Armed and dangerous

This insider's account of the workings of Umkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, during the underground years, is a modern-day story of intrigue and cunning in the fight against apartheid. The author, Ronnie Kasrils, begins by describing his involvement with the South African Communist Party and the underground resistance within South Africa in the 1950s and early 1960s. Following the arrests of Mandela and other ANC leaders, he fled into hiding overseas, became one of the key commanders of Umkhonto weSizwe and was responsible for setting up training camps in Tanzania, Cuba and elsewhere. Kasrils became notorious as the "Red Pimpernel" as he slipped in and out of South Africa in a plethora of disguises to run secret missions, narrowly escaping arrest and detention in several close shaves with security forces. After the legalising of the ANC and SACP, he returned to Johannesburg to take up a position on the National Executive Committee. The story culminates with the disastrous march on Bisho in the Ciskei homelands in September 1992, when police opened fire on the crowd that Kasrils was leading and a massacre ensued.

Ronnie Kasrils started off as a script writer for a Johannesburg film studio and then for Lever Brothers, as television and film director for their advertising division in Durban, until 1962. In 1960 he was prompted by the Sharpeville massacre to join the ANC, where he served as the secretary of the ANC-aligned Congress of Democrats in Natal until it was banned in 1962. He became a member of Umkhonto weSizwe as its inception in 1961 and participated in many sabotage operations, some of which were with Eleanor, whom he later married. Pursued by the police, the couple fled into exile in 1963 after her darling escaped from detention. Exiled for 27 years, he was based in London, Luanda, Maputo, Swaziland, Botswana and Lusaka. He worked underground for the ANC in South Africa during Operation Vula. After the first democratic elections in South Africa, Kasrils was appointed Deputy Minister of Defence from 1994 to 1999. He then became Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry from 1999 to 2004 and was appointed Minister of Intelligence Services until he submitted his resignation on 23 September 2008 following former President Thabo Mbeki's resignation in the same month. Ronnie Kasril's extraordinary wife, Eleanor, died at the age of 73.