of comrades who had just completed what they called ‘sub-standard’ training in Ethiopia. The group had been trained only in gun operation and crawling by the Ethiopians. ‘Unlike the Chinese instructors, the Ethiopian trainers had no real understanding of the “enemy” with which the trainees would be confronted,’ stated Andrew. The five thought it wise that Tambo should send them for further training in Algeria before sending them back home to fight.
During the briefings, Andrew and his comrades learned that Tambo was bothered because despite his seniority in the organisation he had not been consulted before they left for China to undergo training. ‘Such was the poor communication within the senior ranks that sometimes prevailed in the organisation at the time,’ remarked Andrew later. Makiwane, who, as head of the ANC mission in Tanzania, had been involved with the travelling arrangements, was perceived as someone who kept things to himself. He had apparently not informed Tambo. Andrew and his comrades were not impressed with Makiwane’s behaviour. ‘Tambo had been undermined and this did not go down well with us who had learned about discipline from the Chinese,’ he lamented.
The Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, He Ying, also wanted them to have supper with him and his entire senior staff in order to get a briefing about their trip – this trip to China by an African liberation movement was one of the first, so everyone had an interest in their experiences. The Chinese also wanted to meet Tambo in his capacity as the head of the ANC’s external mission, probably to get his feeling about Chinese assistance.
Three days before their journey home, Andrew suffered a very painful nerve from his left cheek down to the neck. His face was swollen and he was taken to a hospital in Dar es Salaam for medical attention, but the doctors there were unable to offer specialised neurological treatment. Tambo was very concerned about Andrew’s state and suggested that he should be sent for a thorough check-up. He was particularly worried because Andrew was now one of the movement’s best assets and the ANC could not afford to lose a comrade so well trained in guerrilla warfare. Besides, Tambo emphasised to Andrew, even if he had not been intensively trained he would not have wanted to lose him because ‘the ANC can’t afford to lose a single comrade when their life could be saved’. Tambo suggested that Prague would take better care of him because it was east of the Iron Curtain and espionage between the South African apartheid regime and the Czechs was almost nonexistent, unlike in the West – for example in a place like London, which apartheid security forces could easily penetrate. But he decided to keep him in Tanzania for a while before sending him to Prague – which also paid off later.
While in Tanzania, Andrew and his comrades heard that important events had taken place during their absence and had, to a large extent, changed the South African political landscape for good. They had been deprived of this kind of information while undergoing training and were almost blank about developments back home. They learned that MK’s first official acts of sabotage had taken place on 16 December 1961 with its official launch. These acts of sabotage were widespread and well-coordinated across the entire country. In one, Benjamin Ramotse and Petrus Molefe, both comrades Andrew was close to, had tried to blow up an office at Dube railway station, in Andrew’s own township, but the bomb went off while they were giving explosives to each other, killing Petrus Molefe instantly. Benjamin Ramotse was injured but escaped and went into exile for training. His whereabouts were not revealed to them, although Andrew was eager to find out where he was and how he was doing. He had worked with this man for many years in the ANC’s Dube branch and had been interested to learn that he was also a member of MK.
In February 1963, while Andrew was still undergoing treatment, he learned that the rest of his team members had proceeded to Lobatse by plane without him. He was later told that the ANC had established a better network in Botswana than when he and his team had left for China. In a just over a year the ANC had greatly improved its struggle infrastructure in that country. Mpho Motsamai had become the ANC’s representative, based at Palapye, and he had received the four members in his house and had spent Christmas and New Year with them and slaughtered a goat. Andrew had known Mpho Motsamai since the 1952 Defiance Campaign. He described him as probably one of the worst enemies of the state in the East Rand, later to be called Ekurhuleni. He recalled that this had landed Mpho Motsamai in and out of police stations and prisons while the campaign lasted, before the ANC called it off in 1953. But, like many other comrades, Mpho Motsamai was unstoppable until he was eventually deported to Botswana with his wife, Onalepelo, the woman he had married in detention. Andrew and his fellow Johannesburg comrades would jokingly refer to Onalepelo, whose name means ‘you have a heart’ or ‘you are patient’, as her husband’s real pillar of strength.
Back in Tanzania, Tambo arranged for Andrew to give a talk to a few comrades, with details of his communications training, the use of transmitters, decoding and encoding. This became the first official training he conducted for his comrades. One day, there was an unexpected knock at the door of the house where Andrew was staying, the house of Senior Ngalo, the brother of Benjamin Ngalo, another of his comrades, who had fled into exile. When he opened the door, Benjamin Ramotse was standing there. Andrew was almost speechless with surprise. Ramotse told him that he had been told not to make contact because it was too dangerous. In fact, he had been told that it was dangerous for those coming into exile to be familiar with the places of residence of those already there. They had been warned that if those who were returning home were caught and tortured they were bound to expose some names and places. New recruits were not supposed to be seen by those they found in exile or to see anyone else in training apart from those with whom they were grouped.
Benjamin Ramotse would have none of that. He had found a way to meet Andrew, and gave him the gory details of 16 December 1961. He was the comrade who succeeded Andrew as the secretary of the Dube branch when Andrew became the secretary of the Soweto region. He asked for clothes because he had left home without anything. Andrew gave him one of the two shirts that he had brought with him from China.
Andrew told Ramotse why he had not travelled with his fellow combatants: the nerve problem. Ramotse thought it was probably nothing more serious than a toothache because he had once suffered the same pain. He suggested that Andrew should see a dentist. Andrew confided this to Makiwane, who took him to the dentist. The dentist discovered a cavity, filled it – and like magic the pain went away instantly although the swelling took a few days to subside. That, though, paved the way for Andrew to go home. He asked Makiwane to take him to meet Tambo and tell him the good news. Tambo was pleased, and the next day Andrew was on the train to Botswana via Mbeya and Lusaka. He was accompanied by Sam Masemola, the mission head in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia). A man of his own age, Masemola, based in Alexandra Township, had joined the ANC around the same time as Andrew in the 1940s. He was another experienced member whom Andrew respected.
They got to Lusaka late the following day, but Sam Masemola immediately took Andrew to meet the leader of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), Kenneth Kaunda, a man with a reputation as ‘a moderate and reasonable man, opposed to violence, especially if it could be avoided’. ‘He had been at the helm of this new party for two years which he had spent in and out of prison for his relentless campaigns against the colonial government,’ recalled Andrew. ‘He was more or less my age and oozed honesty and frankness throughout our discussion,’ he added. Kaunda told Andrew of the misgivings of his colleagues about the ANC struggle in South Africa. ‘He told me he was for the ANC but his future ministers leaned towards the PAC because of the broad strategic vision he referred to as Africa for Africans … He also emphasised that my task, or that of the ANC, was to convince his colleagues in the UNIP about the relevance of our ideology to the Africans.’ Kaunda had previously told Mandela and Tambo the same thing. Andrew took Kaunda’s advice seriously and decided to spend an extra day in Lusaka. Sam Masemola took him to UNIP offices to make a courtesy call on Kaunda’s colleagues but unfortunately they were all out doing community work.
On the following day he continued his journey alone – by train to Botswana, where he was received by Mpho Motsamai. His host related how the other four comrades had spent time with him and how eager they were to take further instructions from MK’s National High Command. Andrew was tired
