step. We want to assure our people that we shall neither desert nor deviate from the cause we serve and we are prepared to lay down our lives for the liberation of our country. We are against and wish to expose:
1. OPPORTUNISTIC "GUERRILLA' OPERAIn early 1967 there were two statements in the Tanzanian Nationalist (newspaper) released bv the ANC which proclaimed that " our revolutionaries are leaving for war zones in the South". At the same time all the men were still in Tanzania. These statements were a prelude to the Wankie affair. In August of that year, men (mostiv those who were opposed to the ANC leaders) were sent into Rhodesia to "start sweeping the Smith government, and finally the We have proof that the Vorster government Smith government was alerted of the attempt to infiltrate into Rhodesia by some of the leaders in AN or ZAPU, for the simple reason that waen our comators entered man terain they were almost immediately ambushed and Killed. though a lew survivors surrendered The weapons that these men were given were for conventional warfare, i.e. big arms instead of light arms which are suitable for guerrilla warfare. Their supply of food and ammunition was poor, and their medical supplies were bad: all they had were items like elastoplast, antisnake serums, bandages and a few varieties of tablets like pain-killers etc.
The men who were sent down to Wankie were under duress; they were forced, on one occasion at gun-point, to cross the Zambezi into Rhodesia: a terrain which they did not know, and amongst a people whose languages they had not been taught to speak. These "guerrillas" were the men who would "open the eyes of the progressive world to the struggle that was being waged by the revolutionary cadres of the South, who were selfless and courageous when it came to fighting for their liberation". Little does the "progressive world" suspect that Wankie was staged for two reasons alone: to get rid of unwanted dissenters, and. to press fund-giving organisations into giving more money for the "heroic" cause.
After that first adventure with the Smith/ Vorster forces, one ANC leader threw a combinea party. to celebrate mis daugnter s birthday and the military "achievement" of the guerrillas in Wankie. The statement he made in Dar es Salam was that "our militants in Rhodesia have brought down one enemv plane in the battlefield".
It is a fact that after the Wankie disaster the ANC received - the world over - both material and financial aid. In one country in Europe the Vice-President of the party was televised, and as far alield as Africa he was shown skung, adaressing student rallies etc.
The Wankie fiasco was nothing but a prestigeboosting project which would hein to overand are physical wrecks: write-offs before they went into action. The beatings and stabbings mentioned above had crippled, semi-blinded and rendered physically useless most of the men sent down to the front. The ANC sent these men down - maimed as they were (and are), entirely for its own prestige and material benetit 5. THE RAPE OF GIRL PATRIOTS A case in particular is that of young Jasmine we have covered the girls real name). who was then nineteen years old. She was raped by a well well-known London-based ANC leader when he was in Dar es Salam some time in 1968. Gene rally, some of these leaders use their authority - or rather power - to defile and misuse these young girl patriots. Suffice it to say that some of them đo not have their families with them, though they certainly have their families with 6. THE DENIAL OF ADEQUATE FOOD AND MEDICAL TREATMENT TO REVOLUTIONARIES IN THE TRAINING CAMPS The men were underfed. Porridge was the staple food: this was cooked with a third-grade pounded mealie meal; a local butcher brought us third-grade meat; tea was drunk once in the day; vegetables were a rarity, and we alternated the third-grade porridge with a third-grade rice. From this diet the men had no resistance to diseases like scabies, malaria, diarrhoea, malnutition and numperess orners. i was not naruship that we were against, this was to be expected. What we protest is the discrimination between the diet of the fighters and the leadership, and the deliberate attempt to "break" our physical resistance to sickness and disease.
Moreover, medical facilities were very poor There was a small camp clinic of 12 feet by 14 feet, which housed five patients of varying diseases at a time. The "Medical Officer" wasn't very well acquainted with his medical supplies which consisted largely of pain killers, mercurochrome, purgatives and suchlike. All bodily pains were treated alike, and a neurotic case was treated in the same way as a case with a simple headache. The medical supplies in the clinic were insufficient for the four hundred freedom fighters in the camp. And when it became necessary to get out of the camp for treatment of serious cases, all kinds of obstacles were put in the way. Many men who could have recovered their health with prompt treatment were denied attention for so long that they are now permanently disabled. Surprisingly, however, the leaders and their henchmen had no difficulty in getting to Moscow or East Berlin for medical treatment although they denied the guerrillas the right to free medical care in the hospitals of the host country - Tanzania. This denial was always done in a subtle manner the reason given being that the camp security should not be threatened by "the people's"
Rhodesia. Round the clock trials of such "reac- naries.
tionaries were held in private sessions. Brute force was used to make people "confess". The duties of these tribunals was, and is, to force recoom nighters to submit to the will of the ANC leaders and be destroved.
11. THE SUBSEQUENT MENTAL STATE OF REVOLUTIONARIES IN ALL THE CAMPS The undeclared policy of the ANC leadership was to break down every true revolutionary in order to use him in their own mechanical way - a principle which cannot be found anywhere in the manuals of a people s army, and which is not practical in a people s war. Their methods of bending men to their own will brought detrimental results and there were cases of men who did not have the mental resistance against psychological coercion being interned in the Mrembe Hospital (a mental asylum), in Dodoma. One man who was a neglected out-patient of this asvlum and who was himself in Morogoro and died instantly. His was staying with some of these leaders, electrocuted not an isolated case; there were a number of attempted suicides in all the camps, and particularly in Kongwa. 12. THE "JACKBOOT" PLATOONS IN THE CAMPS These platoons carry out attacks on their fellow revolutionaries under duress, out of fear that they will be persecuted if they defy their orders. Young men, aged between seventeen and twenty-five years, are used to break down eiderly freedom mgnters who are in their late forties and fifties, by stripping down their trousers and thrashing them with hosepipes six feet in length, and six cubic feet in diameter. Some of these victims have been in the ANC a long time and know all about the past history of the leaders. As such they pose a grave threat to the leadership and, one way or another, they are to be "silenced" by any method that would be exemplary to those who might be thinking in terms of exposing the leadership to the young, "ignorant" (politically immature) revolutioOn Christmas Day, 1966, a forty-year-old guerrilla was charged with stealing the property given ten strokes of the hosepipe. But instead of the people's army a blanket - and he was and lnese were administered by the furious camp commander himself, in front of a detach.
ment of two hundred men, at 7.30 in the morning. Bleeding profusely, the victim collapsed to the ground from the bench across which he was being held by the strong-arm men, as the detach detachment marched into the kitchen for break breaktast Woe to those who tried to oppose or tried to mitigate the punishment for "an act of degeneracy by a comrade". Midnight calls on individual "rebellious" or "doubted" freedom fighters to "report" to the headquarters, and their subsequent disappearance, were normal occurrences. These individuals were driven to "transit camps" where, on their way, they were beaten to submission; that is, before they reached the transit camps in South Africa. No questions were to be asked regarding the ab- sence of an individual or individuals. That meant instant persecution. The fate of those that left the camp was unknown. 13. THE STATE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL UNCERTAINTY OF ALL REVOLUTIONARIES The mental, physical and psychological uncertainty that prevails among the revolutionaries in the camps is terrifying. Men's nerves are tense. Anything can happen to anyone any time, within or without the camp premises. This is of course with particular reference to those who have seen through the farcical set-ur of the revolutionary ccuncil. People are subjected to surprise attacks, kidnappings, misrepresentations and reports. There is constant fear fear, insecurity, and absolute mistrust of everybody in the camp. 14. THE DIVISION OF THE MEN INTO ETHNIC AND TRIBAL GROUPS WITHIN THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT The strength and unity of the men, which transcended all the trivialities such as tribalism, regionalism, and ethnic groupings was broken down and systematically destroyed by these of ten, he received well over twenty-five strokes they realised that such unity might well con- international political pick-pockets, because front them with a force which would expose their hypocrisy and corruption to all the world.
Thus the ANC leadership has cynically exploited tribal and ethnic differences and sentiments. As is common, this tactic, which is the most elective instrument in breaking a united front, aroused a flare-up of emotions as fights broke out between men of various tribes, and mainly between the Zulus and Xhosas. The latter became conscious that the leadership consisted of a majority of Xhosas, and contended that the others were not prepared for the liberation of South Africa, and that the Xhesas alone could accomplish this. This undercurrent of tribalism boiled over in 1966, when a tribal battle took place in the camp between the Cape Province Group (Xhosa) who were in a majority, and the Transvaal/Natal group which combined to equal the strength of the former.
The aftermath of that clash was that a large number of the Transvaal/Natal group was put behind bars "for their own safety", while not a single man from the Xhosa group was punished.
To this day, both in Zambia and Tanzania, the enmity amongst the men of different tribal groups surpasses that which they feel for the South African government. Such is the state of disintegration within the camps, a situation which has been deliberately engineered.
15. THE SUPPRESSION OF ALL GENUINE CRITICISM AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH WITHIN THE MOVEMENT Of course we recognise that armies generally and for a democratic set-up. but Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation)
was a different army - at the outset. It was a people's army, or so the leaders claimed. The structure of the army was supposed to have been like other liberation armies, such as those in China, Cuba, Vietnam, ete.; the principles full, since, "comrades you aren't only soldiers, borahme a people sarmy were to be applied in but politicians with guns". Rank and file men were supposed to work in concert with top ranking commanders etc., vital issues regarding the army and the morale of the men were not to be the monopoly of only one man, or even a few "at the top", because this was a "bourgeois tendency". But all these declarations have been violated, and the army has been made to turn upon its own elements, driven to this by the ANC clique.
The party was supposed to be the last resort for political issues which arose in the camps and could not be solved therein, but instead, political issues and grievances were ruthlessly suppressed, and the jackboot platoons and strong-arm men were turned loose on "those who wanted to jeopardise the smooth running of the liberation army". Thus the democracy that was spoken of has never existed either in Umkhonto (the military wing) or in the ANC (political wing).
These are only a few of the atrocities we have gone through and escaped from, but which our compatriots are still suffering right now, in the camps.
We want to assure our people and progressive people everywhere, that we shall struggle against and resist all attempts to make the South African revolutionaries, members of the South African 'Communist' Party against their will, or the African National Congress a branch of the "Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Our struggle shall not be directed from Moscow. We recognise that ultimately it is not in the interest of Moscow, as it is not in the interest of the United States, Britain, West Germany or France, that there be a major upheaval in Southern Africa.
We shall unite, and are uniting, with true revolutionaries, progressive peoples' organisations to liberate South Africa. A divided organiWe are well aware of the fact that the ANC to expose those who are using this organisation for their own gains at the expense of all those others who are bent on liberating their country.
We would like to ask a question of these aidgiving bodies. Are you aware of the fact that the material and financial support which you think you are giving for the South African struggle is in fact being misappropriated and misused?
The help you give in the form of clothes, provisions, and other supplies for the freedom •barers has listead been turned into a thrivin The Black Dwarf 26th November 1969 Page 7 Dar es Salam, and the money goes straight into the pockets of the "shop owners"! We, in the meantime, go about half naked and starving in the camps. The money that you give goes to take care of the personal expenses of these men and their families — mind you, they live comfortably; or else it is used in projects that are meant to subdue us to their will But we do not call upon you to cut off this aid. Bear it in mind, however, that these men are not the makers of history. The makers of history are the people. These men have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that they are not worth leading a people. History, as is proved in its annals, chooses the authentic leaders of the people. The leaders of the South African strug gle, too, will be chosen by history.
To muffle the voice of a people needs great effort. And, as it has been proved so many times, the effort only culminates in failure Thus, despite the great efforts of the ANC clique to keep the world fooled about their real purpose, the truth will come to light. All those who really do hold themselves responsible for the selfless liberation of our people can never be muted. The very voices that were silenced in Wankie will echo still, in the ears of those who were the beneficiaries from that We have for a long time endured the rule of this clique in the ANC. Our aim was to take the first chance to get back into South Africa and fight the enemy. Our differences with those that led us could have been settled after the confrontation. It took us some time to realise that our leaders had no intention of confronting the enemy - ever! In their desperation to prevent the mounting pressure towards this end (confrontation), these political thugs took to staging stunts like Wankie to eliminate us. It is this that caused us to leave the movement. A people cannot perish to the last man merely to keep a clique of thugs alive and prospering.
We are prepared to face up to the monolithic South African beast despite these set-backs.
And this is not a political stunt.
If we are honest with ourselves, we must recognise by now that the South African government cannot be brought down trom centres like London, Moscow or Washington.
So the aid that you give in these centres, or any others outside South Africa, is ineffective in the South African struggle. So far, this aid has been used mainly to support the luxurious living of the ANC leaders, even as they shout "Revolution!" from the internationally acclaimed hotels in which they entertain themselves. The only effective way for aid to be used is to channel it right into South Africa, where it is really needed, and where the struggle reallv is Those of you who do not believe what is written in this document are requested to make an on-the-spot investigation of conditions in the "training" camps in Zambia and Tanzania.
We, the oppressed, will recover from the heavy blow of discovering the truth about our leaders and what they are doing to the freedom fighters in the training camps. We know that this document will come as a God-sent gift, straight from the horse's mouth, and will be given distorted publicity in the South African press and radio, in an attempt to break down completely the spirit of resistance in the We would therefore be grateful if this exposure is published in its entirety, and publicly The reasons for this are: 1. The oppressed in South Africa are given distorted facts about Wankie, and the consequent victory of the "Baas" (white racists) in Rhodesia. 2. The oppressed in South Africa want to know why we are "fighting" in Rhodesia, and not in South Africa. 3. The publicity which distorted versions of this document will be given, will try to convince the people that all liberation movements are doomed to fail, and that we will never return to South Africa. 4. Finally, we wish to give ground to any resistance movement in South Africa which has been formed, or is in the process of being formed.
We hope that this exposure will help to clear the minds of all those progressive people who have for so long been fed with lies by the ANC leadership through its powerful propaganda machine. It is with a clear conscience that we decided to expose this clique. We well know that after the publication of this exposure they will turn on us like hunted animals. But whatever they do, their time has passed. Those of us that still remain are uniting to stage a two-way battle. But the first priority is to bring down the fascist regime in the South. We know that the ANC profiteers will make this continent hot for us with the kind of propaganda which still gets heard despite their total failure in the struggle. We say, both to the clique and to the Vorster government: Despite your strength and intrigues, the wheels of history will grind you to dust. A people cannot fail to rid itself
The manoeuvres we are witnessing for the moment have a double meaning. Every impena-