Using ‘Whiteness’: Defeating the Apartheid Intelligence System (I)

This issue deals with the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, often referred to as the ‘Struggle’, and highlights the experiences of Bob Newland. This is an extract from a previous paper presented by Bob, which will also form a part of a future book (but more on that later).

Following the Rivonia Trial in 1964, the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) were either in prison serving life sentences or in exile.  Their underground organisation was crushed. The mass organisations of the African people were banned. A young saboteur from Durban, Ronnie Kasrils, was tasked by Oliver Tambo with finding a way to carry out propaganda exercises in South Africa keeping the name of the ANC alive while they regrouped and reorganised.

Working from London along with a small group of ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) cadres he set about recruiting a band of young white men and women to enter South Africa clandestinely and set off leaflet bombs, play tape recordings, unfurl large banners and carry out mass mailings.  These comrades  were recruited in London and were branded ‘The London Recruits’ as a result of the chapter title in Ronnie’s first autobiography: ‘Armed and Dangerous’. Kasrils, of course, went on to become Chief of MK Intelligence and later Minister of Intelligence Services in Thabo Mbeki’s Government.

Recruits were selected from students at LSE where for cover Ronnie had signed on as a student, and from the Young Communist League (YCL).  All were chosen because of their revolutionary commitment to international solidarity and Ronnie’s belief that their political training gave them a powerful resolve as well as reducing the security risks involved both in the recruitment process and carrying out of their operations.

I had the extraordinary privilege to be one of them.  I was 21, unemployed and a member of the YCL in Islington in London.  Through my political work in the YCL and the Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF) I was well aware of some of the activities of the security forces such as phone tapping, infiltration of groups and the recruitment of agents from within left wing organisations.  

Ronnie proposed that I go to Johannesburg with Peter to set off ‘Leaflet Bombs’.  These amazing devices created by Ronnie Press, an engineer and one of the UK based MK team members, blasted thousands of leaflets printed on airmail paper 60 foot into the air scattering over a wide area on falling. This enabled black workers to grab them before the security forces could intervene. Simple possession of such a leaflet, telling Vorster his time was coming to an end and calling for people to join MK and defeat Apartheid, could lead to five years imprisonment.   Having confirmed my agreement, I was given training on assembling the leaflet bombs and counter surveillance techniques:  Looking in a shop window to see if anyone was following you; going into a shop with two entrances, entering one and leaving by the other;  stopping to tie a shoelace; suddenly crossing a road and doubling back on the other side. We must remember this was 1971.  Many of the skills we were taught are now well known as a result of spy films and tv series.  To us they were new and exciting.

The nature of the Apartheid security forces was explained to us.  If you were captured you were likely to be beaten up, maybe tortured and would certainly face a long prison sentence.  Ronnie stressed that very few people can resist torture indefinitely.  If captured we were advised to  try to hold out for 24 hours to allow others involved in the operation to escape safely.  Then to give up information while we still had control.  This way we could tell our captors things we believed they already knew while hopefully leading them to stop the torture.  Of course we were young and in the business of changing the world.  We didn’t believe we would be captured…

(Extract from Bob Newland)

Your War Diarists,

Tony & Max

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Authors

  • Antonio Garcia, is a civil servant, who additionally holds non-resident positions as a research fellow at Stellenbosch University, visiting lecturer at Durham University, and tutor at the Open University. As a combat engineer in the SANDF, Antonio has served in missions in the Sudan, the DRC, and South Africa and its borders. He has published widely on military history and strategy.

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  • Max Lauker served in the Swedish Armed Forces, 2002-2018. Primarily serving in Special Purpose Units belonging to the Norrland Dragoon Regiment, Arvidsjaur. Later serving in Stockholm and Karlsborg with units included under the special operations and intelligence umbrella. Several deployments over the years include Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and the former Eastern Block leading numerous covert operations. Now working in the private security sector with Intelligence as his main discipline.

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  • Bob Newland is a lifelong activist and campaigner against colonialism and imperialism. After going to South Africa in 1971 and 72 to carry out covert activity for the ANC, Bob returned to the UK and worked for London Transport. He became a full-time worker for the Communist Party and the socialist daily paper, the Morning Star. He ended his career in environmental enforcement for Greenwich Council in London.

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