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The ANC's Rise To Power: Through Murder and Terror (The real History of SA)
page: 1It took my days to fully and accurately transcribe the movie with as much detail as I can.
Notes:
The Narrator's words are the majority text.
The words of the interviewees will be quoted.
My own comments will be aligned Right in Italic.
Other reliant descriptions and comments will be in brackets.
Names and titles of speakers within documentary:
Strike Thokoane: Former leader within the Black Consciousness Movement / Deputy President of AZAPO
Ronnie Kasrils: Struggle veteran/former Minister of Intelligence
Dr Anthea Jeffery: Senior researcher at the South African Institute of Race Relations / Author of People's war:New light on the struggle for South
Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda: ANC veteran & former Chief of Staff: Umkhonto we Sizwe
Gen. Johan van der Merwe: Former National Police Commissioner
Prof. Yuri Maltsev: Former Economic Advisor to the Soviet Union
Gen. Constand Viljoen: Former Chief of the South African Defence Force
Mangosuthu Buthelezi: Leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party
Dave Steward: Former Chief of Staff: The Presidency (National Party)
Tony Leon: Leader of the Democratic Alliance
Prof. Hermann Giliomee: Historian; Author of The Last Afrikaner Leaders
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history”
~ George Orwell
South Africa, known across the world for its controversial his history of racial segregation, the African National Congress, a liberation movement founded in 1912, is widely applauded for its success in the struggle against the white minority government from 1948 to 1994. The party’s apparent commitment to peace and non-violence is held in high regard across the world and by the United Nation in particular. Since the ANC’s accession to power in 1994, historic events have been claimed, memorials have been erected, museums have been built, history books have been rewritten... and heroes have been declared. This is, however, not the complete story.
ORLANDO DONALDSON COMMUNITY HALL
SEWETO
(Video portrayal of Donald Mashinini)
Donald Mashinini is 19 years old. He doesn’t know it yet, but in a matter of days he will become the most wanted person in South Africa. In two months, he will flee the country. But Donald doesn’t go by his birth name. History will remember him as Tsietsi.
“The known faces and the known names were, to start with, Tsietsi Mashinini, who was my junior at high school.”
~ Strike Thokoane
Mashinini organises a meeting to discuss ways in which the youth can rise up against the introduction of Afrikaans as instruction medium by the Department of Bantu Education. The energy between there youths was sparked mainly by the philosophy of Black Consciousness as articulated by the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, Steve Biko.
“We see a completely non-racial society. We don’t believe for instance in the so-called guarantees for minority rights, because guaranteeing minority rights implies a recognition of portions of the community on a race basis. We believe that in our country, there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority, there shall just be people.” ~ Steve Biko
“Remember that Tsietsi – before he met Steve Biko and the politics of the Black Consciousness – he called himself Donald. He was Donald Mashinini. Donald Mashinini had a name at home which was Tsietsi Mashinini. Now Tsietsi means trouble. So when ’76 started and he became a leader, he then used that name, Tsietsi. He became the troublesome leader who was at the forefront.” ~ Strike Thokoane
16 JUN 1976
On the morning of 16 June 1976, Mashinini leads the students into the Soweto uprising, which will in time be known as one of the greatest single events to lead to the ultimate destruction of the white minority government in South Africa.
“Between 10 000 and 20 000 students took part in the mass protest rally. The average age of these students was between 18 and 25, although younger scholars were also involved. The age of Tsietsi Mashinini was 19 years. Many of the policemen deployed in Soweto were more or less the same age.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
Over 140 buildings are burnt to the ground and more or less the same numbers of vehicles are destroyed.
“The police came up, they ordered the crowd to disperse, the order wasn’t heard, there was no warning shot and suddenly Hector Pieterson, 13 years old, was shot in the head.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“The protest march erupted into violence and 23 persons were killed on the first day.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
Among the deaths are two noteworthy people. The first is 13 year old Hector Pieterson, who is shot dead by police. A picture of Pieterson being carried away from the revolt will become one of the best known photographs ever to be taken in South Africa.
It is circulated across the world and creates significant international support for the plea of young black South Africans against the South African government.
The other is Dr Melville Edelstein, a man who devoted his life to the upliftment of black South Africans. He is caught by a group of protesting students, stoned to death and left with a sign around his neck that says: ‘Beware, Afrikaners’.
“Afrikaans was viewed as the language of the people who are oppressing us. But the spark at the time could have been anything, because the revolution – the atmosphere was ripe for revolution. Our parents were now being politicised, so anything could have become a spark for that revolution, and unfortunately – or fortunately in this case – Afrikaans became that spark that started the revolution of 1976. So anybody who says we went to die, we went to jail, we went to exile, we became maimed because we didn’t want Afrikaans – Afrikaans was not something to die for. What was there to die for? It was the country. Afrikaans became a spark” ~ Strike Thokoane
TAINTED HEROES
“Our policy is one which is called by an Afrikaans word: Apartheid. And I am afraid that is being misunderstood so often. It could just as easily, and perhaps much better, be described as a policy of good neighbourliness, accepting that there are differences between people. And while these differences exist, and you have to acknowledge them, at the same time you can live together, aid one another. But that could best be done, when you act as good neighbours always do.” ~ Hendrik Verwoerd
APARTHEID: “A SYSTEM OF SEPARATE DEVELOPMENT”
But grand apartheid, which focuses on homelands for different peoples, becomes a micromanaged small apartheid, which ultimately leads to a society that is completely divided along racial lines. The policy of separate development soon becomes discredited, and resistance to the South African government grows as race relations deteriorate.
16 DEC 1961
“Well, the ANC decided upon armed struggle after a long period of consideration, because the ANC was essentially at the beginning a peaceful organisation that wanted to resolve the problems of South Africa through dialogue.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“There were far more racist and repressive states than South Africa in the 1980s, but few of them had gone through the business or bother of codifying their system and created into state law as the apartheid government did. And therefore it was not only a moral target; it was a relatively-speaking easy target. And then, of course, there was the confluence of factors in the Cold War.“ ~ Tony Leon
In 1960, the ANC is declared an illegal organisation as a result of its involvement in illegal activities and its alliance with the South African Communist Party. Fixed on leading South Africa on the path towards a communist state, the SACP experience difficulties in gathering support. It finds an ally in the ANC.
“The relationship was very close, very trusting, very, very tight and of same mind. It had this Marxist compass way of revolutionary analysis.“ ~ Ronnie Kasrils
Some of its most prominent leaders are already imprisoned. They include Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela, the founder of the ANC’s military wing, better known as Umkhonto we Sizwe or MK. Other leaders, such as Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma flee the country and operate in exile from abroad. The ANC’s alliance with the South African Communist Party, however, proves to be fruitful in strengthening the organisation.
“Soviets were very much interested in South Africa. The formation of the South African Communist Party in 1921 was monitored by the communitare at the time and by Stalin himself.“ ~ Prof. Yuri Maltsev
“We have to fight a war. If nobody is going to give us weapons, the Soviet Union is gratefully willing to give us weapons.” ~ Oliver Tambo
“AK-47 – that is the real weapon of mass destruction. And look how many people – hundreds of millions of people were murdered – all over the world with that, and they were turning out this AK-47, providing all the liberation movements through their proxies, sometimes directly. Then they had, in Southern Russia, they had camps to train terrorists, KGB camps to train terrorists from South Africa, from Northern Ireland, from The Basque, from the Middle East, and then providing them with everything, with expertise, with armament, with financial support, with logistical support. The whole idea was to start this world revolution.” ~ Prof. Yuri Maltsev
The strategy is to have a vanguard of people that serves as a small engine; the big engine is an umbrella organisation, which is the ANC. However, the big engine is directed by the vision of the small engine, which is the Communist Party.
“Communists within the ANC should lead the ANC to the goals of the Communist Party. So the Soviet Union was very much involved. They wouldn’t consider it as a local thing. They would consider it as a part of a worldwide struggle.” ~ Prof. Yuri Maltsev
“You get that closeness of leadership, not only right at the apex, but throughout the ANC and the liberation movement, with communists who are members of both. It was no problem if you were a member of the Communist Party, whether known or unknown or suspected; there was no problem about being a loyal member of the ANC and indeed becoming a leader within the ANC.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“Mr Zuma joined the Communist Party in 1962, a very long time ago. He joined the ANC when he was 17 years old and the Communist Party when he was 20 years old. People like Mbeki, who was also a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party, like Nelson Mandela, also a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party – they were promoting the line of the Communist Party within the ANC, and the line of the communist Party is Marxism, Leninism as their final liberation.
And people like Joe Slovo, for example, like Oliver Tambo and other communist leaders of South Africa, they would get their instructions from Moscow. Zuma... He went from Lusaka, he was in Moscow and he was part of the worldwide KGB training of terrorists as we would call them, or, as they would call them, the fighters for freedom.” ~ Prof. Yuri Maltsev
At the time of the Soweto uprisings, and despite substantial support from communist countries abroad, the ANC has a hard time implementing its strategy for an armed struggle.
“There was no ANC. Not underground – maybe under the ground, but there was no ANC. And when I address people I always remind them to say; If there was an ANC at the time, if there was an Umkhonto we Sizwe at the time, why did we have to take stones and dustbin lids to defend ourselves and fight the bullets? In 1976, anybody who says the ANC was involved will be telling a lie.“ ~ Strike Thokoane
While the South African economy grows at a rapid pace the ANC struggles with internal conflict. One of the most notable is the campaign of Chris Hani, communist and military leader; against the lavish and opulent lifestyles of ANC leaders in exile.
“The general sense within the country was that the ANC was marred, its armed struggle had gone nowhere, it had no presence at all.“ ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
The ANC fails. In 1964, the president of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, remarked that ‘It appears as if the guns of MK have been silenced for all time’. Although the Soweto uprising flare up despite the absence of the ANC, the party greatly benefits from the political consequences of the revolt.
1976 – 1977
“Indeed, what the revolt did was to lead thousands of young people to the conclusion that they must leave the country, that they must go and seek military training, and come back to fight the police. And when they left the country, the ANC, with the Soviet Union now pouring much more support into its coffers, was the only organisation that really had the capacity to take them in, bring them into camps, feed and train them, subject them of course also to propaganda and political education.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“The ANC had several camps outside South Africa; had camps in Tanzania, in places like Congo.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“Places like Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Morogoro, Zambia, Lusaka” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“But when the uprisings took place, students left in masses to get out of the country, not necessarily intent on joining any particular organisation.” ~ Strike Thokoane
“Maybe a tenth of them knew a little but about the ANC. Maybe five percent had uncles or relatives who had been in the ANC, but ninety percent knew very little. When I met up with these young people, it was a little surprising, I remember – because I was lecturing them in some camps – and I noticed how they preferred, many of them, to speak Afrikaans, or Tsotsietaal, which was filled with Afrikaans phrases.
And I could remember one day pretending to scratch my head and saying: ‘You guys, you revolted against Afrikaans, but jy hou baie van die taal hey? (you like the language a lot)’ And of course they’d all laugh.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“There came a need for more camps to be opened and other countries to be accessed, because they found the African National Congress. It was fertile ground for us to recruit” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“It was almost like a transfusion of blood. Maybe a better metaphor is an incredible intake of oxygen.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
The circumstances in these camps are appalling and gross human rights violations take place. Most notorious of all is Camp Quatro, a detention facility where prisoners of the ANC have to undergo what is referred to as “rehabilitation programmes”. Prisoners in camps such as Quatro are subjected to extreme levels of torture. Although many prisoners die as a result of these actions, the exact number of casualties remains unknown. Some of the survivors go public about the atrocities that occur in these ANC camps, yet little is known about the leaders behind these tortures.
Later the ANC will refuse to provide the names of the leaders who manage these camps. What is known, however, is that in 1991, ANC president Nelson Mandela orders a commission of inquiry into abuses within the ANC in exile. Mandela’s proposal is met with fierce opposition from within the ANC’s National Executive Committee. Mandela’s instruction so investigate these atrocities is adamantly opposed by three ANC veterans in particular, namely Joe Nhlanhla, Chris Hani, and Jacob Zuma.
“There were detentions in Angola, I have no knowledge of those detentions, because most of the time I was deployed in the forward areas. I did not participate in some of those detentions, but people were necessarily detained because of their activities against our movement. There necessarily had to be action taken against them in the camp site. In any camp, generally, when people engage in misdemeanour we detain them, not necessarily in a prison as such, but there are detention facilities in many military camps.
(Question by Interviewer: “Were there rehabilitation programmes in these camps?”)
I have no idea.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
The outflux of young people results in dramatic growth in ANC membership. But at the time the organisation does not have a strategy for taking the struggle against the government further.
1950
-Communism banned
-ANC banned
OCT 1978
With the ANC largely out of the picture, the Soviets know that something must be done to catapult the ANC back into the South African political landscape.
“During 1978, a high level delegation of the ANC, led by the president of the alliance, Mr Oliver Tambo, departed on a so-called study tour to Vietnam. The object of the tour was to conduct a research into the strategy and methodology employed by the Vietnamese in their struggle against the French and later the United States of America.“ ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“Vietnam also was a proxy; it was a client of the Soviet Union. They thought at the time, Konstantin Brutkins, Deputy Director of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party – he was in charge of African activities of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – and he thought that Vietnam would be a very good training centre for the people from South Africa, because more or less the same issues would be involved.” ~ Prof. Yuri Maltsev
“I think they went partly at the suggestion of the Soviet Union, which had been backing the ANC for many years and was now beginning to be concerned that they had backed the wrong horse, because the ANC had NOT sparked the Soweto revolt and it was also being eclipsed inside the country by the BC organisations and by Inkatha. But in Vietnam there was a model of what could be done in this kind of situation.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Vietnam had defeated the Unite States in essence, defeated them in battle engaged where the defeated several countries, the Portuguese, the United States, France and had vast experience of fighting against vastly superior military forces and obviously we could learn a lot from Vietnam – from Ho Chi Minh’s Strategies; from Võ Nguyên Giáp’s engagement with superior forces. So thats why they went there; to try to learn, to try to get experiences from these vast resources that the Vietnamese had.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“Now the Vietnamese gave advise to Mr Mbeki, according to our intelligence reports, that they should avoid a bush war – in other words a cross-border type of war – and they should rather take the operations to the townships, where it would be much more difficult for the Defence Force, because in the bush war you could use your full force; in the townships you couldn’t.“ ~ Gen. Constand Viljoen
“The ANC after that changed their strategy of the armed struggle and started with the ‘armed’ or ‘terror’ campaign.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
This strategy is generally referred to as the people’s war.
“It was the ANC that switched over from a normal cross-border bush war to taking the battle to the cities. The concept of a ‘people’s war’ was developed by Mao Zedong. He was the founder of the People’s Republic of China and also the Chairman of the Communist Party of China.” ~ Gen. Constand Viljoen
“The people’s war is a very complicated strategy and it has very many different elements. Perhaps the easiest way to describe it is to say that it has two main strands: a political struggle, which could take many forms, including demonstrations, and a military struggle which, in more accurate translation from the Vietnamese, is a programme of violence. And the two must work together.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Of course there were struggles where the military side is very much to the fore, but the organisation of the people for revolutionary change is fundamental.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“The idea is that all people living within the arena of conflict are regarded as combatants and as weapons of war, which are expendable just in the way that conventional arms would be expendable in a conventional war, so that people must be drawn into the political struggle. They must go into the streets and demonstrate. They must also give aid and support to those who are waging the programme of violence. And together they create a sense of ferment in the country, they contribute to a situation of ungovernability, when in particular, representatives of the state at local level, local counsellors, local policemen and tribal chiefs can be driven out and a liberated area can be created. And the more the liberated areas expand, the more the power of both the government and of all political rivals is reduced.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Suddenly we heard a loud bang. The windows were broken – they just shot my mother.”
(Archived Audio interview with unnamed black man in township)
“We are now being used as pawns in this heckling for power amongst leaders and so on.”
(Archived Video from coloured man amongst black men)
“The people’s war was supposed to rest on the so-called ‘Four pillars of the revolution’, namely: The activities of the ANC/SACP alliance as the vanguard organisation, including those of the underground structures; The mass mobilisation as directed by the ANC/SACP – this includes also the arming of the masses; the activities of Umkhonto we Sizwe; and the international isolation of the RSA.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
The first order of business before the people’s war can be executed is to discuss the ANC’s new and improved strategy with Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the leader of Inkatha. Founded in 1975 from within the ranks of the ANC, Inkatha is initially a cultural organisation and an ally of the ANC. However, this is about to change.
OCT 1979
“Inkatha already had that kind of presence by 1979. It had 300 000 members, which was incidentally three times more than the ANC had ever had at the height of its popularity. So, if the ANC was to successfully wage a people’s war, it would be very useful to make an ally of Inkatha and draw it under its wing.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“In 1979, then, this issue heated up. And Mr Tambo then requested me to come to London” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
The two leaders cannot agree with one another on various issues. Although Buthelezi agrees with the ANC’s objectives, he fiercely disagrees on the strategy to achieve this
“My methods are non-violent methods and I believe that we should accomplish the same thing that they want, thought peaceful means, because if we escalate violence, there can only be destruction, not only of our people, but of the whole country, and the infrastructure. And there is nothing that frightens me more than to face a country where there is no infrastructure.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi (Archived interview)
The ANC’s plan is: To embark on an armed struggle against the South African government; To persuade the international community to initiate sanctions against South Africa; To encourage children to boycott the education system; and To initiate a consumer boycott within South Africa.
The third mentioned plan is still being acted on today. Many schools have been burnt to the ground, vandalised and broken down, because the education system is a ‘colonial system from the white people’.
“Well, the ANC came out with a slogan ‘Liberation now, education later’, and I countered this with ‘Education for liberation’.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
“In this country, the tragedy in the black community is that the children are the victims of the whole unrest, in that many people take advantage that their children’s children don’t have much experience and doesn’t need to bring them here and the fact of the matter that they don’t have much experience, the disadvantage of that is that they take them and they mislead them and use them. In fact, that is criminal because many of them who do so have got their own children in schools, but then expect children of other people not to benefit from schooling.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi (Archived interview)
“As time went on, they rose this issue of imposing economic sanctions and disinvestment against South Africa. So, when that happened there was a big debate because it was the ANC mission exile who was actually urging the international community to impose these sanctions on the country. Now I could not agree with that, I didn’t accept it. And, in fact, I tested it because I addressed very huge meetings – and we never arranged it, when there were thousands of African people – whether in fact we should support sanctions. They would say, with one voice: ‘No! We’d starve. We mustn’t support sanctions.’” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
These ‘sanctions’ are still active, and the above mentioned effect is still there; the vast majority of black people, black areas, are starving, still starving!
“When the leaders of Uwusa asked me to come to this deliberation, I felt that we needed to consult you as black South Africans on this hot contentious issue of imposing sanctions and disinvestment on this country.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s archived meeting address
“Once the ANC saw that Inkatha was not willing to play the role that the ANC wanted for it in waging the people’s war, then Inkatha was simply a political rival, something that had to be weakened and eliminated; if possible, drawn on to the ANC’s turf if possible. And this had to happen before the first all-race election took place, otherwise there was a real risk that the ANC would not win that election. Instead, it would be likely to be won by Inkatha and the BC organisations and perhaps other rivals as well.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
What is still happening, before every national election, is that the ANC goes on ‘Vote ANC’ rallies – this is done with cars,
seldom trucks, with speakers attached, and painted with the ANC logo, giving ANC T-shirts way – where they ‘promote’ and ‘persuade’ the
people of the townships to vote for ANC. But the fact of the matter is, they are intimidating the people of the township to vote ANC, using threats of
violence.
It has been said, buy a vast amount of black people in rural areas, that they ANC would come in to the township on their rallies, and tell the people
that if they do not vote for ANC, they will be killed, and their homes would be burned down. Many black people though the years have told white
people, reporters, even policemen that they vote for ANC, because their life hangs in the balance. The threats are also that if the ANC loses the
election; that the entire township will be burned down.
“The ANC was very angry with me. Then they started a campaign against me. I could not agree to support their policy of sanctions against South Africa and taking up arms against the South African Army.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
PRETORIA
South Africa
The ANC is ready to execute its people’s war. The first priority is to render South African’s Townships ungovernable. Due to a lack of support, the ANC in unable to organise mass protest rallies at the time. Instead, smaller groups of people are used to sabotage buildings and fuel havoc in black townships. Scuffles with the police further discredit the South African government and boost the image of the ANC.
(Archived Video is shown of how black policemen responded to the unrest, having to use batons)
Again I should make a statement here; The black people were NOT oppressed as the media wants it to look! At that time, 1970s, there were always black police officers among the white police officers when violent protests broke out. IF the black people was ‘suppressed’ as the ANC makes is sound, how were black people allowed to be police officers, military officers and even teachers?
“Propaganda was key! There were no support structures, so we had to rekindle the spirit of resistance in our people through armed activity. We put our people in mine dumps so that they could engage in propaganda activities; to announce that the African National Congress’ Umkhontu we Sizwe was back, blowing up railway lines, blowing up government buildings, attacking police stations and so on, just to inspire our people.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“There was a time when Chief Buthelezi was a more popular black leader than Mandela, who have been put in jail for many years. Inkatha, in a nutshell, was a powerful political rival and the ANC, drawing on the lessons from Vietnam, needed to weaken it before Apartheid crumbled. And in 1984, when the people’s war began, the ANC, SACP and their mentors in the Soviet Union were confident that Apartheid would be gone within 10 years.
Within that period Inkatha must also have been weakened so that the ANC could attain the hegemony it wanted to pursue the further stages of the revolution in the post-Apartheid period.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
(Footage shown of wounded and murdered black people in townships, by the ANC)
“There was a lot of attacks on me, even on Radio Freedom. Mr Nkadimeng said Gatsha Buthelezi is a snake that poisons South Africa that must be hit on the head. There’s no doubt about it that it was a programme. There were songs they were singing that they are coming with bazookas. I mean, those are not threats against whites. So it was not surprising to us that that war was not unleashed against whites and the white army. It was unleashed against us.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
(Archived Reporter footage of an injured black woman laying in a township)
Reporter: Janet, what happened here?
Janet: They attacked us.
Reporter: Who attacked you, Janet?
Janet: The youths.
Reporter: The youths?
Reporter: How many youths were there, Janet?
Janet: More than 50.
Reporter: More than 50?
Janet: Mmm
Reporter: Do you know if they belong to any political party?
Janet: UDF (United Democratic Front)
Reporter: You say they belong to UDF?
Janet: Mmm
Reporter: Are you an Inkatha member?
Janet: No, not me.
Janet: No, my brother is, not me.
Reporter: Your brother is?
Reporter: You must just lay still, they are getting an ambulance, it won’t be long now.
Janet: It’s taking too long.
Reporter: No, they will be here very shortly, all right?
Reporter: What did they do to you, Janet?
Janet: They stabbed me.
Reporter: They stabbed you?
Janet: Yes.
Reporter: You must just lie very still.
Janet: They poured petrol on us.
Reporter: They poured petrol on you?
Janet: On us. We were laying, the three of us, in the room...
Reporter: And then?
Janet: They poured petrol on us
Reporter: Janet, did they say anything to you?
Janet: They just said ‘These dogs must die...’
Reporter: The dogs must die?
Janet: Ja (Afrikaans for ‘Yes’)
(Another archived Video of injured and murdered black people)
Violence escalates dramatically. Initially, violent protests occur in areas such as the Vaal Triangle and the Eastern Cape, but mostly in the province of Natal, the heartland of the Inkatha Movement.
“Initially, there were debates as to which philosophy is correct for our country, be it the Black Consciousness philosophy, or the freedom Charter or the Pan Africans. So that debate was healthy. We could engage. We were caught by surprise somewhere in the early 1980s. We believe it was under the direction of the ANC that they become intolerant of the Black Consciousness Movement. They became intolerant of the philosophy, and started attacking us. It even went to an extent where houses were burnt. It went to an extent where people were executed. It went to an extent where people were necklaced.” ~ Strike Thokoane
“At least more than 400 people who we knew, people with whom, you know, we struggled, people whom we knew so well that we knew even how many teaspoons of sugar they put in their tea: you know, who were killed either waiting for the busses or taxis, or in their houses and so on. Because there were attacks by the ANC, the AK-47 rifles therefore came into the country. (Footage of piles of dead bodies) Many of them are used to mow down our people, because there would be attacks. Then our people would also counter-attack, defend themselves. And that pre-empted to violence, as this thing gained momentum, then even some IFP people would do pre-emptive attacks.
But that was never any decision of our decision-making body, the National Council, where we decided that we should attack or that anyone should be attacked. This thing came spontaneous. The only thing I said – which is on record – I said: It was an inalienable right of citizens in terms of our common law that everyone has a right to defend himself and his loved ones. And I urged our people to defend themselves.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
“Inkatha was also a thorn in the flesh of the ANC/SACP alliance and many of Inkatha leaders and supporters were murdered. There was no real threat to white members. Well, that was almost non-existent.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
The Truth And Reconciliation Commission in South Africa released statistics of all the politically motivated murders in South Africa during Apartheid, which lasted from 1948 through to 1994. The statistics speak for themselves:
The Apartheid government killed something like 7518 black people during the 46 years of Apartheid. Thus white on black. (A large number of police and military forces were black though)
The liberation movements were responsible for 13482 politically motivated killings. Thus black on black.
“The people who really suffered as a result of the disruption of service, as a result of violence, as a result of boycotts, were black South Africans.“ ~ Dave Steward
Although the use of violence has strengthened the ANC, it has trouble operating as an illegal organisation. This results in the founding of the UDF as a front organisation to operate within South Africa. This step allows ANC activists to openly campaign for political change under the banner of an organisation that has not been declared illegal. The UDF is also used to recruit young people in its struggle.
“On 8 January 1984, Mr Oliver Tambo in his presidential address laid special emphasis on the concept of ‘ungovernability’. Black members of the police, black councillors and their families were targeted, murdered and their houses set alight. In most of the black townships the local authorities collapsed.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
(Media Video Interview)
Reporter: Detective Warrant Officer Templeton Sibake had his house burned down two months ago in Duduza.
Detective Sibake: We were at the charge office and we were monitoring all the news from Duduza. It’s then that I heard that my house was on
fire and several other police houses. I lost absolutely everything: it was my clothes, my wife’s clothes, my children’s clothes and everything in
the house. The houses were actually broken down and nothing was left. It was broken down brick for brick, because they were burned down on Saturday,
and then on Sunday the group went back to these houses again and they started breaking them down, and everything was just totally destroyed.
Reporter: And do you feel that you can go back now?
Detective Sibake: At the moment I feel I cannot go back and I might as well say I feel we will never be accepted by the people of Duduza again
from what they have already done to us.
Reporter: Because you are a policeman?
Detective Sibake: Because I am a policeman.
“Black members were driven from their homes and we had in some cases, to accommodate these members.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
By this time, the ANC has learned the value of involving the youth in its struggle for power. The ungovernability campaign also assists in creating an atmosphere of chaos in South Africa’s townships, which provides the ANC with opportunities to fuel the struggle.
“Each one of you who are standing here are communists. A communist is a person who fights for freedom. Our leaders are called
communists because they fight for you.“
~ Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
(Audio Archived Speech)
“There are various advantages, from a revolutionary perspective, in using children. The one is that they have much less fear than an adult; so a child will go onto the street armed with a petrol bomb and throw it at a policeman, where an adult might think twice about it. But more than that – when children are, were arrested by the police, or killed in the course of confrontations between the police and the crowds, children had huge propaganda value.
There would be far more outrage, far more of an outcry when children were either wounded or killed. And that propaganda could be used to the advantage of the ANC to build anger, to build the kind of hatred that you need to propagate a people’s war and to discredit those who could be blamed for the child’s death, whether it was the police or the army or, in some instances, Inkatha or other ANC rivals.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“I remember that time in the Soviet Union that there was absolutely no reporting of any kind of violence, on behalf of the ANC, on behalf of the military wing of the ANC, on behalf of the intelligence unit of the NBC in Zambia.” ~ Prof. Yuri Maltsev
“The media reports were completely inaccurate. I actually was in charge of the government’s communication arm during this period and the reality was that the international media had arrived in South Africa in the expectation of regime change. They were not interested in even one tenth of the government’s side of the story. They were interested in the next big revolutionary spectacular. That is what they were shooting for and they became part of the story. At certain stages they were working hand in glove with the UDF to organise demonstrations that would be photogenic.” ~ Dave Steward
“There’s no doubt as far as the Security Branch was concerned, that most of the media reportings was in a biased manner. The reporting was not balanced. We had to take steps against the SABC for reporting or distorting certain facts, and they were found guilty.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
(Video News Report)
“We have this situation in these areas where people are afraid to come forward, because they are afraid of intimidation and, of course, for revenge.”
“For black journalists living in townships and who are now caught up in this ferment, it is very difficult to report accurately, because of the fear that had been generated. And in 1990, in fact, the Institute (South African Institute for Race Relations) convened a workshop with black journalists to talk about the kind of pressures that they faced and some of them said: ‘Yes, if there’s a meeting in the township and not many people attended, you have to add a couple of noughts to make it seem as if there really was a big presence there.’ Because if you don’t do that, then the whisper begins to go around that you’re against the struggle. And heaven help you if you are against the struggle, because by implication the penalty for that could be the necklace execution.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
(Video Portrayal of a black man on his knees, hands tied behind his back, and a tire around his neck)
KABWE
Zambia
1985
The ANC makes progress with their Vietnam-inspired strategy which they adopt in 1978. By 1985, it succeeds largely in establishing itself not only as a major role player in the struggle for a new South Africa, but, in the eyes of the international community, also as the favourite to one day take over the South African government. Pro-ANC protest rallies erupt across the world and the Free Mandela Movement becomes popular among young people from all continents.
Between September 1984 and May 1985, close to 150 councillors have their homes or businesses destroyed. To assess the gains it has made and to find ways of taking the struggle to new heights, the ANC organises a national consultative conference in Kabwe, Zambia in June 1985. Overall, the conference agrees on the need to intensify all elements of the people’s war in order to make South Africa ungovernable.
An important outcome at the Kabwe conference, however, the decision that soldiers of Umkhonto we Sizwe no longer have to differentiate between hard and soft targets during armed activities.
“Many of the people speaking there were saying that we needed to up the struggle, intensify it, not hold back by being too concerned about what the Americans would call ,I don’t like the term, ‘collateral damage’.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“No distinction was made between civilian and military targets and the aims were to sow fear and terror. They resorted to the use of car bombs, land mines, limpet mines, hand grenades and other explosive devices...” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
(Archived Live Media Report)
Reporter: Members of the South African Railway Police... (Explosion)
Injured Police officer: Come back! They’re throwing hand grenades!
Can someone come and help us?
“...regardless of whether defenceless civilians, including women or children were killed or maimed. A significant number of civilians, including women and children, were killed during these attacks.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“We thought that some of the things we were doing were actually... We looked like fighting with one hand tied to the back and we had to take decisions like the one we took about farmers. We wanted to take the struggle to the (long pause) white areas (another long pause) such that, if anybody dies in the crossfire, it should not just be Africans who die in the crossfire.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“In the essence of the people’s war, it regards all the people living in the arena of conflict as combatants who are expendable in the war is the same way as arms and ammunitions are expendable in a conventional conflict. So a people’s war cannot really distinguish between hard and soft targets. A people’s war by definition will use civilians in any way it can and will draw as much propaganda advantage out of civilian deaths as it can.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
20 MAY 1983
The decision on hard and soft targets at the Kabwe Conference is partly sparked by an event that happened two years before, when a car bomb was set off during rush hour in front of the South African Air Force Headquarters in Church Street, Pretoria.
“In the case of the Church Street car bomb incident, a vehicle with a powerful load of explosives was detonated around four o’clock in the afternoon in front of the Nedbank Square Building. And altogether 19 persons were brutally killed. Twelve of them were civilians and seven members of the Defence Force. Two hundred and nineteen were severely injured of which 217 were civilians and two members of the Defence Force. In that case, the police had to gather the parts of the body which were spread over a large distance and put it in a plastic bag.“ ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
Shortly after the Kabwe Conference, the ANC’s new plan of governability starts to escalate and the policy on soft targets is put into action. A total of 136 bomb attacks is recorded in 1985, up from only 44 in 1984. Civilian casualties rise sharply.
In December 1985, a land mine exploded near Messina, killing six members of the Van Eck and De Nysschen families, who are on holiday on a private game farm when the device goes off. Four of the deceased are young children.
(Count Case Video of Mr Van Eck giving testimony of what had happened)
(Testimony was given in Afrikaans)
The bakkie’s right-side rear wheel detonated the land mine. The vehicle was hurled through the air and fell to the ground some distance away, after
which we were engulfed by flames. When I came to, I saw my baby son of 18 months on my lap – he was alive and he looked at me. It seemed to me that
he was unhurt, but the vehicle was on fire. I saw Mr De Nysshen, the driver of the vehicle, lying on the steering wheel, his hair on fire and blood
oozing from his forehead.
I tried getting out of the vehicle, but because of the impact of the blow, I couldn’t. I tried to kick the door open. I also failed with that
attempt. I realised we would all burn to death inside the vehicle, because we had filled it up with fuel just before the game drive. I got out through
the window and took my baby son with me, whom I laid down by the side of the road.
About five metres directly behind the vehicle, I saw my wife and Mrs De Nysschen, badly mutilated and dead on impact. After this, I continued my
search. Sometime later I came across my little girl and her friend, where they were lying, dead. Just after this, I discovered little Kobus de
Nysschen, who still had some life in him. I went back to his dad and said that the child was still alive, but badly maimed and burnt. He, Mr De
Nysschen, asked right there that the child should rather die, which was what happened.
I also looked for my little boy of three years, but I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t find him to this day.
“The fact that farms were designated as veritable targets in our struggle evolved during our campaign in the ’80s. I also became involved in that because following on our conference at Kabwe, one of the things we had observed was the increasing activity of farmers. South African farmers being part of the South African security force network. They were part of what was called Commandos. So we began to regard them as a legitimate target as well because they were in our line, they were in our way. They were acting against us, they were informing against us, they were shooting us – and we planned against them as well. That’s why we planted land mines where they were patrolling, patrolling as soldiers in a uniform, so that we drive them away as well.
Technically, people could say those farmers are just farmers and these farmers were defending themselves, but we began to identify why we said, why we should regard them as targets. Also there might be soft targets because, I mean, they are farmers and they have wives and children staying with them on those farms, and they might be with their families when they tread on those land mines that we wanted to plant on their farms, but we thought since they are assisting and abetting the system and trying to help the Apartheid regime to survive, they will become legitimate targets.
Those were the sorts of things we were dealing with.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
(Executed on 9 September 1985)
The sentence is handed down by Judge Ramon Leon, whose son will later become the leader of South Africa’s opposition party.
“My father was a Supreme Court judge for over 22 years in Natal and he was opposed to the death penalty, but felt that he was obliged under his oath of office to impose a sentence when in this case there was murder without extenuating circumstances. So the issue with the Zondo case was exactly that. It was a shopping centre in the middle of Amanzimtoti, which was frequented by whites, Indians, blacks, just on the night before Christmas Eve. So there was no military or strategic objective. It was intended to induce terror.” ~ Tony Leon
“Yeah, well of course it was controversial. And Andrew himself apologised – if you recall for that action – but the fact that Andrew Zondo was engaged in such an act does not make him an outcast in our own vocabulary. He’s still our hero, he’s still a hero, I agree. But of course the action itself was unfortunate.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
The ANC later accepts responsibility for the attack and even changes the name of Amanzimtoti’s main street from Kingsway to Andrew Zondo Street.
In Zondo’s honour and memory for his part of the bombing, and as a cadre of the terrorist group, the Umkhonto we Sizwe, a Primary School and main road in Amanzimtoti were named after him! What a great example for the children of that school, that the school is named after a person, who never finished school himself, and then placing a limpet mine in a busy shopping centre, killing both adults and children. This proves that the ANC is proud of the terror attacks carried out against harmless and defenceless people.
The use of young people like Andrew Zondo in the armed struggle escalates, especially after the Kabwe Conference. Another phenomenon that greatly escalates is the use of the so-called “necklace” as a method to kill people who are accused of collaborating with the enemy.
(Video shows a group of black people standing around the charred remains of a black person killed by this method, cheering, smiling and posing next to the body. A large number of this group is youth)
“The necklace method to murder a person was without any doubt one of the most horrifying, cruel, savage and barbarous manner to murder a person.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“If you are labelled a sell-out, then a group of people would come and attack you.” ~ Strike Thokoane
“The victim would be caught, his hands would be bound behind his back, often with wire” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“They put a tyre around a person” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“They will apprehend you.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“They rubber tyre would be hung around his neck, hence the name necklace. And then it would be filled with petrol, and then the next step would be the striking of the match that would set the petrol on fire.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“It was horrifying to see incidents recorded on video where the victims were slowly burned to death and to hear their screams of agony and pain, and to see the members or supporters of the ANC/SACP alliance dancing in a circle around these victims, jeering, shouting and laughing.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
(Video of a group of ANC/SACP members dancing and singing around a burning body)
“And knowing that this were coming was absolutely terrifying for anybody caught up in that situation. In add, I think in the black community, there’s a strong belief that the burning of the body would also destroy the soul, would prevent the communication that people need through the dead, through the ancestors, with God, with the Creator. And so there was physical horror, but there was also a psychological element in it as well that was very powerful – that if a person was burned to death, then the link to the ancestors would be broken.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
(Disturbing and graphic archived video showing how a black man is hit with stones, jumped on, kicked, spat on, stepped on his head, by ANC/SACP members in an effort to violently kill him. While this man is being, almost tortured to death, the crowd can be heard cheering and shouting ‘Viva’. The people killed this way in the townships, by masses of people, were killed in a slow and horrifying way, ways that can take almost an hour, breaking almost every bone in his body before actually killing him)
“We have comrades today who can come and sit here, like I’m sitting, and testify to you how, by some miracle, they escaped a necklace because the tyre had already been hung around their neck, petrol had already been poured. The only thing that we needed was matches, and by some miracle the police van came and they ran away and he escaped. Now, that also weakened the organisation because a lot of people who were in the leadership of the Black Consciousness Movement and AZAPO, then said no, but when we got into politics we never thought we would die at the hands of our own brothers, and they sat back” ~ Strike Thokoane
“During the period, 1980 to 1990, 541 incidents of the necklace method were recorded. Thirty six survived although their bodies and faces were brutally marred. During the same period, a number of 1 030 incidents were recorded where persons were set alight and burnt, in certain cases, to death. Three hundred and twenty survived, but they were equally marred” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“It started, I thing, spontaneously. It’s something that we saw as well and did not support or encourage, and it is something that we were preaching against.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
While popular belief has it that the leadership of the ANC does not condone the use of the necklace to commit murder against civilians, there are in fact recorded case of senior ANC leaders accepting, or even encouraging the use of the necklace as a method of murder.
“On television, Mrs Winnie Mandela said: ‘With our matches and tyres, we will liberate this country.’” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
(Audio track of Mrs Winnie Madikizela Mandela saying the above said words, and the crowd cheers and whistles)
“And when Mr Nzo was questioned by journalists abroad about the killing of people through necklaces, he said: ‘Well, if that is the method that our people have chosen to liberate ourselves at home, we go along with that.’” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
“Fear would spread enormously among all the people who witnessed it, both at the time or through the TV coverage. And it would be useful in spreading the message to the citizenry of South Africa that the revolutionaries were gaining in power, and that the only way to keep yourself safe, is to be on the side of the revolutionaries.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“You needed to have this ferment on the ground. You needed to have a sense of the country becoming ungovernable. Because that, in a way, provides cover for the programme of violence. If there hadn’t been any such demonstrations, but you simply had necklace killings or you had councillors being attacked and shot, or burned to death, there would probably have been a sort of revulsion against this kind of violence.
It would more easily be seen as terror. But when it’s in the context of the great mass upsurge, then this seems to give it an element of legitimacy. And that’s why you needed to have the demonstrations as well, why you needed the political struggle to be expanding in conjunction with the military struggle, to use the terminology of people’s war.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
The government responds with a fierce hand, declaring a state of emergency.
(Notice that an extreme number of the government forces were in fact black people)
This is what the international media was reporting; only the government involvement AFTER mass murders, brutal torturing, vandalism, bombing and other
acts of terrorism by the ANC! The reasons for the armed response of the police and military was not shown or mentioned. That gave the image of the
black communities being attacked by government forces for no reason, and that the white government was suppressing the black people in South
Africa.
“Well, in a case, a situation such as this, the government carries responsibility for the safety of all the people. That includes the white people as well as the back people living in the townships.” ~ Gen. Constand Viljoen
“The situation was becoming unmanageable in many parts of the country. The daily episodes of unrest, violence broadcast overseas on overseas televisions had destroyed international confidence in the economy. It had created expectations that there would be a revolutionary and not a negotiated take-over. So the state of emergency in June 1986 was absolutely essential. They were to restore order, to restore services and to create an environment conducive to negotiations – and they actually succeeded in all three of these goals.
By 1988 the level of violence throughout the country had subsided dramatically. The revolutionary expectations had been counteracted, and this was essential on the road to creating an environment for negotiations.” ~ Dave Steward
By 1989, a degree of order is restored in the townships, when, suddenly, the international community is shaken by a development in the Soviet Union.
9 NOV 1989
The Berlin Wall, the greatest international symbol of communism and the strength of the Soviet Union, falls. After the resignation of PW Botha, the new State President, FW de Klerk, is prepared to start negotiations with the ANC.
“So suddenly, at the beginning of 1990, all of the traffic lights had gone green – and the biggest one was the collapse of the Soviet Union. For us, throughout the ‘80s, our main strategic threat had been the Soviet Union and its close alliance with the South African Communist Party. At the end of the 1980s, suddenly we had a new global economic and strategic paradigm. There was no other show in town. Communism was discredited and we knew that there would never again be such a good opportunity to start negotiations as at the beginning of 1990.
So FW de Klerk looked at all of the things that were required to get negotiations going, including the unbanning of the ANC and the Communist Party, including the release of Nelson Mandela.
Interesting to note here that on 8 Jan 2012, the ANC celebrated a centenary anniversary, yet, it was banned, an illegal organisation, can also say a terrorist organisation, from 1960 to 1990...
While the fall of the Berlin Wall delivers a devastating blow to the ANC, and while the South African government argues that this event places them in a superior position to initiate negotiations, the actions of the president place South Africa on a course from which there will be no return...
“History had placed white South Africans on the back of a tiger. The tiger was getting increasingly unhappy and angry. The international community were shouting at us saying ‘Get off the tiger!’, but of course it’s not easy to dismount a tiger without being eaten – and that was the dilemma of the National Party during the ‘80s. How was South Africa going to introduce a just political dispensation that would not lead directly to the demise of democracy and to the demise of the minorities?” ~ Dave Steward
I think a better illustration, than the one of being on the back of a tiger, is closer to bull riding - where the bull has been
prepared, made angry and aggressive, and that same people put someone on its back – because it was the ANC/SACP and Soviet Union that angered the
bull (Black Africans) and gained the support of the international community. The ANC were trained to be terrorists, killed, attacked and tortured
their own people! Let me repeat that: The ANC killed their own people!
The international media did not show that it was the ANC killing, bombing and attacking black people, up to the point where the police and military
force were called in to HELP the black people of the townships. No, they edited the story, took out some photos and were left with a story that seemed
that the ‘white police and army’ was attacking innocent black communities.
The so called ‘struggle against Apartheid’ was not a war against whites, it was a war fought by black people, against black people, and the white
people became collateral damage and were portrayed as the aggressors. The ANC attacked their own people, and using propaganda media, blamed the
whites, and at the end the entire world saw the South African Government as the guilty party.
VICTOR VERSTER PRISON
Cape Town
(SABC News Broadcast in by News Anchor Mr. Riaan Cruywagen)
Tonight in Netwerk: Dramatic announcement by Pres. De Klerk to usher in a new political era.
Pres. De Klerk:
I am now in a position to announce that Mr Nelson Mandela will be released. Also, in my two discussions with him, late last years and last evening, I
came to the conclusion that he is committed to a peaceful solution and a peaceful process.
When people are asked why Mandela went to prison, the answer is almost always that he was captured during the struggle against Apartheid and that
he was convicted for conspiracy to overthrow government. So basically, he was a political prisoner. This is, in a very strict way, technically true,
but not the truth.
He was sentenced for the first time in 1962 for leaving the country without a passport. He had already formed the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which was
classified as a Terrorist Organisation the previous year, and was also charged with conspiracy and incitement, as well as being linked to the MK’s
first bombing in 1961. During that time he was posing as a worker on the Liliesleaf Farm, the base of operation by the ANC, going by the name of David
Motsamayi.
en.wikipedia.org...
In 1964 he was given life imprisonment after being implemented in a vast amount of criminal charges and terrorist bombings. At his trial he pleaded
guilty to 156 acts of public violence, including the MK’s terrorist bombing campaign. He gave the signature for the bombings by the MK, which
proceeded even after he was imprisoned. Those bombings killed 130 people and injured 400 others. He was imprisoned for being a terrorist!
thebackbencher.co.uk...
“The final test is the situation on the ground, and everything will depend upon the question whether we get an increase in unrest or
whether we get a decrease in unrest.”
~ Pres. De Klerk’s News Conference on 10 Feb 1990
“I myself have at no time entered into negotiations about the future of our country.”
~ Nelson Mandela’s address on his release from prison
“You know that I campaigned for the release of Mr Mandela more than any other person. I feel no contradiction about that to the extent that Mr de Klerk, when he made the announcement in Parliament, I’m the only person he mentioned by name, as having helped him to make the decision to release Mr Mandela. And Mr Mandela had the huge rally in Durban, the very first one. He thanked me publicly and Inkatha for doing so, you see. So then when he was released, shortly after a few days, he phoned me to say that he would like us to meet. But somehow that meeting did not take place, and I was surprised.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
“We were not happy with Mandela’s release and to be taken to Victor Verster. Number one, we said: ‘why is he getting preferential treatment?’” ~ Strike Thokoane
11 Feb 1990
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is released on 11 Feb 1990. The original agreement, namely that Mandela will be released on the precondition that he denounces violence, has been withdrawn.
That was the first conditional release agreement given to him by Pres. Botha in 1985. Mandela refused this offer.
Mandela is immediately rushed into making his first public appearance. The world anticipates a call for peace, but is taken aback by what they hear.
“I salute the African National Congress.
I salute combatants of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
I salute the South African Communist Party.
I salute the United Democratic Front.
I pay tribute to the endless heroism of the youth.
You, the young lions, have energised our entire struggle.”
~ Nelson Mandela
Remember that all partied mentioned, was either banned, outlawed, or classified a Terrorist Organisation:
guilty of torture, murder, and violence.
“The government would have preferred a more moderate and constructive speech, but the reality is that Mandela was an ANC cadre under discipline. He was given the speech by his organisation, and, like a good cadre, he delivered it. I don’t think it was necessarily his own view of how things should’ve developed, but he was following the party line.” ~ Dave Steward
“I thought it was a terrible speech when I watched it on TV. I thought: ‘Wow! Is this the man we’ve been waiting for, for 27 years and this is what he has to say?’ It was a sort of speech of party-political phraseology, not of which was all-reassuring for the modern world as it then was.” ~ Tony Leon
“Now is the time to intensify the struggle on all fronts.”
~ Nelson Mandela
“I think the martyrdom of Nelson Mandela as it was portrayed did of course have huge propaganda value to the ANC. And though Mandela had in fact been sentenced to prison for sabotage, had participated in something like 170 sabotage attacks, some of which had indeed put live at risk, this as increasingly being forgotten in the kind of message that was being spread around the world: That Mandela was a prisoner of conscience who had now been help by the Apartheid regime for decades even though the hadn’t ever really done anything other than peacefully oppose Apartheid. And this message was extremely useful in helping to generate sympathy for the ANC and to whip up anger against the Apartheid government and its supposed surrogates such as Inkatha.
And in the end, when Nelson Mandela was released, he was also of course extremely useful to the ANC in the people’s was that then intensified threefold. Because whatever he had said, had such great propaganda value in the country and right around the world. Mandela’s views were treated with the utmost respect. There was really no sense that Mandela might also be a politician whose perspective on things might be coloured by these political views. They were seen as gospel.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“But, of course, Mandela being Mandela, the next day as it were, the very next day, within 24 hours, he gave a press conference at Archbishop Tutu’s house down the road here in Bishopscourt, and made a completely different speech, talking about reconciliation, talking about the need to negotiate and to bring South Africans together. So it was almost two different speeches.” ~ Tony Leon
“There is not a single political organisation in this country, inside and outside Parliament,
which can ever compare with the ANC in its total commitment to peace.
And the armed struggle is merely defensive.”
~ Nelson Mandela’s speech at
Archbishop Tutu’s house
4 MAY 1990
GROOTE SCHUUR
Cape Town
With the ANC out of exile and Mandela out of prison, the stage is set for negotiations about the future of South Africa. The first meeting between the leaders of the National Party and the ANC takes place at Groote Schuur in Cape Town. The National Party’s initial stance for the structure of a new government is that of a system with two distinct houses.
“There were different ideas to have a revolving Presidency, to have a separate Senate and a House of Representatives.” ~ Dave Steward
“And Kobie Coetzee released the National Party’s Bill of Rights. It was not the final, but their version, and I read this document and I thought: ‘Good heavens! This is entirely executive-minded. The whole thing is written, if you like, giving, you know, most of the power to the government rather than to the citizen!’ And of course I realised that was one of the problems: That they were so executive-minded because they had been the executive authority for 46 years, nearly 50 years.” ~ Tony Leon
“The ANC’s opening position was not to have any province al all” ~ Dave Steward
“It was a sort of struggle Bill of Rights, but what it did was it put in – and we still have it today – second and third generation rights. I was like: ‘Good heavens! You guys are going to become the government; you’re going to have to deliver on all this stuff.’” ~ Tony Leon
“They were not very keen on free market economics. It was not very keen on any constitutional limitation on the power of the state. And if you look at the ANC’s strategy and tactics documents, you will see that, throughout, their campaign was determined by the national democratic revolution. They did not negotiate in good faith. They had an agenda. They did not see 1994 as the solution, as the common goal. They saw it as a staging post on their continuing road toward the national democratic revolution.” ~ Dave Steward
But the National Party and the African National Congress are of course not the only role-players. Others, however, become increasingly alienated from the process as it drags on. The Conservative Party is not interested in negotiating with the ANC and boycotts the process. Instead, it calls for the Afrikaner’s right to self-determination.
(Video footage)
“The Conservative Party is not interested in a compromise between those two viewpoints. Our suggestion is very clear: We get the support of various
black leaders as to the principle of self-determination.”
~ Andries Treurnicht (Founder of the Conservative Party)
Groups such as the Conservative Party and Inkatha soon organise themselves into an alliance with the aim of achieving self-determination for minority communities.
“We were not part of the negotiations, we rejected them. We rejected Kempton Park as AZAPO and all the other arrangements, because we were being sold out. And if you want to know why I’m saying so: The ANC had already left their camps, and their commanders and leaders had already debased from their camps into the country before agreements and negotiations. I think they were in a hurry to hold office. We openly rejected that and demanded that the liberation movement must first talk among itself as to how they are going to approach the negotiations at Kempton Park. And then we were kicked in the teeth for doing that.” ~ Strike Thokoane
The negotiations soon became a bilateral process, with the two major parties calling the shots and the others falling in line.
“The main protagonists were the African National Congress and the National Party. So it had to be that they are the ones who, even when, during CODESA, had to steer the discussions, although other parties began to participate.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
The ANC’s chief negotiator is former CASATU leader, Cyril Ramaphosa. The NP’s team is led by Roelf Meyer.
“It did become a bilateral effectively between the ANC and the National Party government, and you know Cyril Ramaphosa famously said – because CODESA (as it was called) operated on something called sufficient consensus – and he said: ‘Well, sufficient consensus means if the ANC and the National Party agree, everyone else can get stuffed.’ Now, as I was part of the 20 other parties, you kind of thought: ‘Well, what are we doing here?’” ~ Tony Leon
“Roelf Meyer had developed very positive relations with the main ANC negotiators – there assumed to be rapport between them.” ~ Dave Steward
“The reason why he got this job was that he was a loyalist. He’s Loyal to the person who happens to be the National Party leader as the moment. So FW de Klerk knew that he was choosing somebody that would actually faithfully execute his instructions. I think the major weakness of the National Party in the negotiation table: They had no-one with any, let’s say, trade union experience. The trade unions who actually realised how you actually conduct a negotiation, but Roelf Meyer, he said: ‘Look I have almost to learn from the start.’ You know, if you deal with Ramaphosa, you realise this guy has been in negotiations for 10, 15 years – very, very tough negotiations with the mining houses – ‘Here, I have to learn from scratch.’ He said: ‘You don’t read that kind of stuff in books.’ You know, it’s very, very true.’“ ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
In the meantime, violence reaches unprecedented levels. On the weekend of Mandela’s release, 50 people are killed in political violence in Natal. On the Monday that follows, another 50 are murdered as violence starts to spread to other parts of the country. The ANC adopts a strategy, which they refer to as the “Parallel paths to power”. Once again, it is the black townships who are caught in the cross-fire.
“Yes, there was an increase. That’s the time when a lot of people – of our people – died. So there was that increase. That’s where people were necklaced and so-on” ~ Strike Thokoane
“Violence escalated drastically.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
(News Footage)
White Reported/citizen:
“We had to leave in a hurry because of an ugly mood and even threats against our lives.”
Black citizen holding hand grenade:
“We are here to kill Inkatha!”
“I would say that a war at that stage broke out between the ANC/SACP alliance and Inkatha.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“Black Africans were being attacked, massacred actually on trains. I mean there were trains going to Johannesburg where people were being hacked to death with pangas.” ~ Tony Leon
(Video Interview of black African woman at train station)
“They attacked us in the train.”
“It’s a period where the tensions are rising in the townships around Johannesburg... The violence in KwaZulu-Natal is increasing: Hundreds, several thousands are dying and this is taking place on the streets of Johannesburg itself.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“There was a lot of violence in the townships. ANC control was established in many townships in a very violent way.“ ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
“The situation was really very bad.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
“It’s vicious, it’s deadly and it’s destabilising things.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“The ANC from the start realised that constitution are not decided at the negotiating table: it is decided in terms of the balance of power. And the ANC used the negotiations and they brought about 10 000 to 15 000 people who had been living beyond South Africa’s borders, where they brought them back into the country and they assisted the ANC struggle. And I think the ANC basically had succeeded in gaining control over the black townships by ’92, 1993. Sometimes through violent actions, sometimes through people just deciding that they are the future government.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
This bringing thousands of people into the country, by the ANC, for their purpose or ‘struggle’, is still being done with each
election: They ANC would bring people from all over South Africa and outside South Africa, to voting stations of areas that is not yet fully
controlled by the ANC. They either intimidate or pay these bus loads full of people to vote for ANC so that it will become 100% controlled by the ANC.
With each election there’s always a legal battle over this, due to the mass people being brought to vote, not being registered to vote in those
areas.
Another tactic by the ANC is bringing in boxes full of face ballot papers to voting stations before the voting stations open. Those ballots are then
used to replace the actual ballots during the voting process. A number of ballot boxes are discovered in fields after voting, most of which is ballots
voting for other parties. The ANC holds power through intimidation, violence, and corruption.
“Part of what the ANC had learned from Vietnam was that negotiations could be used as a terrain of struggle. In other words, you could embark on negotiations and at the same time intensify all elements of the people’s war with the aim of putting so much pressure on negotiators that in the end, they would start conceding things, which they wouldn’t otherwise have done.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
WORLD TRADE CENTRE
JOHANNESBURG
The negotiations take place at a large conference called the Convention for a Democratic South Africa. However, after the first round of CODESA talks, the National Party finds itself in political hot water as the Conservative Party, led by Dr Andries Treurnicht, start to gain substantial ground at the expense of the National Party.
(Video footage)
“Who on earth will believe you if you talk about guaranteed against oppression? Guarantees against oppression? The ANC is not interested in the
sharing of power. It is interested in the surrender of power, i.e. oppression, and if Mr De Klerk’s representatives at the negotiations table do not
want to give it to them, they said they will take it in an armed struggle. But, you know, there are people who put their hopes in it, who say: ‘Mr
FW De Klerk has something up his sleeve. He has something up his sleeve.’ Let us be frank: If you do not recognise and maintain people’s right to
their own government, their own laws, land, education, safety, budget and so on, then a bill of rights is a farce, them it is a farce! (Large cheers
from crowd.)
~ Andries Treurnicht (Founder of the Conservative Party)
The inner circle of the National Party becomes rattled and De Klerk responds with decisive action. He calls for a referendum during which white South Africans must vote whether or not the National Party must continue with negotiations.
(Video Interview)
It looks as if President De Klerk is isolated from his own people. He hasn’t got the mandate and he should resign and call a general election for
the white people of the country.
~ Unnamed citizen
“Many of De Klerk’s own advisers, his closest colleagues in the National Party agreed with us that the National Party was losing ground. He didn’t. He felt that there was a solid base for transformation among white South Africans and so he took the great and bold decision to hold an all-white referendum and in the end he won with almost 70%. So he called the situation correctly, but if he lost the referendum, he would’ve had to resign and call an all-white election.” ~ Dave Steward
De Klerk gains a resounding victory in the referendum. The question that remains a matter for debate, however, is the extent of the mandate that is given to De Klerk and the National Party in terms of the referendum.
“In fact, the question in the referendum of March 1992 was also misleading. It was just asked: ‘Are you in favour of the continuation of negotiations for a new Constitution?’
The whites never had any idea that they would cede power, you know. There would be a full, fairly conventional majority rule. In fact, the National Party put a major full page poster advertisement in the newspapers: ‘If you are against majority rule, vote yes.’ That is your vote for what the National Party would want.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
“It was a very broad mandate. It was: ‘Do you want the National Party to continue with the negotiations aimed at a new Constitution?’ I think that was more or less the wording.” ~ Dave Steward
“To this extent, the Conservative Party were 100% correct, as Dr Van Zyl Slabbert wrote subsequently. When De Klerk made the speech on 2 February 1990 and started the process, it was, as Slabbert said, a comprehensive sell-out of everything the National Party had held near and dear since 1948. Well, that’s what it was. But in1992... Look, of course the National Party did – even within the realms of political advertising – they certainly oversold their promises to their white electorate. That whites, you know, were promised more protection, if you like, by the National Party at the time of the referendum, yes they were. Did they get it? No, they didn’t in terms of the promises made at that referendum.” ~ Tony Leon
With renewed determination on the side of the National Party following its victory in the 1992 referendum, a second round of negotiations at CODESA starts shortly afterwards.
15 MAY 1992
The negotiations don’t last long, however, as it is once again interrupted by events away from the negotiation table.
“At the second meeting of CODESA, which happened on 15 May 1992, the ANC lost a crucial vote whether South Africa should be a centralised or federal system. Seven organisations backed the ANC and eleven voted against it. And because the ANC had lost the vote at CODESA on this point that was so crucial to it, the ANC criticised CODESA in various ways: said it would have to reconsider its participation in CODESA and meantime it starts resorting to even more mass action, accompanied as always by coercion and intimidation to make sure the people participated. It also intensified its attacks against Inkatha and particularly against Inkatha supporters who had holed up in a hostel called Madala, the old one, in the Boipatong area.
Three Inkatha supporters were necklaced around the 16 June – which was of course the commemoration of the Soweto Revolt – in which the ANC had hoped would see a great upsurge in mass action in support of its call for a suitable alternative to the CODESA process. That upsurge of mass action did not happen, Inkatha decided to take revenge for the necklacings and the other attacks in which its supporters had been subjected over the years. So, Inkatha launced a mass attack against Biopatong.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
BOIPATONG
GAUTENG
(News Footage)
"By late afternoon today, more than 15 hours after a group of gunmen went on a killing spree through this normally quiet residential area, police were
still having difficulty in tracing the bodies of victims killed in their own homes."
“The Boipatong massacre takes place and some 50 people or so are butchered on the West Rand.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“Innocent people, massacred that way.” ~ Siphiwe Nyanda
“And it had aimed primarily to target the youths organised into self-defence units that it thought were primarily responsible for the violence. But it couldn’t find those youths, so it attacked randomly and it killed a number of men, women, children, who it happened to find in its patch as it went.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
(Unnamed Voice)
“Being 48 residents, including a baby, it was the worst of the massacres, and anti-government feeling rose to new heights.”
“As I say that I don’t deny that some of our people did have pre-emptive – you know – attacks. It was very bad, because it almost turned into an ethnic war.” ~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
It is well known is this country that the different tribes/ethnic groups, i.e. Zulu, Xhosa and Tswana are in an ethnic war even today. Political rivalry is not sparked by what the party stands for, but by the ethnic orientation of the leaders and members.
“The ANC then effectively abandoned CODESA and it used them Boipatong massacre as the excuse for doing so.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Mandela’s view on that violence was that De Klerk was either complicit in it as representative of the government, or at least, at best negligent about black people losing their lives. So it created in that sense a terrible atmosphere. And it just increased the mistrust between the De Klerk government and the Mandela ANC, because Mandela became more and more angry about that and manifested his anger.” ~ Tony Leon
“I can no longer explain to our people why we continue to talk to a government
– to a regime -
which is murdering our people."
~ Mandela
‘A government which is murdering our people.’? This was the message from Mandela that made it far and widely believed that the White South Africans were “killing” and ‘massacring’ the Black people, while the truth, absolute truth if I dare say, was that: Black Africans were “killing and massacring” Black Africans, blaming it on the White people, or White Government, and spreading that message around the world. All massacres that took place between 1948 and 1994, while the National Party was in power, were committed by black people, on black people.
“The consequence of Biopatong was of huge significance and help to the ANC. It internationalised the cause.” ~ Tony Leon
(International Radio Announcement)
"On behalf of all Australians I have to say that we are appalled at the continuing violence in South Africa. On 17 June, 39 innocent people, including
women and children, were massacred at the township of Boipatong, and there were three further deaths and 20 casualties during President De Klerk’s
visit to the township on 20 June."
Would that radio announcement have made such a big impact on the international landscape, as it did for the ANC, if the announcement
had told the truth, which is: “39 innocent people were massacred as the township of Biopatong, by members of Inkatha, in revenge of the massacres
and necklace killings carried out, by the ANC, on Inkatha member.”?
If that were the news reports that reached other countries, I believe it would have been seen as just senseless attacks by political parties, devoid
of white involvement. But because the news reports being phrased as it was, and the speech by Mandela, the International view was that the massacre
was carried out by Inkatha with the help of the South African Police. That, however, was found to be untrue in the Waddington Report on 17 June
1992.
"The cause of the ANC was reanimated in the world, if you like. De Klerk and his government were put in a very harsh light. So although he’d enjoyed, if you like, since 1990 a great following wind of international approval, this very much knocked him off his perch in the international community and elevated Mandela as the person who would help bring about change in South Africa in a more fundamental way.
So yes, I think it put the ANC in a much stronger position and of course it used that position between the break-off of those negotiations and their resumption to strengthen its position of the ground, and it had a lot more moral force on its side, quite aside from support on the ground.” ~ Tony Leon
After Boipatong, the ANC begins to push more aggressively for an acknowledgement that a so-called ‘third force’ is responsible for the violence in the townships. There allegations will strengthen the ANC’s legitimacy and severely damage the credibility of the National Party government.
“We think that a third force was in operation.” ~ Siphiwe Nyanda
“...which we know were military intelligence, police elements.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
As said above, there was no evidence found of any military/police involvement in the carrying out the massacre. The only police
presence, in this matter, was that the police were busy carrying out a police raid on the KwaMadala Hostel, confiscating illegal weapons, when they
were themselves ambushed and attacked by members of Inkatha.
The only reason for the above mentioned allegations by Gen. Nyanda and Mr Kasrils, is that they are supporters of the ANC, and still hold to the lie
that the government were involved, even after no fact whatsoever for the allegations were ever found.
“So, very soon ANC activists and organisations allied to the ANC, and then the ANC itself, began to allege that the attacks on Boipatong had been carried out with the active help and involvement of the police. “~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Well, the fact it’s been disproved, it was disproved by the Truth and Reconciliation’s own Amnesty Comittee. They found that there had been no government involvement. They had foreign police involvement, who also looked into this and could also find no trace at all of government involvement. But why spoil a good story?” ~ Dave Steward
(Video News Interview)
Mr Treurnicht: We will leave no stone unturned to establish the truth.
Interviewer: And allegations by the ANC that the police was slow in reacting?
Mr Treurnicht: These allegations will be investigated as well.
They will be intensively investigated and I give the assurance
that we will take every step necessary to establish the truth.
“There was no evidence of police involvement. But a mere attack by Inkatha had relatively little propaganda value, particularly if it was seen in the context of a tit-tat of violence between the ANC and Inkatha over many years.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“So the ANC, knowing exactly what the case was, wrung every ounce of propaganda value from the incident that it could.” ~ Dave Steward
“I must say, the ANC totally exaggerated the importance of the so-called third force. There were common factors that the ANC was involved in virtually all the conflicts in the townships.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
“So the view that the police were part of the Boipatong massacre has never been endorsed by any kind of evidence. It’s simply and allegation, but it’s one that keeps on being repeated by the ANC and its supporters, and it has won enormous credence right around the world, it’s widely believed, even though it’s not true. And based on that allegation, the ANC then broke off negotiations, and it left De Klerk, as it were, twisting in the wind, because he needed to bring negotiations to a close before 1994, which was when the next election had to be held under the existing Constitution.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“The ANC, through brilliant propaganda, had succeeded in presenting themselves to the public as almost innocent people just crying out for their freedom.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
And that is why the international voice cried out with them, without knowing that they are the violent and terroristic group: waging war against their own people and blaming innocent parties when the people they have attacked and massacred for years, retaliate.
The country has not yet recovered from the news of the Boipatong massacre, when it is shaken by another massacre that takes place in the town of Bisho.
BISHO
EASTERN CAPE
“So we have the Bisho massacre, which actually brought the negotiations together again, even though, I mean, that was a clear instance of ANC recklessness led by Ronnie Kasrils, as I recall.” ~ Tony Leon
“After the ANC withdrew from CODESA and blamed DE Klerk and Inkatha for Boipatong, it embarked on a process of rolling mass action. It began to talk about insurrection as being a possible path to power, but of course it didn’t go immediately against the powerful Pretoria government and its police and army. It began to mobilise against the homelands that were of course weak links. And the Ciskei homeland was particularly weak.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Come September, there was a massive march organised by the ANC from King William’s Town into Bisho itself.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
“What the ANC began to say was that it was going to use this programme of rolling mass action to throw Oupa Gqoza, who was the then leader of Ciskei, out of power.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“We’re getting into Bisho, we’re going to sit in there and we’re ‘chasing the pig out of the barn’, in Xhosa that was put, a very strong statement, which brought a roar of approval into the crowd. Amongst the people there was Chris Hani and myself. The intention was to go into Bisho, where we would have a sit-down until Gqoza’s resignation or removal by Pretoria. We are not simply going to hold the meeting in the stadium – we’re marching into Bisho.
On the day we mustered upward of 100 000 people. We had a mass rally in East London at the stadium, addressed by, amongst others, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Secretary General of the ANC, Steve Tshwete and others. I was sent out with a small reconnaissance party to the border to see what the situation was.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
(Video footage of negotiations at the border)
Kasrils:You are meant to remain here until the brigadier leaves.
Antonie Gildenhuys: Does that mean in the stadium or does that mean a penetration elsewhere?
Kasrils:Well we are on our way so you’ll see. I can’t say any more than that because I have got to relay what we’ve seen to Cyril
Ramaphosa and the regional leadership.
John Hall:But perhaps... Sorry, if we can just say one thing: You can see the situation here and it’s clear that emotions are probably going
to run very high, and I think it is very important before anything gets out of control that, in fact, we do have the opportunity for subtle diplomacy
and that, as you said, your people are under control. They’re quite and we have already seen Cyril Ramaphosa down below and he said when he got to
this position that we would have the opportunity to talk to you.
Kasrils: Absolutely.
John Hall: And we of course are intermediary here and we can’t tell the soldiers. Clearly you understand that?
Kasrils:Sure we do.
John Hall:We can say to you and we can say to them that the National Peace Committee, the Secretariat lives inside the covers of the National
Peace Accord.
“The Ciskei government obviously mobilised to protect itself, perhaps not in the most sensible way, because it deployed contingents of the Ciskei Defence Force along the border, and particularly close to what is called the Bisho Stadium, which was just inside the Ciskei homeland and from which it would be possible to march to Bisho itself.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“There was a layout of razor wire from the road to “kraal” us into the stadium. We saw that part of the surrounding fence of the stadium was actually broken open. There was a huge gap in it and there were no police and soldiers anywhere near. So to us it looked quite feasible that we could certainly go through to the stadium and continue through the gap in the fence and into Bisho.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
(The gap was only in the razor wires, not the actual fence.
Here you can see the people climbing over the border fence)
“But with regards to the stadium, there was a hole in the fence near it, and Ronnie Kasrils, who was aware of that hole, decided that that was the way to try and open the path to Bisho. So he led a number of marchers at a trot into the stadium, and then he declined to stay there. Instead, he said the way to Bisho is open. And he started leading them through the gap in the fence toward the capital of the homeland.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“We came into the stadium. We rallied people out through the gap in the fence. And as we came through the gap in the fence, they immediately opened fire on us.” ~ Ronnie Kasrils
(Footage shown, from Bisho’s side, of the protestors ran from the gunfire.)
(Footage of Cyril Ramaphosa laying behind cover with group of people)
“I will go and see them just now.”
~ Cyril Ramaphosa
“And so the number of people killed rose eventually to something like 29, with hundreds of people wounded. It was a dreadful event, which cost so many lives.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Basically, people were needlessly killed, because they were being led to the slaughter on the result of ANC instructions.” ~ Tony Leon
“Now Ronnie Kasrils seems to have led them into the field of fire, which he may well have been aware of. He seems perhaps to have been careless as to whether they were killed or not. But the result was again another propaganda coup for the ANC.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
(Footage of Chris Hani at Ciskei)
“I think we have paid a very high price; 28 people were killed, but I think we have achieved something. The Ciskei problem is an example of the West
tyrannising our country. I think yesterday’s events declared bitterness and people are angry, because the South African government would have to do
something extra if people’s confidence in negotiations can actually be sustained.”
“And it was that which put even more pressure on De Klerk to try and find some way of restarting the negotiations, giving impetus to them again. And it was after that that De Klerk entered into a Record of Understanding with the ANC.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
26 SEP 1992
“In the three months of major turmoil – I mean, you had rolling mass action, you had an attempt to overthrow the government of the Ciskei – that FW de Klerk had decided that the most important imperative is to get the negotiations going again.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
After the Bisho massacre, the government and the ANC return to the negotiation table – this time for the drafting of a historic document that will have a significant impact on the negotiations. This latest agreement is entitled ‘The Record of Understanding’.
“Well, you know the Record of Understanding is perhaps the most misunderstood record in our current history, because it’s generally interpreted as being a major defeat for the government. But that is not the case... It was the ANC, after the Bisho incident that returned to the negotiations.” ~ Dave Steward
“What happened is not always fully understood, because of you look at the agreement, it just almost looks as if the ANC agrees to return to the negotiations. That is what you also get in the autobiography of Mr De Klerk, and this is what Dave Steward often states and so on. But what actually happened is that the ANC established its ascendancy over both the National Party and over Inkatha. It gets the National Party to release people who were in prison, who committed major offences, but who couldn’t get amnesty on account of the so-called Norgaard Principles. But the ANC forced De Klerk to free all these ANC prisoners, even if some of them had committed major, major crimes.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
What is especially significant is the fact that the ANC expressly demand that prisoners who have been convicted for committing the so-call necklace murders, must also be released.
The world applauded the signing of this bill, but I don’t think the greatest supporters, internationally, was ever aware of what
they actually had applaud! It’s so easy to give the thumbs up, the vote of approval, for something that is seen as a victory by a political party,
ANC in this case, without actually going into detail of what the bill actually calls for.
I am going to be bold here and say that when the international community/leaders applaud and signing of this bill - saw it as a step in the right
direction, in regards to the ‘struggle’ of the ANC – they effectively agreed to have violent killers/torturers set free back into the
communities they were busy terrorising and massacring. How many further people were killed after this bill was signed?
“The other objective of the ANC at the Record of Understanding was to break down the informal alliance between the National Party and Inkatha. And they did so by getting the government to agree to surrounding the Inkatha hostels and also a ban on carrying and traditional weapons in demonstrations. Now that’s only Inkatha that was doing that, so it succeeded in actually infuriating Inkatha and especially Chief Buthelezi, and that was a crucial victory for the ANC, because Buthelezi was now isolated.” ~ Prof. Hermann Giliomee
“I think the National Party negotiators did not have an overall strategy. I think De Klerk, incidentally, was a brilliant tactician, great tactician. He could pull out a tactic. The roof was coming in on him when he lost the Potchefstroom by-election. He calls a referendum. He destroys the right-wing as a force in politics forever in a day, with that single move. But on the other hand, he didn’t have an overall strategy. He could see the hill, but he couldn’t see the mountain range. That was what I thought.
And so, for example, the National Party put all their eggs into power sharing, at the executive level in Cabinet. Well, eventually they didn’t get it, but instead of concentrating on other matters that I think were absolutely far more significant or as significant, they in a sense underplayed them all; never put them on the table.
So I... My greatest criticism, without going into the detail of the National Party, is they made a fundamental mistake. They thought the longer this thing played on or out, time would be on their side. They didn’t realise that once the process had started, they would very quickly be controlled by the process, rather than they would control the process. And I think that is the mistake which happens; you’ve been in power for 46 years, you are an expert in all matters of administration – which indeed they were – but you are woefully unprepared for bare-knuckled negotiation, which the ANC was extremely prepared for. I mean, the ANC undoubtedly out-negotiated the National Party. That’s the bottom line of CODESA.“ ~ Tony Leon
DAWN PARK
BOKSBURG
Chris Hani, a major leader within the ANC alliance, the Secretary General of the South African Communist Party and Commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe, is gunned down in front of his house in Boksburg.
Before we go on, let’s recap on what the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) had already done. They attacked civilians, police and military
officers, burned down police officer’s homes, planted bombs in public areas killing innocent woman and children and attacked innocent and
defenceless people. More than 130 people were killed, just by bomb attacks in public locations, and more than 400 had been injured.
The entire list of MK Operations can be read here:
www.nelsonmandela.org...
10 APR 1993
“The death of Chris Hani was a very significant event. It almost led to a total breakdown and all-round civil war.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
(News Footage)
The gathering of thousands of people in the Cape Town city centre quickly degenerated into an orgy of violence and looting; ANC officials lost control
of the crowds and groups of people started moving in between shops.
“Well, in fact, it happened on 10 April 1993, which was over Easter and I got the news, and I got in touch with the President and we immediately of course issued a statement.” ~ Dave Steward
“Eventually we charged Janusz Waluś as well as Mr Clive Derby-Lewis for the murder of Hani, and sentenced them to life in prison.” ~ Gen. Johan van der Merwe
“Assassination of one of the major leaders of the ANC, by two right-wingers who happen to be white could have tipped this country over.” ~ Tony Leon
“FW de Klerk was not going to be able to call for calm to the majority of black people. It would have to be Mandela, so De Klerk got in touch with Nelson Mandela and said, look, this is a potential national crisis. You are in the best position to call for calm – and that is exactly what Mandela did. He rose to the occasion and he helped to defuse what could have been a very, very dangerous situation indeed.” ~ Dave Steward
Chris Hani was the Commander of a terrorist group, spreading both terror and bodies wherever they go, and he was killed for that. It
was justice in the eyes of those who suffered by the hands of the Umkhonto we Sizwe!
Chris Hani was the commander of a group that was implemented, and even took responsibility, of hundreds of violent attacks and bombings – terrorist
attacks – and therefore is equally guilty for the lives that was lost in those attacks, as the people who committed them. Look at leaders of any
other terrorist groups: There are rewards of millions of dollars on their heads, being captured dead or alive...
For purpose of demonstration, if this person was listed on the Rewards for Justice Program, the killed, Mr Janusz Waluś, which is Polish, not South
Africa, would have been rich and awarded for his bravery, he would have been a hero!
“You know there are some tipping points in history. That was a tipping point... and Mandela did help pull it back and that did absolutely establish him as the most significant force, which he was going to become. I mean, you could add up, you would realise Mandela is going to be president. I just think it hastened the pass, the passage of power, that event. But the political consequence of that was to get the ANC what it wanted, which was an election date, and once of course the election date had been established in June 1993, the ANC could sit back and know that well, in nine months’ time they’re going to be in power. So suddenly the forces were now realigned very much in the ANC’s favour. So violence played a very significant role at many points in the constitutional negotiations, and of course before.” ~ Tony Leon
Although an election date has been announced, Inkatha is still fixed on boycotting the elections.
28 MAR 1994
“The IFP had also refused to take part in negotiations from the time of the Record of Understanding, because it saw that the NP was simply going to capitulate to what the ANC wanted. And it also refused to participate in the election because it saw it as effectively the combination of an entirely illegitimate exercise, in which the ANC had gained what it had gained through the use of violence.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
PLEIN SRTEET
JOHANNESBURG
On 28 March 1994, about 20 000 Inkatha supporters gather in the streets of Johannesburg to march to the ANC’s headquarters, also known as Shell House, in protest against the approaching elections.
“There was no way in which we could have allowed people to march to Shell House. So we were prepared that, as soon as they could reach a certain point, there would be no further movement.” ~ Gen. Siphiwe Nyanda
Can you see that the ANC were prepared to use lethal and deadly force from the begging?
But the marchers cross that point.
Mandela gives the instruction, and ANC security forces open fire on the protesters.
At least 19 Inkatha protesters are shot dead.
Read closely: “Mandela gives the instruction...” Again we have senseless killings, massacres, without due cause, by the ANC itself, and in the middle of a Johannesburg street filled with innocent civilians as well. Mandela are the one that gave instructions, and therefore guilty of another 19 counts of murder.
(Footage of injured protestor)
"They got the people to shoot all the Zulus sitting down for the attended meeting.
Plenty people are on the floors, plenty people now have died there."
Take not of the “Shoot all the Zulus”, because that is just another example of the ethnic war being fought in this country, since before 1945, and even continues to this day.
“The Shell House massacre was a shocking event too, because there’s no evidence that the IFP supporters posed any kind of threat on the ANC headquarters. Yet ANC security guards at the balcony of the building and elsewhere opened fire on them. And there were shootings elsewhere in Johannesburg too, in which IFP supporters were killed.” ~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
(Continuation of News Footage)
But the election... I don’t feel all right if they got the guys to shoot another guy, so I am not happy for other people shooting other people.
But the election... When the guys are shooting, I do not feel all right.
Can you see – taking into account all the other attacks by the ANC – the ANC takes power through violence and murder; it is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship.
With no other options left and less than a month to the elections, Buthelezi decides to register the Inkatha Freedom Party and participate. Although the polls at this stage indicate a victory for the ANC and a dramatic decline in support for Inkatha and other rival organisations, Buthelezi realises that his organisation will vanish if he does not take this final step.
INANDA
KWAZULU-NATAL
27 APR 1994
“For all South Africans an unforgettable occasion – it is the realisation of hopes and dreams that we have cherished over decades;
the dreams of a South Africa; it is the beginning of a new era.“
~ Nelson Mandela
“It’s a day that we have been waiting for, to have the opportunity to participate in an election in our country. Notwithstanding the
fact that of course the way the process came about hasn’t really created the kind of jubilation which would have been there if there hadn’t been
so much bitterness and efforts to keep us out of the process.”
~ Mangosuthu Buthelezi
“I’m glad that there is such enthusiasm. If all goes well for the future, it will ensure that this government of national unity will
be fully representative of all the people and that those who boycotted this election will be clearly identified as a very small minority.”
~ President FW de Klerk
“But it’s the levels of violence that accompanies the crime; people get murdered for stealing a cell phone in this country. Now, a lot of crime happens elsewhere, but ours is particularly violent, and I do think that we unleashed forces in the struggle to change South Africa, which are very difficult to put back again.”~ Tony Leon
“If the ANC had not intensified its people’s was, if we’d not had 15 000 deaths in that period – with 1 000 in fact in the few months before the election – we could have had a negotiations process in which everybody was fixed more on what would be in the best interest of the country. Instead, we ended up with a solution that is in the best interest of the ANC – and the two are not the same.”~ Dr Anthea Jeffery
“Once you have taught a younger person, or a person, to deal with problems with violence, even when the problems are internal, they will use violence.” ~ Strike Thokoane
“I think history is written by the winner, unfortunately. There are very few people who write history in a dispassionate way. But the narrative given by the ANC is a very distorted one and they appear heroic and no one else contributed to change in South Africa, except a few on the approved list. And equally, the forces that they were up against were utterly demonic.
Well, of course reality is much more complex than that, as we know, so I don’t think you get a true version of history. I think you get a very partial version of history, and it’s a pity, because one of the consequences of democracy should be a more inclusive history. One of the things about being a citizen, a free citizen or citizen in a free country, is to make an informed choice, and to do that you need the information.
So, South Africa to me is an abnormal democracy. What makes it abnormal is the fact that, despite all these predations in power, the ruling party is going to win a very hefty majority, because we have a lot of other factors that go into people marking their ballots. So my two wishes are that we can get to a point where our democracy becomes a normal democracy and where we can deal with the past, but not always take it into the future. That’s probably a big wish, but that’s what I would hope for.”~ Tony Leon
“But how black people deal with each other now... How children as young as two months are being abused and raped by people who are much older, how they are maimed every day you open the newspapers, you watch television. This is what you see and it’s not happening in the white community. If it does, somebody is sick, but we are sick as a society, a larger group. We are sick in the manner in which we do things. And the government of the day is responsible for whatever is happening.” ~ Strike Thokoane
The last quote was very moving to me, as you could see the emotions and passion on the face of Mr Thokoane. I feel the need to add,
that when he said: “but we are sick as a society”, it was clear from his hand gestures and emotion that he was implying ‘the black society’.
It is moving to me to hear such remarks coming from a black South African – who was part of the struggles, who had threats made against him –
despise the way in which the ANC has created their people.
Also I would like to comment on the statement made regarding the babies being raped, by saying that I can recall a large number of those cases in the
last 5 years, from the black community. Some myths even arose that if is the cure for AIDS, of the cultural method to achieve ‘manhood’.
Mr Thokoane’s last remark, when he said, “And the government of the day”, with a massive emphasis on “the day”, is by far the most relevant
to the black community in South Africa. They blame the lack of education on Apartheid – even though the ANC called for the boycott of education –
they blame the high rate of unemployment on Apartheid. They blame all social issues on the Apartheid, even though the ANC took power more than 25
years ago. Homelessness, unemployment, education, hunger and the economy has been betting worse and worse from the day they took power.
The call to boycott education by the ANC has led South Africa to have a literacy rate of 93% in 2017. That means that only 7% of South African is
literate! It’s not surprising when you look at the fact that our President can’t even spell, or read properly!
5 000 people died in political violence between 1984 and 1990.
Between February 1990 and 1994, another 15 000 people were killed.
During these times, more than 500 people were killed by means of the necklace method.
Another 700 were burned to death using other methods.
I'm from South Africa: the country with the history of the 'Apartheid' history.
Thats totally unbiased. 'Apartheid' isn't gone either.
The whole continent of Africa remains under colonial rule for resource extraction by 'Global Interests'.
Blaming the victims as we continue to oppress them, keep them impoverished, and murder them in droves if they resist. See Libya, French occupation of Malia for Uranium, the ongoing US meddling in Somalia, Kenya, blah blah.
You call it any kinda commie, rebel, Islamic scourge you like; Its about oil, gold, diamonds, titanium, etc, etc.
originally posted by: IndependentOpinion
...A documentary came out about the true history regarding the ANC and its raise to power. Because of Ts and Cs of ATS, I cannot simply post the video, ...
well you CAN atleast tell us the title of the documentary so we can look it up ourselves... so whats its title?
you could also direct us to the website we could find it on, as in is it on youtube? or vimeo? or what?
id rather watch it myself then read the entire transcript....
Blaming the victims as we continue to oppress them, keep them impoverished
I suggest you read the facts before you commemt, and see who the real oppressos in this country is, and who the victoms are (hint: neither of them are white...)
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