MK recognises they weren’t the only liberators in struggle

An apartheid-era self-defence units (SDUs) in the struggle has been acknowledged for the first time by former Mkhonto We Sizwe (MK) members.

MK Veteran’s Association (MKMVA) president Kebby Maphatsoe has dismissed the long-held view that MK members were special and the only liberators in the struggle. He said the SDUs and other components contributed to the national democratic revolution.

Speaking at the funeral service of former SA National Defence Force member and former MK commander and trainer, Major-General Mandla Notshweleka at the weekend, Maphatsoe said the SDU were a project of the ANC high command to fight the apartheid regime.

Notshweleka, who was known by his nom de guerre of “Abe Sishuba”, died of cancer last week. Maphatsoe said: “There are sometimes tendencies among MK veterans who went into exile, and who were in MK training camps in Angola and elsewhere and received military training similar to what comrade Abe received, to behave as if we are a kind of elite. “Such behaviour, as if only those who were in MK camps in exile were truly MK, always deeply irked Abe,” Maphatsoe said.

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He said Notshweleka always reminded MK members it was a formal decision of the ANC high command and MK to train and arm young people to become SDUs. Notshweleka believed the SDUs played a critical role in defending communities, especially in the 1980s and early 1990s, against the apartheid state.

“SDU members in many instances had seen more direct combat than those of us MK soldiers who were in exile. Townships on the East Rand literally became liberated zones because of the fight put up by SDUs,” Maphatsoe said.

It was significant that Notshweleka reminded them “never to forget the SDU’s” because he was an MK commander who participated in all the major battles that MK fought. He was among the commanders of a contingent of MK cadres instructed by then MK commander Joe Modise in 1978 to fight alongside Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe People Revolutionary Army in Zimbabwe. He also fought against the former SADF in Angola.

– ericn@citizen.co.za