Umkhonto we Sizwe
Encyclopedia : U : UM : UMK : Umkhonto we Sizwe
- For other uses of Umkhonto, see Umkhonto (disambiguation)
For a time it was headquartered in Rivonia, a suburb of Johannesburg. On 11 July 1963, 19 ANC and MK leaders — including Nelson Mandela, who would be the future South African President — were arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia. The farm was privately owned by Arthur Goldreich and bought with SACP (South African Communist Party) funds. This was followed by the Rivonia Trial, in which ten leaders of the ANC were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to "foment violent revolution". Walter Mkwayi, chief of MK at the time, escaped during trial.
The MK carried out numerous bombings of military, industrial, civilian and infrastructural sites. The tactics were initially geared solely towards sabotage, but eventually expanded to include urban guerrilla warfare, which included human targets. Notable among these was the 8 January 1982 attack on the Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town — coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the formation of the ANC — and the 14 June 1986 car-bombing of Magoo's Bar in Durban, in which 3 people were killed and 73 injured. The total number of people killed or injured in MK's 30 year campaign is not known exactly. MK were never a threat to the government militarily, and its only real effect was on the outlook of the average South African.
MK suspended operations on 1 August 1990 in preparation for the dismantling of apartheid, and was finally integrated into the South African National Defence Force by 1994.
See also
External link
- [Collection of Umkhonto we Sizwe documents] - from the ANC; including timeline and manifesto
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