Their efforts were puny and easily defeated by the state, writes Rodney Warwick

Janet Smith's article "Old war vets unite as potent peace symbol" (Weekend Argus, September 27) deserves some reflection based upon sounder historical analysis than the deductions of some of those she quoted.

Perhaps most obvious is the attempt by the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Veterans Association (MKMVA) chairman Kebby Maphatsoe to postulate some kind of enhanced credibility for the ANC's former armed wing that it failed to achieve during the civil conflict in this country post-1960.

Smith also carries no weight to blandly assert: "The creation of MK in 1961 unleashed a bold new tradition in South Africa's military history with the creation of a modern guerilla army."

A cursory comparison of MK's rather hopefully termed "armed struggle" activities with other modern military organisations developing out of South African history, would be hard pressed not to completely reject Smith's view as devoid of historical substance.

For example, since when could we compare the mass involvement and organisation, let alone any of the achievements attained by South African forces during the world wars, the SA Air Force's operations in Korea or, for that matter, the SADF's 1970s and 1980s operations in Namibia and Angola, with the sketchy and often terror-oriented MK hit-and-miss activities of the early 1960s and 1980s?

How is it even vaguely plausible to place on the same historical map events like the 5th SA Brigade's stand at Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 or the SADF destruction of Fapla forces at Lombe River in October 1987, with MK limpet mine explosions aimed at white civilian deaths at Ellis Park or the Church Street, Pretoria, bomb blast?

Who would try and invite to the same imaginary medal parade MK veteran Robert McBride and Natal Carbineers member Sergeant Quinton Smyth VC, comparing their exploits as respectively worthy of equal praise?

Other MK attempts at reinforcing its image via a more distant historical identity are also shallow and unconvincing.

For example, their plumbing into colonial history for valiant Zulu or Xhosa military victories, inevitably plays up the Isandlwana battle, forgetting of course the massive casualties still inflicted upon the Zulu army in this battle and the latter's inevitable destruction by British and colonial forces months later at Ulundi.

One more recent attempt to provide a contrived "African" link to modern naval vessels has been through the naming of the controversial new SA Navy vessels.

The ANC government is using the navy to project its own style of artificially invented "national identity" by insisting upon the new corvettes and submarines having African names which have no relevance to any sea tradition. Such is a repeat of the old government during the 1950s and '60s placing Afrikaner nationalist symbolism on ships, for example, the President-class frigates (SAS President Kruger, Steyn, Pretorius) also in lieu of any Afrikaner naval tradition.

Of course there is nothing wrong with veterans who carried arms on different sides in the more recent South African low-intensity civil war attempting to find greater understanding of each other at a personal level.

But this should not be at the expense of reshaping the historical record to rescue MK's virtually void record of military achievements, by repeating fictitious or misleading accounts of its supposed exploits.

Indeed a better South African historical comparison for the ANC's armed wing might be found in the activities of the Ossewabrandwag (OB) during World War 2.

This is not comparable at an ideological level of course, where the most extreme elements in this Afrikaner nationalistic organisation vainly sought a kind of Afrikaner-Nazi republic during the early 1940s. MK at the time of its inception was, however, indisputably linked directly to the Stalinist idealism of the SACP. Joe Slovo, who was part of the High Command, assumed that an Algerian-type revolution would sweep through Verwoerd's beleaguered early 1960s republic.

Just as the OB leaders like Hans van Rensberg had anticipated a German victory in Europe might hasten an Afrikaner republic returning in the 1940s, so had Slovo, besides other SACP members and their ANC allies, assumed inevitable socialist global triumphs through revolution or the collapse of capitalism would bring victory against the white government in South Africa.

But where indeed were MK in these heady days? The MK sabotage campaign during 1961-63 was perhaps as effective as the OB's of 1940-42. There were significant differences - the OB at its height claimed as many as 400 000 members, although there were probably much fewer. MK had far fewer members, whose rudimentary training in home-made bombs was initially under the amateur care of World War 2 white veterans like Jack Strachan, Arthur Goldreich and Jack Hodgson, all of whom had also been members of the socialist-inclined Springbok Legion veteran organisation.

MK sabotage of power-lines and a few minor government installations certainly made newspaper headlines, but also brought on their heads the wrath of Cain from the Verwoerd government, on all extra-parliamentary dissidents, whether they advocated violence or not. Like the OB military wing before them, MK's "war effort" was puny and easily defeated by the state.

MK remnants continued to receive a kind of military training in the USSR and later other Third World African countries like Algeria and Tanzania.

However, at no stage, neither in the 1960s nor 1980s, was there anything remotely resembling an MK military threat to South Africa.

Their best "military shot" was the highly idealistic 1963-64 Mayibuye plan, the discovery of which resulted in the Rivonia trial and saw Mandela and others sentenced to life imprisonment for high treason.

Slovo and writers such as Shubin (ANC: A View from Moscow, 2006) have acknowledged this paper plan of a guerilla army invading South Africa, intended to prompt internal black insurrection and African military intervention, was completely unrealistic in the context of the period.

But like much of MK veterans' current nostalgia and yearning for laurels for their "liberating" South Africa from apartheid, Mayibuye represented more of a fantasy military victory that the ANC would have meted out to the SADF.

But of course this never happened and during the early 1990s, back into South Africa streamed thousands of MK "veterans" who spent their entire "war" against apartheid sitting in ANC camps in Tanzania and elsewhere, even more bored *1 and significantly less trained or capable of fighting a real war than the average white SADF national serviceman.

Incidentally, those of us who did this conscription stint - up to two years of continuous service between 1976 and 1989 - never received any compensation for our "war", as the MK "veterans" demanded for their fictitious service.

If we old conscripted "troopies" are also invited to join this envisaged combined veterans association, I bet most of us will have more plausible war stories than our MK counterparts.

Rodney Warwick is a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town whose research focuses on the SADF of the 1960s. He was a National Service conscriptee in 1978/9.  

With acknowledgements to Rodney Warwick and Cape Argus.

"The charge arose from allegations that Cdr Power had sexual intercourse with Luanne Edwards, the wife of one of his subordinates. The court martial was told that the transgression took place at Mrs Edwards' Durban home."
 

"Naval Officer to be Cashiered"

 

Dispatch Online

Sapa

1998-03-13
 

www.dispatch.co.za

http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/articles07/cashiered.html