Description
Dr Yutar opened proceedings on this day by informing the court that he would be significantly curtailing his cross-examination of Walter Sisulu in light of certain admissions made by the Accused on Friday. Thereafter, Walter Sisulu asked permission from the court to make a few observations in regard to the document Operation Mayibuye and the suggestion being made by the state thereof. Walter Sisulu argued that:
The State suggested in its cross-examination that Operation Mayibuye must have been in existence for some time. That the creation of the machinery of Umkhonto and some of the things which were done by our men like Mr Mandela, Mr Goldreich, and Mr X, suggested that they were implementing Operation Mayibuye. That therefore the story I put forward, that Operation Mayibuye took into account that certain things were in existence, was not correct. The State took an advantage of the fact that the document did not have a date. And I want to say that although the document did not have a date, in that document, Operation Mayibuye, it is quite clear that the document suggests a certain period. A period now well-known in our history. The period of March/April.
Walter Sisulu claimed that the second paragraph of the first page of the document showed that the document referred to the period in which the General Secretary of the PAC, Leballo, “made an announcement of his intentions to start a revolution in South Africa” sometime in March, 1963. Walter Sisulu explained that the document therefore indicated the period in which it came into existence which could not have been before March, 1963. Judge De Wet replied:
I think Sisulu what the state suggests is, even if this document only came into existence later, that you were actually long before this planning a revolution because you were sending people to be trained for guerrilla warfare and that you were also training them in making landmines and hand grenades… The general plan must have been in existence before this one.
Judge De Wet concluded his comment by resorting to the main question posed by Dr Yutar, in various forms, throughout Walter Sisulu’s cross-examination thus far which was: why bother going to all this trouble if there was no plan to adopt guerrilla warfare tactics in South Africa? Walter Sisulu told Judge De Wet that he could appreciate the question but maintained that everything which had been done were as preparations for a back-up plan if all else failed in the struggle for freedom in the country. Dr Yutar then spoke once again and told Walter Sisulu that with “a bit of cooperation” he would be able to conclude his cross-examination by tea time.
Following Dr Yutar’s cross-examination Mr Fischer re-examined Walter Sisulu. Unfortunately a portion of this re-examination is not available. Thereafter the defence called Accused No.5, Ahmed Kathrada, to the witness box to be examined by Mr Berrange. On this first day of Ahmed Kathrada’s examination-in-chief Mr Berrange led him “on non-contentious matters relating to his political activities” starting from his first overt involvement in resistance politics at the age of 11 years old. Mr Berrange informed Judge De Wet that his line of questioning on this day would “probably bring out a great deal more than the state was even aware of”. Unfortunately the second recording of Ahmed Kathrada’s examination-in-chief on this day in unavailable, however, there are some physical records from both the Percy Yutar Papers and the Wits Historical Papers collections – as well as the handwritten notes accompanying these missing recordings – which can shed light on the evidence which was given in this time.
Walter Sisulu’s Evidence
Further cross-examination by Dr Yutar.
Dr Yutar told Walter Sisulu that he would be referring him to about five or six additional documents on this day before concluding his cross-examination. In reality, however, Dr Yutar ended up putting at least 10 documents to Walter Sisulu before concluding his cross-examination. The majority of documents put to Walter Sisulu on this day were related, in various ways, to the ANC external mission and the international dimensions of the NLM in South Africa. Reading from Exhibit PPP Dr Yutar made Walter Sisulu concede that Oliver Tambo was the head of “external team abroad” and that the NEC of the ANC had commissioned Duma Nokwe and Moses Kotane (a known communist) to go and join in the organisational work of the external mission in furthering the aims of the NLM in South Africa.
Reading from Nelson Mandela’s diary (Exhibit R.13) Dr Yutar turned attention to the Pan-African Freedom Movement for Central, East, and Southern Africa, (PAFMCESA) conference which was held in Addis Ababa during February, 1962, and the speech which Nelson Mandela delivered there as an ANC representative. Dr Yutar focused on the aspects of the speech which spoke of sabotage and the use of force by the NLM in South Africa as well as the large sums of money collected from various African countries to be sent into the Republic. When Dr Yutar came to the discussion of the need to solicit financial support from the “Socialist States” Judge De Wet asked Walter Sisulu to pardon his ignorance and explain which the so-called socialist countries were. Walter Sisulu explained that “the Soviet Union, China, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and perhaps some other small ones” were the countries being referred to in Nelson Mandela’s diary in this instance.
Thereafter Dr Yutar asked Walter Sisulu what the “Tanganyika Scheme” was. Walter Sisulu said that it was a military scheme similar to that which was in operation in Angola which involved setting up a camp “where our chaps can be trained”. Dr Yutar then read from a number of letters which the state alleged were addressed to Albert Luthuli. Although Dr Yutar spent more than a quarter of an hour cross-examining Walter Sisulu in regard to these letters he was unable to get Accused No.2 to give any comment as to whether or not the name “Chief” used in these documents referred to Chief Albert Luthuli.
Reading from Nelson Mandela’s speech to the Pan African Conference in February 1962, Dr Yutar put it to Walter Sisulu, “Is it not a fact that… the National Liberation Movement decided upon this policy of violence early in June 1961 when the government ignored the demand for a National Convention”. Walter Sisulu explained that it had been decided by the NEC of the ANC, after the May strike, that it would no longer preach only non-violent politics. However, Walter Sisulu insisted that the acts of sabotage which were committed in South Africa prior to December, 1961, were not committed by MK and that the state was wrong to suggest otherwise. Throughout his cross-examination on this day, as on the previous days, Walter Sisulu was resolute in his refusal to assist the state in identifying the names which appeared on exhibits with very few exceptions.
Dr Yutar eventually came to the topic of the SACP and asked Walter Sisulu who the leadership of this organisation was. Walter Sisulu said that he did not know who the leaders of the SACP were and had only given the names of certain members of the Party before it had been banned in his evidence so far. After seeming to deny, for a brief period, that the SACP had been involved in the executive consultative procedures and structures of the NLM at all, Walter Sisulu eventually stated that he could identify Joe Slovo as a known leader of the organisation after it was banned but could say no more on this issue beyond that. Dr Yutar then asked who the leadership of the INC had been. After Walter Sisulu identified Dr Naicker as having been President of the organisation Dr Yutar specifically asked in Ahmed Kathrada had not also been a leader. Walter Sisulu said that Kathrada was a leader of the INC but denied that he had ever discussed Operation Mayibuye with him or anyone else in their capacity as leaders of the INC.
Dr Yutar pushed to Walter Sisulu to explain why he had not discussed Operation Mayibuye with Kathrada at Rivonia or at some other time in line with the consultative processes of the various executives comprising the NLM. Walter Sisulu said:
I have made my position very clear that Operation Mayibuye had not yet reach the stage of being discussed in the executives. That it was under discussion by the National High Command.
Walter Sisulu continued to say that the only reason he had attended the meetings of the High Command in which Operation Mayibuye was being discussed was because he had taken a personal interest in the political stakes inherent in such a proposal. Dr Yutar asked if Kathrada had not attended these meetings then who had attended them as a representative of the INC. Walter Sisulu told Dr Yutar that there was no question of having representatives of the independent organisations comprising the NLM at the meetings of the High Command. “Well then what was Kathrada doing at Rivonia?” asked Dr Yutar, to which Walter Sisulu replied, “He will tell you that”, causing Dr Yutar to rebut, “Is it?”
The next important topic focused on by Dr Yutar was the Assegai publication which the state suggested was an ANC bulletin based in Dar es Salaam which aptly reflected the actions and policy of MK in its contents. Walter Sisulu immediately recalled his earlier evidence in which he denied that the ANC was responsible for this publication which claimed to support its aims but distorted its policies and practices in its writings. Dr Yutar began to read from Exhibit R.175, an issue of Assegai, but Judge De Wet interrupted him and said that there was no point in him reading the document to the court because the Accused had already denied responsibility for its contents and said that they are not a true reflection of the policy of the ANC or the MK. Dr Yutar clearly wanted to continue on this line but accepted Judge De Wet’s observation and proceeded to discuss Exhibits R.222 and R.60 which were the draft and amended final copies of the radio broadcast written and delivered by Walter Sisulu .
In relation to this broadcast Dr Yutar asked Walter Sisulu if he was correct in thinking that it suggested that “you are expecting people on your side to sacrifice their lives.” Walter Sisulu stated that he still agreed with what he had stated in this instance and added that “we have always expected the people to sacrifice their lives in the course of the struggle” and he also conceded that in the course of the struggle there may be loss of life “on the other side too”.
The remaining section of Walter Sisulu’s cross-examination by Dr Yutar is unavailable at the moment as is the start of his re-examination by Mr Fischer. (Arrests and bribery by SB and reserves).
Under re-examination Mr Fischer raised the subject of Peter Molefe’s death. Walter Sisulu acknowledged that steps were taken after the accidental death of Peter Molefe in order to prevent such a situation arising in the future. Walter Sisulu stated that no other such incident had occurred since the preventative measures were put in place. In regard to the petrol bombing of certain dwellings in the Eastern Cape Walter Sisulu stated that he had never heard of any allegation that these acts of sabotage and murder had been attributed to the MK prior to this trial.
Thereafter Mr Fischer dealt with a number of exhibits which had featured prominently in the state’s cross-examination of Walter Sisulu. The first of these was Exhibit VV, an ANC issued leaflet which was distributed via the post to mainly elite white Members of Parliament, the object of which Walter Sisulu claimed was to persuade these white people of the nature of the situation as the ANC saw it and not to “incite ill feeling” or promote racial conflict. The next document dealt with by Mr Fischer was Exhibit WW which was leaflet which Walter Sisulu had already stated was incorrect in many regards. Under re-examination Walter Sisulu explained that the NEC of the ANC had met to discuss the draft of this leaflet and certain crucial amendments had been made to its contents. However, for some reason unknown to Walter Sisulu the first version of the leaflet which was not amended was sent to the printers accidentally under the auspices of the Technical Committee of the MK. Walter Sisulu stated that the primary purpose of the leaflet had been to present a critique of PAC General Secretary Labello’s call for revolution as well as the PAC’s racial policy. The document was clearly a discussion of PAC tactics and would not have been confused by various members of the ANC as directives because instructions were always given in the form of letter circulars.
Mr Fischer then dealt with Exhibits QQQ and RRR, which discussed the acts of violence in Mpondoland and Thembuland as well as PAC protests in Qumata and Queenstown, which Walter Sisulu explained had motivated the ANC to release this press statement which concluded that non-violent forms of struggle were still viable in South Africa. Thereafter, Mr Fischer turned his attention to Exhibits R.13 and R.14. Beginning with Exhibit R.14 Mr Fischer asked Walter Sisulu to clarify if his views advocating the position that “military training should be abandoned” expressed in this discussion document applied to just the Tanganyika scheme or to the entire project of sending people for military training altogether. Walter Sisulu clarified that his position at the time had been that the whole idea and practice of sending recruits for military training was in and of itself a decision which had been taken too hastily and should be abandoned.
In regard to Nelson Mandela’s dairy, Exhibit R.13, Mr Fischer immediately pointed out the fact that the ordering of pages of the copies of this dairy made by the state was completely confused. He showed that one page made reference to discussions in meetings of the ANC NEC and the very next page referred to a completely unrelated meeting and discussion of the NHC of MK. In addition, Mr Fischer used this document as a means by which to highlight the distinction between the PAC’s policy of “Africa for Africans” and the ANC’s policy of “South Africa for all South Africans”. Walter Sisulu acknowledged that the “extreme nationalism” of the PAC was “an impressive and appealing” politics which had much purchase amongst African communities in South Africa. Mr Fischer then asked Walter Sisulu if he had any idea as to why Nelson Mandela was received “so coolly in Ghana”. Walter Sisulu said that he did not have an exact idea why this had been the case, however, after further discussion of hostility towards the ANC, and Chief Albert Luthuli’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Walter Sisulu eventually did discuss his view on why this distorted understanding of the autonomy of the ANC had developed both inside and outside the country.
According to Walter Sisulu, after the ANC was banned, it became increasingly difficult for the organisation to call meetings or release public statements as it had done in the past. As such many ANC meetings were called by the Congress Alliance and joint statements were issued by the ANC and the Congress Alliance on a number of occasions following the banning. It was for this reason, Walter Sisulu argued, that people gained the impression that the Congress Alliance was an organisation which was conducting the struggle in South Africa. The widespread misunderstanding of the Congress Alliance as an organisation (and not a broad coalition of distinct and autonomous organisations as it actually was) leading the struggle was according to Walter Sisulu the reason why the NEC of the ANC had decided to adopt a tactical (not policy) change whereby they would no longer rely on the name of Congress Alliance when calling meetings or issuing statements. As such, Mr Fischer was able to clarify that Exhibit R.13 was not referring to Operation Mayibuye, or guerrilla warfare in general, as the tactical change which had been agreed upon by the NEC of the ANC. Rather the tactical change adopted was that described above which was done in order to prove to the rest of the African states and the people of South Africa that the ANC was the vanguard of the struggle.  
Mr Fischer then asked Walter Sisulu to speak to an issue which was raised during his cross-examination by Judge De Wet which was the suggestion that the ANC and other organisations’ policy of a vote for all South Africans would inherently mean black domination over white people. Walter Sisulu started his response by saying “… Perhaps because of our tradition in this country, the position is such that we are quite confident that it wouldn’t mean domination on the basis of colour”. He then went on to repeat his previously given example of the instance when a sitting Member of Parliament who was black was replaced by a European man on the basis of a purely African vote in the Cape Province. Walter Sisulu continued to say that:
We have examples here, in all of the churches, it’s not a question of electing a European or electing an African and you have churches which have got both communities electing in that context. But you don’t get the question of people deciding purely on the basis of colour. I don’t see that the people can’t exploit that, but I see that that has been prepared for…. I strongly believe that the question of cooperation in South Africa is not just a remote possibility, it is something which is a practical proposition, that the only policy capable of bring harmony is that of all racial groups working together. I think there is no other.
Mr Fischer then dealt with the notes and lectures of Arthur Goldreich, Operation Mayibuye, and the Speaker’s Notes, exhibits as a group. He started by highlighting the fact that large portions of Exhibit R.54, Speaker’s Notes, had been copied verbatim from the notes Arthur Goldreich made on his trip abroad to Czechoslovakia and other socialist countries. Where the exhibits spoke of how acts of sabotage must be conducted in such a way that they appear spontaneous, random mass-based when they are actually carefully planned and executed by a trained minority – Mr Fischer showed that no such approach had been taken by MK. Walter Sisulu justified this by stating that MK had always announced its responsibility for the acts of sabotage it committed and was publically open with the fact that they were highly planned and controlled acts. Walter Sisulu stated clearly that, despite Arthur Goldreich personal ventures abroad, no arrangements had ever been made by either the ANC or MK to secure a future supply of arms, ammunition, or guerrilla units into South Africa; nor were any arrangements made for the landing and storage of arms or personal by either organisation.
Walter Sisulu told the court that MK units never carried arms as a matter of policy and that the grand schemes such as flooding the country with pamphlets by aeroplanes or storing large supplies of arms and ammunition were never discussed by the ANC or the MK and maintained this line in regard to Exhibits T.33 and T.34. These exhibits which gave information on the police and military forces in South Africa, as well as demographic information regarding the national population, Mr Fischer argued, were polemics “prepared in order to try and influence some of the bigger powers [such as the UN]” and not to inform or facilitate the selling of armaments to South Africa by foreign powers.
When Mr Fischer asked Walter Sisulu what the MK was going to do with trainees who returned to South Africa – such as the two state witnesses called in this trial who had been arrested at the border on their return to South Africa - Walter Sisulu said that as he was not an MK member he would not know but he assumed that they would be integrated into the existing MK units in order to further its sabotage work. Mr Fischer said that his intention was merely to dispel the uncomfortable suggesting made by Dr Yutar that the only possible intention was to keep these human beings “in cold storage”. In concluding Walter Sisulu stated that the fact that these trainees were returning to South Africa was in no way an indication in and of itself that guerrilla warfare would ensue and added that up until the present moment there had not been even one death which had been sanctioned by the ANC or MK.
No further cross-examination.
Ahmed Kathrada’s Evidence
Examination-in-chief by Mr Berrange.
Once Ahmed Kathrada had been sworn-in and had taken his position in the witness box, Mr Berrange first confirmed that he had been born on 21st August, 1929, at Schweizer Reneke and that “it would be fair to say of you, that for the greater portion of your life as a juvenile and for the whole portion of your adult life, you have concerned yourself in the political sphere”. Ahmed Kathrada agreed that the assessment by Mr Berrange was a fair one after which Mr Berrange informed the court that he would be leading the witness “on non-contentious matters relating to his political activities” which would “probably bring out a great deal more than the state was even aware of”. Mr Berrange then began to deal with the political activities and connections Ahmed Kathrada became involved in from the time he was in high school.
Ahmed Kathrada admitted that at the age of 11, in 1940, he was already involved in distributing leaflets as well as attending political meetings and rallies. It was his high school friends who introduced him to the Cachalia brothers through whom he met Dr Naidoo – the subsequent President of the Indian National Congress. Mr Berrange asked if these people and some others would also subsequently become known as the “Nationalist group” within the INC and Ahmed Kathrada confirmed that this had been so. Ahmed Kathrada’s relationship with Indian University students who were closely associated with “Nationalist group of the Indian Congress” also brought him into regular contact with members of the Young Communist League which he eventually joined in 1942.
Mr Berrange asked Ahmed Kathrada to give some detail on the Nationalist group and its position within the Indian Congress at the time. Ahmed Kathrada explained that:
The Indian Congress, at that time, was led by a group of merchants both in Transvaal and the Cape. They did not operate from proper offices. They conducted the affairs of their communities from their private businesses. They did not call election meetings and they worked for the purely sectional interests of the Indian people… The Nationalist group felt that proper elections should be held at which the Indian community should be given the opportunity of electing its leadership.
(Vol.53/7B/49e) aka (H0426DS001_003) recording not available. PDF is available. Accounted for in inventory as 00:28:43 in length. This missing recording covers the discussion which is summarised in (AD1844.A24.1: Extract of Ahmed Kathrada’s Evidence). This document is not a full transcript but it does provide verbatim extracts from the court record with accompanying page references. As such I am still able to provide an overview description of the discussion which took place in this half an hour period.  
In 1946 the new leadership in the Indian Congress launched what was called the Passive Resistance Movement which was a movement which launched campaigns against the land restrictions placed on the Indian people by the 1946 Ghetto Act. The Passive Resistance Movement lasted for about two years and involved over 2, 000 Indian people. Ahmed Kathrada left school in 1946, during his matric year, in order to work fulltime in the offices of the Passive Resistance Council and was arrested in December of that year in his capacity as a Passive Resistance volunteer. After serving a month of imprisonment Ahmed Kathrada returned to work fulltime in the offices of the Indian Congress until he was served banning orders in 1954.
Ahmed Kathrada confirmed that he remained a member of the Communist Party until it was banned in 1950 and was a listed communist. Mr Berrange then asked Ahmed Kathrada if he considered himself to have been “a leading figure in the South African Indian Congress as had been suggested by Walter Sisulu in his evidence that morning. Ahmed Kathrada replied “That would be a bit flattering. I considered myself to be a leading activist”. He went on to explain that he remained on the Executive of the Transvaal Indian Congress until he was banned in 1954 after which he was forced to resign and was not allowed to hold any positions in 39 organisations.
Regressing in time once again to Ahmed Kathrada’s childhood, Mr Berrange asked why he was sent for schooling near Johannesburg at the age of nine and not in Schweizer Reneke. Ahmed Kathrada explained that it was necessary “because there were no schools in the country towns for Indians, and I was not allowed to attend either the European schools or the African schools… This was the first time that I consciously came into contact with the colour bar in this country. According to Ahmed Kathrada this was because:
My childhood was completely free of any form of colour experiences. My childhood friends were little white and African children… Our house where I grew up and even till now, is situated where we have our immediate neighbours who are white. In my father’s shop there was one white shop assistant I can think of, and there was also an African bookkeeper.
When Mr Berrange asked Ahmed Kathrada to explain exactly who had been responsible for raising him in his family Ahmed Kathrada said:
Like the rest of my family, and I suppose this position would have been with most the Platteland Indians, the midwife when I was born, also my brothers, was a European woman, who was not just midwife, who was like a second mother to me, and I became very attached to her… she was known as my ouma.
Ahmed Kathrada added that another reason why the colour bar struck him so forcibly when he went for schooling near Johannesburg at the age of nine was because prior to that his father had “engaged an African teacher who taught [him] at home”. These were some of the key experiences which Ahmed Kathrada claimed account for why “it seemed very natural” for him to have been engaged in distributing political leaflets at the age of 11.
In 1951 Ahmed Kathrada enrolled at Wits University with the intention of doing a B.A. and obtaining a law degree? However, Ahmed Kathrada was only at Wits for a few months when he was elected to be a representative of the Indian Youth Congress at a world festival of youth and students held in Berlin. He explained that, in addition to this, the Students Liberal Association asked him if he would attend a conference of the International Union of Students on its behalf whilst he was abroad. Mr Berrange asked if Ahmed Kathrada’s time, just short of a year, spent in Europe had had any impact upon him. After a brief hesitation, Ahmed Kathrada answered:
To a non- European leaving South Africa and going to Europe it’s like entering a new world. My very first impression was when I saw at the airport in London Europeans scrubbing the floors…
Mr Berrange interrupted Ahmed Kathrada and said “Anyway, you were able there to attend the theatre, ballet opera?” Ahmed Kathrada responded, “Well even to attend a restaurant. I mean even to have a cup of tea in a restaurant… It was the first time in my life that I could walk into a restaurant and have a cup of tea”. Ahmed Kathrada went on to say that he was struck as well by the fact that the youth festival “was attended by 30,000 young people of all colours, of all religions, of different Political views… A lot of communists, non-communists, anti-communists, from about - from over 100 countries in the world”. Ahmed Kathrada discussed the diverse composition of the 65 person delegation from South Africa, of which he was the leader, which attended the festival. In particular he said he wanted to tell the court about the huge impact this egalitarian political experience had had on a member of the Nationalist Party who was part of the South African delegation.
After attending the conference of the International Union of Students, Ahmed Kathrada accompanied a tour of young people to the Auschwitz Concentration camp. In describing what he experienced there Ahmed Kathrada said:
Well we were all shocked at what we saw at Auschwitz. We saw human bones, in fact, we walked on human bones, and these were the bones of what were once human beings. Jews and people who opposed the Nazis. We saw lampshades made from human skins. We saw dentures from which the gold had been extracted. This made a tremendous impression upon all of us, particularly the South Africans, and this young Nationalist who was with me in Poland…
Before Ahmed Kathrada could explain what had been told to him by the young member of the NP in regard to Auschwitz Judge De Wet interrupted him and told Mr Berrange that he was not interested in the impression the tour had on anyone other than the witness himself. Mr Berrange told Judge De Wet that that was not what he was trying to get from the witness and then asked Ahmed Kathrada if he and the others had taken a pledge based on what they saw and experienced at Auschwitz. Ahmed Kathrada explained that before they left Auschwitz he and the rest of the group “took a pledge to work to eradicate racialism wherever we found it”. In summary, Ahmed Kathrada’s visit to Europe made him committed to the idea of world peace and its urgent necessity.
Ahmed Kathrada’s European visit was cut short when he returned to South Africa and joined the preparations for the Defiance Campaign which was jointly conducted by the Indian Congress and the ANC. Ahmed Kathrada was amongst a group of 20 men who were convicted for being organisers of the campaign but his sentence was suspended on certain conditions. After further discussion of his activities at this time Mr Berrange eventually came to deal with Ahmed Kathrada’s position in regard to the policies of the ANC and why he supported the organisation. Ahmed Kathrada explained that “As a member of a minority group in South Africa I had always believed that the future and security of my people depended upon the success of the policies of the A.N.C.”.
Mr Berrange asked Ahmed Kathrada what, if anything, the ANC leadership had done in order to quell the several incidents of anti-Indian rioting by Africans during 1949 and around 1960. Ahmed Kathrada noted that he had personally witnessed in Natal particularly, instances in which European citizens incited and egged on the African people against the Indian people, while police merely looked on and did nothing. Speaking more directly to Mr Berrange’s question Ahmed Kathrada said that there was no doubt that the riots in Newcastle and Germiston would have spread, “had it not been for the timely intervention of the A.N.C. together with the Indian Congress”.
At the end of 1954, the year in which Ahmed Kathrada was served with banning orders, state authorities announced that they would be closing down an Indian High School in Johannesburg and relocating it to the Indian Group Area, Lenasia. Parents from the school and other members of the Indian community in Johannesburg protested the forced removal and established an association for which Ahmed Kathrada was elected as Secretary. The association established its own private high school in Johannesburg known as the Central Indian High School which enrolled 500 students in 1955 whilst the relocated school at Lenasia only managed to enrol about a dozen students. The new school set up by the association was, according to Ahmed Kathrada, a great success “as an educational and sociological experiment” and it was “the first time in South Africa that we had a school where we had a staff of Africans, Indians, Coloureds and Whites. Of course, that didn't make it very easy as far as the authorities were concerned. Everything possible was done to obstruct…”
At this stage Mr Berrange explained that he was leading Ahmed Kathrada in regard to all of these instances of racial co-operation because he wanted know if Ahmed Kathrada still believed “that there is a possibility for racial collaboration and co-operation in this country”. Like Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada said that he still very strongly believed that racial co-operation was “the only solution to the country’s problems”. He added that he would not join any political organisation which did not share in this view.
During the State of Emergence in 1960 Ahmed Kathrada was “greatly disturbed” when he heard of the banning of the ANC as he “believed that the disappearance of the A.N.C. from the political scene in South Africa would deprive the African people, or I should say all the oppressed people and the whole of S. A, of a most responsible, sober leadership”. In 1961 Ahmed Kathrada was one of the first people to be detained under what was commonly known as the 12-day detention law. After his release and during the course of the preparations for the “anti-Republican strike of 1961” Ahmed Kathrada learnt that his good friend Nelson Mandela and the ANC itself had gone underground. Ahmed Kathrada was “very happy that Mr. Mandela had gone underground, because… [he] felt that the country needed the leadership of men like Mandela and Sisulu, more than ever before”.
Ahmed Kathrada explained that he had been friends with Nelson Mandela for a number of years and that Nelson Mandela had spent much time working from Ahmed Kathrada’s flat. It was Denis Goldberg who first invited Ahmed Kathrada to come to the Rivonia property to attend a party in the main house. However, Ahmed Kathrada did not actually attend much of the party proceedings because upon arrival he was told that Nelson Mandela was in one of the outbuildings and wanted to speak with him. Once the two had started conversing they did not stop their private conversation until the party in the main house was over. It was at this time that Nelson Mandela first told Ahmed Kathrada about the formation of MK, its policy of multi-racial membership, and its reliance on the NLM for guidance as it remained an independent organisation.
At this stage Judge De Wet called for proceedings to be adjourned until the following morning at 10:15am.
Sources
Dictabelts: (Vol.53/7A/43e) (Vol.53/7A/44e) (Vol.53/7A/45e) (Vol.53/7A/46e) (Vol.53/7A/47e) (Vol.53/7A/48e) (Vol.53/7B/49e) (Vol.53/7B/50e).
Percy Yutar Papers:
Handwritten notes from the prosecution for 27th April, 1964, (Ms.385/36/1).
File containing details about Accused Nos. 1-7: TS, Walter Sisulu (MS.385/31/3/2).
W M Sisulu continues. Marked AA2, [section missing], (MS.385/7).
File containing details about Accused Nos. 1-7: TS, Ahmed Kathrada (MS.385/31/3/6).
A M Kathrada [Acc.No.5] Examination-in-chief only – incomplete. Marked AA4. (MS.385/8).
WITS Historical Papers:
Analysis of Defence Evidence: Walter Sisulu’s Personal Position (AD1844.A30b9).
Statement on which Walter Sisulu’s evidence was led (AD1844.Bc2).
Extract of Ahmed Kathrada’s evidence (AD1844.A24.1).
Key Words
Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Mr X, Operation Mayibuye, Guerrilla Warfare, ANC, Coded Letters, Albert Luthuli, PAC, MK, TIC, SACP, Racial Discrimination, Colour Bar, Johannesburg, Indian Central High School.