zimbabwe in 1967-1968. From 1963-1966 the top leadership of the liberation movement was imprisoned, along with thousands of the foot soldiers; many were executed or died in detention; the remaining leadership were driven into exile; the apartheid regime and security forces were cock-a-hoop with success. The How and why MK managed to survive the Rivonia blows is relevant in any overall appraisal of the history of the armed struggle as undertaken by MK (1961-1990). By Ronnie Kasrils MK in the Aftermath of Rivonia (1963 – 1976) 15V o l u m e 8 0 / 2 0 1 9 INTERNATIONAL masses within South Africa were undoubtedly intimidated and without organised leadership. Following the unprecedented defiance campaigns and mobilisation of the 1950s, the post- Rivonia decade of the 1960s witnessed a lull in mass struggle and organised underground activity. This was clearly the nadir of the liberation movement’s fortunes and applied equally to the ANC, SACP, PAC and other factions. Yet the Phoenix of MK was able to arise from the ashes and achieve its apogee in the late 1980s. This paper will attempt to discuss the many factors that made this recovery possible by considering the objective and subjective developments during 1965- 1975. It is important to understand how MK had managed to survive as an organised force and from where it was able to obtain assistance, which meant that the ANC was best placed to respond to the 1976 Soweto Uprising and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the landmark independence of Angola and Mozambique in 1975. How and why MK managed to survive the Rivonia blows is relevant in any overall appraisal of the history of the armed struggle as undertaken by MK (1961-1990). It is important to make the point that although the period under discussion represented an acute downturn it was by no means a disorganised retreat. For a revolutionary movement the act of survival, to recover and have the ability to fight another day, is in itself something of a victory. The subjective courage and resilience of the Rivonia trialists – and those in other trials throughout the country – acted as a clarion call for resistance and kept that spirit alive. The brave hope for freedom was never extinguished and as long as it existed the struggle was not dead. Mandela and company made it clear they were prepared to die for their beliefs. They had a unique public platform to outline the reasons for the creation of MK and the dramatic sabotage operations unleashed. They seized this opportunity in no uncertain manner to raise the people’s awareness and consciousness. The trial itself motivated street protests and raised awareness of the outstanding solidarity of families led by Winnie Mandela and Albertina Sisulu. People might have learnt to keep their heads down but they bided their time, prepared to organise and resist afresh. The arrest of Winnie Mandela and 20 others in 1969, attempting to revive the ANC underground is a case in point. The heroic bearing of the Rivonia trialists furthermore motivated Africa and the international community, including the United Nations, to rally behind For a revolutionary movement the act of survival, to recover and have the ability to fight another day, is in itself something of a victory. Mama Albertina Sisulu attending the Rivonia Trial. © P re to ri a N ew s an d N at io na l A rc hi ve s T H E T H I N K E R16 the struggle. The outcry had among other results an impact on socialist and African countries, demonstrating how serious the ANC and SACP were about the armed struggle. External allies were consequently prepared to step-up promised material support and training which was indispensable to MK’s survival and progress. Moreover, the Rivonia leadership, and sacrifice of others including those who were executed like MK commander Vuyisile Mini, and those who like Looksmart Ngudle were murdered in detention, steeled the resolve of MK comrades who were itching to react and press on. Although we readily accept that the outcome of The Sabotage Campaign of 1961-1963 ended in setback, a historic legacy of confronting the regime had been established. From the time of Sharpeville (March 21, 1960) and the banning of the ANC, the Movement had the foresight to establish an organised external presence. Oliver Tambo, Yusuf Dadoo and Moses Mabhida had been sent abroad that year to organise international support. From the inception MK cadres were slipping out of the country for training. Mandela’s trip to Addis Ababa and meeting the Algerian NLF leadership in Morocco was the forerunner. Six top leaders including Raymond Mhlaba and Wilton Mkwai were sent for training in China. Others were to follow for training in Africa and particularly in the Soviet Union; and this entailed establishing secret routes in and out of the country. The ANC mission abroad established offices in Africa and London to mobilise international support. The infrastructure in places like Tanzania, as well as safe contacts in soon to be free Botswana and Zambia, were important contact points along the long and precarious route to Dar es Salaam. With the apartheid regime passing extremely repressive legislation such as the Sabotage Act (later the Terrorism Act) the writing was on the wall, and other key leaders, among them JB Marks, Moses Kotane, Duma Nokwe and Joe Slovo, were ordered to leave the country and strengthen the external mission both for political and military purposes. The recruitment of MK cadres in greater numbers for training abroad was well underway from early 1962. By the time of the Rivonia Raid and in the period to 1965 there were several hundred cadres completing or undergoing military training in a variety of countries in Africa and Eastern Europe. The external human resource and infrastructure grew to become the Movement’s indispensable rear base and major asset without which the liberation of South Africa would have been far more problematic and taken a far longer time. This indispensable asset was painstakingly developed in those difficult years and became a key objective factor for survival and revival of the struggle. Without a doubt the assistance given by the Soviet Union in the period under consideration (as well as in future) was a mainstay of MK’s survival.3 This was one of the key objective factors which saw us through the most difficult of times. I can attest to what it was like as one of those exfiltrating the country towards the end of 1963. It was a huge relief after being on the run at home and dodging the security forces to safely leave the country. Fish Keitsing, a former treason trialist and citizen of Botswana, ran a competent system of picking up our cadres at rendezvous points at the border, utilising safe houses and transport to spirit one north, or arranging with the ANC in Dar es Salaam for a transport to fly or drive one to this or that safe haven. The ANC office in Tanzania’s capital was a hive of activity handling the movement of cadres for training abroad. Transit houses received those from home and those returning from training. The initial group that had trained in China were followed by middle level cadres who trained in Egypt, Cyprus and Algeria once it was freed. By 1963 thanks to the earlier contacts provided by the SACP with Moscow an advance group of 30 including Archie Sebeko, Chris Hani, Lennox Lagu and Lambert Maloi were training in Moscow. I joined a group of some 200 comrades headed by Joe Modise as commander and Moses Mabhida as commissar which trained in Odessa during 1964. Another group of 200 which included Joe Jele and Mosie Moolla followed us in 1965. By the time my group returned to Tanzania at the end of 1964 we joined at least 100 who had completed training, including the Moscow group, and set up the ANC’s main guerrilla camp at Kongwe, 500 kms to the west. Uniforms and weapons were supplied from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. A small number had received training in Czechoslovakia. By 1966 the camp boasted well over 600 trained cadres. Further training and preparation were conducted there. At this point it is important to reflect that the establishment of a rear base in Africa and training facilities in the continent and socialist countries had been conceived by the Rivonia command from the start. Their plans had included the creation of an underground network to engage in both political and military activity in various centres of the country as well as the reintegration of cadres who had trained abroad. Hand-in-hand with this was the intended smuggling of weapons, a logistics infrastructure for producing basic explosives and capacity to produce and distribute propaganda material. The draft document operation “Operation Mayibuye” although never adopted, and criticised by some for being impractical and adventuristic, has the merit of indicating the breadth and audacity of thinking at that time.4 It was a strategic plan meant to facilitate the transition from sabotage to guerrilla struggle, drafted mainly by Govan Mbeki and Joe Slovo. Ironically many of its recommendations evolved in the course of the struggle. By 1965, at a crucial point when MK cadres in large numbers abroad were primed to return home, the situation INTERNATIONAL Without a doubt the assistance given by the Soviet Union in the period under consideration (as well as in future) was a mainstay of MK’s survival. 17V o l u m e 8 0 / 2 0 1 9 INTERNATIONAL © U ni ve rs ity o f F or t H ar e A rc hi ve s MK in Training was dire. Routes home were extremely dangerous, and most problematic of all there were no structures ready to receive them. Comrades at Kongwa in particular, having expected to be back home as soon as they had completed training, were beginning to experience “cabin fever,” growing bored and impatient with the leadership. A small group were so exasperated that sometime in 1966 they commandeered a truck and drove from Kongwa to the new ANC headquarters at Morogoro to lodge a protest. This certainly shook up the leadership and impelled new thinking about how to address the problem of infiltrating people back home. The leadership had a difficult problem on their hands. Not only were the MK soldiers becoming restless but so too were our hosts like Tanzania and the OAU. The liberation committee of that institution which was put in charge of supervising and assisting the many guerrilla movements of southern Africa were impatient too. The ANC in particular was pressurised to get on with the fight. Fortuitously, Zambia had become independent providing the ANC the opportunity of establishing itself closer to home. This made a tremendous difference. Kaunda permitted the ANC to transfer numbers of its members to Zambia and MK transit residences were set up around Lusaka and in Livingston across the Zambesi River from Rhodesia. The challenges for MK and the other liberation movements struggling to make progress in southern Africa coincided with the publication of Regis Debrey’s controversial book “Revolution in the Revolution”5 on the challenges of guerrilla warfare in Latin America. This had tremendous appeal and was hotly debated in many parts of the world including Africa. But it gave the misleading impression that the Cuban revolution had simply depended on the guerrilla band establishing a base with its own resources and not having to also initially depend on links with the rural or urban people. This went with scathing criticism of traditional leadership and organisation for failing to prosecute guerrilla warfare. Whether or not the theory was fully discussed at leadership level in Africa it certainly had great appeal for freedom fighters stuck in limbo outside their country. This was also the time when the Vietnamese were engaged in the heroic struggle against the American invasion and the concept of people’s war was becoming extremely popular. The incursions into Zimbabwe by MK’s Luthuli Detachment, some sixty strong, in alliance with ZAPU’s armed wing ZIPRA, in the Wankie campaign of 1967 followed by Sipolili in 1968, were made possible by the opportunity provided by the emergence of an independent Zambia, as a base from which to launch guerrilla actions. The idea for MK was that it would use Zimbabwe as a route through to South Africa and if they were intercepted on the way they would robustly engage the enemy. Whilst the objective of reaching South Africa failed, so fierce was the combat with the Rhodesian forces that Pretoria had to rush security personnel to prop up the Smith regime. Although the objective of reaching home was not achieved what should not be overlooked is that this was MK’s baptism of fire. In contact with the enemy they had seen white soldiers die and retreat in terror. Invaluable lessons T H E T H I N K E R18 By 1965, at a crucial point when MK cadres in large numbers abroad were primed to return home, the situation was dire. Routes home were extremely dangerous, and most problematic of all there were no structures ready to receive them. INTERNATIONAL were drawn; and the event made considerable impact back home. So popular were MK’s actions as broadcast by the ANC’s Radio Freedom that taxi drivers and township commuters alike in South African cities were calling out along with their normal destinations “Next stop Rhodesia and Wankie!” Slovo referred to the Wankie campaign as a “heroic failure”.6 And that heroism had another positive side. Lessons were learnt and would be applied. I had been transferred to London where a special secret unit under Dadoo and Slovo was created to establish links with South Africa, recruit travellers and students for underground work at home, and organise the smuggling in and distribution of both ANC and SACP leaflets and literature. By 1967 this was well underway. Our first few units had been established and the initial smuggling of literature soon became something of a sustained blitz as we recruited so-called “London Recruits” – young internationalists who could journey into the country as tourists.7 They engaged in direct propaganda actions utilising leaflet bombs and street broadcasts to get the message to the masses.8 So successful were these actions that on numerous occasions the audacity of the leaflet distribution in all the main cities of South Africa saw front-page headlines and greatly inspired the people. Among the first large leaflet distributions to hit the headlines was a pamphlet about the MK incursions into Zimbabwe proclaiming that the “End Was Near for Vorster and his gang”9. Many of the 1976 student activists who joined MK later told me how they had first come to know of the ANC and MK through the leaflet bomb distributions. Following the failure of the Zimbabwe incursions and criticism from MK ranks concerning what they saw as leadership failures, the Morogoro Conference was convened in April 1969. Central to all discussion was how to re-establish the movement back home and the strategy and tactics required in the new phase. Arising out of lessons learned the emphasis was placed on a balanced interaction between political and military work. Many cadres had felt the absence of experienced leaders from the minority groups, such as Dadoo, Slovo, Reg September and others, had added to the problems they had endured. A Revolutionary Council at ANC Headquarters in Zambia with these comrades included was established. Preparation of comrades chosen to return home was fine-tuned and smaller groups sent to both the Soviet Union and the GDR (East Germany) to receive refresher courses with an emphasis on how to establish underground work and link the political and the military functions. The infiltration of the first number of individuals began by 1970. MK managed to smuggle a couple of cadres on board a ship from Dar es Salaam destined to call at South African ports. Comrades like Chris Hani and Lambert Maloi underwent special preparation and with coded communication methods were infiltrated through South Africa to their destination in Lesotho where they established a strategic underground centre. By the early 1970s the ANC from Zambia was strengthening MK’s presence in neighbouring Botswana, and reconnecting with contacts from the Rivonia period. Arrests and trials at the time whilst attesting to the dangerous nature of the work, and the high rate of attrition, illustrated that cadres were prepared to take the risks whatever the cost. Evidence emerging at such trials revealed that those on trial had been receiving more sophisticated levels of training and methods of work. In what many referred to as a doldrum period following the Morogoro Conference the trial of James April in 1971 reflected serious work that had been taking place. Veteran of the Wankie Campaign, he had undergone further training in the GDR and had managed to reach and survive for some time in his Cape Town operational area – the furthest possible distance from Lusaka. Observers at his trial concluded that he “showed both the dedication and professional potential of the ANC’s military personnel.”10 In October 1971 the security police uncovered an underground network of the SACP headed by Ahmed Timol.11 The scope and intent of the work that he had undertaken so alarmed them that when they could not get him to talk they killed him and threw his body from an upper floor of police headquarters. Timol, a schoolteacher aged 29, had been trained for his underground work in the Soviet Union. He established a network with more than 25 contacts, some of whom were put on trial and imprisoned. His cell produced and distributed SACP and ANC leaflets on a considerable scale whilst maintaining secret communication with London. “Operation J”12 was one of the most ambitious operations undertaken by MK in its entire history. It was considered of such strategic importance that it was under the direct command of Tambo, Slovo and Mabhida. An ocean-going vessel, The Aventura, was purchased with the object of carrying 30 heavily armed MK combatants from Somalia in 1971 and landing them on the Transkei coast. The landing point had been reconnoitred for over a year by London Recruits. The ship’s crew were internationalists from Greece and Britain. The Aventura unfortunately broke down at sea and its mission was aborted. Not to be undone, the cadres flew by regular commercial airline to destinations in Botswana and Swaziland. There they were met by one of the key London Recruits, Alex Moumbaris and his wife Marie-Jo, who assisted them to cross the borders into South Africa. In the process the Moumbaris couple were T H E T H I N K E R20 INTERNATIONAL Not only were the MK soldiers becoming restless but so too were our hosts like Tanzania and the OAU. arrested as were half a dozen of the MK cadres including veterans Theophilus Cholo and Sandile Sijake. They were all sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment. They were joined in the trial by another MK member Justice Mpanza, and a London Recruit, John Hosey, an Irishman who had travelled to South Africa to pass on documents and funds to Mpanza. Moumbaris managed to escape from prison in 1979 with MK’s assistance, along with leaflet bombers Jenkin and Lee, after serving seven years of his 15 year term. According to experienced researchers and commentators “The capture, trial and imprisonment of underground activists in these years was evidence of failure, but also evidence that the liberation movement existed.”13 Of course there is no such thing as a risk-free strategy. Internal efforts to revive the ANC paralleled external efforts. The trial of Winnie Mandela and 21 others in 1969 was among the most sensational to take place at the end of the 1960s. They were accused of engaging in discussion and correspondence with the ANC; possessing ANC publications and distributing literature; listening to radio freedom broadcasts from Tanzania; organising pro-ANC groups and meetings; engaging in the reconnaissance of targets for sabotage operations; and devising means for obtaining explosives. The prosecution made a mess of the evidence and the case collapsed. The trial of Harry Gwala and others in 1974 reflected internal attempts to move beyond the military preoccupation to take advantage of the resurgence of political and labour activity in Natal where this veteran communist was based. Gwala had been contacted by the SACTU leadership in Lusaka who looked to him to send Labour activists out of the country to receive training in clandestine skills. He received a life imprisonment and joined the Mandela leadership on Robben Island. Dotothy Nyembe, a banned ANC Women’s League leader in Natal, was contacted by a group of MK cadres who had managed to successfully cross the border and were seeking assistance. They were led by Linus Dlamini, a Wankie veteran. The police were soon on their tracks and all ended up behind bars. A group in Durban who were recruiting for MK were arrested by the security police. The leader of the cell, Joseph Nduli was arrested and died under interrogation. Thabo Mbeki, with Jacob Zuma and Albert Dlomo, operated in Swaziland from 1975 and developed many links with comrades back home, beginning a process of reviving underground cells and receiving recruits. Comrades of all backgrounds were recruited and became part of the underground network which was painstakingly developed between 1965 and ’75. Those studying abroad who were recruited were given training and tasks. They were trained in the art of living double lives, working normally by day and carrying out subversive activities at night, mainly in the propaganda field. Among other underground operatives who were apprehended in this period and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment were Raymond Suttner, Jeremy Cronin, David and Sue Rabkin, Anthony Holiday, Tim Jenkin and Steve Lee. They were mainly journalists and university lecturers. The latter two were extremely active in exploding leaflet bombs in Cape Town. During the first half of the 1970s the ANC strove to connect with the emerging black consciousness movement and labour activists with limited success. The development of independent organisations within the country pointed to changing conditions which the ANC strove to influence. Some positive connections were taking place with the South African student organisation (SASO) and key office bearers such as Nkosazana Dlamini (later Dlamini-Zuma), whose uncle was the SACTU leader Stephen Dlamini, and Terence Tryon among others, joining the ANC underground inside the country and in the neighbouring states. Structures within Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana were expanding. Returning to the training in this period it is necessary to refer to Soviet assistance once more. As Vladimir Shubin recalls “the need for a special training establishment available for large contingents of trainees became acute, particularly as more and more requests were being by the liberation movements… such a centre was created in the Crimea, in Perevalnoye, near the city of Simferopo… in terrain not very different from Southern Africa.”14 This extraordinary training facility served the needs of the foremost liberation movements of the region. I was told by Mzwai Piliso, who played such an important role in keeping the ANC camps in Africa functioning through the 1970s, just how fortunate the ANC was to have Perevalnoye as a base in reserve. “It literally saved our bacon” he told me. In 1969 the ANC fell out of favour in Tanzania, owing to rumours circulated by elements within the PAC that we were involved in an intrigue to overthrow President Nyere. Unfortunately this was believed for a time and the ANC had to redeploy all of its MK members outside Tanzania. Piliso was among the 500 cadres temporarily sojourning in the Crimea until they could return to Tanzania. And they made good their enforced “holiday” by upgrading the skills at the Perevalnoye training facility. Whilst the tide was beginning to turn inside the country, a dramatic and major turning point occurred on April 25, 1974 when an uprising of Portugal’s conscript army overthrew the fascist government. War weariness and disaffection had set in as a result of Portugal’s unjust colonial wars in Africa and the resistance of the guerrilla movements in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau. A new era in the politics of southern Africa opened up as those former colonies moved rapidly towards independence. Of momentous significance was the independence of Mozambique and Angola which were 21V o l u m e 8 0 / 2 0 1 9 INTERNATIONAL Those studying abroad who were recruited were given training and tasks. They were trained in the art of living double lives, working normally by day and carrying out subversive activities at night. to provide incalculable assistance to MK. The former contiguous to South Africa; the latter’s readiness to provide excellent training facilities for MK as a most reliable rear base. Hundreds of MK recruits were to receive their training in Angola from the time of the June 16th Detachment on. The balance of power between colonialism and racism on the one hand and liberation movements on the other was changing dramatically. Prospects for change in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa were greatly enhanced. According to Karis and Gerhart “…new prospects for guerrilla warfare opened and hopes revived that armed struggle, coupled with internal political renewal, might soon tip the balance of power against Pretoria.”15 By 1975, with the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, the neighbouring state of Swaziland became invaluable as a forward base for the ANC. Certainly by 1974-75, with the ferment of protest and dissent in the country, the first trickle of recruits since 1965 was again being resumed and among these were future MK commanders such as Tokyo Sexwale, Snukie Zikalala, Siphiwe Nyanda and Solly Shoke. This trickle became a flood with the 1976 student uprising which began in Soweto that June and spread like wildfire throughout South Africa. Young people emerged from South Africa in their hundreds in search of training and weapons. Whilst many sought the ANC owing to the prestige its activities had built up, many were simply attracted to its ranks because it had the infrastructure and the personnel in place to receive them. This was not the case with the PAC; and the black consciousness movement which had attracted many young people had no infrastructure abroad at all. Thanks to its record and its activities the ANC was able to make the best of the opportunity provided by history. Its ranks were swelled with the new recruits who in their training were educated in the movement’s policy and principles. The major training took place in the ANC’s Angolan camps. Special crash courses were provided in Maputo, Botswana and Swaziland for a quick turnaround so that some of the recruits would not be missed at home and were able to immediately be utilised for operations. Utilising foreign recruits from the earlier period MK could bank on assistance in smuggling weapons into the country and setting up safe houses throughout the region by internationalists posing as tourists who would not be suspected of any connection. And MK had no problem in recruiting contacts from among the citizens of the neighbouring states or students studying in those universities.16 The period of retreat and revival post the Rivonia arrests, from 1965- 1975, which saw many creative developments, provided the platform from which the armed struggle could be revived and relaunched. The dedicated work and sacrifices of that period paid off as objective and subjective factors referred to coalesced and crystallised in the mid-1970s. The current of historic change was running firmly with the liberation forces throughout the southern African region. Zimbabwe’s liberation in 1980 was further proof that settler colonialism was coming to an end in Africa. The SADF met its nemesis at the hands of the Cuban internationalists following the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola (March 1988) and were finally driven out that country. Namibia’s independence was to follow on the heels of that defeat. With the dramatic change in the balance of power from 1975 MK’s operations increased massively, especially from 1980 onwards, to reach its highest incidence of operations in 1988 when in that single year almost 250 armed actions were recorded of increasing sophistication.17 The 1980s saw the heightening of mass organisation in the country, with the emergence of both the UDF and COSATU, and the virtual unbanning of the ANC through street protests, with an insurrectionary mood gathering. The balance of forces was changing in favour of South Africa’s liberation. What the leadership that launched Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 had hoped for was indeed taking place. The launching of the sabotage campaign had grown from amateurish but brave beginnings into a phase that was approaching the people’s war envisaged by the external leadership from at least the time of the Morogoro Conference. Who then can claim that the decade 1965-1975 were barren years or that those who sacrificed did so in vain? ■ Footnotes 1 For a cursory assessment see Karis and Gerhardt, From Protest to Challenge: Volume 5: Nadir and resurgence, 1964-1979 Karis and Gerhardt, UNISA press Pretoria, 1997; see also: Rocky Williams “ ‘The Other Armies: a brief historical overview of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) 1961-94’” Military History Journal Vol 11 No 5 - June 2000 2 Ibid; and see also Padraig O’Malley ”Shades of Difference – Mac Maharaj and the struggle for South Africa”, Viking, 2007, chapter 7 3 For a full appreciation of Soviet assistance Vladamir Shubin’s “ANC – A View From Moscow” (Mayibuye Books), makes for indispensable reading. See also R. Kasrils “Armed and Dangerous“ (Jacana,) 2013 4 Operation Mayibuye 1963 South African History Online https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/operation- mayibuye-1963 5 Regis Debrey, “‘Revolution In the Revolution?’" Monthly Review Press, 1967 6 Karis and Gerhardt, op cit, p 36 7 Ronnie Kasrils ”Armed and Dangerous” op cit, (Jacana 2013) Chapter 8 8 Ken Keable (editor) “London Recruits. – The secret war against apartheid”, (Merlin Press, 2011) 9 ‘"Leaflet Bombs Warn: End Is Near’" Port Elizabeth Evening News, August 14, 1970 - for the fascimilie see Ken Keeble opposite contents page. 10 Karis and Gerhardt, op cit, page 53 11 Ahmed Timol, was a member of the SACP, and a schoolteacher in the Roodepoort area where he lived. 12 Operation J which involved the purchasing of a seagoing vessel, the Aventura, manned by a foreign crew of internationalists, with the objective of picking up 30 heavily armed MK combatants from Somalia and landing them on the Transkei coast, at a prearranged point, where they would be received by London Recruits who would assist them to get to their operational area, where the objective was to set up MK structures. 13 Karis and Gerhardt, op cit Volume 52 14 Vladimir Shubin, “ANC– A View From Moscow” op cit, (Mayibuye Books) p82 15 Karis and Gerhardt, op cit p55 16 Siphiwe Nyanda, ‘“Weapons infiltration by the Transvaal Urban Machinery”’; Stuart Round ‘“Safari of a Special Type”’ Stuart Round; Damien de Lange, ‘“The Role of African Internationalists”’; The Thinker, December 2013, Vol 58 17 R. Kasrils ‘“Role, Function and Achievements of MK”’, The Thinker, June 2013, Vol 52