Umkhonto we Sizwe

... Trade Centre negotiating their way towards change the Pan Africanist Congress was playing a different sort of game. While liberation armies like Umkhonto we Sizwe laid down arms, the PAC was arming and training young cadres in the townships to intensify a ‘people’s war.’ For the PAC this ...

... else. For Jeremiah Matli who was born in a black, hidden part of town, bravery meant using the mountain of his childhood as a route out to join Umkhonto we ...

... year. The skeletal remains of Bheki Mkwamasi, Mbova Mzimela and Phila Ndwandwe were discovered in unmarked graves; all of them were members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe cell, the ‘Butterfly Unit.’ They’d all been murdered by policemen in 1988. For years their families had no idea what had ...

The Commission also heard of some of the many exiles who left the area during the 1980s. // In 1993 Umkhonto we Sizwe celebrated its 32nd anniversary. The Spear of the Nation had hit home and would soon be incorporated into a new shield, the South African National Defence Force. // ‘Soon we’ll ...

In the late 1980s a number of Umkhonto we Sizwe cells operating in the Western Cape were cracked and leading members detained. Once detained the men who had hunted them down, all members of the police terrorist tracking unit, had two goals. The first was to extract information about arms, contacts ...

In 1988 Durban policemen led by Col Andy Taylor blew up three members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe unit known as ‘The Swimmers’ here at Phoenix Railway Station. The dead were all KwaMashu student activists. Their names were Vusi Mtshali, Sibusiso Ndlovu and Mazwi Vilakazi. But the MK unit had ...

... truth and morality are the first casualties. In South Africa the brutalised sometimes became the brutalisers. // Teddy Williams, a former member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, was sent to the ANC’s Quatro rehabilitation camp for taking part in a camp mutiny. // What traumatized me most is to see people ...

... recorded 4621 killings. But we go to Durban first for yesterday’s funeral. A month ago nobody knew whether they were dead or alive, members of an Umkhonto we Sizwe cell, the Butterfly Unit: Phila Ndwandwe, Bheki Mkwanazi, Mbova Mzimela. And then five weeks ago the Truth Commission found the ...

... were no clues of what had happened to him on that hunting trip. And it was only four years later that a police informer told police that a group of Umkhonto we Sizwe soldiers from Botswana were responsible. // They told him that they had commandeered his vehicle and forced him to take it to the ...

... on the long journey he’s just started and the other child victims of our bitter past. Now to another unfortunate chapter of our history. After Umkhonto we Sizwe was formed in 1961 it established camps in neighbouring states: Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, Uganda. Suddenly in the aftermath of the ...

This is a matter which preoccupied the leadership of the ANC for a very long time. From the beginning, as we tried to indicate, when Umkhonto we Sizwe was established its instructions were that there should be no loss of life. It’s why there was mention of strategic roads and communication ...

... Before she converted to Islam Zara was known as Greta Appelgren, a fiery activist from Wentworth in Natal. In 1986 she was recruited into an Umkhonto we Sizwe unit by Robert McBride. She was willing because she was already very frustrated with aboveground political ...

Within three years of joining the ANC underground Phila was commanding all Umkhonto we Sizwe operations in Natal from her base in Swaziland. She was 24, with a makarov pistol on one hip and a baby boy on the other, but the same leadership qualities which turned tiny Phila Ndwande into respected MK ...

... amnesty for the murders. The bones of one of the bodies taken out of the soil are those of Phila Ndwandwe. At the age of 24 she was a commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe in KwaZulu-Natal. When she was abducted from Swaziland nine years ago, police denied all involvement. ...

... a prisoner is alone 23 hours a day, deprived of human contact, an attack on the mind and the soul. This is the story of Zahrah Narkedien, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe cadre who was confined in a basement for seven ...

You have got 200 people sent for paramilitary training and you have, if you look at the Umkhonto we Sizwe certified personal register of members who are eligible to be integrated into the National Defence Force: 18, 19 maybe even 20 000 members of MK, you put these two things in balance and you ...

... violence self defence units were set up with the aim of protecting township residents. The SDUs, as they came to be known, were trained by Umkhonto we Sizwe soldiers. One such SDU in the Moleleki section of Kathlehong had already been operating since 1992. The unit consisted primarily of ...

One clue to Claire’s death might lay in the fact that she’d been recruited as an underground intelligence cooperative for Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1987. // We believe she took this responsibility seriously. She continued to have contact with ANC Military Intelligence when she moved to northern ...

... against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people’ // The PAC formed Poqo and the ANC created Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Spear of the Nation. Leadership went underground. But the National Party had these fledgling liberation armies outmanned and ...

But Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres like Patrick Ndlubini had returned to the country as civilians. Now he was tasked to command a self protection unit that had no weapons.