Umkhonto we Sizwe

Lunchtime January 25, 1980. Three Umkhonto we Sizwe storm into the Silverton branch of Volkskas bank, but it wasn’t a robbery. It is one of MK’s strangest operations. They kept 25 people hostage for six hours.

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 ...

... in the power to remove the injustices. The injustices in which few right wing members have received amnesty and where thousands of ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe members were not even charged and others of course were set free while Boers still sit in ...

Zando’s older brother, Mbulelo, had skipped the country in 1976 along with a close family friend known both as Ephraim and Francis. Mbulelo joined Umkhonto we Sizwe. When Ephraim turned up in Kagiso in the early eighties it was understood that he was MK and operating underground. Zando entrusted ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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. ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

I’m not going to talk about apartheid anymore. I’m not going to campaign against it; I’m going to fight against it. If I have to burn apartheid, I am going to do that. And I was on my way after that to Umkhonto we Sizwe.

This incident happened during 1986, the precise date I cannot remember. At that stage Mamasela used the MK that is Umkhonto we Sizwe name of Mike to move around Mamelodi. He came to me one day and told me he was approached by some of the more militant youths who asked if he could not possibly ...

‘Report by Rene Schiebe’ // December 16th 1993. The 32nd anniversary of Umkhonto we Sizwe, a historic day as the army’s about to be disbanded and become part of the new National Defence Force in a democratic South Africa. For these men and women it’s a day of achievement and celebration, ...

... 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 ...

... you might want to refer to which was I think was described at the time as the Silverton bank siege. This is the only instance in which cadres of Umkhonto we Sizwe took hostages. There were three cadres who were going on some operation. They realised that they had been spotted by the police, ...

... was hidden, that we should be ashamed of, that needs to come out during these hearings. The overwhelming majority of the South Africans who joined Umkhonto we Sizwe, whether they went out of the country or stayed in the country were not traitors. They were not traitors, they didn’t sell out, ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...