LITMIR.BIZ

      for my mother

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      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      © 2012 by Peter Harris

      First University of California Press edition 2012

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Harris, Peter, 1956–

      A just defiance : bombmakers, insurgents, and the treason trial of the Delmas Four / Peter Harris. — 1st University of California Press ed.

      p. cm.

      “Previously published 2008 by Umuzi, an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd, Capetown, South Africa under title In a different time.”

      ISBN 978-0-520-27364-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

      1. Trials (Political crimes and offenses)—South Africa. 2. Umkhonto we Sizwe (South Africa) 3. South Africa—History—1961–1994.

      4. Anti-apartheid movements—South Africa. I. Harris, Peter, 1956–In a different time. II. Title.

      KTL41.D45H372 2012

      345.680231—dc23

      2012005963

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.

      Cover designer: Sandy Drooker | Compositor: Star Type, Berkeley

      Printer and binder: Maple-Vail | Cover printer: Brady Palmer

       AUTHOR’S NOTE

      This is a story that has never left me. It has visited and haunted me from the very days on which the events took place. My challenge was to write it, a task that took me, intermittently, about ten years. It is now finished and I have many to thank for their support and assistance. Ivan Vladislavic for his faith in the book and for his advice and assistance over the last five years. Stephen Johnson, the MD of Random House, for taking the time to read my manuscript in November 2007, and for liking it. To Annari van der Merwe and Frederik de Jager of Umuzi for bearing with their first-time author.

      My thanks particularly to Mike Nicol who sacrificed his entire December 2007 and early January to undertake an outstanding edit of the manuscript in an utterly professional manner. I must acknowledge Jacques Pauw’s books In The Heart of the Whore and Dances with Devils, which were a valuable source of information.

      My gratitude goes to Helen Seady for her input on the text, and Norman Manoim for advice on some of the long-forgotten legal issues.

      Finally, to Caroline who has been a constant source of support and provided invaluable advice in relation to all of the many drafts of the book over the last ten years, drafts which she painstakingly read and on which she provided meticulous comment. She has been central to the writing of this book and, with my beloved children Simon, Isabella, Dominic and Luke is, of course, central to me.

      P H

       April 2008

       I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas

      – from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot

       THE BOMB

      The man leaning over the bench is focused on his work – a study in concentration, as you should be when constructing a bomb. His name is Japie F Kok and he works for the mechanical department of the technical division of the security branch of the South African Police.

      The division’s workshop is located at Rebecca Street in Pretoria West. Security around the workshop is tight, for this is the place where the ‘unofficial’ devices are made: the special phone taps, the booby traps, silencers, timing devices, detonators, grenades without the time delay. Here too containers are specially constructed to carry carefully designed weapons of

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