‘lull’
The National Party’s landslide victory in the 1953 elections convinced it that it had the support of the majority of the white population and it intended to do whatever it could to protect white supremacy, passing a variety of laws. This was carried through to the 1960s. What followed after the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960 was a continuation of the process that had started in the early 1950s, but what distinguished the government’s laws in the 1960s was that they were meant to crush all forms of black political opposition – and this it achieved, though for a short time. Some of the oppressive laws passed between 1960 and 1967 arguably intimidated blacks into refraining from overt political opposition.3
For example, in 1961 the government enacted the General Law Amendment Act No. 39, which prohibited certain gatherings. After few acts of sabotage by MK the government responded by passing the General Law Amendment Act No. 76 (known as the ‘Sabotage Act’) of 1962. Penalties for sabotage were the same as for treason and included the death penalty. In 1963 the government enacted the General Law Amendment Act No. 37, commonly termed the ‘ninety day law’ as it authorised the detention of any person suspected of a political crime for a period of ninety days without access to a lawyer. Within the first eight months of its passage, 682 persons were detained.
These laws intimidated many. Michael Dingake, who in the 1960s was a member of the ANC in Alexandra township, writes that one of his comrades and friends, JM, confided in him his (JM’s) inability to continue in the struggle because of fear. According to Dingake, JM said: ‘Mike, things are bad. I have cold feet. Please excuse me. From now on I shall not be involved in the struggle. I do not think I can withstand detention.’4
In spite of the fear that had paralysed the majority of black people, underground cells sprang up in some places, especially Soweto. Perhaps the best-known underground cell during this period included ANC figures such as Winnie Mandela, Elliot Tshabangu, Samson Ndou, Rita and Lawrence Ndzanga, Wally Serote and Snuki Zikalala. The cell’s activities included imparting political education to the younger members ‘on a wide range of aspects of ANC history and Marxism’.5 In an interview, Wally Serote, who was recruited by Joyce Sekhakhane into the ANC and this cell, recalled that the unit also sourced banned literature as far as Botswana. The cell was finally cracked when the police arrested some of its members in 1969. But another underground cell was established in 1969, and this cell created links with members of the ANC across the country, including the OFS. It was formed by Albertina Sisulu, a member of the ANC and wife of Walter Sisulu, who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island for high treason, and John Nkadimeng, a member of the communist-initiated Sebatakgomo in the then Northern Transvaal and the general secretary of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (Sactu). The main objective of this cell was to facilitate the formation of other cells in a number of places, which would be involved in ‘a range of activities such as distributing ANC and SACP (South African Communist Party) leaflets, [recruiting] people to carry out this task and maintain underground structures’.6 From the late 1970s ‘Commandant’ Caleb Motshabi, who had joined the ANC in 1949 and in 1961 became the OFS commander of MK, together with Ike More, a young journalist for The Friend and an ANC underground operative in Bloemfontein, recruited a series of young activists, mostly from the Bloemfontein area, and facilitated their travel to Lesotho, where the ANC had a substantial presence.7
Oral evidence reveals that an attempt was made by an underground operative from Bloemfontein to establish an underground cell in Kroonstad. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this operative was connected with the underground cell under Motshabi and More. Mpopetsi Dhlamini, a resident of Kroonstad and whose friendship with Makoba Moleme dates back to 1952, takes up the story of how they attempted to form an underground cell in Kroonstad:
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