uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress, was formed in 1961 as a response to the Sharpeville Massacre and the banning of political organizations, marking the transition from nonviolent resistance to armed struggle. MK's early operations focused on sabotage of apartheid infrastructure, including railway lines, pylons, and government buildings, with the understanding that revolutionary violence was necessary to combat state violence. The organization underwent significant evolution, including military training in the Soviet Union and Operation Vula's infiltration strategy in the 1980s, while maintaining the principle that armed struggle served a political cause aimed at achieving freedom and peace for the oppressed people.
ANC History: Episode 8: uMkhonto we Sizwe: Ronnie KasrilsAdded:
I want to thank you, Comrai. um as a veteran of uh our people's struggle, I think it's um maybe in to start with the fact that the struggles history specifically the struggle as it took an armed form uh is under attack in public discourse.
um you would know that um there's a resurgent rightwing revisionism uh represented by some in the I think it's called social research foundation I might have to re correct but two books came out by auntia Jeffrey which um dedicated to writing the history of but also national democratic revolution it's actually the same thing so as a point of introduction so that I don't have to do it just take us through the beginnings of your activism and how you ended up being a founder of the armed military wing of the ANC.
>> There's only one genuine MK. You just pronounced that. So, thanks very much for having me here. It's an honor. Um, a little bit then about the background.
I I come from a place called Yovil in Johannesburg. Quite a rough place. um Jewish mainly, but there was a mix of people and therefore quite a bit of anti-semitism you could find. I'm an old guy. I'm born in 1938.
What I'm lucky about is that although my parents were not intellectual, political aware people, they were kind people, my mother especially and they were workingass, white workingass with a background of Jews from the Tsarist Russian Empire fleeing uh the pograms or the poverty and coming to a place where they heard there was gold paving the streets. So my father was actually born in Vnus, Lithuania, very right-wing country today and under the zar very extreme. My mother was born here um and Jewish background but not very religious, more secular except that there was the religion. They didn't actually go to the synagogue uh very much.
I did as a young boy. You have to do that. And um what my mother actually said to me is, you know, Ronald um what we believe in from our religion and she quoted from a Hebrew sage, respect all people and treat them as you wish them to treat you. And that stuck here. My father was a very quiet person.
My mother was outgoing. He was rather reserved. But a person who would say to me when I went with him on his job, he was representing a factory in Dorantine and they were called travelers, commercial travelers. They would drive actually um in his case to a lot of the locations so-called and townships and white workingclass areas or or where you had um Greeks drops etc. And um he would say to me in the car that everyone needs to have a fair wage whatever their color actually said that to me because we would go into the townships Alex nearby Weinberg these places and we'd go into the Indian store and he would take off his hat. Good day Mr. Muhammad. Good day Mr. Kasel. Please have some tea and some mouses before we discuss the order. Would the little boy like drink Coca-Cola, whatever? I'd go out onto the porch and watch the young kids from the township kicking a little tennis ball around or even a rag ball.
And I'd say to my father, "Why are they playing with a a ball like that?" He says, "Ronald, these are very poor people. They can't afford it. next time if you want why don't you bring your football and give it to them.
So I had this aspect. Another aspect was that this was not very many years after the the second world war and the the the death camps and not only Jews died there. Communist socialists um Romany people the so-called gypsies um and Russian prisoners of war by the 3 million in all etc. Slavic people and so on. So there was that awareness and it was not that we knew about these other people but that Jews had died. But I said to my mother when I we saw the news reels, it was shocking in the cinemas. And I said to her, um, is is this how our black people are being treated? Something along those lines. And she says, "No, now Ronald, it's bad here." She used to tell me, "Don't use these terrible words about they they were naive people. My parents in those days to just say natives instead of the bad words. You had to be a decent person." When I became advanced as a teenager, I taught them to say Africans. And they they then adopted that. But I I said something along the lines of the way the Jews had been treated in Europe. And she explained and I said and and here this is bad how black people are being treated. She said to me, "Ronald, it starts this way.
When you mistreat people, when you use these bad words, you dehumanize them.
when when people get attacked like they are by the police, it leads to what happened in Europe by the Nazis.
>> So those were the lessons I grew up in.
To cut a long story short, by the time I was finishing my trick, I was crossing the color bar line. As white, you never had black friends. But I started going in hillbarrow and places to music and on the um weekends in some of the wealthier houses on the outskirts of Johannesburg, these mansions where you had liberal white English type people and they had black and mixed race bands playing. It was almost like going in the underground. you heard about a jazz session there would be um various musicians including a few of the whites and you would be given password and you would drive there and there'd be people at the at the gate and you would just give the password and you would go around the back and suddenly inside there was this wonderful non-racial scene and the music. So I've got to know people that way and I actually then thought because I was deeply disturbed about South Africa getting close to Charlottville um 20 or so when this all this is happening 18 to 20 and I thought I can live in South Africa now because I'd been thinking this is a horrible country. I'm I'm benefiting from being white through black exploitation and I thought I should leave. And now that I had this contact and was breaking a simple law of a partic >> black people, I thought I can live here now. I'm free. I can choose. Shartful comes along. I was shocked. I was at work at a film studio. I had the job Belffort Park near there. And I heard about this in the morning lunchtime we went out. I was a script writer. that there was a group of us, half a dozen, the others who were kind of more liberal than the general whites who worked in the film studio. And we came out into the garden area. Um, the white workingass guys who who did the technical stuff were all together looking very grim and so on and talking.
And in the far corner were my friends from Alex who I used to buy brandy for them on Fridays. They'd come to me, hey, you know, bath rody kind of thing. I give you some money. Can you go to the quarters for it was on Louis Bottles and we need this stuff. I would do it for them.
>> So I go straight to them and I say, "Hey, what's been happening? airplanes are flying overhead checking what's happening in Alex and whether the shot full uprising is taking place and they were grim and they talked to me they gave me some ANC leaflets that had been distributed when I was walking back to the other side to go into where our officers were cuz these guys were doing you know the fetching and carrying a usual kind of thing these white guys said hey Ronnie what you talking to those and they you use the K word kind of thing. The very guys who worked for them >> and carried the stuff, the cameras and and the props, etc. And uh you know, I just gave them a filthy look and they said, "We'll tell you something, Brewer.
In the end, you'll be in the trenches with us when we fighting." And they used the K word, etc. I just used swear words to them. Um anyway, I felt at that point I've got to do something. I I'm this issue that I thought I'm free and so I said I've got to do something. And I went to Durban because I had a cousin there who was a communist and had been in the trade union movement who I only had known when I was about 10 or 12 going on holidays and I met her. Her husband was on the run in the underground people's lawyer Roelly Arnstein. M >> um and she utilized me in the underground because the special prompts didn't know me. Again, cutting the long story short, in no time, I was offered a better job by Lever Brothers who we made films for. And they offered me double what I was getting in in Joberg, but it wasn't the money. I wanted to go back to Durban because I knew a lot of the people there and I became very involved at that particular time. So what happens then I become because there were so few whites most were were banned I become the secretary of congress of democrats of Nutell at the grand old age of something like 22 >> and within a year after sharp I'm recruited into MK and I'll never forget it you see I'd become very active and I'm a young guy um and pretty athletic and so on. So and they came to know me and trust me. So MP Nika who was communist party and also Indian Congress and I did some work for him on new age. He was the editor there.
He took me for a work a walk on the seafront and he said to me you know we this was in July of 1961.
He said we're forming an armed wing. He didn't have to convince me.
Um and and you've been identified as to come on the command. We talked a bit why arms struggle. I didn't even need to ask him.
>> I could see what was going on and that you know through some of the debates at the parties that I attended his mixed race parties in Durban as well. We were discussing that we got to take up arms.
So when MP now puts it to me, he wants to give me like a week to think about it.
>> I said to you, comrade um I accept I don't need to think about it. He says >> why not leave it, sleep on it till tomorrow. I said I don't need to because I can see I've already now in that year I' been at underground lectures, discussions etc. I came to now understand what apartate was, what capitalism was, what imperialism was, what methods of struggle, strategy and tactics were about. And countries like Cuba, which was exciting us. Why had they they they had turned to an armed struggle? Fidel Castro for years before 1953 the Nardo uprising had been involved in civil aspects of organizing.
He was a student a lawyer. So I had understood um from Algeria from Kenya uh the land freedom army of 1953's uprising and I was reading a lot and discussing. So it was clear that because of Chartville and all the violence and oppression, the banning previous 10 years before of the Communist Party, ANC and PAC in 1960 immediately after the Sharful Massacre that the avenues for change which the ANC had regarded as being for nonviolence had ended. That there was an impossibility of any form of political organization and mobilization in the circumstances of the terror that was unleashed and the banning of any form of organization and resistance.
On that basis it was very clear theoretically although for me it had been an emotional factor as well. The two go together that the theory becomes important to grasp and understand that unless the people of this country the oppressed people uh were going to take up arms as a particular method of change in terms of the system. There was no other way. no other way and that's why it was so readily for me to agree >> and within the next few days through MP I was introduced to the the first commander and deputy of what was going to become a fiveerson command for Nutell. The commander was Kenik and Lville, trade unionist and ANC. Billy Nya, his deputy um communist party Kenick was as well actually and leading trade unionist. Then myself and Eric and Charlie who was a trade unionist at Pinetown.
And unfortunately within about a month they recruited somebody called Brunole who was a member of um of of the trade unions.
>> Bruno found you he came after you into the command.
>> Yes. And I became his big friend because the two of us worked very closely together. So it was Bruno. We got the four of us were there and then they um between Kurt and Billy they said they they've got a very good guy. He was a trade unionist who's very good electrician and with his hands etc. and he was >> he had that kind of aptitude as a worker and I found him very pleasant and pleasant and agreeable and quite funny.
So he became the fifth member and that was like July, August and we began our training and preparation and initial recruitment of five different units.
Each of us was a commander of each unit, three or four people in the unit. Um, and we began receiving training basically from Jack Hodgson, uh, who was had been in the the South African armed forces during the war and Harold Straen from Port Elizabeth. Jack was from Johannesburg and they had this kind of ability and taught us about making bombs and how to approach targets and so on. basic initial training, but with the politics to guard you, we it was never just a question of it's going to be armed struggle, the sabotage operations were the immediate ones.
um and the question that we were serving a political cause and a political leadership although at that stage um the MK as you can see from its manifesto is described as independent from existing political parties but serving the liberation movement. It was just the formulation initially that they wanted to give cover to those elements the sections of the Congress movement basically Indian Congress, Congress of Democrats that I was still in banned in 1962 by the way and the the trade unions.
>> So we were prepared for this. We were very serious, very dedicated. There was hardly any funds. Um, we used our own earnings. So, as someone who was working for Lever Brothers, their film section, I probably had an income which was £40 by the way then, which was double what Kernick and Billy were getting. We used our own funds. We borrowed cars. We put in the petrol. We went on reconnaissance and so on. uh and prepared for the day 16th December 1961 when MK was announced as a as initially the independent of the of of any political organization that it was basically as clearly for the movement communist party and ANC headed by Joe Slovo from the party and Mediva Nelson Mandela from the ANC but I stress highly political um with the understanding that there was no other way of change other than utilizing revolutionary armed force in support of the people and in the belief that through the struggle we would help to build up and revitalize organization from underground. ground.
It had that objective. There was an aspect within the manifesto which was about being prepared to negotiate when it's possible because we didn't want to have a civil war in the country.
I can tell you that we didn't pay too much attention to that because we didn't think that there would ever be a time when there would re we would reach a point where the enemy or elements of the white public were prepared business or whatever to find a way of preventing a civil war which could only come when the masses, the abantu were powerful. ful enough in terms of the struggle again and had the means to utilize force to to reinforce the multiffold uh aspects of the struggle. We looked at ways and methods of developing the armed struggle at that very early stage. And the key aspect to start with and we discussed it with Mediva when he came back from his initial training in Ethiopia in 1962 July sort of you know just 6 months or so after the emergence of MK and we discussed with him what about guerilla warfare because we were in a phase of using sabotage in other words attacking attacking um attacking railway lines, the pylons, the visible symbols of apartate such as apartate offices etc. >> So how many did you attack personally?
>> How many did I carry out?
>> Sabotage. Yes.
>> Yeah. Uh something like seven >> actual operations um in that period. Um, and I would say one of the most important things that we did is an operation which was with the help of my girlfriend who I'd recruited into the struggle and who became my wife in exile. Eleanor >> uh Logan at that time um was very clever. Now I'm just giving you an example because of how women can help and have the understanding because we had identified a dynamite site outside um outside uh Pine Town that area. They were using it in the felt in the bush as a depot.
They were blowing up a road, a rail, sorry, the roadway through the hills there which became the motorway to Jannersburg by the way. So at night it was it was surrounded by fencing and barbed wire and inside was the depot of dynamite within um within a sort of fabricated uh building. and she and I went to with Bruno. He had spotted it and reported it to us as the command and and Ken and Billy. They were busy working all the time.
>> Um by then I'd been fired from Lever Brothers because I'd been arrested at work for supporting the Ponderland uprising by the way. So they had all this time and Bruno was given leave by by his union by Zaku. So we were doing this work. We went with Eleanor and him and as though he was like, you know, our our I don't our our servant >> and near this site, we laid out a picnic for the two of us and we were watching this place and working out, okay, there's going to be a way. And I had the masculine idea that we would get um we'd get instruments to break through the barbed wire and get in. Bruno, we didn't know had been an actual thief and was very skillful breaking open.
Um but she at a moment when the guards of this place were a bit of way and loading some truck, she went to check the padlock of the main gate and she just took down by memory the the make and the number and then was quickly sitting back with me. So we go back to Durban and we're discussing this and I report to Billy and Ken and us men work out how we going to go and break it. In the meantime, she says to me, "Listen, I'm going to find an easier way because I I I'll tell you I'm going to find the key to that lock." I said, "What are you talking about? Find the key to that lock." She said, "Didn't you see? I was looking at the lock to feed the make and the number. I said, "So what?" She said, "God's true." You see, her father was an engineer >> and also taught her >> all sorts of things, fishing with him.
She the only child, the solitary girl, and he gave her all this kind of information that an engineer could give to an offspring. She went shopping to these hardware stores and there were some big ones in Durban and she would go looking for all the the locks and find the padlocks and she would be looking for the trademark the the label and the number.
My god. She meets me after work and we sitting somewhere having a beer. 5:00 she says, "By the way, I've got a present for you." She produces >> and gave you the key to the dynamite. I >> said, "Are you joking?" She said, "Listen here. Just try it and I'll bet you you'll open it. We based our plan on that." And it was Billy, myself, Eric, and Charlie, and another comrade who drove us called Manny Isaac's. He didn't know what we were doing.
>> Um, and he drove us to where this site was, part us off, parked off. The three of us went in the dark to the place. We knew from Bruno that the machinga lion at the night watchman who is left there by the auga with his knob kerry to guard the place. Can you imagine? You'd think after they after sundown and they've gone that he's just going to sit there all night.
Bruno had discovered that by once it was dark he went off to the shimi.
He was away.
I mean it's a this guy became the traitor but he was clever.
>> So there we were but God was nowhere to be seen. By God, we go up to that gate.
We've still got the wire cutters in case in reserve. I go, I put the key in. It fits neatly. I I get shocked. Jesus. I turn it. Click. This huge padlock opens up. We get inside. Now, that's where Bruno. We We should have realized it was a clue that he had been a robber.
He goes to these uh the the these big containers and he just puts in he this uh Jimmy.
You know what was shocking? It was dark and there's dynamite inside. He does that. These were metal doors. The sparks were just shooting off.
>> We We were so foolhardy. We didn't even think for a moment that dynamite is is stable. But you get sparks nearby. You could just blow up >> and we opened up about three of these >> safes. Um, and took away a huge amount of stuff.
>> We come to the Manny's car. We put the stuff in the boot in the back and it's piled up. We drive away. It's so full that Eric, Charlie, and myself, it was one of these vans. We lying on top of the boxes. There's no space for us. We'd rather wait. Many Isics didn't know what we had taken.
By the next day, these posters in town, which in the afternoon, I think, you know, it was in in the early morning paper afternoon, he's driving from work and these big posters saying dynamite stolen near Pine Town.
Something like a ton we took away.
>> We were hiding it all over Durban and then distributing it to the rest of the country.
>> Wow.
>> And then we were in business. That was from sometime late in 1962.
And then we really got going. Railway lines, pylons. Uh the guys in Johannesburg went and blew up the office of the Minister of Agriculture. It was a standalone building. They had the dynamite. The whole building was blown to pieces.
>> In Durban, we hit the pylons. Um, we knew the whole layout of the pylon system. So, we attacked in three different places which plunged Durban into total darkness.
>> And the whole coast light.
>> Wow.
>> Dark. Um after we carried that out, Sane Eleanor was driving was the driver of the unit with Justice and Tanza and David and Wunda myself and we dropped them off at Guamu. We came to our house in Florida Road. It wasn't this this kind of place where people have a great time today. It was real >> Oh, the the the the Florida road. Yeah, I got you. It it was very workingass and a small kind of little house, the little cottage we lived in, etc. So we waited >> now like the long street of >> we we had timing devices on these so that we could get home and seem to be innocent because the special branch would raid us uh the many people after operations. So we had to be careful and be at home. While we sitting playing chess, the lights go off in our little home. We delighted, but how big is this?
Let's check outside. We look up and down Florida Road. It's in pitch black. How far is this? We run up to Mitchell Park right on the hill. And from there, we could see the Bluff Durban Center.
Everything is in absolute darkness. We did a little dance together.
We ran back home within half an hour of love and revolution.
>> Absolutely. Yeah. Love goes with revolution. What did Chay Gavara say about that? Revolution is an act of love. And the special branch arrive bang bang bang on the door and the guy they come in, oh are you home? Where have you been? We say no we've been here all night playing chess. Look at us. I say what's going on? they say, "Yeah, you'll see in the morning."
Um, so that's how MK started. So there's all of this kind of homegrown training, but to emphasize it was because there was no other way in which we could make change. We knew that the process would lead to other forms of struggle but that this was vital and would grow that we needed to advance it from the sabotage phase >> and that it's politics and it's not love of violence or to kill etc. When we in the camps training, what is said is we use the AK as a weapon for peace.
>> Yes, we have to resort to revolutionary violence against the violence of the state of the ruling class, >> but we are fighting for freedom and to create peace and security and progress for the people. So the politics is always there. The moment that there's no clarity in the politics, you descend into what Lenon said, banditry.
Banditry. That's what happens.
>> Another word for criminality. And then that comes in. You see, >> before we go on from here, this interesting name, I'd like you to now pin it down for us. Brunom Dal uh he is often evoked as the quintessential figure of Bimi of a person that turned against uh the struggle and it turns out you knew him.
So when under testimony he became stayed witness.
What what did you make of that?
>> Well, um you know, let me just contextualize that he testified. He was a key he was actually a star witness >> against the the Reonia trialist.
>> Yeah. And the and the the Nel trial.
>> Yes. So we underground by 1963 May it becomes clear that the regime is notching up its protofascism and it's going to now turn to arresting people without any proof.
under the 90day anti-sabotage act or sabotage bill which becomes an act and then 90 days 180 days and then indefinite. Okay.
So I remember talking to Billy Nia and saying hey Billy they coming for us and we should start going underground.
Sorry. So just to also add that people like Billy MP Nika and others had been in the struggle and arrested time and time again and had been underground and then above ground. Unlike some of our youngsters like me and EB and others, we were actually looking forward to going underground and being fulltime. We didn't even worry about where we getting the money or so.
I was raring to go and um they said no the leadership weren't actually taking a decision. and they would be varicating for I think more this kind of subjectivism I would say and there were the big arrests but people like Bruno Eie myself quite a few others were underground so we weren't arrested >> and I was with being the white guy and by the way I had saved money. So, I actually had a few hundred bucks, which was quite a lot. I went and rented a house and things like that in a disguise.
At first we stayed in a very rough conditions provided by Eleanor because her parents had a property outside Durban at Cliff >> which just had kind of kaya's outouses and they grew flowers and she put us there until we could find a proper house. was Bruno, Ibraim, Ismael and myself.
>> And um in this period of underground, I started getting a bit worried about Bruno because he started complaining and you know, I wasn't anti him, but he seemed to be he was talking about money and he was making some reference to leaders who live a better life. and he had been to Joberg and been to the Raonia place. He said in court later that yeah what changed him was Walter Culu had wonderful furniture and furniture in his sou house. I mean, you know, Walter Culu, so where to house, his was like maybe twice the size of an RDB house, but he he was beginning to have second thoughts, but we were underground together and we were connecting with people like Justice and Panza and other comrades from Ulazi and Kamashu and places who we were still in contact with and we had dynamite with us and we were >> passing it on to them and giving them instruction. ction. But I'll never forget the day when Bruno went off to meet ostensibly a guy called Steven and Charlie who was from um fromWamashu who'd taken over from Justice and Panza who we had sent out of the country and we didn't know that Erica that Steven Charlie had been captured and had confessed his wife had given him away.
So I think that had kind of affected his psychology, psychological position and maybe fear and so on. So Bruno leaves us and doesn't come back.
>> So um replaced.
>> Yeah. He he placed Justice. He replaced >> Butza is the recruiter of Jay-Z.
>> Yeah. Yes. only but Jay-Zed wasn't in a youth he was simply sent out of the country for training >> um and was arrested going for training in 1964.
So Panza was out but had recruited Zuma and a few others to be sent out. And the people who took over had then sent Zuma out for training and they were arrested near Zerist and that then led to them landing up in Robin Island just going ahead about Zuma. Although people are contesting whether that is what happened to Zuma.
>> We'll come back to that.
>> I have I I'm I'm actually interested.
Yeah. cuz you are very much in the area of Etiwini as we know it today >> operating as a commander >> and these figures that some of them will end up in Robin Island. Yes.
>> Let's finish the story of Bruno.
>> So just to say this about Bruno um which came to shock us.
We as I said I really liked him and so did Eleanor. Um, and he goes off to meet comrade with instructions. He doesn't come back.
So now Eie and I, it's nighttime. I'd given him 10 shillings to buy some mince meat for us. We were down to our last few shillings. This was the currency. It was like 10. It was like 10 rand or something at the time. And he doesn't come back. Now we start thinking what's happened. You never want to believe the guy's arrested.
>> The failure of underground. You want to think he's okay.
>> So we think I've started knowing his weaknesses. So I say to Eie, you know, he's been a little bit unhappy being stuck in underground. He's a bit of a womanizer. He likes his alcohol. He's got that 10 shillings. I said, I think he might have gone to a shabid and found a spoon.
Maybe he'll come in the morning.
>> God, the morning comes. He's nowhere there. We sitting around by lunchtime wondering, God, maybe we should leave.
Then who arrives? Elidor.
She comes in a state and she says to us, "Brun's been arrested at my mother's um uh at my at the plot where we had live left behind where the flowers are being grown in >> Cliff."
>> Um we were somewhere like 20 kilometers away. Um, and she says, "How does Eleanor know her parents?" She went to see her parents and they say to her, "Elanor, do you know anything about a native who was staying at the planted cliff?" Eleanor shocked. So she says, "No, why?" And they say, "It's strange. We've had a visit from the security police this morning to ask us if we know anything about this >> and they of course had it said no and the police just accepted.
>> They were just checking you see. So Ellen of quick thinking >> gets a car and comes to warn us and she takes us from there. We abandon the place because we reason that they're going to break him. they'll kill him, you know, to the point they'll torture him to find out. We didn't think he could just pray and we we were taken, she took us to a safe place in Peter Merittsburg.
Um, very soon I'm still in touch with her. We're still trying to organize the underground.
And in the process by the way EB gets arrested going on a a project to meet some of the Indian comrades but they also have been caught and they've given information people under duress that that they were meeting EB uh you know I was meeting some people and so on as well but that's where EB gets arrested and Eleanor gets arrested. Wow. Now she gets arrested and at that point the remaining political leadership George Punan of the Communist Party and Vera his wife the few others who are remaining they get a message to me to say you have to go to Johannesburg. It's too hot here in this whole area and it's impossible for us to take care and help you and so on. We sending you to Joig to report there. Um this was at the time when the raonia arrests arrests had also taken place. So the country was in a chaos and and the movement. So I'm sent to Joberg and put in touch with the Brahm Fisher and I'm underground at a friend's place meeting Wilton Quai. I didn't know Maharaj he was working with Wilton and Qua but Wilton was now the new commander of MK and I'm giving him all the information and I gave him a gun that I had and so on and waiting to see whether they're going to use me in the country or send me for military training.
and we get news that Eleanor's been arrested.
Um, and it's shocking. Okay.
And I don't want to leave the country. I say to Braun, "Look, uh, you know, I prefer to remain here and find out is she going to be released and so on."
She manages to get a letter smuggled out of detention to me and she says to me, um, I've been arrested. She explains, we knew through the press and and so on that she'd been arrested. She says that the special branch had been grilling her about the following contacts and wanted to know this that and the other and she was refusing.
She says to us, I believe Zoom, I believe Bruno has broken and is giving them all the information because I've been in the interrogation center and I saw comrades who'd been beaten up. She was telling me then David and the Wanda and uh who was you know um and so on in in in EB and Sunny's thing. She said but I saw Bruno sitting in an office >> smoking ah she says and then the special branch said to me your friend Bruno didn't we didn't even have to touch him.
He sang like a canary the moment we captured him at your parents' >> property where the the flowers were growing this place.
I spoke with Bram Fisher and I was doubting Ellen. I said I don't know maybe maybe they tricking her. I said that he's got weaknesses, you know, and I told Bra the weaknesses, but I said, you know, we trust this guy, etc. >> Anyway, I'm I'm decided that it's too hot for me to be there. And they send me to Darus. But by the way, it's a wonderful story. Before I'm going, Elanor escapes.
>> Very clever escape.
>> Escape prison. She had been she pretended to have a breakdown mental breakdown and had gone on hunger strike.
So one of the first woman white woman who's in detention and with parents who run the city bookstore and are quite well known. So they were clearly quite jittery and the psychiatrist who attended to her seemed to be quite sympathetic and had said to them that she's in a very bad way. She must be sent to Fort Napia the the uh mental establishment where they have lock up for criminally saying outside Peter Marisburg. She was there >> but once there it was easier. She started checking the setup and she got the support of an African not wardress of an African woman who was employed to do ironing and things like that. It's actually all in a play from a book that I've written. I'm going to send you tickets. It's going to show it Ptoria in June. It's been doing the country.
Anyway, so she just to to to get odd in the story >> with a mad >> she manages to escape with the help also of the underground Congress of Democrats comrades at the university in Merittzburg. Um so we actually reunite and that's we sent both of us out of the country together to Darus. M >> that's where I am from October 1963 with her and we get married there but before a marriage we working uh they'd have her working and in the office they really liked her Oliver Tambbo Katani etc and um they sent me with 150 other comrades to Odessa but in the Soviet Union where we trained at that time Chris Hani Muso Simang and others who must speak to Mavuso about it are trading in Moscow >> um that brings us to like 1964 >> that period we out there >> in that time just to finish what's happening in South Africa >> there's been the trial the ravodia trial and who's the star of witness Bruno to so it's clear >> he is such an outstanding witness for the defense for the sorry for the prosecution that even bean and the top defense guys who are brilliant could not break him they had him for three days in the doc he could stick to his story and they found that the moment they started pressing him he was clever even outwitting a special branch that he had some information that he kept back and when they came to start probing and trying to get too far, he would start letting out some information.
They cut out that line of questioning because of course um between the accused who had been briefing the defense uh they explained by then a lot about what had happened because um Bruno had come to Joberg. We we were very advanced in our activities in Durban including providing the dynamite but in other ways the the kind of explosives that we developed etc. What we discovered was that Bruno had been a real hardline criminal before he joined SACTU >> and for years had been carrying out breakins on the railway property >> and knew how to jimmy open >> doors and the trades etc. >> Could they have used those previous runings? Because if he was a criminal, he may have had runings with the police.
>> So the question arose, was he a plant?
>> Is that what you meant or you're getting at? So was he an informer in advance?
>> My view is no. Because if he was, I doubt if they would allowed have allowed us to carry on the bombing so long to carry out some very outstanding sabotage operations.
>> I can't say that. Well, in terms of my insight, knowledge of him, I that's why I didn't.
>> Where did he end up?
>> He ended up being freed and working.
They gave him a a job at the newspaper office called Datala and they loved to give him the job there because we had blown up Din Natala with dynamite in the operations. The person who was responsible for that operation was Justice and Panza by the way.
>> So they gave him that job. He was there for ages. He must have had a good pension. They must have given him other funds.
What? When I came back home, he had died of a heart problem in hospital and Billy Ny told me that when they were released, I think him and Kernick they had gone certainly Billy remember he said with a couple of comrades to visit Bruno in hospital to try and speak to him and try and get more information and insight.
And Billy said he was absolutely cold to them. He wouldn't apologize.
>> There was no remorse in terms of what he did.
>> I mean, his testimony could have led to the hanging, the actual death sentence.
>> Absolutely. And he had no regrets. No regrets whatsoever >> because he visited Johannesburg and realized Walter Cisulu lives in a flamboyant house.
>> Oh god. Yeah, >> you should read the book >> by Bruno. You know there's a book.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Have you read it?
>> No, I haven't.
>> You'll just see how he writes in his memory. It was really good. But when he writes about >> I've read the testimony.
>> Okay. Yeah. Oh, you know what he said about Walter Sulu, you know, this fantastic furniture >> and they dressed to >> Yes. Yeah. Sure. Though he was now trying to justify basically the argument was no, these leaders were wealthy and privileged. What privilege being sentenced to life in prison and be in the dock, >> you know, possible death sentence to Mandela Sulu and Becky and so on.
So this is how they manufactured the story. So in his book he gets the point about the bantists and how wonderful and magnanimous the booers are. They recognizing our ethnicity and they giving us freedom quite correctly in what were the reserves you these bad >> so an absolutely disgraceful disgusting counterrevolutionary treacherous person. M >> I don't shed any tears for him. Although I can tell about him and what he had been like and what he actually landed up as. One has utter contempt for people who betray their comrades and who betray the struggle in whatever way. It comes in different forms and sizes. Some because they love money and because they've been bribed and they become corrupt. We see it in the country today in post 1990. Others who became agents and informers. Others who are arrested who break down under torture >> and appear in court and are become hostile witnesses to the state. You could hear how Walter Suzu spoke about people like that. We can understand what happens to a person who is tortured to such an extent that they break down. But somebody who gives it voluntarily and doesn't change comes to court and does his or her best and rides a bull >> to absolutely see that comrades can go to the gallows later on benefits from you know like a dog at the table getting the crumbs.
This was Bruno and Tollo and others such as as as him. H I think the next phase uh with Eleanor, you are in Tanzania, but you you actually take or rather ascend for actual military training. Those not those dynamites of yours and Bruno.
Now this was guerilla warfare.
>> Yes.
>> Can you just take us through that just briefly that course? I've learned to actually ask because when a person says I went for training in Russia, they could have gone for office training. They could have gone for motivational training. But there's actually different courses. You have to ask what course did you >> your group go through? We had Mavum Sim and you did speak about Odessa and Moscow.
>> Yeah.
>> Groups.
>> Yeah.
>> That took place at the same time >> and you both didn't know that you were h there at the same time until some coincidences >> in some match of some sort.
>> Okay. So just to bring it up to that point, a little background >> um with the um establishment of MK 1961 and then we carrying out the operations but we also recruiting to send comrades abroad to build up a people's army >> and initially they go they sent to a few like Mediva Manila to Ethiopia a short course to Egypt where there's quite a rough course by the way very physically draining and hard um and then to Algeria it's become liberated through the armed struggle and political mass struggle >> but um they really you didn't and I think it's important I know we we shouldn't take too much time here but the Moroccans And some of the people in your generation these days like to say Morocco also trained the combatants of mandis and this is not often clarified that >> okay I I'll can quickly deal with that.
Yes.
>> Um, so let me talk. It's the Algerians who do the training >> who are in Morocco >> but in camps in Morocco because they become >> liberated at the end of 1962 or so. Yes.
>> So just earlier >> it's Algerian movement of Benella >> that provides training in their camps >> which are in >> Morocco >> Morocco.
>> So for a brief period >> um however the training in Africa has got some shortcomings. They really don't have the resources.
Cuba we had huge training in later years.
China the initial leadership group are trained in China. Uh Jabby um and a few half a dozen others there um Andrew Langeni and so on. The bulk >> Mua >> and >> Tyson Mua.
Uh-huh.
>> Yes.
>> And uh the the majority the Soviet Union comes to the four.
>> Tambo has requested it. The Communist Party or our Communist Party is very much involved in preparing the Soviets in relation to the South African struggle and so on.
But they prepared to take huge numbers and they've got the real resources.
comrades who had trained it's none of these countries scarcely fired a few shots a few rounds uh because of the problems within Africa and the resources as I've mentioned so can I just make a point that the GDR also trained a few people like Mag Maharaj by the way but um the first groups who go to the Soviet Union they're 25 in each of these groups one with Chris Hani another with Musa Simang um they don't interact with each other. They kept apart.
>> In which one were you?
>> 63.
>> That's 63.
>> A bit ahead. Sort of from about the middle of 63.
>> Um but we want a lot of people trained at a time like 150 160. So that group goes to the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1964. I go along with Moses Mabida the commisar and the overall commander Joe Misi. It's very fortunate to to go in their company. We there for almost a whole year and there unlike Moscow they do more urban uh underground training but to shoot and and uh the understanding the politics uh etc. It's a very good course for command level >> with us. There is um it's in Odessa but that Soviet Odessa communists in power and who train us not the the collaborators and the fascists who were fighting with the Nazis who are running the Ukraine today.
>> Yes.
>> Um and you want to know a little of the the courses. So it's something like 10 courses.
There's the focus is on the military on guerilla warfare using a whole range of the weapons training in um ambushing in carrying out guerilla raids in setting up guerilla detachments in working in underground in urban and rural areas.
uh topography, how to move by compass, um engineering, the sabotage that we had been doing already, but with advanced uh mines and um and explosives, etc. High level. We learned how to drive tanks and use anti-aircraft, heavy guns. Why? Because a guerilla army goes from small to big. and you seize the larger weapons and even tanks from the enemy. So, you need to know how to use the weapons you're going to take from the enemy. But, of course, small arms and AK and RPGs firing bazookas into police stations and army bases and into enemy vehicles and so on. Um and politics which is a key factor and they keep saying it. Comrades, you can't just learn how to use weapons. You have to know and understand the theory and practice of revolution which is based on politics and political leadership and and so on and building the links between the gorillas and the people. So this is what we're doing throughout that year.
And the people training us are the stalwarts who defeated the Nazis who were in the Red Army and stopped them at Moscow's gates, beat them at Stalin, went on to um expel the Nazi forces from Soviet soil and onto Hitler's headquarters in Berlin. It was the Red Army that won that war, not the British and the Americans. That was a sideshow from the west.
>> Anyway, that's this the training. We meet up with the Mavuso group and with the Chris Hani group. When we finish our course at the end of 1994, we go back to Tanzania. 1964, sorry. We go back to Tanzania to a place in the interior called Conga where we have our main base and we find Chris and Musa and company there. And this is where the MK army is now in quarters waiting for the possibility of infiltration back home.
So this brings us up into that period.
We've had a good uh running into you know the different many missions starting obviously with your lutuli detachment many many many more including the incredible navy attempts >> h but as well as the building of the underground uh up to your activities with this self-defense units and all of that. I just want to ask um two highlevel sort of clarities.
What was the structural outline? Uh it looked like there was because you were the head of MK intelligence.
>> That's military intelligence.
>> Yes.
>> For MK >> forondi.
>> Yes.
>> But there was an intelligence unit of the ANC. Yes. Yes.
>> Can you just clarify >> what that means? How did it work?
>> Okay.
>> And what are the names?
>> Uh and what were the relationships?
>> Yes. So just to first deal with MK. So the military needs its intelligence structure to to penetrate the enemy forces uh with infiltration of of our own agents >> um to recruit from within the enemy.
There were lots of whites who weren't happy to to serve as we well know to obtain the information, structure, leadership, weaponry, um, regiments, brigades and so on of the SADF, its morale, its strategies, its battle order, how that is carried out.
So you've got to be dedicated. You've got to have a special um unit such as military intelligence which is serving MK and obtaining all that information.
The ANC and the political movement need overall security to protect it from enemy attacks and enemy information in infiltration and so on. and it needs at the same time an intelligence aspect or structure itself um about the overall situation in South Africa and also of course to recruit people uh so there can be something of an overlap and it's very necessary to have a good synergy between MK military command and intelligence and the ANC security and overall general intelligence where there's research about the country and and um its politics, its positions etc. very important and infiltration into the ANC itself which is counterintelligence for the ANC. So that structure was called NAT national security and intelligence of the ANC. it underwent various changes of title um and leadership. So the overall leader or head of that reporting directly to Oliver Tambo was Peliso.
>> Wow. Yeah, >> at a certain point in 19 um 80s there was quite a lot of problems that had emerged in terms of what was felt was too stringent handling of possible suspects, agents, infiltrators. But that did happen and there was outstanding intelligence and counter intelligence that Peliso obtained about agents within our midst.
There were certain agents within MK as well and and uh and um the commander Joe Misi worked very closely >> with police >> with policeo >> and helped MK helped to put down a lot of the plots that were being undertaken by agents and infiltrators within the ANC itself. There were key epic periods or events of this became more and more dangerous.
>> But what we we often hear >> is John Sansa's name.
>> Can you locate John Sansa?
>> Yes. So I want to come to this. I'm saying Piso who from the 60s >> was was working there and and and very closely with with Oliver Tambo and reporting to him. As MK developed up to 1983 where it developed more of its own structures was when I was made by MDI head of military intelligence of MK.
Okay. And through myself and then Chris Hani who became a chief of staff, we would also report to the commander in chief of the military Oliver Tambber who's also getting the reports from Paliso and then in Clantler who's put in place after after police is is um put and redeployed elsewhere.
Okay. Um and when Plantler becomes the overall chief of ANC security and intelligence in that restructuring Jacob Zoomer is made the chief of counter intelligence of the ANC >> reporting to infl >> and he's reporting to in Atlanta his that's his chief >> and that's how they operate. Um that's the structures if I've given you some understanding of it. Yes.
>> And and and the final um clarity here operation vula erh who and okay how was it structured?
Okay. So after the Kabway conference in Kabu Zambia >> 85 >> 85 June um the resolution is about a response to the rising insurrection inside the country and the need to have a senior leadership inside South Africa and it's Joe Slovo working with Oliver Tambo that takes on this project and places Maharaj in charge. He's going to be infiltrated inside South Africa at the end of 19 um 19 87 with his deputy SPI and Yanda to be placed as a leadership group reporting directly to Tambo and Slovo and through them obviously the it's a big secret so they're not revealed let but obviously Tambo and with with Slovo, but Tambo himself is is the leader of the A&Z. So, it's an ANC project and the two of them set out on a very brave uh course in of of training for underground. They've had training in the past, but this is very sophisticated.
And the key thing is the development of communication means through computers and um code systems which was dealing with the big problem we had had in the past of the the distance and the links with disperate groups in the country whether political or MK military in keeping track of what's going on. This is part of that leadership. So their communication aspect was very important.
>> So the vool project was not an MK structure project but it's also bringing political military command together.
>> We had always been struggling with the two parallel aspects of the struggle.
the military aspect and the political and trying to create coordination as best we could under very difficult conditions of distance, lack of direct communication and control. So this was a real revolutionary change in the approach in keeping with the insurrectionary mood and uprising and to give the leadership inside to build the underground of both military and political units >> and to give guidance to the above ground UDF you the mass democratic movement UDF trade union etc. And they did incredible work through 19 um 88 to 89.
The and there were some other outstanding comrades who were infiltrated in that period who were assisting them. Uh Janet Love is one of the people who comes to mind but you know quite a few key comrades. I come in quite late in the day by something even after the lift the ban is lifted on the 199 >> on the uh ANC and Communist Party in uh beginning of 1990 and a a number of comrades come in to reinforce the structures that they have built in the underground all over the country from Cape to to KZN or Nutel to every >> part of the country, you know, four provinces then. Charlton Gakulu was one of the people who had joined >> uh the voodoo command earlier on. But um with the developments of 1990 and our concern about the transformation and whether I'm whether the booers whether the the national government party government of apartate who was genuine in those negotiations we weren't sure and it was so necessary to still build the underground. So I came in and at the end of March around about that time and quite a number of others to reinforce the structure the highly trained comrades.
you wrote a book uh and I want to ask through this question to come to today uh a book and in the book you have a a story about yourself and Jay-Z >> the simple man.
>> The simple man.
>> Yes sir. the name of the book.
Um, when many people in the ANC because the book came out, he was still in the ANC when the book came out. I think it's about 20 >> 2017.
>> Yeah.
uh 2023 he forms a party using the names of um >> usurping usurping the name.
>> Yeah. Usurping the name.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. My question is in the book and you you can do it yourself.
You give an account of a warning system you had already given to the leadership.
>> M >> you actually reveal that already in the 80s you gave a warning to the leadership about a simple man >> who is not simple.
And even at that time it's just looks like a factional uh outburst on your part sitting today here with where and how the developments have come out.
>> You think you're you're sitting here now vindicated.
>> Okay. Well, you know, my mind can go back and I see it very graphically. I met Jacob Zoomer actually in 1961 >> into 62 about that time. Um and I was introduced to him by Justice and Panzo great hero hero of the struggle. Um who was one of our first recruits into MK.
Um I was Congress of Democrat secretary as I said. So I used to go and speak at meetings for COD with Indian Congress and uh and and the trade union and SACU.
Of course it was ANC meetings as well.
Comrades were there but the ANC was banned. I'm going through 61 62 and so on. Even though I was now already in MK but above ground unrepresentative COD, we were only banned in something like April of 1962 and then I was banned and restricted.
But in that period I was speaking at meetings and um at that point we carrying out operations and also recruiting people to be sent out for training. So at one of the meetings, Justice and Panza introducing me to various young people from Lazi etc. and introduced me to Jay-Z young chap. He seemed very engaging and so on. And then he tells me this is one of the guys they thinking of recruiting to send for training >> not to the to to um recruit into a savage group. Um anyway, we've got to fast forward >> to an arrest takes place after I've left South Africa in 1964 of comrades from all over the country going out to Botswana as uh so-called football teams, but they actually going for MK training.
They get arrested. I don't see Zuma until 1980. I'm now redeployed from Angola where I was in the camps uh training comrades and so on to Maputo Mosmbique to work for the underground uh that we were building of both MK and um and political underground >> at that stage. not quite the synergy that was required that Voola with Mack and Spir were dealing with later a long time later.
>> Um and I come there to work with Jacob Zuma and I and we get on very well knowing each other from >> 62 etc. Um and it's actually after quite a short time or maybe 6 months that I start discovering some things is very disquening. We're building an underground. We dealing with comrades from home and we're dealing with structures that we commanding going into the country political and then the others doing the military including Joe Slov who's >> his activities in Mosmbique are they MK activities or ANC activities?
>> No. So they both both Zuma and I at that stage are focusing or or instructed and set up. But what was he? What was he in MK?
>> Was he in MK? What I know about Zuma is that we were recruiting him. There were plans about identifying young people to be >> No, I mean at this stage in Mambig is Zuma a commander of MK or a leader just >> Well, he's what what's since you drew that distinction.
>> Okay. is the ANC political representative in Maputu, >> not MK.
>> We've got Siwi and Yanda, Joe Slovo, and others who are commanding MK >> I see >> structures.
I'm MK, but I've been deployed to help Zoomer with the political underground because I've had a lot of underground work >> from London before I come to where I was deployed at one stage where I then come to Angola and then I'm doing just MK work and then Tambbo and Mabida actually deploy me to Mutu to help build under MC Maharaj.
the political underground because it's going very slow too much resources had been for focused into MK activities you see so we were trying to create a balance I see and that's where Zuma's political chief rep of the ANC and in terms of our underground structures we've got a joint command under Joe under under um and Kadame John Kadame and then we've got two structures sub one is the MK military side with Siwe and Yander and others and Joe Slover is commanding that and then the other wing is in Kadaming as well as being the the chair of the whole structure both he's also working with Zuma and me in the political side because he was very much in touch with people at home so that's where we He won't Zuma wasn't in the command structure of MK whatsoever. And where you get the real mature development of MK command is in 1983 after certain decisions that the ANC take because we finding that the separate political and military aren't jellic. Okay. And there's also a need to strengthen both the political side.
That's where M Maharaj is working with some other senior comrades and uh on the other side the MK side Joe Misci Joe Slovo myself I'm deployed there now and that's where the ANC military headquarters is created and based in Lusaka with um with Joe with sorry Joe Modisi as our commander at that stage Joe Slovo is the chief of staff and then we had the commissar later Chris Hani myself chief of military intelligence and um comrade casi chief of our logistics we had a chief of treasury basically if you asking me where's Zuma he's not in MK at all he's still up to then the chief rep of the ANC and also in the political structure of Maputo reporting to the political headquarters >> of the >> in of the ANC in >> so chaps like uh TM are actually in the C they are not in the rank of the high command of >> no because TM was at headquarters and working with overall leadership of of Oliver Tambo who is the commander and chief of everything MK but overall politics of the ANC TM at that stage is in charge very important role of the ANC publicity and research department but of course Zuma by the way is in the national executive ive committee of the ANC uh which is only comrades of of of African black origin as you know that changes >> in 1985 at cowboy so of course Zumo apart from being the chief rep of ofc >> and involved in the political underground under Maharaj >> um and and I just can't remember the name it will come back to me John Matsabi is the the actual chief of the political underground. Maharaj is his deputy. Under them >> are people in Maputu, Mosmbique, Jacob Zumad political in Botswana, in Lutu, in Zimbabwe and so on. Okay, you got that sort of got the structure and then of course from Chris and Hardy and Zuma. Um they are with TM and others in the national executive committee of the ANC headed by President Tambo and of course they are over all in charge of all the structures including MK. MK is under political command, although we've got our own command as the armed wing, but it's the armed wing of the ANC. Got so the MK commander and comrades of the command. So Chris with with um with Joe Misi, they on the executive committee.
Later Joe Slovo, Rich September and others elected at Cabway are on that NEC as well.
What are the signs then that make you at that stage?
>> Uh say to the leadership, you've got to be vigilant.
>> Yes.
>> This is not so simple a man.
>> Yes. Yes. Exactly. On the surface, he's a simple man. He loves to project that, but he's a very devious, deep manipulator, quite frankly, and you never know what he's doing. So I'm working with him on the political structures.
Every day we even go into Swizzilland jumping the fence together and so on. I find that at night after we finished work etc. if I go coming back to his place or so that there's another group of comrades who he's meeting.
And the thing that strikes one, I'm sorry to say I don't have the eyes. So who's black, who's white, who's Zulu, who's etc. But it's not just me. Everybody has been aware. They leave me to find out for myself that Zulu that Zuma meets the comrades not Zulu comrades from Kate.
the comrades from KZN, some very good comrades who I know and like but he's not reporting this and it's not me who sees this or notices or raises in Allah by the way already when I start discreetly asking a question to say Joe Misi who comes to Mutu often or Joe Slovo who's really something of a mentor of mine and I worked for with him for 10 years in London and I say comrade Joe I don't know Zuma I like him I'm getting on but he's keeping certain information secret to me which he shouldn't be and by the way he's meeting people the comrades after dark and there's no report about it are you are you aware of it and then Slova and also I think I raised it with both of them at the same time they both look at They they look at each other silence.
They say, "Okay, we wanted to leave you to discover things for yourself."
But Zuma, before you came and we started setting up the structures in Maput, we put him in charge of ordinance of logistics.
That's a structure talking about sending weapons, smuggling weapons into South Africa.
He's a guy we trusted.
But we started discovering that he had a secret structure within the secret structure point reporting to us because he didn't even report to comrades on his structure who weren't Zulu about a separate line he had into K into Nutell and Comrade Ronnie. What we did was we had to dissolve that structure.
That's why when you've arrived here in Mudu in 1980, you don't find Jacob Zuma in MK structures.
He's been made the chief rep here.
They inc field. They meet someone like him with the profile.
That's the story.
I say to them, well, I'm I'm seeing this and I'm really really kind of very very worried and troubled.
Before long, it happened quite quickly.
We had the incomati accord.
>> Um I was in Swasilland.
I couldn't come back into Maputo. They sent me back to Lusaka to work in headquarters and um Zoomer was remained on with a small structure for a while.
uh Slovo had to leave to go to Lusaka and then even a crackdown on that small group at the office the the structure under it which was more political connection with South Africa had to retreat to Lusaka continued to work there on the political structure at the time when I now was redeployed to my origin in MK working now with the with um Mudi Hani and Slovo in the structure I've talked about almost right up to the time we came back and I'm infiltrated quite late to join the vool structure basically Maharaj and Sapiwand inside the country but there were other things about Zuma that was quite disturbing you know we were soldiers we were exiles away from our wives or not married or whatever.
And yeah, sure, we had our little affairs or relationships, some quite strong, some where people got married and so on, but there was such gossip about Jay-Z and how extreme he was with taking advantage of women. I I don't want to delve more into that. Um, it was just too extreme.
Not that we were crude about these puritanical wise this guy, he's got a wife at home or somewhere, but he's now one one woman after another and so on. Comrade, of course, I know I didn't know anything about that and I don't want to speak too much about this aspect, but I'm just saying if we're talking seriously about discipline, integrity, etc., What I can say while I was outside he used to dress simply. He drove a very modest little car. Comrades didn't buy their own cars.
Uh cars were were allocated and they were brought out of the pipeline. We didn't have money etc. But he was quite content driving a little forks vagen beetle I think it was if I remember correctly and he didn't seem that inclined to ostentatious living and that was a very engaging aspect of him but if you come forward coming back to the country and then a report I have to make to mediva is that when Zuma comes in um like many of the comrades myself included did. I didn't have funds. I didn't have a bank account. I'd worked with the ANC all the time I was abroad.
>> I was just fortunate as some comrades were. Comrade Tabour himself, Comrade Mack himself, Comrade Joe Sloville himself, Comrade Chris himself. They were married to women who had jobs and they could have been quite uh modest jobs, but it was enough to help look after the kids etc. my wife looked after our two sons in London and so on. Um so when we came back it wasn't like in dire poverty some of us uh and there were comrades who came back um you know with absolutely not a wife to help coming back in who had had a job and had been paid off and came back in. So this guy comes in and he's got several wives and he's got 20 plus children.
Um airing he's in Durban and you know disturbing things started happening who people started talking about Zuma and aspects of monies and corruption. It can start very small. Someone offering to put one of your wives or some kids in a town apartment or go to a petrol station when you have to fill up your car or so and and I'll pay the bill. You know, it's a little finger before you know it, they've got you by the whole hand, that body and soul up to the Guptas in later years. Um it's in that period that Mediva asks us who have come from exile about people who are going to be leaders at home. Not about everybody but I was with meeting him with Raymond Sutnner and we having some discussions and it get to a point he says comrade Ronnie I want to get your view. What did you think of uh Comrade Jacob Zoomer?
You know, I kind of sit there and I think how am I going to answer this? I I don't want to demolish a person. I do have very fixed judgment and I know others who know better than me. So, Mediva sees that maybe I'm uncomfortable. He says, "Look, please don't take it a miss. I'm just asking you for your your your own view. That's all. Uh uh comrade Ronnie in some cases of of appointing people. We need to be sure. There might have been others who are raising questions. I really want you to tell me honestly what is your view of Comrade Jacob? So I I said look I know him way back. I've told you a bit about that. He's a comrade I've liked. I enjoyed working with him. Comrade Mediva at the beginning and then I tell him about this ethnic factor and then the secrecy in relation to operating in terms of homeront and I say to him I am telling you this because I can refer you to others and not just myself because maybe my my judgment's not sound. Please mediva there's Joe Misi there's Joe Slovo there's comrade Chris Hani who had very serious misgivings about Zuma emerging out of aspect of what I've told you >> and also by the way and I can remember this when Chris joined us from the sutu for a while he was working with our command and I was trying to make arrangements for Chris to meet the underground in Story Land. And behind my back when I was away, Zuma sabotaged this by telling Chris it wasn't safe for him. And I had created a very safe route and reception.
When I came back to Mutu, I'd been away somewhere on on an operation or so. He said to me, "Hey, I didn't manage to get to uh Maputo to meet the comrades despite all your arrangements because when you were gone, Zuma said to me, "Hey, now I'm having second thoughts.
It's going to be too dangerous." You know, so Chris had that view that he was just wanting to keep Chris out of these things. But very soon Chris was like myself having to operate out of Lusaka with the high command. But in terms of mediva, I say to him, please you can speak to Chris, you can speak to JM, you can speak to JS.
So I spoke to comrade Walter Sulu about this and informed him and he said, "No, comrade Ronnie, you know, you did the right thing. You need to give that report. Don't feel bad that you're betraying someone. You have factual stuff and others to back you up." So I said, you see, comrade Walter was a guy you could actually ask questions that could be embarrassing which I want to ask. I said to comrade Walter at that stage I said you know after all the points that I made that the two Joe's made that even Chris would have made why is it that Zuma okay he wasn't made given a national position when we came through government it was put in >> Kim >> so maybe that was a aspect but I think there was something more to that by the way in his favor But I said and I'll come to it. But I'll said to comrade Walter, you know, I told Mediva and this doubt and it's now we can see it's growing bigger and bigger and we heard how comrade Mandela knowing that Zuma was in debt had given him a million rand. You know the effect on other comrades, how they resented that and what they knew of Zuma and and thought and wouldn't say to Mediva, comrade Mediva, you think that you're curing this guy that all he needs is a million, forget it.
>> The comrade Welter says to me, "No, comrade Ronny, you must understand we in the ANC going way back. There's always been this issue from K from the tal of finding leaders reliable leaders.
We always have fingers pointed at us about domination from early period. We were grappling with this and that's why you saw we found the most wonderful leader Chief Albert Lutulli and we've been always needing to build leaders from that province and Miba was having to take decisions who else was there at that point and handed to Zuma.
He did very well in these early period of the '9s in helping to neutralize the IFP ballesi factor.
Um, and I would say that's why that leadership had decided that look, we'll keep him in KZN and deal with the problem.
Okay, that's a good reason, but we can see how disastrous it has been.
>> We've never had a betrayal to this degree of someone who through lies, absolute deceit, and demagoguy has pushed himself to the four as another ballesi by the way.
That's what I'm saying on an absolute ethnic basis and bamboozling people in terms of what he's standing for because the country is having problems. The ANC is having problems. There's disqu and it's easier then for someone who can manipulate to say look at this leadership. Look what they've done pointing at various leaders of the ANC who are credible. Um and that's the kind of thing I could never forgive him for. So I came to write the book the simple man. 2017 it was sorry yes 2017 it was published.
See in that book how hard I am on Amma Bonvu the party I come from the South African Communist Party who at Polani preouquani from early days 2004 2005 a minister of intelligence I start seeing that there's there's schemes there's plots there's activities even within my intelligence structure aiming at the transition to the new leadership and the build up of a campaign against the sitting president who delivered the highest level of points election percentage to the ANC ever and that was in the 2004 and four election we we had over 2/3 >> and within In 3 years, there's this absolute it's a conspiracy. It's a plot to remove Tabo and Becky. It happens at Pulaani. I've got comrades there who are being interviewed from the Communist Party who are saying to the reporter from the French Communist Party, Humanity, that this is a major revolutionary change in South Africa. And that same reporter then comes to me and says, "This is what members of your party are saying. What's your view?" I said, "This is not revolution. This is a counterrevolution."
The guy was shocked. He didn't believe me. It took years. He came to me, the same journalist, high ranking communist journalist from France. He said to me by about 2017, "You were right 10 years ago. I want to hand it to you. I didn't believe you. I took the word from the party group that helped to topple and becky and our step and that's where the problems in our country. I'm not saying it's the beginning of the problems.
There's certain aspect that I didn't in and more in retrospect perhaps agree with mediva and even taboo and becky and Joe Slova in terms of the transition.
It's very difficult transition. the judgment aspects they didn't sell out they weren't traitors but I at all but I have a issue and I raise it in my book very openly that about errors that perhaps we made in the compromise with the regime and white business etc open it's not just secret mediva was at the helm of that and slow supported it I had doubts but It's the question is you then find on the basis of the undermining of the communist party and cusatu in particular they helped to aid the new era revolutionary era my foot of Jacob Zoomer's ascendancy which is the beginning of the real slide into the problems we have today.
So in the book I take issue with the communist leadership. The book starts with a chapter of our central committee in >> 2004 or five quant blade and the others. I'm now saying to them comrades this is Zuma's background. This these are the faults what we're talking about now which I outline in detail in that book and I outline this in relation to a meeting of our communist party leadership and expose what Billy Metler the director general of intelligence was up to and may he rest in peace but we're talking openly how he was involved behind the scenes >> in the fraudulent uh emails that I exposed that they all accepted as true which were purporting to show that Tabo and Becky and Pumile his deputy were engaged in a plot against Zuma.
Um and I could show that this is all fraud and lies. I called it the hoax email. It was so easy to expose. I went to Casatu. I went to the youth league. I went to the ANC. I went to the party.
I'm the minister of intelligence. I was talking into a brick wall. All of them.
I could say they couldn't argue against the facts that I was presenting. How fraudulent these emails were. They wanted to believe them. And they did.
And that's why. But you know I went through a period I didn't resign from the ANC or the party but I began a period where really with Zuma in power coming in after Pulan wanting to form his cabinet he called those of us who had served with Tabo his presidency will we carry on he wanted just an interim probably wouldn't have kept us okay you can you can hive and you can deploy and so on and choose yourself. We all of us virtually something like 10 12 of us Aziz Pad is pad and others there um who said no look um we were appointed by the former president so comrade Jayzed good luck to you but you know we we we we resigning thanks for the offer and that's when I left in 2008 and quite frankly after that with the way Zuma was running the ANC See, and the way the party was towing that line, I could not in any justice stick to the party's concerned and I basically allowed myself to lapse for a while. I was, you'll remember, I was very active now with civil society and Palestine. I would have been involved in solidarity work anyway.
There's only after Zuma leaves in 2017 plus that I start coming back in the belief that now I can play a role in helping the party and the ANC and I'm I'm glad I'm back in that fold. I'm not uncritical there. Um we we facing too much challenges including this absolute treachery from the side of Jacob Zoomer and the people he's bamboozling. Who knows what kind of a plot this is? It stinks to the high heavens quite frankly. Um, and that's why I prepared to talk out so openly. And I'm certainly glad that the Communist Party now have broken with the past. So has Vavi. He's the only one who criticizes himself and his decision publicly to his credit.
Maybe the the the final parts I mean everybody knows uh where party is and personally I have battles understanding what they represent politically.
Uh you are calling them the new project of ethnic nationalism. But what about the party and the state of the alliance? The communist party has taken a decision.
It is not supporting the ANC as it is always the case. They are going to contest the ANC in the 2026 elections.
What should we make of this? Is this not the end of the alliance as we know it and perhaps another force of dismembering the mass democratic movement?
>> Okay. So look um I don't say at all that the part is working against the ANC and that necessarily there will be the break. We need to avoid it and we need to keep the alliance alive. We've got to resuscitate it. We've got to renew it.
The ANC is having to do that itself. We hope that they get on with that job. I think there's been too much of a lack of real deep mature discussion between the leadership of the party and the ANC and that subjective factors and tensions uh arise as a result >> because despite that and despite the fact that the parties taken a decision for two congresses of the party. By the way, um I've come back into the party leadership just recently. So I can't argue to the party that you've got to undo your decisions of two previous congresses of the party. Um you can only get a reversal at a congress of the party. We've got one in a few years coming. So the party leadership and it's a new leadership under comrade Sully Mapella. I believe he's a very courageous, honest, genuine comrade.
He's what you see in him, but he's also got his concerns about the disrespect shown to the party subjectively by some comrades and so on who feel agrieved at the party stance.
And perhaps there's not been enough clarification.
It's a very sophisticated complex reasoning when we come into the nitty-gritty of it. But on the surface, the argument from these previous congresses of the party, including the one um during the Zuma period, was that the party's off track. The party's simply following the ANC. The ANC is gone rotten. Um the party's not speaking for the workers. The party needs to have an independent voice. It started that way which led up to the election of Sim Payella as general secretary. Um and in in terms of that ground swell in a communist party, you can't as a leadership just discount it. So going into then a decision to contest elections which also goes back which all I can say to them because I wasn't part of decisions from as I've said national congresses is are we explaining ourselves um sufficiently to the ANC to understand are we meeting them on a mature basis in that respect can we not work out a comp a compos or common electoral pact to stand together. And this is the kind of thing I'm in the ANC branch where I live. I'm in the ANC veterans league uh who are a very good factor in all this.
I'm in the Communist Party and at leadership level. So I'm trying to speak to everybody and explain and I go back to an example and you know we've used a lot of examples from the Africana National Party when it was in power as an example. I know it was only for whites, but how it set up trade schools and you know industrial schools, railway workers and um escore and sassil and the state the state establishments that worked very well for the Africanas and the whites etc. But they had an electoral pact, the national party with what was called the Africana party >> in 1948. An Africana party out of the rand revolt of white mine workers >> who represented a certain >> element of the Africanas more workingass and the national party was the party of a rising pity bourgeoa nationalist formation.
So that Africa party was not quite confident about the national party and they had their discussions to have a pact and to stand in the 48 elections. I think it was nine seats that the national party it was a national election of course allocated to the national to the African party their leader was given LOL North which he won I can't remember his name >> and they came into that pact so a bigger party as the ANC is even though it's losing percentages I would think in terms of a wellthoughtout art approach understanding each other's constituencies and I believe how the party could in fact reinforce the ANC and the NDR if we had let's say five 10 communists not as part of an ANC in parliament but representing the communist party and and and supporting the government not of the government of national unity a government of the ANC with maybe one or two other parties possibly whatever the outcome of the election but wouldn't that be something exciting for the country and you can argue and see that it can reinforce the ANC including acting against a leadership of the ANC or a presidency I'm not referring to any incumbent who might go somewhat off track we very worried about privatization in this country it's actually happening and where on that kind of basis a communist party could call a government out in parliament as well that's more democratic so you know that Africana party was there for about two I think the third election into the new apartate era and by then if my memory serves me correctly and one could do research they had decided on a complete complete merger because that grouping felt confident in the party of foster foster so on.
>> It's only later when the reform process of business because they've now become big business in the national party. Now they are being prepared to be a bit reformist but still refraining from keeping a universal franchise from the dark. you know how that process went in in in in in short. So it's only then that that element revives itself in the conservative party of trade and is now in rebellion against its mother body.
Okay? Because they see it's going off the very good.
>> So we you know I use this quite frankly as as something of an example that we could understand. Maybe it's more complex. It's not quite the same thing, but all I'm saying is that there needs to be more of an understanding and a rep rapport. And I think this would be very good for the ANC as well. But we we do see very positive signs from the ANC. I mean there are comrades who feel kind of ultra critical and maybe correctly but you know when you see as we were meeting this last weekend the central committee we met from a Friday to the last Sunday and um back home and we're having our press conference I'm waiting to watch it but the screens are dominated by the president of the ANC >> speaking on all three of the channels here up in Limpopo and you know apart from certain things which maybe the communists wouldn't like my God what is he saying about the international situation we are opposed to imperialism we are opposed to the attacks on Iran and the the blockade of Cuba and the attacks on the Palestinians >> this is what the Communist Party lives for that internationalism and needs to get across cost to our people and you can look at the ANC and find your concerns and look at the national the domestic situation etc and be not too happy and critical in other parts their positives and then you look at our international position and what other country not many in the world have that kind of courage including taking Zionist Israel to the International Court of Justice on the genocide charge.
So for a communist party to go for a break and then weaken an NDR, I don't think that the party's looking for it. But when you have a situation where the two sides aren't coming together and meet each other, then of course that can happen. M >> but I you know for me I'm prepared to do everything my little strength to say look comrades we've got to find a better solution and live you've got to live with it there's no way the communist party leadership can go back on decisions enforced on it by its two previous congresses >> you know it's we could go on and on just giving you a flavor in response to your very >> I get it yeah >> very taxing question maybe I'll be expelled. Who knows?
>> I see thath we could have a round two.
Uh but we could put it to rest now. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
>> Look, it's lovely to be with you.
>> And as I said to you when I came in, you know, we you like me, we've also had our little weaving this way and that where we've upset leaders, etc. But I know you and the way in which you were so so strong on the question of Palestine when you were much younger and um that's how I know how true you are >> because you were prepared and those comrades you worked with always said to me we had the comrade here in solidarity. He was honest and he was brilliant and I see I know it from you.
So congrats to you comrade. Thank you, comrade Ronnie.
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