and Nandha Steve Naidoo, the only ones with mathematical skills, were sent to Liaoning Province in the north of China (Naidoo, a member of the Natal Indian Congress and a former student at the University of Natal, was then a student at the London School of Economics). Bordering North Korea, and the last zone to be liberated from imperialist Japan in 1945, Liaoning Province was regarded as the coldest place in China in winter, where everyone wore padded clothes all the time. Here, they were placed at the Shen-Yon military academy, given army uniforms and treated as military personnel in training. The 41-year old Raymond Mhlaba, the 42-year old Abel Patrick Mthembu, the 34-year old Joe Gqabi and the 38-year old Wilton Mkwayi, the other trainees, were sent south, to Nanjing, placed at the headquarters of the Chinese army and trained primarily on guerrilla warfare, footpath traps and the building of bombs sophisticated and rudimentary. For more than nine months they learned guerrilla warfare, its discipline and its ethics. Deep guerrilla warfare became their speciality.
The Shen-Yon military academy, where Andrew Mlangeni and Steve Naidoo were placed, was located at a military base with high-level security. Everyone associated with the base was vetted thoroughly and all – including general workers, chefs and laundry handlers – were ardent members of the Communist Party of China. ‘There was to be no doubt of the loyalty of the person who was employed there – even those who were only delivering supplies,’ said Andrew. He found the Chinese to be very disciplined and tactful in providing assistance to foreign military organisations. He observed that no two movements from different countries could be in one training at any given time. For example, he and Steve Naidoo were at the Liaoning military base for almost a year with the members of the New Zealand Communist Party without knowing this – until their last breakfast, when they were introduced to each other. They had also only become aware in the middle of their training of the exact assistance the Chinese had given to Algeria’s Liberation de Nationale forces; and only once they had completed their training did they hear about the backing of Guinea-Bissau rebels against Portuguese rule. They were, however, aware of attempts made earlier, between 1953 and 1960, by Walter Sisulu, Moses Kotane and Dr Yusuf Dadoo to gain assistance from the Chinese.
Later in their training, Andrew Mlangeni and Steve Naidoo rejoined their fellow South African combatants in mastering the art of underground communication. This included the manufacturing of transmitters, resistors and anything to do with transmitting voices and transforming them from waves to voices and connecting them to receivers such as radios. They were also taught Morse code. ‘The Chinese emphasised the importance of this kind of communication in guerrilla warfare and how it operated in China, in particular in the communes organised under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.’ The art of guerrilla warfare was largely based on Mao’s own philosophy. It emphasised the need for guerrillas to earn the support of their population, especially in distributing propaganda and attacking the organs of state, so that the citizens could provide cover for the guerrillas and other necessary support. It also promoted the launch of escalating attacks on government forces and institutions to paralyse the government’s ability to wage a full-scale war. In its final stages, the training provided a comparative study of guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare.
To wrap up their training, they went to meet Mao again. It was the first of October – exactly two months after they had first met him. This was another important day in the Chinese calendar, the national day and a public holiday marking the day on which the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In those days, the day also marked the start of one of the two Golden Weeks in China. Government-organised festivities included fireworks and concerts. Public places were decorated in a festive theme. Portraits of revered leaders such as Mao were publicly displayed.
‘During this second visit, Mao appeared to be more concerned with checking our level of preparedness to face the enemy. He dwelled on the importance of the national day to him, and encouraged us to ensure that one day we would have our own national day, back in our own country,’ concluded Andrew Mlangeni.
2
1961, The road to China
The road to the establishment of a military wing of the ANC was as bumpy as the road to China for military training. For years, since the first news came out that the ANC would form an armed wing, Andrew Mlangeni had been a diehard supporter of the idea, but throughout those years it had never crossed his mind that he could be part of it, as he believed it was for a select few, much higher in the ANC hierarchy and at a level of leadership he didn’t think he had reached. Nor did he think the armed wing would become a reality soon, and the approval by the ANC (which he received through unofficial sources) took him by surprise as he had known that the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) (of which he was not part) was strongly opposed to violence as part of the struggle.
A hint that the ANC was implementing plans to establish an armed wing entered Andrew’s consciousness the moment he heard that the ANC NEC had given Nelson Mandela the go-ahead at one of its June 1961 meetings. He was not comfortable, however, with news that, in granting Mandela permission to establish the armed wing, the NEC had suggested (or, rather, implied) that it was a ‘Mandela thing’ and should not be seen to be part of ANC establishment plans. ‘I fully supported the idea, even though I still did not think I would personally be part of it,’ he confessed.
A glimpse that Mandela may have earmarked him as one of the first recruits of the army came one day after the meeting of the SACP’s area committee at Mofolo in Soweto. Mandela invited Andrew to accompany him, a rare request that caught him off-guard. Mandela took him to a deserted spot and suggested they do push-ups together for a while. After the push-ups, Mandela told Andrew that he had wanted to see if he was fit, and was satisfied that he was. ‘You have just become my first recruit outside the High Command,’ he said to a bemused Andrew – who later admitted that he hadn’t really understood what Mandela had meant. Mandela then took Andrew back home to Dube before disappearing into the darkness as usual. Andrew would learn several weeks later that the push-up session had marked his recruitment into Umkhonto we Sizwe (later shortened to ‘MK’) and that he was the first recruit after the establishment of the MK High Command. The next indication came through constant rumours from people close to him, telling him they had heard he had been included in the ANC’s armed wing. But these remained rumours until he would be told officially what inclusion actually meant. He remained at sea on the formation of the ANC’s armed wing, apart from the rumours. ‘I didn’t know how far along that process was and when I would be actively involved. I had no clue what being recruited into this army entailed or how it was going to be structured.’
Later, Joe Slovo came to Andrew after one of the district committee meetings of the SACP and confided in him what would be the official announcement of his admission to the armed wing. ‘He told me I was going to be part of the new armed wing of the ANC, but didn’t offer any details. He went as far as telling me that I would be sent overseas but he didn’t say where or when or for how long.’ The only time Andrew caught a glimpse of progress in the establishment of the ANC’s armed wing was when Dan Tloome, then a member of the SACP Central Committee, gave what Andrew would later regard as official confirmation that the armed wing of the ANC was in place. Dan called it ‘Lerumo la Sechaba’. The only other details he provided were the names of people who were involved at a higher level – the same names that Andrew already suspected were involved: Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, Lionel ‘Rusty’ Bernstein, Michael Harmel and Jack Hodgson.
Mandela disappeared from Andrew’s sight for a few months after the push-up session, but Slovo, Rusty and Hodgson remained in sight. ‘Mandela’s disappearance didn’t surprise me. It was nothing new and I was used to it.’ Later, on 26 June 1961, when Mandela issued a statement from hiding that he was aware the police were looking for him but he was not going to surrender to a government he did not recognise, Andrew was convinced that Mandela was into something new and big. He regarded Mandela’s action as a deliberate provocation to the government and a direct challenge to show that the struggle was shifting to a new front. ‘I was curious to understand how the government was going
