International Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the People’s War That Liberated South Africa
Edited by Ronnie Kasrils with Muff Andersson and Oscar Marleyn.
First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2021, ISBN: 978-1-4314-3202-8, this Daraja Press edition is available in North America and East Africa
I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the global anti-apartheid movement until I read this extraordinary collection of essays. This book blew my mind!
—Robin D.G. Kelly
We hear for the first time from the international activists who worked secretly for the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe(MK), in the struggle to liberate South Africa from apartheid rule. They acted as couriers, provided safe houses in neighbouring states and within South Africa, helped infiltrate combatants across borders, and smuggled tonnes of weapons into the country in the most creative ways. Driven by a spirit of international solidarity, they were prepared to take huge risks and face great danger.
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I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the global anti-apartheid movement until I read this extraordinary collection of essays. This book blew my mind!
—Robin D.G. Kelly
We hear for the first time from the international activists who worked secretly for the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), in the struggle to liberate South Africa from apartheid rule. They acted as couriers, provided safe houses in neighbouring states and within South Africa, helped infiltrate combatants across borders, and smuggled tonnes of weapons into the country in the most creative ways. Driven by a spirit of international solidarity, they were prepared to take huge risks and face great danger.
The internationalists reveal what motivated them as volunteers, not mercenaries: they gained nothing for their endeavours save for the self-esteem in serving a just cause. Against such clandestine involvement, the book includes contributions from key people in the international anti-apartheid movement and its public mobilisation to isolate the apartheid regime.
These include worldwide campaigns like Stop the Sports Tours, boycotting of South African products and black American solidarity. The Cuban, East German and Russian contributions outlined those countries’ support for the ANC and MK. The public, global Anti-Apartheid Movement campaigns provide the dimensions from which internationalists who secretly served MK emerged.
Edited by Ronnie Kasrils with Muff Andersson and Oscar Marleyn.
First published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2021, ISBN: 978-1-4314-3202-8, this Daraja Press edition is available in North America and East Africa.
Contents
Acknowledgements
ANC-MK Timeline
Foreword – Pallo Jordan
Introduction – Ronnie Kasrils
Declaration – Oliver Tambo’s Call on MK’s Tenth Anniversary, 16 December 1971
Nelson Mandela – MK and People of the World 1991
PART ONE: Clandestine Solidarity inside the Belly of the Beast
Fish Keitseng – The Underground Route
Michael Dingake – A True Internationalist
Fidelis Hove – Zimbabweans as Comrades-in-Arms
Jeremy Brickhill – The Secret History of Zimbabwean Support for Umkhonto we Sizwe
Ronnie Kasrils – Landing Guerrillas by Sea: The Aventura Episode
Alex Moumbaris – Arrest at the Border
Sean Hosey – When My Irish Luck Ran Out
Fatima do Rosário Cordeiro – Tribute to a Gallant Mozambican
Siphiwe Nyanda – Mozambique Panel Beaters & a Swazi Farmer
Aboobaker Ismail (Rashid) – Internationalists who Joined the People’s War
Bogaert & Van Hecken – From the Carnation Revolution to Special Ops
Oscar Marleyn – Stumbling towards Internationalism 1979–1991
Hélène Marinis Passtoors – Words and Blasts91
Klaas de Jonge – The Daring Escape of a ‘Damn F**king Foreign Terrorist
Saloojee, Smith, Andersson, Evans & Harper – The Truck Safari: 1 trip, 1 tonne
James Garraway – This is No Picnic, it’s War!
Pierre Koster – Of Fish Eagles and DLBs
Gordon, Godt & Craig – Crossing Borders
Andrea Meeson – In Each of Us Lives a Revolutionary, a Fighter for Better
John Spyropolous – The Adventures of a Wandering Greek
Mtintso & Ngculu – The Botswana Front and Solidarity
Judy Seidman – From the ‘Red Nest’ in Connecticut to Botswana
Ramila Patel – From Anti-Nazi League Britain to Botswana
Damian de Lange – African Internationalists in the Frontline Underground
Ivan Pillay – Stalwarts of Swaziland
June Stephen – Out of New York to Swaziland
Conny Braam – The Dutch Connection
Janet Love – Internationalists and Operation Vula
Douglas & Douglas – A Canadian Safe House for Operation Vula
Susan Grabek – A Patient Canadian
Clarence Kwinana – Helping Hands for Radio Freedom
Albertini – French Arms Smuggler in Custody had Mitterrand Fuming
Michael Lapsley – Tribute to Fellow New Zealander Reverend John Osmers
Roger Allingham – From English Farmer to SA Navy Commander Via MK
PART TWO: Solidarity Across the Globe
Christabel Gurney – The Role of the AAM Internationally
Abdul Minty – Birth of AAM, UN Committee, Luthuli’s Prize
E.S. Reddy – A Giant at the United Nations
Horst Kleinschmidt – International Defence and Aid Fund’s Silent Solidarity
Victoria Brittain – African Continental Solidarity Defied the Cold War
Oscar Monteiro – African Internationalism, a Mozambique Perspective
Peter Hain – Stop the Sports Tours
Protests on the Pitch – The Failed 1981 New Zealand Springbok Rugby Tour
Magnus Walan – Sweden to the Fore
Jan Vanheulekom – Viva ANC vs Hoera vir die Boer Hoera!
Koen Vanbrabandt – Belgian Shop Stewards Without Borders
Marc Bontemps – Oxfam and the Anti-Apartheid Movement
Chiara Torcianti – Red City, Black Resistance: Reggio Emilia and the ANC
Jacqueline Dérens – The French Connection
Alphaeus Hunton – African American Icon Defends Solidarity with Africa
Zeb Larson – USA Protest Began with the ‘Germ’ of a Movement
Mosie Moola – Anecdotes from India
Vladimir Shubin – The Soviet Union and Liberation Struggle in South Africa
Héctor Igarza Cabrera – Cuba Paid its Debt to History
Ronnie Kasrils – Turning Point at Cuito Cuanavale
Hans-Georg Schleicher – GDR Training of 1 000 MK Cadres
Declan Kearney – Ireland’s Firm Internationalism
Don’t Handle Them – The boycott of Grapefruit at Dunnes Stores, Ireland
Urko Aiartza – ‘Solidarity is the Tenderness among Peoples’
Ramzy Baroud – Palestinian & South African Solidarity
Kofi Hope – The Canadian Anti-Apartheid Movement
Dominic Bellissimo – Canadian Workers’ Modest Contribution
N. Barney Pityana – Black Consciousness & the World Council of Churches
Michael Lapsley – The ANC’s Church Front
Ronnie Kasrils – Epilogue: The Good Peoples
Index
| Book Format | Print Book |
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This book is a call to collective action and sisterhood, a memorial and an instruction to keep going. In her Reflections, Wilson points out White feminists need to let Asian women work on their own problems while standing in support, not intrude and try to sort their issues out for them, and the valuable material she gathers in this book is indeed because she was part of the communities she was studying, speaking to the women in their kitchens in their own languages. I was so pleased to be able to revisit this wonderful work. – Lix Dexter @LyzzyBee_Libro
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