Umkhonto we Sizwe

‘After the break: // Special forces and the murder of the Ribeiro couple // What does ‘eliminate’ mean? // Umkhonto we Sizwe.’

... he became part of an elite security branch, anti-terrorist unit in 1986 that the Benzien reputation took off. The anti-terrorist unit tracked down Umkhonto we Sizwe and APLA cadres and when they were captured the man they were handed to first was Jeffrey Benzien. It was his job to make them ...

... 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 ...

off to a strange start in Pietersburg in the northern province this week. 14 Local policemen asked for amnesty for their roles in the killing of 6 Umkhonto we Sizwe insurgents in 1986. With the exception of one, a black ex-policeman, these men felt they had not committed any crime because they ...

... that much of this emanated from Transkei, that the apartheid government was party to an agreement allowing the ANC to continue to recruit for Umkhonto we Sizwe for training outside South ...

... massacre started a period of open state terror. The 90 day detention law was passed on May 1, 1963. A series of arrests began soon after. Head of Umkhonto we Sizwe in the Cape Peninsula Looksmart Khulile Ngudle was the second death in detention under this law. Police claimed that he had ...

... member of the Civic Association; he was a General Secretary of the Mamelodi Civic Association. Over and above that he was a senior member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Southern Transvaal Regional Command. Police would have taken interest in him at that level and that alone made him an obvious ...

The skull is his daughter’s, Phila Portia Ndwandwe, 24 when she died. An Umkhonto we Sizwe commander in Natal; mother of baby Thabang, born in Swaziland in 1987. In October 1988 Ndwandwe was abducted from Manzini to Pietermaritzburg. The people who sold her out were comrades. Her abductors: four ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... it means is that it’s not a bunch of ex soldiers getting together having a braaivleis and swopping bush stories. What it is, is SWAPO, ANC, APLA, Umkhonto we Sizwe, Koevoet, Recces, all the units, every single unit, everybody whoever was trained in any way militarily getting together and just ...

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 ...

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 ...

... more information than the actions of the applicant. This is the story of how police confessions have lifted a cloud of suspicion from a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe who was blamed by his community and his colleagues for the deaths of three of his comrades. ...

Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier Robert McBride was given three death sentences for planting the bomb. After four years on death row he was reprieved and in 1991 given amnesty. He is now a diplomat at the Department of Foreign Affairs. This made the sisters of one of those killed in the Why not Bar, ...

... it means is that it’s not a bunch of ex soldiers getting together having a braaivleis and swopping bush stories. What it is, is SWAPO, ANC, APLA, Umkhonto we Sizwe, Koevoet, Recces, all the units, every single unit, everybody whoever was trained in any way militarily getting together and just ...

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 ...