secrets6.indd 1
2012/06/11 3:33 PM
SongsandSecrets
Songs and Secrets
Barry Gilder
iii
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 3
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
Barry Gilder This edition published by Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd in 2012 10 Orange Street Sunnyside Auckland Park 2092 South Africa (+27 11) 628-3200 www.jacana.co.za Published in the United Kingdom in 2012 by C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd www.hurstpub.co.uk © Barry Gilder, 2012 All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-4314-0436-0 Also available as an e-book d-PDF ISBN 978-1-4314-0681-4 ePUB ISBN 978-1-4314-0682-1 mobi ISBN 978-1-4314-0683-8 Cover design by publicide Set in Ehrhardt 12/16.5 pt Job no. 001782 Lines from ‘Easter 1916’ by WB Yeats, reproduced under fair dealing permission from AP Watt Ltd. ‘In Praise of Communism’ by Bertolt Brecht, page 255 © Bertolt Brecht Erben/Suhrkamp Verlag Cover photo © Gallo Images/Foto24/Bongiwe Gumede The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
iv
See a complete list of Jacana titles at www.jacana.co.za
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 4
2012/06/12 9:48 AM
SongsandSecrets
Formymother–fordroppingmedown onthisAfricanground ForThandi,MollyandNeo– towhomIbequeaththefuture ForLorna–whoismyfuture Forthefallenandthebroken–whohavegivenoftheirfuture
v
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 5
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
Contents
Contents
Author’sNote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Prelude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Chapter 1 - Into the Bush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Chapter 2 - The Spy Who Went into the Cold . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Chapter 3 - To the Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Chapter 4 - Underground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Chapter 5 - On South Africa’s Secret Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Chapter 6 - Defending Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Chapter 7 - Turning Apartheid Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Chapter 8 - Passages of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386 Postlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
1
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 1
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
Author’sNote
Author’s Note
If you picked up this book in the expectation of revelling in the true confessions of a disaffected spy-master – put it back. If you opened this book in the hope of enjoying the confidences of a disillusioned cadre of the South African liberation movement – close it, put it down. If you bought this book in anticipation of a grandparents-tograve biography of a white man in a black man’s army – shut it now, wrap it up, give it to a friend. The author is not a disaffected intelligence officer exposing the secrets with which he was entrusted in revenge for wrongs done to him. In fact, by nature the author has a need-to-know memory, retaining only those facts and experiences useful in understanding the journey that he and his compatriots have taken and drawing lessons for the onward journey. The author does, however, give insights into the world of intelligence to the extent that these shed light on that one lane of the highway South Africa has travelled from liberation struggle to democratic governance. The author is not a disillusioned cadre of South Africa’s African National Congress, who has jumped ship and seeks now through this work to shout an explanation for his rash act from the turbulent seas below. The author believes the ANC 3
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 3
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder was the only vessel seaworthy enough to take South Africa out of the hurricane of apartheid and into the calmer waters of democracy and the uncharted waters beyond. The author is, of course, aware that the ship has sprung some leaks, that the rudder has grown rusty from long exposure to the waters of time, and that its navigators may have misread some of the charts. The author hopes that this work, albeit modestly, may add to the efforts of the crew to locate and repair the leaks, perhaps briefly to dry-dock and anti-foul the rudder and hull, and to plot a course to intersect once more with the true course originally laid out for it. This book was not intended as an autobiography. The author did not intend to explain nor justify his life, although it may appear so. The intention was to rise above current adversarial discourse about whither South Africa and provide insights into the realities of the journey from liberation movement to government. He seeks to do this, however, largely through his own experience of this journey in the belief that we can never understand history, nor learn from it, unless we fathom the interplay between that history and the complexities of the individual human psyche. It is only in this intersection that we can grasp notions of commitment, sacrifice, integrity, leadership, treachery, corruption and ideological shift. The author once wrote a sarcastic song addressed to the wife of a fictitious soldier in the apartheid army who died in that army’s war with the liberation movements of southern Africa. The song ended with the verse: Historyisacrowdedbus Travellingattopspeed AndyourpoorJohnnycrossedtheroad Beforethelightsturnedgreen 4
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 4
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
Author’sNote The author was just one passenger on that bus, starting off the journey standing in the aisle, holding onto the straps for dear life as the bus careered its way down the highway, eventually finding a seat near the back of the bus and gradually moving ever forward until he found a seat near the front, where he could quietly advise the driver of obstacles and perilous bends ahead. The author’s view of the journey was constrained by the window alongside which he sat, supplemented by the blurred glimpses through the partially obscured windows across the aisle, the occasional glances through the back window and the windscreen ahead. Of course, there were many other busses and vehicles on this highway and there were many other highways, secondary roads and rutted tracks travelling in more or less the same direction. The author believes that not enough has been communicated about this journey, especially by those who have themselves been on the bus. He understands that his view is a partial one. But he hopes that, by sharing it with others on the bus and with those on different busses or different journeys in other parts of the world (or not on the bus at all), he can contribute in some way to a body of understanding of the road behind, the road now being travelled and the road ahead. Many of us live our lives as if the brain is a rolling camera recording forever the sights and sounds that make up the ticking moments that pass, ever confident that there will come a quiet time when we can press playback and examine at our leisure where we have been, what we have done and the faces and voices that at the time cluttered our lives. But memory is not a rolling camera. It is more like a rough piece of oily rag that arbitrarily dabs at our lives, blotting and blurring the bits that it touches, leaving huge dead spots. There is much anecdote in this book. The author does not 5
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 5
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder claim a photographic memory for circumstantial detail and dialogue. What he recalls are the atmospherics of the moment and the gist of conversations. In some cases, anecdotes are a combination of events that took place at different times and in different milieus. They are offered, not as a record, but as a conveyance of sense. He thus apologises to the readers – and especially to those who themselves participated in some of the events – for any inaccuracies or (unintended) misrepresentations. What one sees through the windows of the bus is often obscured by condensation on the glass, visual obstructions on the road, and the plain speed of travel. And what one recalls of the journey afterwards is of course blurred by the mists of time. The author has many people to thank for the fact that this book exists at all: Tarak Barkawi, for suggesting this book and finding a willing publisher before even a word was written; Michael Dwyer of Hurst Publishers for his faith, encouragement and patience; Maggie Davey of Jacana Media for her unique ability to motivate while critiquing; Joel Netshitenzhe of the Mapungubwe Institute, who gave of the institute’s time and resources to allow the author to finish this book. There are many people who read the original book proposal and the manuscript at its various stages of gestation, some as ‘characters’ in the story, some as outsiders looking in. There are those too who agreed to be interviewed or otherwise assisted with research for the book. The author thanks them all warmly for taking the time and for their invariably encouraging and insightful comments, suggestions, personal memories and corrections: Andre Zaaiman, Andrew Iliff, Brian Murphy, Fons Geerling, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Graham Watts, Howard Barrell, Ingrid Löfström-Berg, Ivan Pillay, Jessie Duarte, Judy Seidman, 6
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 6
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
Author’sNote Kier Schuringa, Lorna Edwards, Luli Callinicos, Lynda von den Steinen, Mandy Gilder and the staff of South Africa’s National Archives, Molly Gilder, Pete Richer, Raymond Suttner, Remi Bernickow, Rhoda Phetla, Richard Whiteing, Sandy Afrika, Tarak Barkawi, Thabang Makwetla, Thandi Gilder, Thenjiwe Mthintso, Tor Sellström, Vladimir Shubin, Vusi Mavimbela. But the wordsmith struggles for words in thanking Lorna Daniels, not just for her companionship, tolerance and commitment through the years this book was being written, but especially for her application to the manuscript of tough love when it was required and tender love when it was needed. Lastly, the author thanks all those who shared the journey that this book describes for their comradeship, friendship, leadership, love, courage, sacrifice and commitment. Ultimately this is their story. The weaknesses in this book belong to the author. Any strengths belong to them. May 2012
7
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 7
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
IntoďťżtheďťżBush
Chapter 1
Into the Bush
What makes a person go to war? What makes a human being leave the relative comforts of community and home, of family and familiarity and go into the unknown, the fearful? What motivates a person to endure a hazardous boat trip, a devastating firefight, to make their way into the mountains of the Sierra Maestra?8 What drives a person to endure the soggy and exhausting rice paddies of Vietnam? What inner processes persuade a person to cross the Zambezi River and engage the Rhodesian armed forces in the first MK firefights in the Wankie game reserve?9 We may well ask too: what convinces a person to strap a bomb to their torso and press the detonator in a bus full of people? What makes a person willing to fly an airliner into a tower block, knowing that death is certain? What convoluted matrix of emotion and intellect drives a person to defy that most basic of instincts of all living creatures, the will to live, and to break that holiest of social taboos – the taking of the life of another human being? In 1968 I was seventeen years old when I had to do my compulsory nine-month military service with the South African Defence Force. Although I was born and grew up on the southern tip of Africa, I was enclosed in the cocoon that was white apartheid South Africa. We drew our culture, our 35
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 35
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder symbols, our values from the north, from the west. I was thus a child of the sixties, inspired by the same literature and music that inspired my contemporaries in America and Europe. I hated war. I hated racism. I hated exploitation. I grew up on the songs of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger. I was a child of Woodstock. And I hated the army. I hated the fascism of my white, Afrikaner officers. I hated being taught the arts of war. I hated the thought of killing another human being. While I was doing my military service, my parents divorced. I came back from the army to a divided house. My mother, who must have read something on the effect of divorce on children, insisted – in spite of my age and the fact that I had just been ‘turned into a man’ by the army – that I see a psychologist to help me through the trauma. The psychologist was an older man. I remember a very high forehead crowned by an almost bald head. We talked about many things, including the meaning of life. I shared with him my passionate hatred of war. He told me he had fought in the Second World War. I chastised him, as I had often done my father, who had served in the British Royal Air Force during the war. -Howcouldyou?!Howcouldyouparticipateinawar?Ihate war! He looked at me with calmness and a tinge of sorrow. -Itoohatedwar, he said. ButIhatedHitlermore. That didn’t fly with me at the time. 6 It is early 1979. A few months earlier – on 17 September 1978 – Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, and Israel’s Menachem Begin signed a peace agreement after spending thirteen days with Jimmy 36
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 36
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
IntotheBush Carter at Camp David. On 28 September Pope John Paul I died after only thirty-four days in office. The next day PW Botha took over from John Vorster as prime minister of South Africa. In October an ANC delegation led by Oliver Tambo visited Vietnam to seek lessons for the South African revolution. On 16 October a cardinal from socialist Poland became Pope John Paul II. In the last few days of 1978 the ANC’s leadership met in Luanda, Angola to plan a new operational strategy in response to the lessons learned from the visit to Vietnam. On 7 January 1979 the Pol Pot regime fell in Cambodia. The next day – on the sixty-seventh anniversary of its founding – the ANC declared 1979 as the YearoftheSpear in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the defeat by Zulu warriors of a better-equipped British force at Isandlwana in the then Natal Colony.10 On 14 January the South African police clashed with an MK unit near Zeerust in the western Transvaal. On 16 January the Shah of Iran fled the country. On 23 January an MK unit detonated a bomb near the New Canada railway station in Soweto. Three days later the Rhodesian Air Force attacked a Zipra (armed wing of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union11) camp in Angola. On 14 March the South African air force bombed an MK camp at Novo Catengue in southern Angola. It isn’t my habit to be nursing a pint of bitter in the middle of the day. But I know that when Aziz Pahad joins me shortly in the pub up the road from the ANC’s Penton Street office in London, he will expect me to join him in a drink. Anyway, one way or another, I am sure I will need a drink. I had bumped into him earlier in the office and he said he had news. -I’vejustgotsomethingtoattendtoquickly.Let’smeetinthe pubinhalfanhour. I tried to fathom from his face whether it was good news 37
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 37
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder or bad, but he gave me one of those need-to-know smiles and rushed upstairs. If anyone had a need to know, it was me. Sitting in the pub, waiting for Aziz, I cannot chase the thought that I will shortly have to listen to a long, apologetic explanation of why the comrades in Lusaka had turned down my request to join MK. Unusually, Aziz is on time. -ComradeBarry. He pauses and looks at me over the rim of his glass. The bugger is enjoying this – like a TV quiz show host who goes to an ad break before telling you if you got the answer right. I take a gulp of my beer. -ComradeBarry…it’stimetowindupyouraffairsinLondon! I just manage to stop myself from spraying bitter all over him, letting the beer in my mouth drop back into the glass before I put it down. After that I am like a five-year-old kid nagging his mummy on the day before his first day at school. - WhendoIleave?WhatmustItake?WhatdoItellcomrades andfriends?WhatdoItellmygirlfriend? Aziz answers me patiently. My legend will be that I am going to teach in Africa. I will be leaving in April. I can’t tell anyone, including my girlfriend, where I am going. I should only take the essentials. It is hot in Angola. -Yes,youcantakeyourguitar,ComradeBarry. Aziz Pahad was my official contact with the underground structures of the ANC in London for a long time. Ronnie Kasrils liked to claim that he was the one who had recruited me into the ANC. But Aziz was the one who formally drew me into the London operational structures of the movement. I like to claim that I recruited myself into the ANC. After all, no one had to persuade me. I knew when I left the country that there 38
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 38
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
IntotheBush was no alternative to the ANC. It had the history. It had the struggle memory. It had all the credentials to lead the South African revolution I was so committed to, even before Gavin’s kombi passed through the South Africa–Botswana border at Ramatlabama. (I was later to find out that Aziz was a member of the UK region of the ANC’s Department of Intelligence and Security, which we called ‘NAT’ in those days. I still don’t know what ‘NAT’ stood for. It was the name of my father, but I expect that was coincidence. Much later, Aziz served as deputy minister of foreign affairs in the democratic government.) I don’t remember Aziz ever saying it, but I think I guessed why the ANC made it so difficult for me to get to MK. The last thing the movement needed was a romantic white leftie lasting three weeks in the rigours of the Angolan camps and then pleading to be flown back to the comfort and urbanity of London. It was not the logistics of it, nor – as we later came to call it in government – the fruitless expenditure. It was the politics of it. As far as I knew, I would have been the first white member of the ’76 generation of ANC exiles to go into the MK camps. There, of course, had been others of the ’60s generation of exiles, Ronnie Kasrils included, who had gone through the MK camps at the time. And there were those, like Joe Slovo, in the High Command of MK, whom all the cadres looked up to and admired. Now, the vast majority of MK cadres in the camps were the Soweto generation – those who had left South Africa to take up arms in revenge for the savage killings they had witnessed in Soweto and townships around the country on and since 16 June 1976. Many of them had grown up politically in the black consciousness movement of Steve Biko and came out of the country believing that this was a black man’s struggle – progressive whites should do their own thing in their own organisations. The ANC had to work hard to persuade them of 39
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 39
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder its policy of non-racialism. Thus, a namby-pamby whitey who lasted three weeks with them in the camps would do much to undo this effort. 6 I have searched my memory, but I can find little on this particular airplane flight. I do know the date. It is 18 April 1979. I remember the irony. The young man who hated war, who only three years earlier had given up hearth and home to avoid going into Angola from the south, is now coming in from the north to join the opposing army. As the plane dips gradually towards the African earth, I savour the joint feelings of joy and anxiety. Finally leaving the coldness, the greyness of London where I had spent the last three years working as a musician in a travelling workers’ theatre group, doing work with the ANC and the anti-apartheid movement part-time, and singing my songs at solidarity meetings and gatherings throughout the UK and western Europe. I was, as best as I could be for now, coming home. I remember the first glimpse of the dense green bush and grey mountains as the plane began its approach to the Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport. At last! It had taken me nearly two years to persuade Aziz Pahad, and through him, the ANC’s Revolutionary Council, to allow me to join MK. This had been much harder than singing my way into the ANC. The plane dips again and banks over the exquisite Angolan coastline. I catch a glimpse of the Baia de Luanda and the harbour with many ships, moored, at anchor, coming in and going out. Must be mostly Soviet and Cuban vessels. Some, I smile to myself, surely bringing weapons and other supplies for the army I am about to join. 40
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 40
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
IntotheBush Was I a romantic white leftie? Why did I really fight so hard to join the people’s army? Certainly, I had revelled in the books I had read on the Cuban revolution. My heart had been with the Vietnamese struggling to liberate the whole of their country from the French and American imperialists. I devoured Ten DaysthatShooktheWorld.12 I read Chairman Mao’s LittleRed Book. I had read every book available on the history of the ANC and the South African struggle. The ANC’s adoption of armed struggle in 1961 made absolute sense to me. All its endeavours to talk, to negotiate, to protest an end to apartheid had been met with increasing repression and violence. In the words of my psychologist: I hated war. But I hated apartheidmore. In the words of the 1961 MK founding manifesto: Thetimecomesinthelifeofanynationwhenthereremainonlytwo choices:submitorfight.ThattimehasnowcometoSouthAfrica. Weshallnotsubmitandwehavenochoicebuttohitbackbyall meanswithinourpowerindefenceofourpeople,ourfutureandour freedom.13
But still? Wasn’t I at heart a cultural activist? Wasn’t it my job simply to sing the revolution? The cultural struggle had certainly been my main arena up to now, both at home and in exile. But this my conscience would not allow. I could not claim to be a member of the ANC if I was not willing to put myself in the same danger as the rest of my comrades. Much later in my life some people would ask me: Whatwasitliketobeawhite maninablackman’sarmy? That’s just it. MK was not a ‘black man’s army’. It was certainly not just a ‘man’s’ army – there were many women in it. But, if South Africa was to belong – as the ANC’s Freedom Charter14 put it – toallwholiveinit, then 41
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 41
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder those of the all who chose to fight for that ideal certainly had no right to leave the more dangerous fighting to only a part – albeit the biggest part – of the all. It was Victor Jara who made up my mind. Jara was a Chilean singer, songwriter, dramatist and political activist. At the time of the Chilean coup that overthrew, with American help, the progressive regime of Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973 (see that – September 11! The world has forgotten this 9/11), Jara was arrested and, along with other activists, herded into the Chile Stadium (now called the Estadio Victor Jara – oh sweet history). In the stadium he played his guitar and sang. So his captors smashed his hands. He continued singing without the guitar. His captors filled his body with machine-gun bullets. Somewhere in my history I came across a quote from Victor Jara: Iftheguitaristobeaweaponinthestruggle,thentheperson behinditmustbeagenuinerevolutionary. That became my credo. It remained my credo for a long time to come. Perhaps, although in a much broader sense, it is still my credo. A moment of panic at the unexpected loud sound of the landing gear unfolding from the bowels of the aircraft. There it is – liberated Luanda taking shape beneath me. I make a few mental notes. Forgoodnesssake,don’tforgetthebagofduty-freewhisky in the overhead stowage. This is an obligatory ritual for ANC travellers – a bottle of duty free for the comrades. Don’tforgetto useyourtravellingnamewhenyoumeetthecomrades–James… James…James. 6
42
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 42
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
IntotheBush My first night in Luanda. I have been put up at the downtown Globo Hotel. It is ramshackle, much like the little I’ve seen so far of war-ravaged Luanda. My roommate is Comrade Sam. He has also just arrived. We chat tentatively. He wonders who the hell I am. I am James. James. There is a knock on the door. Who can that be? I don’t speak Portuguese. Sam and I look at each other. I open the door slowly. -ComradeBarry!WelcometoAngola! I pull the door back towards me, leaning just my head out. -It’sJames,ComradeRonnie.James! -Oops.Sorry…andIamANCKhumalo. I let him in. Ronnie Kasrils left London two years earlier, initially working as a political instructor in one of the MK camps. Now he is regional commissar for MK in Angola. Angola had relatively recently allowed the presence in their country of the armed wings of the liberation movements of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. The Portuguese coup of 1974 had led to the granting of independence to the Portuguese colonies. In the case of Angola, Portugal had initially agreed to hand over power to a coalition of the three Angolan liberation movements – the progressive MPLA and the western-backed FNLA and apartheid-backed UNITA. A civil war ensued, but ended with the MPLA declaring independence on 11 November 1975. This opening up of a secure rear base for the training of its cadres by the ANC was timeous as new waves of young recruits flooded into exile after the student uprising of mid-1976. The ANC had a number of training camps in Angola. -Where’stheduty-free,Comrade…uh…James? I retrieve the bottle of Teacher’s from under the bed. Sam offers to go for a walk. - Thanks, Comrade. I just need to discuss with Comrade … Jamesforawhile. 43
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 43
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
BarryGilder I cringe. The white men stay to drink while the black man is exiled to the streets. Ronnie enthuses about Angola, MK, life in the camps. He seems more excited than I am. We drink. He interrogates me for news from London. We drink some more. We talk. Well, he talks, mostly. I am just relieved to have a familiar face in this new and still-strange place. My anxiety dissipates. Perhaps it’s the whisky. We talk for hours. Sam returns. We offer him a shot. Ronnie says: -Look,comrades.I’vejustcomebackfromthecamps.Doyou mindifIhaveashowerinyourbathroom? We are happy to allow this sweaty and dusty comrade leader to enjoy our brief privilege of a hotel bathroom. He goes to the bathroom while Sam and I talk, a little less tentatively now. We hear the sounds of the comrade leader enjoying his shower in the bathroom. Sam readies himself for bed. Suddenly there is a yelp from the bathroom. -Shit! I rush to the door. -Areyouokay,ComradeCommissar? -No,thebloodywaterhasgoneoff–justwhenI’mfullofsoap! We hear more cursing from the bathroom as Ronnie makes the best of his interrupted shower. He comes out. -ThisisLuandaforyou,comrades.ThePortugueseleftwithall theplansforthewatersystem,thesewerage. He dresses and takes his leave, promising to see me tomorrow. Sam and I go to bed. We can’t wash or brush our teeth. The comrade commissar has used up all the water. Sometime in the small hours of the morning there is a loud knocking on the door. I look over at Sam in the next bed. He is only just stirring. I sit up, throw my legs over the side of the bed 44
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 44
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
IntotheBush and … splash! My feet come down into six inches of water. I look at the floor. The room is filled with water. -Cameradas!Cameradas! The banging on the door rises in desperation. I wade to the door in my underpants, struggle to open it against the water, sticking my head outside. There is a hotel official babbling in Portuguese and pointing down the corridor. The only word I can fathom is ‘Água! Água!’ I lean further out the door and follow his pointing hand down the corridor. Emanating from under our room door is a veritable river running down the long corridor and, at a distance, I discern that the river is lapping against the lift doors and escaping down the shaft. I leave the door ajar and rush to the bathroom. The bath is full and overflowing. It dawns on me. Comrade Commissar had neglected to turn off the taps. When the water had come back on in the middle of the night it filled the bath and runnethover. (Kasrils was later to serve a term as minister of water affairs in a democratic South Africa.) 6 In life there are moments of high emotion, perhaps just a handful, that stay with you unfaded by time. When you recall them you get a still of the visual accompanied by the re-welling of the emotion, like a sound track. That last gaze up at the western Cape mountains in that January of 1976 was such a moment, although it was a consciously willed one. This one now is not willed. It lunges out at me unexpectedly as the car that fetched me from the Globo on the morning après la deluge draws up outside Res 1 – the ANC’s main residence in Luanda – a large two-storey house in a tree-lined suburban street, which in other times must have been a haven for the Portuguese colonists. 45
Songs and secrets ehart.indd 45
2012/06/08 2:29 PM
The author singing on Wits University campus, August 1975 Source: Rand Daily Mail
The author (left) with Comrade Ivan (second from right) and other Soviet instructors in Luanda c 1980 Source: archive of V. Ya. Shiryaev (Comrade Ivan)
Songs and secrets Photo sections.indd 1
2012/06/08 2:54 PM
From l to r: Comrade Ivan, Billy Masetlha, Comrade Zakes and Linda Mti at the ANC stores in Luanda, 1979 Source: archive of V. Ya. Shiryaev (Comrade Ivan)
From l to r: Simon Makana, Alfred Nzo, Comrade Ivan, Thabo Mbeki and Soviet instructor at Caxito, 1979 Source: archive of V. Ya. Shiryaev (Comrade Ivan)
Songs and secrets Photo sections.indd 2
2012/06/08 2:54 PM
Crossword puzzle from MK journal Dawn, Vol. 4, No. 2, February 1980
Songs and secrets Photo sections.indd 3
2012/06/08 2:54 PM
Author singing Matola Song in Amsterdam, December 1982 Source: Stichting African Skies
Author with Barbara Masekela chairing resolutions session of Culture in Another South Africa conference in Amsterdam, December 1987 Source: Stichting African Skies
Songs and secrets Photo sections.indd 4
2012/06/08 2:54 PM
secrets6.indd 1
2012/06/11 3:33 PM