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The ANC Spy Bible. Moe Shaik
Читать онлайн.Название The ANC Spy Bible
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780624088974
Автор произведения Moe Shaik
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
Shortly after my induction into MJK, we were joined by Jayendra Naidoo, a student leader. He came from a politically active family with a long involvement in the struggle. Equally importantly he had a razor-sharp mind, a cautious disposition and a resourceful network. For us to survive we had to master the art of secrecy. No one could know that we had joined the ANC, let alone know of our unit, MJK. During the day we lived our ‘normal’ lives but under the cover of darkness we pursued our secret agenda.
In the 1980s, communities organised themselves around issues that affected them the most. It was a creative and effective form of resistance. Grassroots organisations mushroomed throughout the country which eventually led to the formation of national organisations such as the United Democratic Front and the Congress of South African Trade Unions – collectively referred to as the ‘mass democratic movement’.
I loved the non-racial character of the mass democratic movement. It gave me a sense of a more embracing identity. It made me see the humanity in the ‘white’ comrades willing to do their part. I stopped thinking in terms of colour and as a victim. In short, non-racialism liberated me from my own prejudices and biases.
Under this banner people of all hues were mobilised against apartheid, not only in South Africa but in various capitals around the world. The ANC championed the cause of non-racialism, from which it derived its strength. It was not a party of the oppressed. It certainly was not an Africanist party. It was a movement of liberation, both local and global. It brought together all those willing to fight for the eradication of legislated racism. We called one another ‘comrades’, a term of endearment and respect, a mark of loyalty, a commitment to liberation.
Like other ANC internal underground units, MJK immersed itself in the mass democratic movement. We continued like this for many years until we were tasked in the mid-1980s with the mission that was to change my life. Yunis was summoned to Swaziland. At a briefing there he was told that MJK had been selected to bring into the country a high-ranking member of the ANC named Ebrahim. We were to provide all the logistics for him within the country including keeping him safe. Ebrahim’s mission was to assess the underground units of the ANC to determine how the struggle to overthrow the apartheid regime could be intensified.
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Our unit successfully infiltrated Ebrahim into the country and for six months managed to keep his presence a secret. His mission had been highly successful and now the time had come to get him back across the border so that he could report to the ANC leadership. He was excited, adamant that the conditions for insurrection were developing.
‘What I need to do,’ he told us, ‘is convince the ANC that it has to intensify the armed struggle to capture this growing revolutionary mood.’
It was heady stuff.
Part of Ebrahim’s six-month mission had included liaison with an European couple, Klaas de Jonge and Hélène Pastoors.
Klaas was a child of World War Two. He had grown up in the Netherlands while it was occupied by the Nazis. He detested fascism, dictatorship, bullies and wilful neutrality which he saw as cowardice. In his early thirties he had taken to the streets of Europe to protest various global injustices, especially the French occupation of Algeria and America’s war in Vietnam.
When, in the early 1980s, his partner, Hélène, a Belgium citizen, decided to work in Mozambique, he went with her. They both wanted to help in the reconstruction of that country after its bitter war of independence. In this, they were part of a progressive movement forming all over Europe: revolutionary internationalists inspired by Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and Karl Marx.
In Mozambique the couple were faced with the devastation wreaked by Renamo, an armed resistance movement formed in opposition to the popular Frelimo-led government. Renamo – an acronym derived from the Portuguese name for the organisation, Resistência Nacional Moçambicana – was initially sponsored by the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation and later by apartheid’s armed forces. The insurgency of Renamo radically affected the stability of the nascent independent country. Tens of thousands of people were killed and almost a million Mozambicans were displaced. People abandoned the killing fields of the northern areas, leading to the over-population of the urban centres, especially in Maputo.
Witnessing Renamo’s atrocities led Hélène and Klaas to the ANC. They reasoned that peace in Mozambique could only occur if apartheid was defeated so the fight against apartheid became their war, their purpose. Recruited into the special operations division of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s military wing, they were trained in the storage and movement of arms into South Africa.
Being white foreigners, they could easily move across the region’s borders without much scrutiny. They were soon skilled and valuable operatives who went undetected for years while they conducted reconnaissance of targets for MK. They also smuggled weapons into the country and were part of significant military operations against strategic apartheid targets.
In 1985, under instructions from MK they settled in South Africa. However, they lived separately and developed different cover stories. After a few months and unbeknown to either of them they were placed under surveillance – which included tapping their telephones – by the Security Branch. Very soon their days as arms smugglers were numbered when a Security Branch team unearthed a cache that contained limpet mines, hand grenades and about a dozen AK-47s. Everything was photographed. Their luck had run out. And so had Ebrahim’s when he was photographed at Johannesburg airport talking to Hélène.
Of course, we knew nothing of this. We thought we were in the clear. Underground. Undercover.
In his final briefing to Yunis and me, Ebrahim sketched out the plans for his return to Swaziland. As with his entry, our unit was responsible for his exfiltration. Yunis deployed me along with another from MJK, Shirish Soni, to get Ebrahim across the border. Shirish had been with us for about a year. Extremely resourceful in logistics, he worked as a clothing designer and manufacturer. This was perfect cover as he frequently visited his clients in Ermelo, a conservative Afrikaner town close to the border with Swaziland.
It was at the Ermelo Inn that Ebrahim chose to meet Hélène prior to the planned border crossing. She was to give him the final details. Ebrahim had made it clear that, in keeping with the rules of secrecy, he would be the contact between the units.
It was a cold evening on the Highveld. We were given the go-ahead to proceed to the drop-off spot. I was driving, Shirish sat in the front, Ebrahim in the back, staring out of the window, lost in his thoughts. I looked at him intermittently in the rearview mirror, wondering if he was thinking about the long walk to Swaziland on this freezing night. The car’s heater was at maximum and the dry warm air made us drowsy, yet our anxiety kept us alert.
In front of us was an incline, and beyond that, the road sloped down to the border post. At the top of the hill we saw a military roadblock not a hundred metres ahead. Stopping or turning back would have aroused suspicion. I had no choice but to keep on.
‘Shit!’ Ebrahim exclaimed. ‘It was not here two hours ago when reconnaissance was done on the route.’
‘We stick to our legend,’ said Shirish. ‘We say we are lost and trying to find our way to Ermelo.’
To me he said, ‘You and I give our real names, to avoid any suspicion. Besides the car is hired under my company’s name, they can easily check.’
I agreed, concentrating on the postures of the military personnel in front of me. They looked relaxed huddling around a fire they had made to keep themselves warm. It was surely a routine checkpoint. I relaxed a little.
Our interaction with the soldiers went the way we’d anticipated. Our names were recorded along with the car’s registration number. We were permitted to proceed, the officer in charge giving us directions back to Ermelo: turn left at the next T-junction and follow the road signs. We knew the T-junction; it was where we had to drop Ebrahim. Turning right would have taken us to the border post.
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