Umkhonto We Sizwe: Fighting for a Divided People

Illustrated with 16 pages of plates in colour and black and white. This is one of the very few books written by men who fought as guerrillas with any of the liberation forces of countries in southern Africa. Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli joined the South Africa liberation struggle as young men in the early 1960s when they left the country to join the ranks of the ANC’s military wing, MK, in Tanzania. After receiving military training in the Soviet Union they infiltrated Rhodesia in 1967 to fight alongside Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA. After numerous battles and skirmishes, both were captured within Rhodesia. Thula was tried for terrorism in the High Court, Salisbury, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was only released from prison 13 years later after Robert Mugabe came to power. Daluxolo was handed over to South Africa where he was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island. After his release in 1979, disproving the ANC’s UDF affiliate’s horrific necklacing tactics, he joined the IFP. With 200 others, he was sent to the Caprivi Strip for training by the SADF as hit squads. He was appointed as their commander and political commissar. With him as their senior warlord, the IFP’s Caprivians waged an effective war against the UDF severely disrupting their activities. In 1993 Daluxolo concluded that the SADF intended to use the IFP as a spearhead for white right-wing forces to wage war against the ANC to prevent it coming to power in 1994. He sought out his old comrade-in-arms Thula Bopela who had left MK to follow a corporate career. Using him as a go-between, he made contact with the ANC’s Jacob Zuma and through him, Nelson Mandela. He negotiated the withdrawal of his IFP hit squads from the UDF/IFP struggle. This played a key role in ensuring that the IFP took part in the landmark 1994 election that was won by the ANC.

by Bopela, Thula; Luthuli, Daluxolo

Publisher: Galago Publishing Pty Ltd, 2005

Edition: Softcover

Language: English

Condition: Good

Inv. No: 1G