*www.mbokodo-quatro-uncensored.co.nr*
ANC's Anti-Apartheid Movement:
Most Successful Stalinist Front Worldwide!
Paul Trewhela, Mutinies in the Liberation Armies: Inside Quadro
(Searchlight South Africa, Vol 2, No 1: July 1990 p.30-35)
Excerpts: Mbokodo: Inside MK: Mwezi Twala - A Soldier's Story
by Mwezi Twala and Ed Bernard
Jonathan Ball Publishers
 Mbokodo: Inside MK: Mwezi Twala - A Soldier's Story, by Mwezi Twala & Ed Bernard [*Amazon*] |
In 1981 began a time of terror and death for ANC members in exile. In February a strong ANC National Executive Committee entourage which incuded President Tambo made the rounds of all ANC camps in Angola. Cadres were warned of the presence of a spy network and the need for vigilance was emphasised. Enemy agents and provocateurs were rudely warned by Piliso, in Xhosa, '.. I'll hang them by their balls.' An 'internal enemy' psychosis had been whipped up and whenever ANC leaders visited camps they were heavily guarded. Many men and women were apprehended on suspicion of dissidence were to be exterminated in the most brutal manner in the months ahead. Those disiullusioned MK cadres who returned from Rhodesia were the first to go.(p.49)
I became aware of these developments by word of mouth, but I was to discover later on, by personal experience, the terror of Quatro, to name but one death camp. People were removed from amongst us -- taken to Quatro or Camp 13 -- and disappeared forever without reason. Many of them were slaughtered by one means or another and their ultimate destination was a shallow grave. We heard rumours of execution by being buried alive, amongst many other techniques beyond civilized imagination. The purge created great fear amongst all of us, to the point where the smallest criticism, such as of badly prepared food, was seriously reconsidered by every individual, for one could never be certain that a 'best friend' would keep his mouth shut. (p.49)
Our own security people became exceedingly arrogant, to the point where an innocent slip of the tongue or even a simple gesture could land you in a torture cell at Quatro. Security men of the lowest rank and intelligence -- fourteen to eighteen year olds -- became our masters, with the power of life or death in their hands. They acted on a mood with impugnity. (p.49-50)
...
Oliver Tambo visited Pango [Camp] at the height of the terror. The path from the entrance to the admin building was lined -- like a scene from 'Spartacus' -- with men, bloodied and filthy, hanging from trees. When his entourage arrived at admin, where I was officer on duty, Tambo's chief of staff told us that there would be a meeting at 'the stage' (a clearing in the jungle... where we held meetings and discussions). Runners were sent out to notify everyone in the vicinity. On his way to the stage [Oliver Tambo] again passed the men tied to the trees. Being officer on duty, I could not attend the meeting, but my deputy went. After a while I saw guards come up from the stage, release the prisoners and take them to the meeting. There, my deputy told me, instead of objecting to their treatment, as I had hoped, Tambo berated them for their dissident behaviour and appeared to approve when Andrew Masondo declared that on the presidents next visit they would be in shallow graves behind the stage. The prisoners were returned to their trees.. where the president [Oliver Tambo] passed the unfortunate men without a glance on his way out, and they hung there for another three months -- followed by three months hard labour. (p.51-52)
 Scene from 'Spartacus' |
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Mutinies in the Liberation Armies: Inside Quadro
by Paul Trewhela, Searchlight South Africa,
Vol 2, No 1: July 1990 p.30-35)
The first-hand testimony by former combatants of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) about the ANC prison regime… are an event in South African history. Never before has such concentrated factual evidence been presented about the inner nature of the ANC and its eminence grise, the South African Communist Party.
If people wish to understand the operation of the ANC/SACP, they must look here. This is the view behind the proscenium arch, behind the scenery, where the machinery that runs the whole show is revealed in its actual workings.
The ANC/SACP did a very good job in preventing public knowledge of its secret history from emerging… Those who survived the Gulag system of the ANC/SACP did so knowing that to reveal what they had been through meant re-arrest, renewed tortures and in all probability, death. They had to sign a form committing them to silence..
This regime of terror, extending beyond the gates of the ANC/SACP ‘Buchenwald' of Quadro, was a necessary element in the total practice of repression and deception which made the Anti-Apartheid Movement the most successful Popular Front lobby for Stalinism anywhere in the world.
