This
landmark book is the first memoir written by men who fought as guerrillas
with any of the liberation forces of countries in southern
Africa
.
Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli joined the liberation struggle as young
men in the early 1960s when they left
South Africa
to join the ranks of MK in
Tanzania
. After receiving military training in the Soviet Union they became members
of the Luthuli Detachment which infiltrated the Wankie area of
Rhodesia
in 1967 to fight alongside Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA.
After numerous battles and skirmishes both were captured within
Rhodesia
. Thula was tried for terrorism in the High Court,
Salisbury
, found guilty and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to life
imprisonment. He was only released from prison 13 years later after Robert
Mugabe came to power. He afterwards became a successful businessman and is
now a senior official in
South Africa
’s Ministry of Defence.
Daluxolo was handed over to
South Africa
where he was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment
on
Robben
Island
. After release in 1979, disproving of the ANC’s UDF affiliate’s
horrific necklacing tactics, he joined the IFP. With 200 others he was sent
to the
Caprivi Strip
for training by the SADF as hit squads. He was appointed as their commander
and political commissar. With him as their senior war lord the IFP’s
Caprivians waged an effective war against the UDF severely disrupting their
activities.
In 1993 Daluxolo concluded that the SADF intended to use the IFP as a
spearhead for white right-wing forces to wage war against the ANC to prevent
it coming to power in 1994. He sought out his old comrade-in-arms Thula
Bopela who had left MK and followed a corporate career. Using him as a
go-between he made contact with the ANC’s Jacob Zuma and through him
Nelson Mandela. He negotiated the withdrawal of his IFP hit squads from the
UDF/IFP struggle. This played a
key role in insuring that the IFP took part in the landmark 1994 election
that was won by the ANC.
Daluxolo is now a lieutenant-colonel in the SANDF.
....
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