Armed actions of the ANC - 1980s
(WC)
One of the first steps the ANC took to implement armed operations was to establish a Special Operations Unit in 1979 to carry out high impact attacks on strategically placed military and economic targets that supported the apartheid regime. These attacks would serve to improve the morale of those who were oppressed by apartheid and at the same time adversely affect the economic viability of apartheid. The second key feature of military policy during this period, the development of a sustained armed struggle inside South Africa, was facilitated in a number of ways. The attempt to establish popularly-rooted internal bases led to the deployment of small groups of cadres into the country. The Western Cape was divided into four military zones.
The 1980s saw an upsurge of armed activity throughout the country, and several significant armed actions took place in the province during this period. These included two attacks on state offices in Cape Town and Langa on 9 December 1981 and 20 March 1982 respectively.
98. On 4 June 1982 Michael Younghusband (26) was killed when a bomb exploded in a lift in the Cape Town Centre building. The target was presumably the President’s Council, which had offices in the building.
Fumani Gqiba, a trained cadre, was deployed to the Transkei in 1980 where he registered as a student at a theological college. His mission was to establish units in the region, as well as in Cape Town where he grew up, and to carry out operations. He was a member of the unit that carried out a number of attacks in Langa and Cape Town in 1982. He was also instrumental in establishing underground MK units in the Transkei and Cape Town at the time.
Special Operations used an internally based unit consisting of Heather Gray and Rodney Wilkinson to mount an attack on the Koeberg Nuclear Power station in Cape Town on the 19th December 1982. ‘Over a period of 12 hours, a series of explosions rocked the various security areas within the plant.’
Inside the country, a number of activists in the newly-formed UDF began to join MK underground structures. One such group emerged in the Western Cape in late 1984, early 1985. Cecyl Esau, who had been active in youth structures in the area from the 1970s, recalls that after the elections for the tri-cameral parliament in 1984: discussions were held among some youths about the way forward. They decided to hold a meeting in Bontheuwel at Quentin Michaels’ house, and those who attended included Anthony Deidrich (Quinne), Anton Fisher and Ashley Kriel. Ismail Moss, a student activist at UWC, linked the group with Jabu Masukata and Vivian Matthee, through whom they established links with MK. Their initial task was to recruit, and they were joined by Julian McKay and Marjorie Lewis.
Armed activity by the ANC in the Western and Northern Cape escalated dramatically from mid-1985 to 1989. The over 100 attacks resulted in at least four deaths and approximately sixty injuries. No PAC or APLA armed actions appear to have taken place in this period. There was a strong shift in 1985 towards attacking personnel of institutions deemed oppressive or ‘collaborative’. The homes of two members of the Labour Party in Mitchells Plain and Grassy Park were attacked with grenades on June 12 1985, along with an attack on the Langa police station. One person was seriously injured in the Mitchells Plain attack. Over the next four days, the homes of community councillors in Crossroads, Langa and Nyanga were attacked with grenades. Three members of the Security Branch were injured when a grenade was thrown at them near the Gugulethu police station. During an attack on the Mitchells Plain home of a Labour Party member on 15 August 1985, Rashaad Witten (16) was killed and three others injured.
After the 1986 coup in Lesotho, the ANC was ordered out of the country. Before the departure of ANC members, however, cadres in Lesotho had decided that a certain number of them would go inside the country. These included Skenjana Roji, Ngwenduna Vanda, Mpilo Maqhekeza, Siphiwo Mazwai, Tony Yengeni, Dumisane Mafu, Hilton Matle, Johnson Tyekiso, and Mbulelo “Ntsizwa” Ngono. Tony Yengeni was one of those sent inside the country to join the ‘underground structures in Cape Town’. Yengeni entered the country in January 1986, travelling by car from Lesotho to Cape Town. His instructions were, among other things, to form an Area Politico-Military Committee. He became chairman of this committee and also served as the regional political commissar. Yengeni joined other MK units constituted by cadres brought in from outside the country. A month after he had entered the country the regional commander was arrested and he took over as MK regional commander. These structures operated for close to two years before they were uncovered in September 1987.
In 1986 there were at least nineteen incidents, including four grenade attacks on personnel, four explosive devices in buildings and five gunshot attacks on personnel. Several police personnel were injured, some seriously. Primed explosive devices were detonated at the Mowbray railway station toilet on the eve of May Day, and at the Mowbray police station on 3 July. The attacks resulted in slight injuries for a policeman and policewoman. A shoot-out at a roadblock also occurred near Warrenton in the Northern Cape on 13 December in which one MK operative was killed.
Several mini-limpet mines attacks in 1987 involved ‘soft’ targets with a high potential for civilian casualties. Certain ‘terrorism’ trialists admitted attacks on three homes of policemen. In a significant ‘soft target attack’ that did not result in any injuries, Jennifer Schreiner, under the command of Tony Yengeni, placed two limpet mines in a ladies’ toilet in Cape Town’s airport around midnight on 21 July. There were also sabotage attacks on power pylons, railway lines, petrol stations, and a bus stop outside a government residence. A powerful car bomb exploded outside SADF residences in District Six and a primed limpet mine was discovered at a bus terminus in Cape Town.
The hand grenade targets in 1987 were SAP personnel (both on patrol and in their homes) and community councillors, or persons linked to these groups. On 9 January a hand grenade was thrown into a vehicle driven by the well-known Warrant Officer Barnard near KTC. The explosion killed his right-hand man, Constable Labuschagne, and seriously injured Barnard himself. Three days later Constable Mtetwa was killed by automatic gunfire in Gugulethu. Community councillor Dennis Lobi’s home was attacked by grenades on 15 and 16 June, injuring four people.
In 1988, twenty-one MK attacks, mainly with mini-limpet mines, targeted municipal buildings and institutions in the build-up to the October 1988 municipal elections. In one of three simultaneous attacks on June 16, a homeless man, Elliot Mphathio Ketelo, was killed at a dustbin outside the Wynberg magistrate’s court in which explosives had been placed. MK member Allan Ndodomzi Mamba was later convicted for this killing. Ten policemen, two boys and a woman were injured when a police patrol was attacked with grenades and shots in Nyanga. Police linked MK operative Mthetheleli Gcina to the attempted killing of community councillor Dennis Lobi on 5 August 1988.
MK operatives linked to the ‘Ashley Kriel Detachment’ were responsible for a limpet mine explosion at the Bonteheuwel municipal rent office on 28 September 1988 which seriously injured Mogamat Nurudien Bartlett. Bartlett suffered permanent injuries including the amputation of half of his left leg. Those involved in the operation were operations commander Aneez Salie and operatives Sydney Hendricks and Vanessa Rhoda November.
The whites-only election in September 1989 drew a number of bombings. Polling stations, magistrates’ courts as well as railway lines and stations were targeted. Two MK operatives, Robbie Waterwitch and Coline Williams, were killed in one of three simultaneous explosions on 23 July near the Athlone magistrate’s court.
Many of the armed attacks by MK members amounted to attacks on ‘soft targets’ or on installations with serious human risk. At least four civilians were killed. During 1985 a series of hand grenade attacks directly targeted the private homes of alleged collaborators, killing one teenager.
Police claimed to have uncovered two extensive MK networks and brought them to trial in 1987. The first network was alleged to have carried out operations in the Western Cape from late 1985 until arrests were made in August 1987. The breakthrough came, according to the police, when 14 ‘coloured’ men were arrested in August for a number of attacks, including a hand grenade attack on the police station in Mannenberg on the 17th November 1985; a limpet mine explosion at a bus stop in Rondebosch on 5th February 1987; a limpet mine explosion at an electricity pylon near the Goodwood showground on the 12th February 1987; a hand grenade attack on a private residence in Mitchell’s Plain on the 23rd April 1987; a hand grenade attack on the residence of a policeman in Bonteheuwel on the same day; a hand grenade attack on the residence of a policeman in Ravensmead on the same date; and a hand grenade explosion on the suburban railway line between Netreg and Heideveld stations on the 5th May 1987. The arrests of the 14 led to the arrests of 11 others that were said to constitute a second large MK network in the region. Those arrested were a white woman, seven African men, two African women, and a coloured man.
The number of people arrested as suspected MK members of these networks reached 33 in August, according to the police, and included 4 regional commanders of MK, members of MK’s intelligence unit and the Special Operations Unit, as well as couriers. Police claimed that those arrested were responsible for the following additional operations: a limpet mine explosion at the Mowbray police station in 1986; a limpet mine explosion at a Lakeside post office on the 2nd August 1986; an AK-47 attack on members of the SAP in New Crossroads on the 11th March 1987; a limpet mine explosion at the Athlone magistrate’s court on the 12th June 1987; a hand grenade attack on the residence of a Gugulethu community councillor on the 15th June 1987; a second hand grenade attack on his residence on the 16th June 1987; a hand grenade attack on members of the SAP in the KTC squatter camp on the 21st June 1987; a limpet mine explosion in the ladies’ toilet at the DF Malan airport on the 22nd July 1987; a hand grenade attack on the residence of a police constable in Gugulethu on the 23rd July 1987; and a limpet mine explosion on the railway line near the Stellenbosch station on the 23rd July 1987.
Two of those arrested, Ashley Forbes and Peter Jacobs, both students at the University of the Western Cape, were alleged to be the commander and commissar respectively of an MK unit in the Western Cape. Jacobs Petro allegedly commanded an MK structure in the Peninsula, bringing in Anwar Dramat, Clement Baadjies and Colin Peterson at various stages. He also acted as a contact person between various MK units in the Peninsula, and in the process commanded a number of different units. From about May 1987 Dramat acted as the commander of the ‘Noordhoek Structure’, which consisted of units in each of the townships of ElsiesRiver, Ravensmead and Uitsig. He took over command of the entire structure of MK in the region when Petro left the area on the 14th August. Collin Cairncross became commander of an MK structure known as ‘JB’ or ‘Bush Detachment’. Ashraf Kariem and Colin Peterson joined Cairncross’s unit in 1987. Nazeem Lowe is alleged to have participated in the planning and execution of the attack on the Manenberg police station in 1985. Walter Rhoode was recruited by David Fortuin into a ‘military unit’ known as ‘The Detachment’ early in 1987. Rhoode participated in a limpet mine attack on a railway line between Parow and Netreg stations on May 2 together with Fortuin and Jeremy Veary.
The alleged commander of the second MK network in the Western Cape, which included 15 people who were brought to trial in 1987, was Lizo Bright Ngqungwana. Many of those accused of being members of the network, including Quentin Michels from Bonteheuwel and other ‘coloured’ and African townships in the region, claimed to have joined MK because of police brutality during the 1976 uprising in Cape Town.
(KZN)
Various MK units carried out numerous armed operations in support of the community struggles in and around Durban during the first half of the 1980s. Three Durban-based MK operatives, Patrick Ntobeko Maqubela (a lawyer from Durban), Mboniswa Maqhutyana from Umlazi and Seth Mpumelelo Gaba carried out eight bomb attacks in Durban between February and November 1981. The Maqubela unit detonated a bomb at the Harriet House in Field Street which housed the Scotts Stores on 7 February 1981. It caused damage estimated at R13, 590. One person was injured. The second bomb blast hit the railway line at Umlazi on 25 May 1981. No one was injured in this explosion. The third bomb exploded at recruiting offices of the South African Defence Force (SADF) at the Trust Bank Building in Smith Street in Durban on 27 May 1981, causing damage estimated at R23, 385.
The fourth explosion was at the Cenotaph Francis Farewell Square on 26 June 1981. Maqubela’s unit placed 5kg of TNT at two motor car showrooms at McCarthy Leyland on Smith Street and Parks for Peugot also on Smith Street in Durban on 26 July 1981. These explosions were an act of solidarity with the striking workers at these car factories in Pretoria and in the Western Cape. The blasts ripped open the frontage of the McCarthy Sigma and McCarthy Leyland showrooms, and destroyed 15 cars. The Maqubela unit was responsible for two more bomb blasts which rocked the Durban city centre on 10 October 1981. The first was an explosion at the Durban train station. The second hit the offices of the Department of Co-operation and Development which was responsible for administering African affairs. The blast destroyed part of the local offices of the Department and caused damage to about a dozen stores and other offices within a 200-metere radius. Five people were wounded in the explosion, which occurred just after 8pm. On 3 November 1981 the Maqubela unit bombed the South African Indian Affairs offices in Stanger Street in Durban in support of the Natal anti-SAIC elections campaign.
Others explosions damaged the Durban-Empangeni line and the Durban-Johannesburg railway line near Delville Wood. A bomb exploded at the central Memorial Square in Durban city centre on the 26 June 1981. Two MK members, Siphiwe Wilfred Makhathini (alias Drift, Mpi, or Meshack Mhlongo) and Gayo Jabulani Walter Nxumalo (alias Bafana or Bongani Mvundla), were infiltrated into Southern Natal in April 1982. Drift Makhathini and Gayo Nxumalo secured accommodation in Clermont with the help of Miss Morgina Shezi and her boyfriend, Bonginkosi Rodgers Malinga. Miss Shezi and Mthokozisi Shezi were drawn into Makhathini’s and Nxumalo’s underground and MK unit. Makhathini and Nxumalo spent their four weeks’ stay in Clermont at Malinga’s rented place at No 1381 Clermont Road. Nxumalo subsequently revealed to Malinga that he and Makhathini were ANC members and recruited him into their unit. A few days later his brother-in-law, Mthokozisi Shezi, brought two other young men named Moses Thabo Ramahlothlo and Sithembiso Nzuza. Makhathini and Nxumalo trained their four recruits militarily in the use of arms and ammunition, and in the handling of explosives.
The Makhathini-Nxumalo unit carried out four armed actions in and around Durban in April and May 1982. Drift Makhathini and Gayo Nxumalo proceeded placed an explosive device at a water-pipeline in Umlazi River canal during the night of 25 April 1982. It exploded causing extensive damage to the pipeline. The unit carried out three armed operations on 21 May 1982. Makhathini, Nzuza and Ramahlothlo targetted the Coloured Affairs Administration building on the second floor of the ILCO Homes Centre on Armitage Street in Durban. The explosive device was timed to explode at five o’clock that afternoon. Nxumalo and Malinga placed an explosive device at the PNAB building in Moodie Street in Pinetown and timed it to go off at 17H00. Makhathini placed an explosive device on the water pipeline near the Ngwenya School next to the southbound N2 Highway in Chesterville during the night of 25 May 1982. It exploded causing minimal damage. This was their last armed action before they returned to Swaziland to replenish their financial resources towards the end of May 1982.
Sithabiso Mahlabo (alias Sikhuselo Msibi) was deployed to Pietermaritzburg in January 1980. Mahlabo’s tasks were to reconnoitre the Pietermaritzburg and Escourt areas for suitable places where the ANC could establish its bases; reconnoitre the area for suitable targets; gauge the feeling of the local population so that the ANC underground could try to link up struggles over popular social issues with the ANC’s clandestine political work; establish arms caches that MK units could use; and launch selective military strikes against state targets. Mahlabo carried out a number of attacks in Pietermaritzburg until his recall to Lusaka in 1983.
Among the most spectacular operations in Durban was an attack on the Durban South electrical sub-station on the 21st April 1981. The sub-station provided electrical power to the nearby African township of Lamontville, about 15 kilometres from the centre of Durban, and the attack took place at a time when the residents were protesting against a hike in electricity tariffs. The explosions caused an estimated R2,5-million damage, thousands of people were left without power, and factories were closed in Prospecton and Umbogintwini and telephone communications disrupted. Tehe unit respondible was made up of Jonathan Magome, Ambrose Sizakele and Mbuso. They placed a bomb outside the offices of the Daily News which exploded and blew out the entire front of a nearby clothing store, shattered shop-fronts and scattered debris across a street in the heart of Durban’s business district just after the lunch hour on 7 February 1981. The attack did not result in any serious injuries or deaths because of steady rainfall.
In June, Natal was once again targeted by a series of explosions. A bomb explosion in the central Memorial Square in Durban city centre on the 26th June resulted in no deaths or injuries, but occurred an hour before thousands of people normally passed through the area. The railway line between Felixton and Fort Durnford on the Natal North Coast was damaged for the second time within a month by explosive devices on the 28th June. During the year MK combatants in Natal also linked their operations with popular struggles. For instance, when cadres from Natal units placed 5kg of TNT in two motor-car showrooms in Durban on the 26th July they were doing so to express support for striking workers at motor firms in Pretoria and the Western Cape.
Two explosions rocked the Durban city centre on the 10th October 1981. The first was an explosion at the Durban train station. The second was directed against the offices of the Department of Co-operation and Development, responsible for administering African affairs. The blast destroyed part of the local offices of the Department, and damage to about a dozen stores and other offices within a 200-metere radius. Five people were wounded in the explosion, which occurred just after 8pm. In December newspapers reported the arrest of 6 suspected members of the ANC that constituted the cell responsible for most of the bombs in the Durban area during 1981. A number of Africans, Indians and Whites were among those arrested and large quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives were seized. It was widely speculated that the ‘arrests had almost certainly smashed the ANC cell that has evidently been operating in the area this year’. The Natal units suffered another blow when three men were arrested and several arms caches of limpet mines, arms and grenades were discovered in remote parts of Piet Retief, Nongoma and Nqutu in northern Natal between December 6 and December 16.
The Port Natal Administration Board in Pinetown and the Offices of Department of Coloured Affairs in Durban were targeted in 1982. This was followed on the 2nd June by 6 explosions in three different parts of the northern Natal area bordering Swaziland. One blast occurred at the Paulpietersburg railway station, another four at the Kemps List Mine, and one at a fuel depot in Paulpietersburg. The Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court was attacked on the 30th, when a bomb was placed below the concrete steps leading up to the Supreme Court and exploded at midday. Five offices, including a charge office and the offices normally used by the security police during political trials were extensively damaged. The latter building was again targeted less than two months later when an explosion ripped through the building on the 21st March.
On 30 January 1983, Thembinkosi Paulson Ngcobo, commonly known as ‘Naughty’, planted an MZ demolition limpet mine at the provincial Supreme Court building on College Road, Pietermaritzburg. ‘Naughty’ Ngcobo’s brother, Nqaba Ngcobo and other Swaziland based commanders had instructed him to blow up the building because it symbolised political oppression and judicial tyranny and was the venue for almost all political trials in Natal. On 11 February 1983, Ngcobo bombed the Drakensberg Administration Board (DAB) offices at Sobantu township in an act of solidarity and support with its residents, who were at the time involved in struggles against rent and bus-fare increases.
Sithabiso Mahlobo hit at least two targets in Pietermaritzburg. Ben Martins helped him blow up the Supreme Court building complex at about 18:30 on 21 March 1983. They detonated the bomb in a flower pot on an enclosed porch. The explosion blew up a lorry that was parked nearby and caused damage estimated at R46,000. No one was injured because the building had not yet been completed. Ben Martins again assisted him bomb the old Supreme Court building on on the evening of 21 April 1983. The bomb ripped through the judge’s chambers, which were located directly above the point of the explosion. The nearby City Hall suffered structural damage estimated at R20,000, and the night-watchman Pratesh Maharaj and caretaker Douglas Patterson, suffered light injuries. Mahlobo left the country quickly in late April 1983.
In 1983, attacks in August marked the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF), a coalition of anti-apartheid organisations formed in Cape Town on the 20th August. Among these was an explosion that destroyed a power pylon in Cato Manor, Durban, just prior to the launch of the new organisation. In November MK carried out a number of attacks in Natal, including bomb explosions on the Johannesburg-Durban railway line on the 1st, and at a municipal depot and police warehouse in Durban the next day. On the eve of the anniversary of the launch of MK on 16th December there were three small explosions in Durban on the 15th December.
‘Naughty’ Ngcobo was responsible for both explosions at the Eskom pylons on 15 August and 14 October 1983. The first explosion at Ashdown served as an act of solidarity and support with Ashdown residents who had embarked on protests against the local council elections that were scheduled for October 1983. Following this, the chairperson of the Ashdown Community Council (ACC), M.M. Mbuli, and his entire council resigned. Ngcobo was responsible for two other bomb blasts on Eskom pylons on 14 October 1983. The first was at Ashdown and the second at Morcom Road in Prestbury. His intention was to cut off the power supply to the city and disrupt its economic activity.
In 1984, an MK unit was deployed to the rural Ingwavuma district in Northern Natal. The unit sent into the country for this operation, like similar units sent into different parts of the country at the time with similar objectives, was tasked with establishing guerrilla bases, recruiting and training locals, and mounting armed actions. Several bases were set up in the district, while a number of locals were recruited and trained by the unit. Wilfred Mhlawumbe Maphumulo, Robert Mfundisi Dumisa, James Edward Marupeng, Norbert Sifiso Buthelezi and Bhekintaba Moses Nzimande were tasked with recruiting locals into armed MK units, training them in military combat and establishing military bases in the caves of the Ubombo Mountains in the Ingwavuma district of Northern Natal. This was part of an ambitious plan to circumvent long-standing attempts by the apartheid regime, its Swaziland Government allies, and the KwaZulu Bantustan authorities to render the area and the whole of KwaZulu north of the Thukela River ‘a-no-go-area’ for the liberation movement.
Another MK unit was sent into the Nongoma district in Northern Natal in late 1984 to establish an underground military network by recruiting and training locals. An underground operative only identified as Matthew Maphalala solicited the help of Cornelius Nzama Zulu to establish the ANC underground machinery at Nongoma. Zulu in turn approached King Goodwill Zwelithini’s induna, Salusha Malinga Zondo. In early October 1984, Zulu brought Timothy Fana Magagula to the home of Salusha Zondo. His mission was to reconnoitre and assess the area for its suitability as a base for the envisaged ANC underground machinery. Magagula spent a few days at Zondo’s place before he left. A few weeks later, Nzama Zulu brought two ANC operatives, Themba Zondi and Mpumelelo Mbatha, to Salusha Zondo’s home. Zondo provided the two men with accommodation and food during November 1984.
MK mounted a series of attacks at the beginning of the year, including the bombing of an ESKOM installation at Georgedale near Pietermaritzburg on the 23rd February, and the ESKOM power station at Pietermaritzburg on the night of the 28th February. MK carried out a major operation in Durban on the 3rd April, involving a massive car bomb explosion in a building that housed the offices of Department of Internal Affairs, as well as the offices of the South African Indian Council. Three people were killed in the attack and 12 injured. The attack, coming as it did a just over two weeks after the signing of the Nkomati Accord, dented the confidence that the government may have had that it had succeeded in neutralising the ANC.
Charles Morabe, who was nicknamed ‘Rabbit’, carried out spectacular bomb explosions in Durban on 3 April 1984. He detonated a massive car bomb at the Department of Internal Affairs and South African Indian Affairs building on the corner of Stanger Street and Victoria Embankment at 7.30 in the morning. The explosion damaged the nearby block of flats at John Ross House and a number of shops whose doors were blown off from their hinges. Five cars were damaged and three people were killed. Twelve others were injured in the blast.
According to the TRC, in April 1984, Anamalai ‘Daya’ Rengasamy and Leelavathi Rengasamy were killed and approximately twenty people were injured in a car bomb explosion on the Durban Esplanade. Less than a fortnight later, on 13 May 1984, there was an RPG-7 attack on the Mobil Oil Refinery, Durban. In an ensuing shoot-out at the refinery, four insurgents and three bystanders were killed. The Security Branch claimed that the four dead men could be linked to the fatal car bomb explosion on the Esplanade, as well as other attacks over the previous two years.
The guerrillas had fired several rockets at the massive complex in the Merebank area of Durban from a bluff overlooking the refinery. The rockets cut three fuel lines and one hit a fuel tank. The fleeing guerrillas managed to make their way from the site of the attack by car, but were cornered at a paint factory in Jacobs. In the ensuing gun battle the four guerrillas and three civilians caught in the crossfire were killed. In the various skirmishes that ended with the shootout at the paint factory, a policeman was shot in the head and a police dog shot dead. Clifford Brown from Buffalo Flats in East London was one of the MK operatives killed.
In June, two unidentified MK cadres were shot dead in a shootout with police in Verulam, Durban, a week before the anniversary of the Soweto uprising. Police found a huge arms cache nearby consisting of large quantities of arms, ammunition and limpet mines. A few weeks later, on the 21st June, a bomb exploded in the Durban Berea area and damaged a 66 000-volt electrical transformer in Musgrave Road.
On 12 July 1984, five people were killed and twenty-seven injured in a car bomb explosion on Bluff Road, Durban. Oliver Tambo asserted that the bomb had been intended for a military convoy and condemned the bombers for being “inexcusably careless” by causing civilian casualties. The Swaziland MK machinery had taken a decision in 1983 to form a separate unit responsible for special operations under the Natal Command of MK. ‘Ralph’ (Raymond Edgar Lawrence) was in charge of this unit. This unit was to specialise in car bomb attacks on military targets in the Durban and Pietermaritzburg areas. Targets identified for attack included the Natal Command, C.R. Swarts, a military office in Pietermaritzburg, the Bluff Military Base, the military training college in Jacobs, and the military maintenance depot in Jacobs. One of the unit’s first operations was the powerful car bomb explosion on the 12th July on Bluff Road (Jacobs) in Durban which left five civilians dead and 27 others injured. The explosion went off just seconds after two lorries carrying soldiers passed nearby.
Charles Morabe carried out this operation.
By 1985, an MK machinery led by, among others, Vejay Ramlakan, and commanded by the Swaziland-based Natal Urban Machinery, covered most of the Durban area. It included both African and Indian cadres. The so-called ‘Durban bombers’ were brought to trial in 1986, and the 10 accused were Vejay Ramlakan (a medical doctor), Sibongiseni Dhlomo (another medical doctor), Dudu Buthlelezi, Phumezo Nxiweni (a student at Alan Taylor residence), Dhanpal ‘Ricky’ Naidoo, Jude Francis, Bafu Nqugu, Sibusiso Ndlanzi (real name Mbongwa), Ordway Msomi, and Sipho Bhila.
The command structure of MK in Durban consisted at various times of Induduz Sithole (‘Belgium’), Sihle Mbongwa, Lulamele Khatle, Dlomo and Ramlakan. Each of these commanders was responsible for recruiting and establishing units. Ramlakan, for example, had under his command units led by Ricky Dhanpal Naidoo, Raymond Metharaj Saclou and Jude Francis.
In the indictment it was alleged that the Durban MK machinery’s first operation was an aborted attempt by a member of a unit attached to the Durban MK command, Nxiweni, to bomb SADF vehicles in Wentworth and Lamontville during April 1985. The next was a series of explosions at a Spars Foodliners, the Trust Bank Centre, and Gillespie Street in Durban on April 18. In June, Nxiweni placed a limpet mine at the XL restaurant on the beachfront in retaliation against the SADF raid in Botswana. On June 16, Sipho Bhila placed a bomb at the Lamontville township offices.
Three MK units under Ramlakan’s command carried out a series of attacks in the second half of the year. Sibongiseni Dhlomo, another member of the Durban MK command, carried out a number of attacks around the asme time. Sibongiseni Dhlomo travelled to Swaziland, returning with two MK cadres trained abroad: Ndlanzi and an unidentified individual by the name of ‘Kevin’. At the end of November, Dhlomo made another visit to Swaziland and on this occasion returned with another three trained cadres, including Andrew Zondo, who was responsible for the Amanzimtoti bomb blast. One of these infiltrators carried out an attack on the Mobeni Post Office on December 8. Ndlanzi, after receiving instructions from the Swaziland machinery that an operation should be planned to retaliate for the attack on ANC houses in Maseru, passed the instructions on to Zondo. Zondo discussed the matter with Msomi, who attached a bomb on a vehicle parked in Durban’s Pine Street causing an explosion on the 21st December. Two days later Zondo placed a bomb at the Sanlam shopping centre in Amanzimtoti, killing five people.
Audway Msomi was commander of a sub-unit of the Durban MK unit that included Thuso Tshika and ‘Bafungu’. An externally trained MK cadre known only as ‘Stan’ provided Msomi with a crash course in the use of firearms, explosives and explosive devices. This unit took part in a number of attacks, after having established a DLB in Umgababa on the Natal south coast with a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition of Eastern European origin in November 1985. Msomi and other members of the Area Politico-Military Committee were arrested on the 24th December, just after the Amanzimtoti blast. Tshika was not picked up in the police swoop and managed to make his way into exile.
The Swaziland machinery launched an operation called ‘Operation Butterfly’ in late 1985 to support the Durban machinery. The objective was to: ‘settle a group of middle-ranking, externally trained political and military cadres in the Durban area; to reorganise the local underground from the top downwards, asserting authority over existing (and often isolated) underground units; to reflect the principle of integrated political-military command in structures; and to prepare the ground for the clandestine entry into the area of more senior leadership.’ Another objective was to establish the first major Area Politico-Military Committee (APMC) inside the country. Most of the cadres infiltrated were arrested soon after entering the country, and the internal network subsequently uncov ered. According to Ivan Pillay, ‘…the Butterfly experience was an ultimate failure. But it did achieve some success…. It drew in lots of militants from the townships and so on.’
Five people were killed and over sixty injured in a bomb explosion on 23 December 1985 in a shopping centre at the upper South Coast seaside town of Amanzimtoti. The limpet mine had been placed in a refuse bin outside the Sanlam shopping centre. Most of the victims were holidaymakers doing last minute Christmas shopping. Sibusiso Andrew Zondo (19) was arrested in connection with the bombing in February 1986. Zondo had been in Maputo when the SADF attacked ANC houses in Matola in 1983, and he subsequently decided to go for military training. He underwent two years military training in Angola, and in 1985 was deployed to supplement the ANC units in Natal. Here he was placed under the command of Lulama Tollman, and led three cells in the region. In 1985, Zondo received instructions from the Swaziland machinery that an operation should be planned to retaliate for the Maseru attack. Zondo discussed the matter with Audway Msomi, who attached a bomb on a vehicle parked in Durban’s Pine Street causing an explosion on the 21st December. Two days later Zondo placed a bomb at the Sanlam shopping centre in Amanzimtoti. It appears that, in an unauthorised choice of targets that did not conform to what the ANC considered legitimate targets, Zondo, together with an unidentified colleague, placed a sports bag containing the limpet mine in a bin outside a shopping centre on the 23rd December.
Two other MK members thought also to have been involved in the bombing, Phumezo Nxiweni (20) and Sipho Stanley Bhila (31), were subsequently executed. The state’s main accomplice witness in the case, a Mofokeng, told the court that he provided the limpet mine and accompanied Zondo to the shopping centre. Mofokeng claimed that the explosion was in retaliation for the South African security forces’ raid on Maseru, Lesotho four days earlier, in which nine people were killed. Zondo, who admitted his role in the bombing, was convicted and given five death sentences. He was executed on 9 September 1986.
In 1986, another attempt was made to establish a permanent MK network in the Natal Midlands when Zenzele Terence Dlamini was deployed to the area. Dlamini linked up with other MK operatives already based in Pietermaritzburg, as well as with an ANC underground political unit in the area, before carrying out a number of operations. MK units were also deployed to the Greater Newcastle area in 1986. These units were charged with carrying out armed operations to stimulate political activity, and to recruit and train locals for the military wing of the ANC.
An electrical sub-station mid-way between Durban and Pietermaritzburg was bombed on the 20th February 1986. The electrical transformer was destroyed in the blast at the sub-station, and power switched off in a number of adjoining areas. A limpet mine was attached to a police van while it was patrolling Umlazi, Durban, on the 11th February. The mine exploded at about 11.45 pm after it had been parked in the police compound, causing damage to two vehicles. A Durban unit of MK struck at an electrical sub-station in Sideman on the 18th February. Two explosions occurred on the site of the attack, the second four hours after the first and after corporation employees had been allowed into the area to inspect the damages. No one was hurt when the second mine, which was buried beneath a pile of sand less than 2 metres from the transformer, exploded.
A series of explosions rocked different parts of Durban in one weekend after the 10th commemoration of the June 16th uprising, and a few days after the declaration of a state of emergency on the 12th. These operations were carried out by a unit of Special Operations based in the Wentworth coloured township led by Gordon Webster and Robert McBride..
On 14 June 1986, three people were killed and about sixty-nine injured in a car bomb explosion at Magoo’s Bar on the Durban beachfront. The operation was carried out by Robert McBride, Greta Apelgren and Matthew le Cordier. McBride was convicted of the killings and sentenced to death three times for the bombing. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment and he was released in terms of the Record of Understanding in 1992. Apelgren was acquitted on all counts. Le Cordier gave evidence for the state and escaped prosecution.
McBride had been instructed by his MK commander in Botswana, Aboobaker Ismael, to choose a military target for a car bomb attack. He said that he had conducted a reconnaissance exercise to ascertain that the bar was frequented by off-duty military personnel. However, this exercise had been conducted in an extremely amateurish and naïve manner. His claim that the Magoo’s bar was targeted because it was believed to be a rendezvous for SADF members could not be substantiated. None of those killed or injured had any link to the military or the SAP. The unit carried out a number of other attacks during 1986.
In August, police in different parts of the country killed a number of suspected members of MK. This included four killed in a shootout with police in Durban on the 8th August following an incident in which a house in KwaMashu was fired upon and attacked with three hand grenades.
Gordon Webster (alias Steve Mkhize, or Joe Webster) from New Hanover, a small farming town between Pietermaritzburg and Greytown, established the next MK unit. It operated in the Natal Midlands and southern Natal areas from Pietermaritzburg, New Hanover, Mooi River to Hammarsdale and Durban, He returned via Zambia and Botswana as part of Operation Zikomo in November 1985. Webster recruited Welcome Welela ‘Blackie’ Khumalo (alias Themba Khumalo), Nazeem Cassiem and Bheki ‘Zola’ Ngubane into his Pietermaritzburg based MK unit. Sam Mthembu often assisted them. n Durban he recruited his former school-mate, Robert McBride into MK.
Webster’s Pietermaritzburg unit he placed a limpet mine on a pipe near the Lion Park turn off from the N3 highway to Pietermaritzburg in January 1986, causing extensive damage. This turned out to be a water pipe. Webster and Khumalo then blew up the electricity substation at Umlaas Road between Camperdown and Pietermaritzburg in February 1986. On 2 March 1986, Webster and Khumalo sabotaged an electricity sub-station near Camperdown causing extensive damage. Webster was confronted by two policeme on 15 April 1986, and after being shot was arrested and taken to Edendale Hospital. On the evening of 4 May 1986, the Durban unit led by Robert McBride, and including Greta Apelgren, Robert’s father, Derrick, Themba Khumalo, Greta Apelgren, Antonio Arturo du Preez, and Matthew Lecordier, rescued Webster from the hospital in a daring operation.
Twenty-four people were injured in two bomb explosions outside the Magistrates’ Court in Newcastle on 11 November 1986. SAP Sergeant Vusimuzi Kunene lost both legs in the explosions. In August 1987, MK combatants Thuso Tshika, Basil Sithole, Patrick Nkosi and Abraham Mathe faced charges of terrorism in connection with these explosions and others, including a grenade and small arms attack on 10 October 1986 at Osizweni KZP station, in which one KZP officer was injured. The first three accused were convicted and sentenced to prison terms on Robben Island. Mathe was acquitted. MK operations continued in October, with a bomb exploding in a manhole in Mobeni, Durban, on the 10th; a limpet mine explosion outside a Lamontville, Durban, police station used by members of the SAP and SADF on the 20th.
In mid-November the scene of operations shifted to northern Natal, when 28 people were injured in two bomb blasts in Newcastle. Two of the more seriously injured were policemen. The first bomb went off at 2.42 pm at the CNA in the Game shopping centre, and the second, hidden in a dustbin in front of the ‘B’ court at the local Magistrate’s Court, went off at 3.10 pm. Two suspected insurgents subsequently arrested were, according to the police, linked to the Newcastle attack, as well as with a mine explosion at the Glencoe railway station and an attack with AK-47 rifles at the Osizweni police station on 10th October.
Zenzele Terence Dlamini, Baba Majola from Imbali and Mduduzi Xaba from Sobantu carried out two armed operations on the Sobantu mobile police station near the Sobantu Community Hall and the military base at Khwezi School. Zenzele Dlamini had established several combat units at both Imbali and Sobantu by the time of his arrest towards the end of 1986. Members included Pho Zimu, Sibusiso Xaba, Mlungisi Magubane, Thabani Zulu and many others. Almost all members of this unit were arrested in late 1986 and convicted in 1987. Moses Ndlovu, who was from KwaShange, also helped establish SDUs in his Vulindlela area, and trained local youths militarily. He linked up with old trade union comrade, Sipho Kubheka, with whom he had served as a trade unionist and member of the ANC and SACTU underground since the early 1970s. Kubheka supplied Ndlovu with an MK cadre identified as ‘Mjitha’. Dumisani Zuma, Dennis Zondi and Mandla Khumalo also helped with the SDUs in the Vulisaka, Mcakweni and Gezubuso areas.
Dumezweni Zimu organised one of the units which provided support to the SDUs towards the end of 1988. Bheki Mlangeni, an attorney who was later assassinated by the apartheid hit-squads, introduced him to MK operatives, Nkululeko Sowazi and Banzi Nyanda, who trained him militarily. Towards the end of 1988 Zimu suspended his studies and relocated to Pietermaritzburg. Zimu’s MK unit comprised of his childhood friends Nhlanhla Nicholas Ngcobo, Fisokwakhe Michael Dlamini and Robert Msizeni Madlala. Dlamini was a serving member of the SAP who had worked at the Protea and Moroka police stations in Johannesburg when Zimu was at Wits.
Other underground units co-existed with Zimu’s in Pietermaritzburg. One was led by Sipho Gcabashe, a COSATU member who had established an ANC underground unit which consisted of himself (as political counsellor), Linda Ntuli and Victor Vezi (Musa Gwala). Towards the end of 1989, Siphiwe Nyanda, through Harry Gwala, instructed Zimu to identify cadres who could be trained for Operation Vula. He recruited Nhlanhla Ngcobo and Peter Bhengu into this unit.
By the end of 1987, Cassius Lubisi had also set up an ANC underground network. This specialised in political education, production of propaganda material, and support for SDUs. Lubisi’s unit comprised of himself, Bafana Khumalo, Tshinyiwaho Pidane, Monwabisi Manjezi and Mpumelelo Sigalelana. He also recruited Mzwandile Mbongwa, Sylvester Sithole, Mduduzi Sibanyoni and Dumisani Bukhosini into the underground by 1989. In addition, Lubisi liaised with Chris Hani on the provision and distribution of military equipment needed by the SDUs.
Several prominent UDF leaders and activists had also been drawn into the ANC underground by the second half of the 1980s. Sipho Moloko, the chairperson of the Ashdown Youth Organisation (AYO), for example, belonged to a four-person MK unit which comprised himself, two other operatives who were only known as Rita and Mandla, and Sipho W. Motaung.
In 1987, a small two-man MK unit was sent to Empangeni and Richards Bay in Northern Natal to establish underground networks, recruit locals and train them in the handling of weapons and explosives, and to carry out armed actions in the area. A one-man MK unit carried out a series of operations in Durban in the year. Mohammed Rafiq Rohan, then a reporter with The Post newspaper in Durban, was recruited by Aboobaker Ismail, who was MK Chief of Ordnance at the time. Ismail requested him to contribute by smuggling weapons into South Africa. Rohan instead opted to be a combatant and, after acquiring permission for establishing the unit from MK Headquarters, Ismail introduced Rohan to the Zimbabwean Regional Commander of Ordnance, Riaz Saloojee (MK name ‘Kelvin Khan’). MK Headquarters also gave Ismail permission to run the new unit, although his tasks were to provide military supplies to MK cadres in the field.
During training sessions he and Saloojee discussed various possible targets, such as the Police Radio Headquarters in Ridge Road, Durban, the Natal Command, and the Durban headquarters of the Security Branch at CR Swart Square. Among the operations Rohan carried out were an attack on the Natal Command during the course of a military function on the 10th of March which involved explosive devices that damaged the building where the event was taking place and injured 17 people; and the placing of a limpet mine near the male residence on the premises of the Security Police Headquarters on the 7th April.
In the late 1980s, the headquarters of “Operation Vula’ was estabished in Durban at the suggestion of Billy Nair. The ‘Operation Vula’ commanders set up three key committees to supervise the structures which they formed in and around Durban. They were the military, political and overall politico-military committees. Siphiwe Nyanda headed the military committee and its members were Zakhele Charles Ndaba, Mbuso Shabalala and Dipak Patel. The members of the Political Committee were Jabu Sithole, a Mathematics lecturer at the University of Zululand and its chair, Pravin Gordhan and Mpho Scott, who were its joint secretaries, and Vusi Tshabalala. Teeruth Mistry who had slipped out of the country after the arrest of the members of ‘Operation Butterfly’ in December 1985 was kept separately, according to Mac Maharaj, because he had a specialised task of manufacturing timing devices from local sources. Moe Shaik headed Vula’s intelligence structures.
Sydney Mufamadi, Reverend Frank Chikane, Father Simangaliso Mkhatshwa and Cyril Ramaphosa formed a core committee within the MDM which was responsible for setting up the agenda within the UDF and COSATU in consultation with the ANC in Lusaka via Mac Maharaj. Operation Vula had presence in the Western Cape where Charles Nqakula and Max Ozinsky served as regional commanders. A handful of other ‘Vula’ operatives were infiltrated into the country after July 1988. They included Dipuo Catherine Mvelase, Susan Tshabalala, Janet Love and Little John. Ivan Pillay was responsible for Operation Vula in Lusaka where he worked with a network of operatives which included Zarina Maharaj and a few others. He later joined other Vula members in Natal after the un-banning of the ANC and other organisations in February 1990.
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