31 May 1961 is recognized as the official date of Independence as South Africa became a Republic on that date.

The Republic of South Africa as it is today did not gain independence fully at a single point in history. Rather, it went through a series of transitions. It first gained partial independence from Britain on 31 May 1910. Then it formed the Union of South Africa under partial British and Dutch rule. It then gained further independence from the statue of Westminster on 11 December 1931.

From there it gained full independence on 31 May 1961 to form the Republic of South Africa which was governed by the apartheid regime.

Apartheid ended gradually in 1990 and the first democratic elections took place on 14 April 1994 when the first black president of the Republic was democratically elected - Nelson Mandela.

South Africa

Official name: Republic of South Africa

Independence from Britain: 1934

In 1652 Dutch settlers arrived at the Cape and set up a refreshment post for the journey to the Dutch East Indies. With minimal impact on the local peoples (Bantu speaking groups and Bushmen) the Dutch started to move inland and colonize. The arrival of the British in the eighteenth century accelerated the process. The Cape colony was ceded to the British in 1814. In 1816, Shaka kaSenzangakhona became Zulu ruler, to be assassinated by Dingane in 1828. The Great Trek of the Boers moving away from the British in the Cape started in 1836 -- leading to the founding of the Republic of Natal in 1838 and the Orange Free State in 1854. Britain took Natal from the Boers in 1843. The Transvaal was recognized as an independent state by the British in 1852 and the Cape Colony was granted self-government in 1872. Zulu War and two Anglo-Boer wars followed, and the country was unified under British dominion in 1910. Independence for white minority rule came in 1934. In 1958 Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, the Prime Minister, introduced the Grand Apartheid policy. The African National Congress, formed in 1912, finally came into power in 1994 when the first multiracial, multiparty elections were held.

The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Empire. From complex beginnings, the war is notable for several particularly bloody battles, as well as for being a landmark in the timeline of colonialism in the region. The war ended the Zulu nation's independence.

The boundary was beaconed in 1864, but when in 1865 Umtonga fled from Zululand to Natal, Cetshwayo, seeing that he had lost his part of the bargain (for he feared that Umtonga might be used to supplant him, as Mpande had been used to supplant Dingane), caused the beacon to be removed, and also claimed the land ceded by the Swazis to Lydenburg. The Zulus asserted that the Swazis were their vassals and therefore had no right to part with this territory. During the year a Boer commando under Paul Kruger and an army under Cetshwayo were posted to defend the newly acquired Utrecht border. The Zulu forces took back their land north of the Pongola. Questions were also raised as to the validity of the documents signed by the Zulus concerning the Utrecht strip; in 1869 the services of the lieutenant-governor of Natal were accepted by both parties as arbitrator, but the attempt then made to settle disagreements proved unsuccessful. Photograph of Cetshwayo, c. 1875

Such was the political background when Cetshwayo became absolute ruler of the Zulus upon his father's death in 1873. As ruler, Cetshwayo set about reviving the military methods of his uncle Shaka as far as possible, and even succeeded in equipping his regiments with firearms[2]. It is believed that he caused the Xhosa people in the Transkei to revolt, and he aided Sikukuni in his struggle with the Transvaal. The activities of the missionaries were unwelcome to Cetshwayo. Though he did not harm the missionaries themselves, several converts were killed. The missionaries, for their part, were a source of hostile reports.[3] For example, Bishop Schreuder (of the Norwegian Missionary Society) described Cetshwayo as "an able man, but for cold, selfish pride, cruelty and untruthfulness, worse than any of his predecessors."[citation needed]

In 1874 Lord Carnarvon, who had successfully brought about federation in Canada, thought that a similar scheme might work in South Africa. Sir Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as high commissioner to bring it about. One of the obstacles to such a scheme was the presence of the independent states of the South African Republic and the Kingdom of Zululand.

In September 1876 the massacre of a large number of girls (who had married men of their own age instead of men from an older regiment, as ordered by Cetshwayo) provoked a strong protest from the government of Natal, and the occupying governments were usually inclined to look patronisingly upon the affairs of the subjugated African nations. The tension between Cetshwayo and the Transvaal over border disputes continued. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, whom Cetshwayo regarded as his friend, had supported him in the border dispute, but in 1877 he led a small force into the Transvaal and persuaded the Boers to give up their independence. Shepstone became administrator of the Transvaal, and in that role saw the border dispute from the other side.

In the 1700s most slaves had been transported from Africa across the Atlantic on British-owned ships. In Britain a moral crusade against the slave trade was aided by greater literacy and printing, and Britain's parliament passed a law in 1807 against international slave trading.

Denmark also made trading in slaves illegal, and in 1808 the United States joined in, forbidding its citizens to partake in the international slave trade. Sweden followed suit. The Dutch, whose sea captains had also engaged in transporting slaves from Africa, did the same. At the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, participating nations agreed that the slave trade should be abolished as soon as possible. That year the Portuguese outlawed slave trading north of the equator. In 1815, British warships began patrolling off the Atlantic coast of western Africa, performing what was seen as a moral duty, seizing ships suspected of engaging in the slave trade, no matter what flag the suspect ship was flying. In 1817 the French, again, after lapsing on the prohibition of a slave trading in the 1790s, joined the moral crusade. And in 1823, Portugal extended its prohibition on slave trading below the equator.

Plantation owners in the Americas and Africa continued to see slavery as an economic necessity, but in some instances it was economics that was diminishing the slave trade. In the 1700s the sugar industry had been expanding, with slaves doing the hard work in sugar production, but by the early 1800s a greater production and an increased supply without an equal increase in consumption of sugar dropped its market price and took a lot of the profit out of sugar growing. Growers were reneging on their loans. Bankers in Britain lost interest in investing in the sugar industry and in the selling of slaves. Instead they were investing in manufacturing and in the trade of goods related to manufacturing. Investors were becoming more interested in modern manufacturing and related commerce than they were in agriculture. Slavery was not growing with manufacturing. Hiring workers was cheaper than buying and maintaining slaves. Hired workers did not run-away and they did resort to the kind of bloody revolts that had recently occurred in Haiti.

Muhammad Ali was an Albanian Muslim, around thirty at the turn of the century, when he fought as an officer in the Ottoman army against Napoleon's army in Egypt. Following the British defeat of the French in Egypt, the Ottoman Sultan, Salim III, left Muhammad Ali in charge of Egypt and made him a pasha - an honorary title for military and civil commanders. Muhammad was an able organizer and soldier, and in 1807, with some assistance from the French, Muhammad Ali Pasha drove the British out of Egypt, wounding their pride.

In 1811, Muhammad Ali Pasha moved against those independent landed warlords in Egypt called Mamelukes, and he systematically exterminated them. Sultan Salim III, meanwhile had been strangled, and Salim's successors summoned Muhammad Ali Pasha to war against the Wahhabi (wahabi) -- a political and religious force across the Red Sea in Arabia. The Ottoman sultan deemed the Wahhabi heretics. They were in power in all of Arabia except Yemen, and by 1818 Muhammad Ali Pasha drove them from Arabia's most significant region for Muslims, the Hejaz.

Muhammad Ali Pasha had built a modern and professional military modeled on European standards. He was interested in modernization and developed a modern civil service, schools and public works. He sent young people from Egypt's elite to study abroad. He tried to advance Egypt's economy, to replace subsistence cultivation with the production of crops that could be sold. He employed European hydraulic engineers to build irrigation works with steam-driven pumps for pumping water in the drier summer months. Under Muhammad Ali Pasha, one million acres would be added to Egypt's farmland. Cotton growing would increase -- the cotton sold mainly to Britain, whose purchases of cotton from Egypt would rise from 50 million pounds in 1800 to 300 million in 1830. The growing of summer rice and corn, along with winter wheat and barley, and sugar, tobacco and indigo also increased. His projects were paid for by revenues from taxing Egypt's illiterate peasants -- ninety percent of Egypt's population -- whom he forced to labor on his projects, whom he conscripted into his army and whom he despised as barbarians. And peasant revolts he crushed with brutality.

In search of slaves for his army to offset losses of men in Arabia, and in search of gold, Muhammad Ali Pasha, in 1820, sent his army, led by his son, Ismail, southward into the Sudan. Ismail fought the Shakiyya people, a people with horses and a warrior tradition but still with weaponry from the Middle Ages. The Shakiyya were slaughtered, their ears sent to Egypt's capital, Cairo, by the basketful in exchange for bounty payments. Moving farther up the Nile, Ismail, in June 1821, conquered the trading center at Shendi -- where slaves had been a major item of commerce.

After Shendi, Ismail conquered Kordofan. But he found only worn out gold mines. The gold and booty that Muhammad had been hoping for would not be forthcoming. Slaves were shipped to Cairo, but only half survived the journey.

Ismail established himself at Shendi and pursued tax collection. Many people scattered, putting distance between themselves and Egypt's tax agents. Others revolted against Ismail, and, in October 1822, Ismail was assassinated. Muhammad Ali's army retaliated, burning, slaughtering and enslaving, leaving villages gutted and depopulated. By 1825, Egyptians were trying to lure people back from the hills, promising them they would not be taxed. -- for three years, at any rate. People returned to their fields. To maintain their good will, Egypt put tight controls on its occupation forces, to prevent abuses by soldiers. And those who had been local rulers they made subordinate rulers -- as conquerors had been doing for ages.

The area that was to be called the Egyptian Sudan returned to peace -- better for revenues through taxation, which began three years after the refugees returned. From Egypt, people were sent to the Sudan to improve irrigation, advance agriculture and improve pest control. New crops were successfully planted: indigo, sugar cane and fruit trees. The city of Khartoum was built as a seat for Egypt's governors. And the harvesting of slaves continued, with annual raids into the hills of Kordofan and against the Dinka and Shilluk.

France's most extensive trading with Africa had been its importations of food from the coastal region of Algeria, a wheat-producing area with a population of only around 50,000. The French had bought wheat from Algeria during the French Revolution, and in the 1820s they were still refusing to pay for it. In 1827, a French envoy in Algiers told the governor of Algeria that France still had no intention of honoring its debt to Algeria, and, it is said, the governor struck the envoy with a fly swatter and threatened to end permission for France to continue trading in Algeria. France's monarch, Charles X, in June 1830, sent an invasion force of 36,000 troops to Algeria, claiming that he was responding to the insult to his ambassador. The invasion was also described as a civilizing mission and a mission to abolish slavery and piracy -- a response to Algeria's reputation in France for having attacked the ships of Christian nations during past centuries and for an estimated 25,000 European slaves in Algeria, including women in the harems.

The French force landed twenty-seven kilometers west of Algiers, and soon they raped, looted, and were desecrating Mosques. The commander of the invasion force, General Bugeaud, wrote:

We have burned extensively and destroyed extensively. It may be that I shall be called a barbarian, but as I have the conviction that I have done something useful for my country, I consider myself above the reproaches of the press.

Algiers capitulated on July 5, but the glory of conquest failed to help King Charles. By the end of the month he was fleeing into exile to England.

For strategic reasons, Britain had allied itself with the Ottoman Empire, the British and Ottomans having a common fear of Russia. And with this alliance the British won the right to trade freely in Egypt. Egypt's viceroy, Muhammad Ali Pasha, was obliged to abolish his protective tariffs. His efforts at industrialization, built on protective tariffs, ended. The aging Ali gave up on economic reform, and his interest in educational reform lapsed. The great conqueror became ill in 1848 and retired, passing his rule in Egypt and the Sudan to his son, Ibrahim.

From Egypt's administrative center in the Sudan, Khartoum, across approximately 500 miles (800 kilometers) of desert, was Darfur, which had often been raided for slaves by the Egyptians. Some such slaves were transported across the Red Sea for labor on an expanded pilgrimage site at Mecca, while others were put on ships bound for Constantinople (Istanbul) and Izmir.

West of Darfur was Wadai (Oaddai), a place with a little water and a center of trade in slaves, cattle, horses, corn and honey. There an Islamic movement called the Senussi (also Sanusi or Sanusiya) brotherhood was established, a movement whose founder, Muhammad bin Ali al-Sanusi, was from Algeria. The founder was concerned with Islam's decline in power and influence. In Arabia he had met and had associated with Wahhabi Islamists, and at Mecca he had won the support of prince Mohammad Sherif of Wadai, who had become Sultan of Wadai in 1838.

Around 2000 miles to the northwest, across more desert, the French in Algeria were consolidating their authority. In 1840, 115,000 more French soldiers arrived. France's Minister of War, General Gérard, announced that Algeria was necessary to France as an "outlet for our surplus population" and for selling manufactured products in exchange for agricultural products needed in France. And with the hard times in Europe in the 1840s the trickle of French settlers into Algeria increased.

Bordering Algeria to the west was Morocco. For centuries the Moroccans had succeeded in fighting off foreign rule, including that of the Ottoman Turks, but in the1800s the shift in military might to the favor of Europeans gave the Moroccan sultan a sense of vulnerability. The sultan, Moulay Abderramane, wanted modernization for his realm, and he wanted peace and trade with Europe as a part of that modernization. But the sultan also had opinion in Morocco to consider, and an occasional tribal uprising to suppress. The Muslims of Morocco were supporting their Muslims brothers in Algeria, who were fighting a jihad against the Christian French, and the Sultan could not refrain from at least looking like he was supporting the Muslims of Algeria.

The French drove a resistance leader, Abd al-Qadir, into Morocco, and the sultan gave public support to this Islamic hero. War broke out between France and Morocco in August 1844. The French bombarded Tangier and Essaouira -- the bombardment of Essaouira accompanied by the withdrawal of Moroccan troops and followed by pillaging by the Haha and Chiadma tribes. Near Oujda, the French routed the Moroccan army, led by the Sultan's son. Then, in September, came the Treaty of Tangier. The French were having enough trouble in Algeria and wanted peace with Morocco. They gave Oujda back to the sultan in exchange for agreement of a definite border between Morocco and Algeria. The French demanded no indemnity but demanded that the sultan declare Abd al-Qadir an outlaw.

Sensing the new weakness of Morocco, Spain declared war against Morocco in 1859. The Spanish occupied Tétouan and made peace, and in the settlement they won an expansion of territory in Morocco, including another enclave, at Ifni on the Atlantic coast. It was more of an on-going onion-like peeling away of Moroccan territory by European powers.

In the 1700s in the western Sudan -- an area of grasslands and woodlands below the Sahara Desert -- Islam had been spreading. Herdsmen resented paying taxes to agricultural kingdoms and they had been converting to Islam, which gave the isolated herdsmen a sense of strength and of belonging to something great. In the highlands of Futa Jalon and Futa Toro, Muslim herdsmen rebelled, took power away from non-Muslim chieftains and began building mosques, establishing Islam law and building feudal-like confederations. And in the early 1800s, Muslim empires arose around Hausaland and Masina.

In Hausaland in 1804, Muslim herdsmen went on jihadsagainst non-Muslim Hausa chiefdoms. The Hausa chiefs and aristocrats had been annoying their peasants and the peasants had been giving them little support. The Hausa chiefs had also been weakened by disunity. One Hausa chief sent his cavalry against the Muslims, but to no avail. The Muslims gained power in the region and built a new capital for themselves at Sokoto.

Among the Muslims at Sokoto an elite ruled with a combination of military and religious authority. Campaigns of expansion were launched, and by 1817, the Muslims had built an empire -- the Sokoto Empire -- more than five hundred miles (800 kilometers) from west to east and as far south as Kontagora. An attempt was made to expand eastward into the Bornu region, a region that had already been under the control of Muslims. Muslims warred against Muslims, and the expansion failed.

Literacy increased under the Muslims. The caliph of the Sokoto Empire from 1817 to 1837 was Muhammad Bello, who wrote tracts on science, law, morality, history and Islamic doctrine. He attempted to rule in accordance with Islamic law: the Sharia. Sokoto became a center where Islamic scholarship flourished. And, with Bello, military campaigns continued -- more than fifty in his twenty years of rule -- campaigns of expansion or campaigns against rebellion. He sought to limit excesses committed by his troops and to limit greed-inspired corruption among officials.

By Muhammad Bello's death in 1837 the Sokoto Empire included an area south and west of Raba and the Adamawa region -- an empire of around ten million people. A Muslim elite was ruling over peasants as had the Hausa aristocracy. Trade flourished, with Kano as a major market center. Slaves were employed in agriculture and as domestics, and in the Adamawa region some landowners had more than a thousand slaves.

West of the Sokoto Empire, the Masina Empire had arisen after conflict in the 1700s between Muslim herdsmen and Masina overlords. By the early 1800s, Masina had its own Muslim overlords. A Muslim named Seku Ahmadu Lobboe was opposed to the mixing of animism and Islam tolerated by these overlords, and, in either 1810 or 1818 (a disputed date), he led a jihad against what were called satanic factions. He overran various chiefdoms, taking power in Jenne and gaining a measure of control over Timbuktu. He led a council of forty that was opposed to the use of alcohol or tobacco and opposed to dancing -- prohibitions not welcomed by many, especially in urban centers.

Freetown had been a British colony since 1808. The British navy was using it as a base for their patrols along Africa's coastline, and there freed slaves from British territory in the Caribbean were settled. The first of them -- around 400 -- had arrived in 1787, and they had been expected to support themselves by farming, but many had turned to trade. Since1815, Freetown was a center for slaves rescued from slave ships by the British navy. Hundreds of ships hauling slaves were seized, while some got through, taking slaves to be sold to sugar planters in Cuba and Brazil.

British merchants were pursuing legitimate trade along Africa's Atlantic Coast. From Senegal, the British were acquiring a hardened resin of the Acacia tree, used for dyes in its textile factories. They were acquiring groundnuts from Guinea, gold from Asante and palm oil, the latter harvested on African-owned plantations using slave labor. Palm oil was Africa's foremost export to the Europeans, the oil used by the Europeans for lubricating their machines.

In 1824, forces from Asante overran a British force along the Gold Coast, putting Britain control of the forts in decline there for a few years. In 1827, the British took over administration of the island of Fernando Po (between the Niger River delta and Spanish Guinea) with Spain's approval -- a Spanish attempt to develop the island having failed.

In 1820 the United States dispatched four ships to patrol the coast of Africa in cooperation with the British.

In 1822, freed blacks from the United States arrived in western Africa, their voyage paid for by the American Colonization Society. The society's stated purpose was for the freed blacks to start a new life in Africa, safe from discrimination and persecution. The refugees were put ashore at a spot named Liberia -- associated with the word liberty. The new colony suffered from poor administration, and the refugees had to defend themselves from attacks by local people resenting their intrusion.

In 1824, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling undercut efforts at intercepting slave ships, and the U.S. campaign off the coast of Africa ended.

In 1847 Liberia became an independent republic. The Liberians were trading in palm oil, coffee, ivory and camwood (used as a red dye). Some integration with people around Liberia had taken place, with the original migrants from the United States and their descendants dominating the economy and intellectual life of the new country.

In the 1700s, Britain and France had been in conflict over the coastal colony of Senegal, with British rule at the town of St. Louis a disturbance to Catholics there. Then in 1814 the Treaty of Paris returned Senegal to the French. Thereafter, the largely mixed-race people of the colony continued to acquire French culture, including liberalism of the Enlightenment tradition. France tried to exploit its colony by encouraging the growth of agricultural products desired in France, but its agricultural program in Senegal failed -- a failure that has been blamed on mismanagement. France monopolized trade into and out of Senegal, and until 1817 slaves were openly shipped from Senegal across the Atlantic.And from Yao traders on Africa's east coast the French were acquiring slaves for their plantations on the islands of Mauritius and Reunion (east of Madagascar). After 1817, when France joined other nations in abolishing international slave trading, slaves were sneaked out of Africa, including attempts to run past the British navy on the Atlantic coast.

France's government cooperated with the British in trying to suppress the slave trade. Slaves taken from a ship off the coast of Angola were given sanctuary on the coastal island of Gorée, formerly the largest slave trading post on the Atlantic, halfway between the mouth of the Senegal River and Gambia. After three years on Gorée, these freed slaves were settled at a French trading station that had been founded in 1843, just south of Spanish Guinea, at a timber exporting point, which, in 1848, was given the name Libreville (French for Freetown).

Across greater western Africa, slavery remained a major activity. The production of palm oil was rising, and the demand for palm oil was creating wars among Africans around the southern portion of the Niger River. The Oyo empire, weakened by civil wars, became a source of slaves for its neighbors, and slaves from Oyo and Igbo were exported from Bonny and Brass despite patrolling British gunships. The British began extending their power up the Niger River, amid the divided and warring peoples, to eliminated the Ijo middlemen in palm oil trade and to trade directly with the Igbo. And in 1851 the British navy occupied Lagos in an effort to shut down the slave market there.

From the Portuguese controlled west coast of southern Africa, Angola, the exportation of slaves ended around 1850. Inland from the coastal town of Benguela, the Ovimbundu (Umbundu) people lost business with the decline in the slave trade, but they remained successful organizers of trading caravans and a link between the Portuguese on the coast and Chokwe suppliers of goods from farther inland. Their success in trading and their possession of guns gave them economic superiority and prestige over some other tribes in the area. The Portuguese found them friendly -- as good traders are -- and many Ovimbundu readily acquired aspects of western culture, while keeping their religious traditions.

The Chokwe had changed from full-time hunting for game to searching also for ivory and beeswax with which to trade. They had acquired firearms and had used their guns against those they had come across who were not so well armed. The Chokwe strengthened their communities by capturing women, whom they put to work growing food and processing beeswax. The Chokwe moved farther inland to the northeast, where they were able to take advantage of local displeasure with Lunda kings, who were taxing villages heavily and taking as taxes a quota in slaves. The Chokwe absorbed the western portion of the crumbling Lunda empire

Back toward the center-south of Africa in the mid-1800s, those called Bisa became participants in the trading of goods that passed through the Lunda people at Bunkeya and then to the east coast. Lunda chieftains took a cut in the Bisa trader's profits by customs dues, and they obliged the Bisa to pay them tribute. The Bisa were also subjected to raids from the Bemba to their north, who had acquired firearms.

With the newly acquired power that came with guns, a Bemba chieftain created a greater unity among the Bemba and, in 1856, he was able to fend off an attack by the Ngoni, from the south.

In the 1860s, on an extension of the Congo River called the Lubala, around Nyangwe and Kasongo, another trading power with guns arose. This was a federation ruled by Hamed bin Muhammed, commonly known as Tippu Tip, a man of mixed Arab and black African descent. The federation engaged in a variety of activities, including hunting in the forest and raiding surrounding villages. They captured women for concubines and men and women to work their plantations of sugar cane, rice and maize. And they used captives as porters in their trade eastward, through Ujiji and Tabora, to Zanzibar. Tippu Tip did much to destroy the Songye towns of the upper Lualaba River, and he weakened the Luba empire to his south. His empire stretched from the Luba, in the south, northward to where the Congo River turned westward.

In the early 1800s a great social disruption appeared in the southeast of Africa, south of the Limpopo River. This was an area relatively free of disease, an area largely of grassland and sparse forest, good for farming and cattle raising. It was an area, as elsewhere in Africa's southeast, where Bantu people, across the centuries, had come -- tribes with different dialects of a common Bantu language. It was an area that had been sparsely populated by farmers and herdsmen. There had been occasional raiding or fighting over cattle grazing rights, with a warfare that had been recreational and without much bloodshed. Warriors on opposing sides had squared off, shouted insults at each other while their women watched from the sidelines and shouted encouragement. A few prisoners might be taken, followed by negotiations for prisoner returns and reparations payments in cattle. Then in the early 1800s this changed. An increase in population intensified competition for land. Larger groupings emerged for the sake of waging bigger wars, and wars became more intense.

A military leader and ruler emerged among the Zulu who was to remain famous into the twenty-first century among people interested in Africa. His name was Shaka. He was the son of a Zulu chieftain, Senzangahona, and of a woman not recognized as one of the chieftain's legitimate wives. Shaka's mother was driven into exile, and she took her little son, Shaka, with her. When Shaka was fifteen he and his mother were driven away again, and they found shelter in another clan. When Shaka was twenty-three, he was called into service by a chieftain named Dingiswayo, leader of one of the three strong federations that had emerged in Zululand, and Shaka's bravery won Dingiswayo's attention. Dingiswayo adopted Shaka as a son.

Shaka's real father died in 1816, when Shaka was twenty-nine, and Dingiswayo supported Shaka to succeed his father as a chieftain. Shaka employed a half-brother to assassinate the legitimate heir, another half brother.

As chieftain -- under Dingiswayo as overlord -- Shaka reorganized his military, advancing their weaponry from light spears for tossing at one's enemy to heavy stabbing spears for hand-to-hand fighting. And his warriors were trained to fight as a unit rather than as individuals, in a formation similar to Alexander the Great's phalanx, with shields of cowhide to protect against thrown spears.

In 1818, Dingiswayo fought a war against one of the other two federations in Zululand: the Ndwandwe in Zululand's far north. Dingiswayo was routed and killed. Shaka had not participated in the war, and he was now without an overlord. He added what had been Dingiswayo's army to his own, and he led his army against the Ndwandwe. The Ndwandwe force was greater in number, but Shaka's force was better at warfare, and Shaka shattered the Ndwandwe. The Ndwandwe scattered, migrating northward, leaving Shaka as overlord in the whole of Zululand.

In the wake of his great victory, Shaka consolidated his rule, putting to death a recalcitrant chief and his close relatives. All of Zululand was organized. Youth from all of Zululand were to serve in Shaka's army. From around 1821, young women were recruited into guilds for national service. Girls in the hundreds were distributed by "Father Shaka" as wives.

Shaka had created the most powerful African kingdom in the southeast of Africa, and it was a source of pride for the Zulu. But his manner of rule annoyed some of the Zulu, and three of his commanders fled, taking their regiments with them. One of the commanders founded his own kingdom in Gazaland. Other Zulus fleeing Shaka created what was to become known as Swaziland. Zulus fled as far north as Lake Malawi and eastward to Bechuana.

Shaka's raids for cattle and what else he could find sent neighboring non-Zulus fleeing, leaving areas depopulated. These were known as the Time of Troubles. Southwest of Zululand, in mountainous Basutoland, an able leader, Moshoeshoe, used guns, cavalry and diplomacy to fend off the Zulu, and he built up his nation, uniting a diverse people uprooted by war.

It was Shaka's aim, it is said, to rule all Africans, and warfare continued as Shaka expanded his empire. In 1824, two officers in Britain's Royal Navy arrived with a few English adventures at Natal, south of Zululand, hoping to create a settlement. Shaka was curious and befriended them, winning their support for his wars of conquest, Shaka in return recognizing Britain's occupation of land at Natal.

While on a hunt with the British, Shaka learned that his mother lay dying. In grief and in reverence to his mother he ordered several men executed, but his order was carried out chaotically and it is said that more than 7,000 were killed. The Zulu were becoming tired of constant warfare and all the bloodshed, and Shaka appeared to be losing touch with reality. On September 22nd, 1828, Shaka was stabbed to death by various half-bothers, and one them, Dingane (or Dingaan), replaced Shaka as ruler of Zululand.

The British had taken Cape Colony from the Dutch East India Company while the Netherlands was ruled by Napoleon, a British squadron of ships landing 6000 men and routing the local Dutch in 1806. The British used the Cape Colony for provisioning its ships involved in tea and other trading with India and points beyond. They won recognition as possessing the colony at the Congress of Vienna at the close of the Napoleonic wars, the British agreeing to pay six million sterling for it and a part of Guiana in South America, which had been owned by the Dutch West India Company.

The Cape Colony consisted of around 26,000 Europeans -- mainly Dutch Boers - 30,000 slaves, 20,000 of mixed race and some Khoikhoi (Hottentots). The British were uncomfortable with the slavery that came with the colony, Britain having outlawed the slave trade but not slavery itself. They tried to establish a rule of law, including law that protected slaves from abuse. They encouraged the Boers to give up their slaves and they taxed them, and the Boers looked upon the British authorities as oppressive.

In June 1820, more than two thousands migrants arrived from Britain -- 1610 men and 659 women.- looking for land to acquire, land that was made available by Boers moving just beyond the colony to escape the British. In the coming few years the new colonists were to communicate their disappointment with farming to people back in Britain, discouraging further migration for the purpose of farming.

In 1833, Britain's parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, to be applied in all of the lands they controlled, set to take effect in August, 1834. In 1835 the British began emancipating slaves in the West Indies and in the Cape Colony. Boers in Cape Colony disliked it, and in 1836 from 10,000 to 14,000 Boers began what was to be known as their Great Trek, away from British rule and for new lands to occupy. The Xhosa were blocking their movement eastward, and the Boers moved instead in a northern and eastern direction, on horseback and in covered wagons pulled by oxen, taking their slaves with them, and their rifles and their one book -- the Bible. They were libertarian, slave master, militiamen, pioneer and patriarchal Biblical fundamentalist rolled into one. They believed in their own version of ad hoc justice, and they believed that whatever land they could take, by violence if necessary, should be theirs.

The Boers by-passed Basutoland, in the Drakensburg Mountains, and made allies with the Rolong, who welcomed them as allies against the Ndebele (Matabele). The Ndebele were warrior-refugees from Zululand and Shaka's wars, and they had been rapacious in claiming new territory for themselves, but the Boers were too much for them. At the Battle of Vegkop, in October 1836, the Boers overpowered the Ndebele. They fought the Ndebele again in late 1837, defeating them decisively, the Ndebele losing an estimated 3,000 and the Boers losing none. The Ndebele retreated northward, and by around 1840 they settled in Matabeleland, on the Zimbabwe plateau, leaving what became known as the Transvaal to the Boers.

Boers also moved eastward, across the Drakensburg Mountains toward the Zulus and Natal. The Zulus attacked, and in December 1838 the Boers counterattacked, their force of 500 routing the Zulus. The River Ncome was renamed Blood River for having turned red with the blood of Zulus. The Zulu dead has been estimated at 3000. The leader of the Zulus, Dingane (Shaka's successor) lost prestige. Some followers of Dingane moved their support to his brother, Mpande. Mpande collaborated with the Boers and in 1839 defeated a force led by Dingane. In January 1840, Mpande unseated Dingane, who fled to Swaziland, where he was murdered. Zulu resistance to the Boer had ended, and the Zulus evacuated all territory west and south of the Tugela River.

In 1842, British troops occupied Natal, and the British annexed the port in 1843 and made it a dependency of Cape Colony. A British company started cotton growing near Natal -- the Natal Cotton Company -- and one of the company's directors went to Germany in search of settlers. Economically these were hard times in Europe, and in Lower Saxony he found Germans willing to plant cotton for the company. In 1847 the colonists settled in what was called "New Germany" just outside Port Natal, but their attempt to grow cotton failed. Some of the Germans began supplying vegetables to the growing town of Natal. The Natal Cotton Company disbanded and many of the settlers moved inland, forty miles from the coast, to Pietermaritzburg, a town that had been founded by the Boers in 1838.

Boers, meanwhile, were in conflict with blacks called Griqua, just north of Cape Colony. The British intervened and declared the area a dependency of Cape Colony.

In December 1847, the governor of Cape Colony, Harry Smith, proclaimed the southern bank of the Orange River as the Cape Colony's northern boundary. The number of whites at Cape Colony was nearing 140,000, and by 1850 the colony was suffering from a need of skilled labor: bricklayers, printers, carpenters, dressmakers and gardeners.

In 1852, in what is called the Sand River Convention, the British recognized Boer independence, or right to administer their own affairs, beyond the Cape Colony's border, with the caveat that the Boers end slavery.

The Boers were still fighting what were called Kaffir wars -- Kaffir a word used by the Boers for blacks. And, in 1856, war erupted between the Boers and the able leader, Moshoeshoe, of Basutoland, the Boers having made incursions against Basutoland.

The Boers were also making incursions against the Xhosa and the Thembu, just east of Cape Colony. The Xhosa were suffering from diminishing herds, and in 1856 they responded to the hardship the way that Jews had around the time of Christ and as Plains Indians soon would in North America:the Xhosa adopted an apocalyptic prophesy. A girl, it is said, had a vision while fetching water. Drawing from the prophesy the Xhosa sacrificed all their cattle and refrained from sowing grain. This, they believed, would bring their ancestors back from the dead, would sweep whites and doubters into the sea and leave them free from warfare and loss of land. The Xhosa starved, and they dispersed, looking for food and employment, and Boers increased their expansion against their land.

A 27-year-old ordained Scottish minister and member of the London Missionary Society, David Livingston, arrived at Cape Colony in 1841. He wished to convert Africans to Christianity, to oppose slavery and to enlist Great Britain in his crusade. In 1843 he married the daughter of a British missionary in Africa, and he spent a few years in Bechuana, learning languages and customs. In June1849, he started a trek northward with his wife and two children, two other explorers and African guides. In 1851 he reached the Zambezi River, and in April 1852 he returned to Capetown and sent his family to England to recover from the rigors of their travel.

Livingston was unpopular at Capetown. He was believed to be too sympathetic with blacks and to have sold them guns, and he returned to his travels unable to buy ammunition for his own weapon. He journeyed northward to the Zambezi again, then to Lake Dilolo in February 1854, and on to Luanda, on the Atlantic Coast at the end of May. He returned to the Zambezi River and in November 1855 found the great waterfalls, Musi-o-Tunya, which he named after Britain's queen, Victoria. On May 20, 1856, he arrived on the east coast, near the mouth of the Zambezi, and he returned to England where he was celebrated as a hero.

The monsoon winds to the southwest, between June and October, made easy sailing for traders from Oman along the eastern coast of Africa, and an easy return voyage in the opposite direction in the monsoons of December to April. Salalah was one of the ports for travel to and from the African coast, and it was Oman that had come to dominate the coast politically.

In 1804, after murdering his father's cousin, Badar bin Seif, Seyyid Said became the Sultan of Oman. He took the title "Seyyid," replacing his former title, "Imam," and his wife took the title "Seyyida. And after consolidating his power in Oman, Seyyid Said moved against members of a clan from Oman, the Mazrui, who lately had been exercising power independently at Mombasa. While Seyyid Said's navy was bombarding Mombasa's Fort Jesus, a British ship docked at Mombasa and threw its support to the Mazrui, hoping that Britain could establish a base at Mombasa and improve its opposition to the slave trade in the region. A contingent from the ship planted the British flag and declared Mombasa an English protectorate, but, in 1826, Said obliged the British to withdraw.

Said was encouraging Arabs in eastern Africa to enlarge their clove plantations on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba -- plantations worked by slave labor. In 1837 he defeated the Mazrui in Mombasa, and, in 1840 he moved the center of his rule to the coastal island of Zanzibar, 150 miles (240 km) to the south.

Zanzibar was a center of trade: slaves and ivory from Africa's interior and spices from the island to the mainland. Said pursued friendly relations with traders in the interior. He exploited rivalries between tribes, encouraging stronger chiefdoms to conquer their weaker neighbors and sell them into slavery. He increased the size of the caravans from the coast, and, as a result of his endeavors, Arabic trading centers developed at Tabora and at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, which served as staging areas for deeper penetration and to Buganda beginning in 1844. Said was growing richer from his trading in ivory and slaves. Then in 1847, to stay on the good side of the British, Seyyid Said agreed to end his trading in slaves. But Seyyid Said continued doing well, becoming the world's foremost exporter of cloves, ivory and gum-copal.

Said encouraged the immigration of bankers from India to Zanzibar, and the Indians were granted religious toleration. Indians became dominant in Said's financial and customs administrations, while Arabs dominated his military. Cultural differences created tensions between the Indians and Arabs, but they tolerated each other enough for peace and the functioning of authority.

Tension also existed between people in Oman and those in Zanzibar. Omani women thought women in Zanzibar uncivilized. Members of the royal family in Oman thought themselves of higher rank than their kin in Africa, and they viewed speaking a language other than Arabic as proof of barbarity. [note]

A comment by Princess Salme, one of the daughters of Sultan Seyyid Said, quoted by Abdul Sheriff in Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar.

The people called Kokolo (Makololo) had been driven away by Shaka in the early 1820s and were on the run, until the 1830s when they moved with their cattle into territory that had belonged to the Lozi, along the upper Zambezi River. They were aggressive and militarily superior to the Lozi, and they conquered the Lozi. And Like other conquerors they kept local political relations in place, becoming overloads, while some of Lozi royalty fled northward. They taxed the Lozi, turned some into agricultural slaves and sold others to slave traders in exchange for more guns. Lozi society became more cattle oriented, and the Kokolo went on regular cattle raids against the Ila people to their east.

The Kololo were less successful at suppressing subversion than the Spartans had been. Lozi royalty sneaked back and in 1864 led an uprising against the oppression, an uprising that annihilated or scattered the Kokolo. Elements of the Kokolo language, Sikololo, and cattle raising remained with the Lozi.

The Ndebele, who were driven northward by the Boers, settled on the Zimbabwe plateau in the 1840s. There, with their Zulu-style regiments and fighting methods, they overran peoples called Sotho and Shona -- the latter already weakened by attacks by the Ngoni from north of the Zambezi River. The Ndebele expected tribute (taxes) from those they had overrun, and they raided those who were late in payment.

To the north of the Zimbabwe Plateau, along the Zambezi River in Portuguese East Africa, were the Prazeros and their slave-soldiers. The Prazeros were mainly black but proud of their mixed Portuguese heritage. They were estate owners and overlords, expecting subordinate farmers to support them and their armies. With the decline of the Maravi Empire in the 1700s the Prazeros had gained control over the ivory trade, and in the mid-1800s, well-armed with guns and without powerful state to oppose them, they extended their hunting and raiding 300 miles (480 km) inland from the coast.

On the east coast, in a land called Ethiopia, Christian emperors, in their stone and mortar palace at Gondar, had been declining in power. They lived by taxing people around Gondar and surrounded themselves with court ceremonies and called themselves King of Kings, but they had little more than nominal power elsewhere in what is called Ethiopia, where warlords ruled.

The warlords received favors from local folk. A visit to a village by a warlord was an occasion for the village people to show their respect, done with a celebration and feasting. And the warlord received gifts -- perhaps oxen for plowing the warlord's land, or sheep, goats, butter, honey or some other goods, usually following the warlords announcement of some need, such as paying for a military campaign, marrying another woman or his loss of personal property.

Gondar was where three caravan routes intersected, all of them to an from Muslim controlled territories, with trade in Gondar controlled largely by Muslim merchants. From the northwest and northeast came textiles and various manufactured goods, including guns. From the south came gold, ivory and slaves. Gondar had a Muslim district and a larger Orthodox Christian district. Roman Catholicism, the religion of a few racially mixed descendants of Portuguese and Ethiopians had been suppressed in the 1600s, and, however many Roman Catholics there now were in Gondar, they practiced their faith in secret.

Living outside the city to the northwest, in small dusty villages, were the Qemants, who worked at growing food and also sold timber and firewood to people in Gondar. Their religion contained elements of the religion of the ancient Hebrews and animism.

Between Gondar and Massawa, a greater power than Gondar had arisen. This was Tegray, under the warlord Dajazmach Webé Hayla Maryam (1799-1867), who had ruled since 1835. Tegray had long controlled the salt trade in the region, and, with greater access to the coast than Gondar, Tegray had acquired a larger stock of firearms. Webé considered himself ruler of the Red Sea coast and was disturbed by the extension of Ottoman power to Massawa. Realizing that his power was not great enough to keep Muslim armies from Massawa, he begged the British for assistance, writing letters to Queen Victoria. But help from Britain was not forthcoming. So he turned to the French for help.

Here is Mandela's statement at Rivonia:
I am the First Accused.
I hold a Bachelor`s Degree in Arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961.
At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.
In my youth in the Transkei I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case.
Having said this, I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.
I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.
In the statement which I am about to make I shall correct certain false impressions which have been created by State witnesses. Amongst other things, I will demonstrate that certain of the acts referred to in the evidence were not and could not have been committed by Umkhonto. I will also deal with the relationship between the African National Congress and Umkhonto, and with the part which I personally have played in the affairs of both organizations. I shall deal also with the part played by the Communist Party. In order to explain these matters properly, I will have to explain what Umkhonto set out to achieve; what methods it prescribed for the achievement of these objects, and why these methods were chosen. I will also have to explain how I became involved in the activities of these organizations.
I deny that Umkhonto was responsible for a number of acts which clearly fell outside the policy of the organisation, and which have been charged in the indictment against us. I do not know what justification there was for these acts, but to demonstrate that they could not have been authorized by Umkhonto, I want to refer briefly to the roots and policy of the organization.
I have already mentioned that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto. I, and the others who started the organization, did so for two reasons. Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war. Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.
But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed Umkhonto were all members of the African National Congress, and had behind us the ANC tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group, be it black or white. We did not want an interracial war, and tried to avoid it to the last minute. If the Court is in doubt about this, it will be seen that the whole history of our organization bears out what I have said, and what I will subsequently say, when I describe the tactics which Umkhonto decided to adopt. I want, therefore, to say something about the African National Congress.
The African National Congress was formed in 1912 to defend the rights of the African people which had been seriously curtailed by the South Africa Act, and which were then being threatened by the Native Land Act. For thirty-seven years - that is until 1949 - it adhered strictly to a constitutional struggle. It put forward demands and resolutions; it sent delegations to the Government in the belief that African grievances could be settled through peaceful discussion and that Africans could advance gradually to full political rights. But White Governments remained unmoved, and the rights of Africans became less instead of becoming greater. In the words of my leader, Chief Lutuli, who became President of the ANC in 1952, and who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
"who will deny that thirty years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately, and modestly at a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all".
Even after 1949, the ANC remained determined to avoid violence. At this time, however, there was a change from the strictly constitutional means of protest which had been employed in the past. The change was embodied in a decision which was taken to protest against apartheid legislation by peaceful, but unlawful, demonstrations against certain laws. Pursuant to this policy the ANC launched the Defiance Campaign, in which I was placed in charge of volunteers. This campaign was based on the principles of passive resistance. More than 8,500 people defied apartheid laws and went to jail. Yet there was not a single instance of violence in the course of this campaign on the part of any defier. I and nineteen colleagues were convicted for the role which we played in organizing the campaign, but our sentences were suspended mainly because the Judge found that discipline and non-violence had been stressed throughout. This was the time when the volunteer section of the ANC was established, and when the word `Amadelakufa` was first used: this was the time when the volunteers were asked to take a pledge to uphold certain principles. Evidence dealing with volunteers and their pledges has been introduced into this case, but completely out of context. The volunteers were not, and are not, the soldiers of a black army pledged to fight a civil war against the whites. They were, and are. dedicated workers who are prepared to lead campaigns initiated by the ANC to distribute leaflets, to organize strikes, or do whatever the particular campaign required. They are called volunteers because they volunteer to face the penalties of imprisonment and whipping which are now prescribed by the legislature for such acts.
During the Defiance Campaign, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed. These Statutes provided harsher penalties for offences committed by way of protests against laws. Despite this, the protests continued and the ANC adhered to its policy of non-violence. In 1956, 156 leading members of the Congress Alliance, including myself, were arrested on a charge of high treason and charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. The non-violent policy of the ANC was put in issue by the State, but when the Court gave judgement some five years later, it found that the ANC did not have a policy of violence. We were acquitted on all counts, which included a count that the ANC sought to set up a communist state in place of the existing regime. The Government has always sought to label all its opponents as communists. This allegation has been repeated in the present case, but as I will show, the ANC is not, and never has been, a communist organization.
In 1960 there was the shooting at Sharpeville, which resulted in the proclamation of a state of emergency and the declaration of the ANC as an unlawful organization. My colleagues and I, after careful consideration, decided that we would not obey this decree. The African people were not part of the Government and did not make the laws by which they were governed. We believed in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that `the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the Government`, and for us to accept the banning was equivalent to accepting the silencing of the Africans for all time. The ANC refused to dissolve, but instead went underground. We believed it was our duty to preserve this organization which had been built up with almost fifty years of unremitting toil. I have no doubt that no self-respecting White political organization would disband itself if declared illegal by a government in which it had no say.
In 1960 the Government held a referendum which led to the establishment of the Republic. Africans, who constituted approximately 70 per cent of the population of South Africa, were not entitled to vote, and were not even consulted about the proposed constitutional change. All of us were apprehensive of our future under the proposed White Republic, and a resolution was taken to hold an All-In African Conference to call for a National Convention, and to organize mass demonstrations on the eve of the unwanted Republic, if the Government failed to call the Convention. The conference was attended by Africans of various political persuasions. I was the Secretary of the conference and undertook to be responsible for organizing the national stay-at-home which was subsequently called to coincide with the declaration of the Republic. As all strikes by Africans are illegal, the person organizing such a strike must avoid arrest. I was chosen to be this person, and consequently I had to leave my home and family and my practice and go into hiding to avoid arrest.
The stay-at-home, in accordance with ANC policy, was to be a peaceful demonstration. Careful instructions were given to organizers and members to avoid any recourse to violence. The Government`s answer was to introduce new and harsher laws, to mobilize its armed forces, and to send Saracens, armed vehicles, and soldiers into the townships in a massive show of force designed to intimidate the people. This was an indication that the Government had decided to rule by force alone, and this decision was a milestone on the road to Umkhonto.
Some of this may appear irrelevant to this trial. In fact, I believe none of it is irrelevant because it will, I hope, enable the Court to appreciate the attitude eventually adopted by the various persons and bodies concerned in the National Liberation Movement. When I went to jail in 1962, the dominant idea was that loss of life should be avoided. I now know that this was still so in 1963.
I must return to June 1961. What were we, the leaders of our people, to do? Were we to give in to the show of force and the implied threat against future action, or were we to fight it and, if so, how?
We had no doubt that we had to continue the fight. Anything else would have been abject surrender. Our problem was not whether to fight, but was how to continue the fight. We of the ANC had always stood for a non-racial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart than they already were. But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. It may not be easy for this Court to understand, but it is a fact that for a long time the people had been talking of violence - of the day when they would fight the White man and win back their country - and we, the leaders of the ANC, had nevertheless always prevailed upon them to avoid violence and to pursue peaceful methods. When some of us discussed this in May and June of 1961, it could not be denied that our policy to achieve a nonracial State by non-violence had achieved nothing, and that our followers were beginning to lose confidence in this policy and were developing disturbing ideas of terrorism.
It must not be forgotten that by this time violence had, in fact, become a feature of the South African political scene. There had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuniland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the Government attempted to impose Bantu Authorities in Pondoland. Thirty-nine Africans died in these disturbances. In 1961 there had been riots in Warmbaths, and all this time the Transkei had been a seething mass of unrest. Each disturbance pointed clearly to the inevitable growth among Africans of the belief that violence was the only way out - it showed that a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it. Already small groups had arisen in the urban areas and were spontaneously making plans for violent forms of political struggle. There now arose a danger that these groups would adopt terrorism against Africans, as well as Whites, if not properly directed. Particularly disturbing was the type of violence engendered in places such as Zeerust, Sekhukhuniland, and Pondoland amongst Africans. It was increasingly taking the form, not of struggle against the Government - though this is what prompted it -but of civil strife amongst themselves, conducted in such a way that it could not hope to achieve anything other than a loss of life and bitterness.
At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.
This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the Government had left us with no other choice. In the Manifesto of Umkhonto published on 16 December 1961, which is Exhibit AD, we said:
"The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom".
This was our feeling in June of 1961 when we decided to press for a change in the policy of the National Liberation Movement. I can only say that I felt morally obliged to do what I did.
We who had taken this decision started to consult leaders of various organizations, including the ANC. I will not say whom we spoke to, or what they said, but I wish to deal with the role of the African National Congress in this phase of the struggle, and with the policy and objectives of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
As far as the ANC was concerned, it formed a clear view which can be summarized as follows:

1. It was a mass political organization with a political function to fulfil. Its members had joined on the express policy of non-violence.
2. Because of all this, it could not and would not undertake violence. This must be stressed. One cannot turn such a body into the small, closely knit organization required for sabotage. Nor would this be politically correct, because it would result in members ceasing to carry out this essential activity: political propaganda and organization. Nor was it permissible to change the whole nature of the organization.
3. On the other hand, in view of this situation I have described, the ANC was prepared to depart from its fifty-year-old policy of non-violence to this extent that it would no longer disapprove of properly controlled violence. Hence members who undertook such activity would not be subject to disciplinary action by the ANC.

1. As already indicated, early in April 1961 I went underground to organize the May general strike. My work entailed travelling throughout the country, living now in African townships, then in country villages and again in cities.
2. 
   During the second half of the year I started visiting the Parktown home of Arthur Goldreich, where I used to meet my family privately. Although I had no direct political association with him, I had known Arthur Goldreich socially since 1958.
3. In October, Arthur Goldreich informed me that he was moving out of town and offered me a hiding place there. A few days thereafter, he arranged for Michael Harmel to take me to Rivonia. I naturally found Rivonia an ideal place for the man who lived the life of an outlaw. Up to that time I had been compelled to live indoors during the daytime and could only venture out under cover of darkness. But at Liliesleaf [farm, Rivonia,] I could live differently and work far more efficiently.
4. For obvious reasons, I had to disguise myself and I assumed the fictitious name of David. In December, Arthur Goldreich and his family moved in. I stayed there until I went abroad on 11 January 1962. As already indicated, I returned in July 1962 and was arrested in Natal on 5 August.
5. Up to the time of my arrest, Liliesleaf farm was the headquarters of neither the African National Congress nor Umkhonto. With the exception of myself, none of the officials or members of these bodies lived there, no meetings of the governing bodies were ever held there, and no activities connected with them were either organized or directed from there. On numerous occasions during my stay at Liliesleaf farm I met both the Executive Committee of the ANC, as well as the NHC, but such meetings were held elsewhere and not on the farm.
6. Whilst staying at Liliesleaf farm, I frequently visited Arthur Goldreich in the main house and he also paid me visits in my room. We had numerous political discussions covering a variety of subjects. We discussed ideological and practical questions, the Congress Alliance, Umkhonto and its activities generally, and his experiences as a soldier in the Palmach, the military wing of the Haganah. Haganah was the political authority of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine.
7. Because of what I had got to know of Goldreich, I recommended on my return to South Africa that he should be recruited to Umkhonto. I do not know of my personal knowledge whether this was done.

Here is Mandela's statement at Rivonia:
I am the First Accused.
I hold a Bachelor`s Degree in Arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961.
At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.
In my youth in the Transkei I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case.
Having said this, I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.
I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.
In the statement which I am about to make I shall correct certain false impressions which have been created by State witnesses. Amongst other things, I will demonstrate that certain of the acts referred to in the evidence were not and could not have been committed by Umkhonto. I will also deal with the relationship between the African National Congress and Umkhonto, and with the part which I personally have played in the affairs of both organizations. I shall deal also with the part played by the Communist Party. In order to explain these matters properly, I will have to explain what Umkhonto set out to achieve; what methods it prescribed for the achievement of these objects, and why these methods were chosen. I will also have to explain how I became involved in the activities of these organizations.
I deny that Umkhonto was responsible for a number of acts which clearly fell outside the policy of the organisation, and which have been charged in the indictment against us. I do not know what justification there was for these acts, but to demonstrate that they could not have been authorized by Umkhonto, I want to refer briefly to the roots and policy of the organization.
I have already mentioned that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto. I, and the others who started the organization, did so for two reasons. Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war. Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.
But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed Umkhonto were all members of the African National Congress, and had behind us the ANC tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group, be it black or white. We did not want an interracial war, and tried to avoid it to the last minute. If the Court is in doubt about this, it will be seen that the whole history of our organization bears out what I have said, and what I will subsequently say, when I describe the tactics which Umkhonto decided to adopt. I want, therefore, to say something about the African National Congress.
The African National Congress was formed in 1912 to defend the rights of the African people which had been seriously curtailed by the South Africa Act, and which were then being threatened by the Native Land Act. For thirty-seven years - that is until 1949 - it adhered strictly to a constitutional struggle. It put forward demands and resolutions; it sent delegations to the Government in the belief that African grievances could be settled through peaceful discussion and that Africans could advance gradually to full political rights. But White Governments remained unmoved, and the rights of Africans became less instead of becoming greater. In the words of my leader, Chief Lutuli, who became President of the ANC in 1952, and who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
"who will deny that thirty years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately, and modestly at a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all".
Even after 1949, the ANC remained determined to avoid violence. At this time, however, there was a change from the strictly constitutional means of protest which had been employed in the past. The change was embodied in a decision which was taken to protest against apartheid legislation by peaceful, but unlawful, demonstrations against certain laws. Pursuant to this policy the ANC launched the Defiance Campaign, in which I was placed in charge of volunteers. This campaign was based on the principles of passive resistance. More than 8,500 people defied apartheid laws and went to jail. Yet there was not a single instance of violence in the course of this campaign on the part of any defier. I and nineteen colleagues were convicted for the role which we played in organizing the campaign, but our sentences were suspended mainly because the Judge found that discipline and non-violence had been stressed throughout. This was the time when the volunteer section of the ANC was established, and when the word `Amadelakufa` was first used: this was the time when the volunteers were asked to take a pledge to uphold certain principles. Evidence dealing with volunteers and their pledges has been introduced into this case, but completely out of context. The volunteers were not, and are not, the soldiers of a black army pledged to fight a civil war against the whites. They were, and are. dedicated workers who are prepared to lead campaigns initiated by the ANC to distribute leaflets, to organize strikes, or do whatever the particular campaign required. They are called volunteers because they volunteer to face the penalties of imprisonment and whipping which are now prescribed by the legislature for such acts.
During the Defiance Campaign, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed. These Statutes provided harsher penalties for offences committed by way of protests against laws. Despite this, the protests continued and the ANC adhered to its policy of non-violence. In 1956, 156 leading members of the Congress Alliance, including myself, were arrested on a charge of high treason and charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. The non-violent policy of the ANC was put in issue by the State, but when the Court gave judgement some five years later, it found that the ANC did not have a policy of violence. We were acquitted on all counts, which included a count that the ANC sought to set up a communist state in place of the existing regime. The Government has always sought to label all its opponents as communists. This allegation has been repeated in the present case, but as I will show, the ANC is not, and never has been, a communist organization.
In 1960 there was the shooting at Sharpeville, which resulted in the proclamation of a state of emergency and the declaration of the ANC as an unlawful organization. My colleagues and I, after careful consideration, decided that we would not obey this decree. The African people were not part of the Government and did not make the laws by which they were governed. We believed in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that `the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the Government`, and for us to accept the banning was equivalent to accepting the silencing of the Africans for all time. The ANC refused to dissolve, but instead went underground. We believed it was our duty to preserve this organization which had been built up with almost fifty years of unremitting toil. I have no doubt that no self-respecting White political organization would disband itself if declared illegal by a government in which it had no say.
In 1960 the Government held a referendum which led to the establishment of the Republic. Africans, who constituted approximately 70 per cent of the population of South Africa, were not entitled to vote, and were not even consulted about the proposed constitutional change. All of us were apprehensive of our future under the proposed White Republic, and a resolution was taken to hold an All-In African Conference to call for a National Convention, and to organize mass demonstrations on the eve of the unwanted Republic, if the Government failed to call the Convention. The conference was attended by Africans of various political persuasions. I was the Secretary of the conference and undertook to be responsible for organizing the national stay-at-home which was subsequently called to coincide with the declaration of the Republic. As all strikes by Africans are illegal, the person organizing such a strike must avoid arrest. I was chosen to be this person, and consequently I had to leave my home and family and my practice and go into hiding to avoid arrest.
The stay-at-home, in accordance with ANC policy, was to be a peaceful demonstration. Careful instructions were given to organizers and members to avoid any recourse to violence. The Government`s answer was to introduce new and harsher laws, to mobilize its armed forces, and to send Saracens, armed vehicles, and soldiers into the townships in a massive show of force designed to intimidate the people. This was an indication that the Government had decided to rule by force alone, and this decision was a milestone on the road to Umkhonto.
Some of this may appear irrelevant to this trial. In fact, I believe none of it is irrelevant because it will, I hope, enable the Court to appreciate the attitude eventually adopted by the various persons and bodies concerned in the National Liberation Movement. When I went to jail in 1962, the dominant idea was that loss of life should be avoided. I now know that this was still so in 1963.
I must return to June 1961. What were we, the leaders of our people, to do? Were we to give in to the show of force and the implied threat against future action, or were we to fight it and, if so, how?
We had no doubt that we had to continue the fight. Anything else would have been abject surrender. Our problem was not whether to fight, but was how to continue the fight. We of the ANC had always stood for a non-racial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart than they already were. But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. It may not be easy for this Court to understand, but it is a fact that for a long time the people had been talking of violence - of the day when they would fight the White man and win back their country - and we, the leaders of the ANC, had nevertheless always prevailed upon them to avoid violence and to pursue peaceful methods. When some of us discussed this in May and June of 1961, it could not be denied that our policy to achieve a nonracial State by non-violence had achieved nothing, and that our followers were beginning to lose confidence in this policy and were developing disturbing ideas of terrorism.
It must not be forgotten that by this time violence had, in fact, become a feature of the South African political scene. There had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuniland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the Government attempted to impose Bantu Authorities in Pondoland. Thirty-nine Africans died in these disturbances. In 1961 there had been riots in Warmbaths, and all this time the Transkei had been a seething mass of unrest. Each disturbance pointed clearly to the inevitable growth among Africans of the belief that violence was the only way out - it showed that a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it. Already small groups had arisen in the urban areas and were spontaneously making plans for violent forms of political struggle. There now arose a danger that these groups would adopt terrorism against Africans, as well as Whites, if not properly directed. Particularly disturbing was the type of violence engendered in places such as Zeerust, Sekhukhuniland, and Pondoland amongst Africans. It was increasingly taking the form, not of struggle against the Government - though this is what prompted it -but of civil strife amongst themselves, conducted in such a way that it could not hope to achieve anything other than a loss of life and bitterness.
At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.
This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the Government had left us with no other choice. In the Manifesto of Umkhonto published on 16 December 1961, which is Exhibit AD, we said:
"The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom".
This was our feeling in June of 1961 when we decided to press for a change in the policy of the National Liberation Movement. I can only say that I felt morally obliged to do what I did.
We who had taken this decision started to consult leaders of various organizations, including the ANC. I will not say whom we spoke to, or what they said, but I wish to deal with the role of the African National Congress in this phase of the struggle, and with the policy and objectives of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
As far as the ANC was concerned, it formed a clear view which can be summarized as follows:

1. It was a mass political organization with a political function to fulfil. Its members had joined on the express policy of non-violence.
2. Because of all this, it could not and would not undertake violence. This must be stressed. One cannot turn such a body into the small, closely knit organization required for sabotage. Nor would this be politically correct, because it would result in members ceasing to carry out this essential activity: political propaganda and organization. Nor was it permissible to change the whole nature of the organization.
3. On the other hand, in view of this situation I have described, the ANC was prepared to depart from its fifty-year-old policy of non-violence to this extent that it would no longer disapprove of properly controlled violence. Hence members who undertook such activity would not be subject to disciplinary action by the ANC.

1. As already indicated, early in April 1961 I went underground to organize the May general strike. My work entailed travelling throughout the country, living now in African townships, then in country villages and again in cities.
2. 
   During the second half of the year I started visiting the Parktown home of Arthur Goldreich, where I used to meet my family privately. Although I had no direct political association with him, I had known Arthur Goldreich socially since 1958.
3. In October, Arthur Goldreich informed me that he was moving out of town and offered me a hiding place there. A few days thereafter, he arranged for Michael Harmel to take me to Rivonia. I naturally found Rivonia an ideal place for the man who lived the life of an outlaw. Up to that time I had been compelled to live indoors during the daytime and could only venture out under cover of darkness. But at Liliesleaf [farm, Rivonia,] I could live differently and work far more efficiently.
4. For obvious reasons, I had to disguise myself and I assumed the fictitious name of David. In December, Arthur Goldreich and his family moved in. I stayed there until I went abroad on 11 January 1962. As already indicated, I returned in July 1962 and was arrested in Natal on 5 August.
5. Up to the time of my arrest, Liliesleaf farm was the headquarters of neither the African National Congress nor Umkhonto. With the exception of myself, none of the officials or members of these bodies lived there, no meetings of the governing bodies were ever held there, and no activities connected with them were either organized or directed from there. On numerous occasions during my stay at Liliesleaf farm I met both the Executive Committee of the ANC, as well as the NHC, but such meetings were held elsewhere and not on the farm.
6. Whilst staying at Liliesleaf farm, I frequently visited Arthur Goldreich in the main house and he also paid me visits in my room. We had numerous political discussions covering a variety of subjects. We discussed ideological and practical questions, the Congress Alliance, Umkhonto and its activities generally, and his experiences as a soldier in the Palmach, the military wing of the Haganah. Haganah was the political authority of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine.
7. Because of what I had got to know of Goldreich, I recommended on my return to South Africa that he should be recruited to Umkhonto. I do not know of my personal knowledge whether this was done.

Here is Mandela's statement at Rivonia:

I am the First Accused.

I hold a Bachelor`s Degree in Arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to go on strike at the end of May 1961.

At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.

In my youth in the Transkei I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherland. The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle. This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case.

Having said this, I must deal immediately and at some length with the question of violence. Some of the things so far told to the Court are true and some are untrue. I do not, however, deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by the Whites.

I admit immediately that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto we Sizwe, and that I played a prominent role in its affairs until I was arrested in August 1962.

In the statement which I am about to make I shall correct certain false impressions which have been created by State witnesses. Amongst other things, I will demonstrate that certain of the acts referred to in the evidence were not and could not have been committed by Umkhonto. I will also deal with the relationship between the African National Congress and Umkhonto, and with the part which I personally have played in the affairs of both organizations. I shall deal also with the part played by the Communist Party. In order to explain these matters properly, I will have to explain what Umkhonto set out to achieve; what methods it prescribed for the achievement of these objects, and why these methods were chosen. I will also have to explain how I became involved in the activities of these organizations.

I deny that Umkhonto was responsible for a number of acts which clearly fell outside the policy of the organisation, and which have been charged in the indictment against us. I do not know what justification there was for these acts, but to demonstrate that they could not have been authorized by Umkhonto, I want to refer briefly to the roots and policy of the organization.

I have already mentioned that I was one of the persons who helped to form Umkhonto. I, and the others who started the organization, did so for two reasons. Firstly, we believed that as a result of Government policy, violence by the African people had become inevitable, and that unless responsible leadership was given to canalize and control the feelings of our people, there would be outbreaks of terrorism which would produce an intensity of bitterness and hostility between the various races of this country which is not produced even by war. Secondly, we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy. All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed Umkhonto were all members of the African National Congress, and had behind us the ANC tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group, be it black or white. We did not want an interracial war, and tried to avoid it to the last minute. If the Court is in doubt about this, it will be seen that the whole history of our organization bears out what I have said, and what I will subsequently say, when I describe the tactics which Umkhonto decided to adopt. I want, therefore, to say something about the African National Congress.

The African National Congress was formed in 1912 to defend the rights of the African people which had been seriously curtailed by the South Africa Act, and which were then being threatened by the Native Land Act. For thirty-seven years - that is until 1949 - it adhered strictly to a constitutional struggle. It put forward demands and resolutions; it sent delegations to the Government in the belief that African grievances could be settled through peaceful discussion and that Africans could advance gradually to full political rights. But White Governments remained unmoved, and the rights of Africans became less instead of becoming greater. In the words of my leader, Chief Lutuli, who became President of the ANC in 1952, and who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:

"who will deny that thirty years of my life have been spent knocking in vain, patiently, moderately, and modestly at a closed and barred door? What have been the fruits of moderation? The past thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws restricting our rights and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all".

Even after 1949, the ANC remained determined to avoid violence. At this time, however, there was a change from the strictly constitutional means of protest which had been employed in the past. The change was embodied in a decision which was taken to protest against apartheid legislation by peaceful, but unlawful, demonstrations against certain laws. Pursuant to this policy the ANC launched the Defiance Campaign, in which I was placed in charge of volunteers. This campaign was based on the principles of passive resistance. More than 8,500 people defied apartheid laws and went to jail. Yet there was not a single instance of violence in the course of this campaign on the part of any defier. I and nineteen colleagues were convicted for the role which we played in organizing the campaign, but our sentences were suspended mainly because the Judge found that discipline and non-violence had been stressed throughout. This was the time when the volunteer section of the ANC was established, and when the word `Amadelakufa` was first used: this was the time when the volunteers were asked to take a pledge to uphold certain principles. Evidence dealing with volunteers and their pledges has been introduced into this case, but completely out of context. The volunteers were not, and are not, the soldiers of a black army pledged to fight a civil war against the whites. They were, and are. dedicated workers who are prepared to lead campaigns initiated by the ANC to distribute leaflets, to organize strikes, or do whatever the particular campaign required. They are called volunteers because they volunteer to face the penalties of imprisonment and whipping which are now prescribed by the legislature for such acts.

During the Defiance Campaign, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed. These Statutes provided harsher penalties for offences committed by way of protests against laws. Despite this, the protests continued and the ANC adhered to its policy of non-violence. In 1956, 156 leading members of the Congress Alliance, including myself, were arrested on a charge of high treason and charges under the Suppression of Communism Act. The non-violent policy of the ANC was put in issue by the State, but when the Court gave judgement some five years later, it found that the ANC did not have a policy of violence. We were acquitted on all counts, which included a count that the ANC sought to set up a communist state in place of the existing regime. The Government has always sought to label all its opponents as communists. This allegation has been repeated in the present case, but as I will show, the ANC is not, and never has been, a communist organization.

In 1960 there was the shooting at Sharpeville, which resulted in the proclamation of a state of emergency and the declaration of the ANC as an unlawful organization. My colleagues and I, after careful consideration, decided that we would not obey this decree. The African people were not part of the Government and did not make the laws by which they were governed. We believed in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that `the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of the Government`, and for us to accept the banning was equivalent to accepting the silencing of the Africans for all time. The ANC refused to dissolve, but instead went underground. We believed it was our duty to preserve this organization which had been built up with almost fifty years of unremitting toil. I have no doubt that no self-respecting White political organization would disband itself if declared illegal by a government in which it had no say.

In 1960 the Government held a referendum which led to the establishment of the Republic. Africans, who constituted approximately 70 per cent of the population of South Africa, were not entitled to vote, and were not even consulted about the proposed constitutional change. All of us were apprehensive of our future under the proposed White Republic, and a resolution was taken to hold an All-In African Conference to call for a National Convention, and to organize mass demonstrations on the eve of the unwanted Republic, if the Government failed to call the Convention. The conference was attended by Africans of various political persuasions. I was the Secretary of the conference and undertook to be responsible for organizing the national stay-at-home which was subsequently called to coincide with the declaration of the Republic. As all strikes by Africans are illegal, the person organizing such a strike must avoid arrest. I was chosen to be this person, and consequently I had to leave my home and family and my practice and go into hiding to avoid arrest.

The stay-at-home, in accordance with ANC policy, was to be a peaceful demonstration. Careful instructions were given to organizers and members to avoid any recourse to violence. The Government`s answer was to introduce new and harsher laws, to mobilize its armed forces, and to send Saracens, armed vehicles, and soldiers into the townships in a massive show of force designed to intimidate the people. This was an indication that the Government had decided to rule by force alone, and this decision was a milestone on the road to Umkhonto.

Some of this may appear irrelevant to this trial. In fact, I believe none of it is irrelevant because it will, I hope, enable the Court to appreciate the attitude eventually adopted by the various persons and bodies concerned in the National Liberation Movement. When I went to jail in 1962, the dominant idea was that loss of life should be avoided. I now know that this was still so in 1963.

I must return to June 1961. What were we, the leaders of our people, to do? Were we to give in to the show of force and the implied threat against future action, or were we to fight it and, if so, how?

We had no doubt that we had to continue the fight. Anything else would have been abject surrender. Our problem was not whether to fight, but was how to continue the fight. We of the ANC had always stood for a non-racial democracy, and we shrank from any action which might drive the races further apart than they already were. But the hard facts were that fifty years of non-violence had brought the African people nothing but more and more repressive legislation, and fewer and fewer rights. It may not be easy for this Court to understand, but it is a fact that for a long time the people had been talking of violence - of the day when they would fight the White man and win back their country - and we, the leaders of the ANC, had nevertheless always prevailed upon them to avoid violence and to pursue peaceful methods. When some of us discussed this in May and June of 1961, it could not be denied that our policy to achieve a nonracial State by non-violence had achieved nothing, and that our followers were beginning to lose confidence in this policy and were developing disturbing ideas of terrorism.

It must not be forgotten that by this time violence had, in fact, become a feature of the South African political scene. There had been violence in 1957 when the women of Zeerust were ordered to carry passes; there was violence in 1958 with the enforcement of cattle culling in Sekhukhuniland; there was violence in 1959 when the people of Cato Manor protested against pass raids; there was violence in 1960 when the Government attempted to impose Bantu Authorities in Pondoland. Thirty-nine Africans died in these disturbances. In 1961 there had been riots in Warmbaths, and all this time the Transkei had been a seething mass of unrest. Each disturbance pointed clearly to the inevitable growth among Africans of the belief that violence was the only way out - it showed that a Government which uses force to maintain its rule teaches the oppressed to use force to oppose it. Already small groups had arisen in the urban areas and were spontaneously making plans for violent forms of political struggle. There now arose a danger that these groups would adopt terrorism against Africans, as well as Whites, if not properly directed. Particularly disturbing was the type of violence engendered in places such as Zeerust, Sekhukhuniland, and Pondoland amongst Africans. It was increasingly taking the form, not of struggle against the Government - though this is what prompted it -but of civil strife amongst themselves, conducted in such a way that it could not hope to achieve anything other than a loss of life and bitterness.

At the beginning of June 1961, after a long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I, and some colleagues, came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the Government met our peaceful demands with force.

This conclusion was not easily arrived at. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe. We did so not because we desired such a course, but solely because the Government had left us with no other choice. In the Manifesto of Umkhonto published on 16 December 1961, which is Exhibit AD, we said:

"The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom".

This was our feeling in June of 1961 when we decided to press for a change in the policy of the National Liberation Movement. I can only say that I felt morally obliged to do what I did.

We who had taken this decision started to consult leaders of various organizations, including the ANC. I will not say whom we spoke to, or what they said, but I wish to deal with the role of the African National Congress in this phase of the struggle, and with the policy and objectives of Umkhonto we Sizwe.

As far as the ANC was concerned, it formed a clear view which can be summarized as follows:

1. It was a mass political organization with a political function to fulfil. Its members had joined on the express policy of non-violence.
2. Because of all this, it could not and would not undertake violence. This must be stressed. One cannot turn such a body into the small, closely knit organization required for sabotage. Nor would this be politically correct, because it would result in members ceasing to carry out this essential activity: political propaganda and organization. Nor was it permissible to change the whole nature of the organization.
3. On the other hand, in view of this situation I have described, the ANC was prepared to depart from its fifty-year-old policy of non-violence to this extent that it would no longer disapprove of properly controlled violence. Hence members who undertook such activity would not be subject to disciplinary action by the ANC.

I say `properly controlled violence` because I made it clear that if I formed the organization I would at all times subject it to the political guidance of the ANC and would not undertake any different form of activity from that contemplated without the consent of the ANC. And I shall now tell the Court how that form of violence came to be determined.

As a result of this decision, Umkhonto was formed in November 1961. When we took this decision, and subsequently formulated our plans, the ANC heritage of non-violence and racial harmony was very much with us. We felt that the country was drifting towards a civil war in which Blacks and Whites would fight each other. We viewed the situation with alarm. Civil war could mean the destruction of what the ANC stood for; with civil war, racial peace would be more difficult than ever to achieve. We already have examples in South African history of the results of war. It has taken more than fifty years for the scars of the South African War to disappear. How much longer would it take to eradicate the scars of inter-racial civil war, which could not be fought without a great loss of life on both sides?

The avoidance of civil war had dominated our thinking for many years, but when we decided to adopt violence as part of our policy, we realized that we might one day have to face the prospect of such a war. This had to be taken into account in formulating our plans. We required a plan which was flexible and which permitted us to act in accordance with the needs of the times; above all, the plan had to be one which recognized civil war as the last resort, and left the decision on this question to the future. We did not want to be committed to civil war, but we wanted to be ready if it became inevitable.

Four forms of violence were possible. There is sabotage, there is guerrilla warfare, there is terrorism, and there is open revolution. We chose to adopt the first method and to exhaust it before taking any other decision.

In the light of our political background the choice was a logical one. Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality. This is what we felt at the time, and this is what we said in our Manifesto (Exhibit AD):

"We of Umkhonto we Sizwe have always sought to achieve liberation without bloodshed and civil clash. We hope, even at this late hour, that our first actions will awaken everyone to a realization of the disastrous situation to which the Nationalist policy is leading. We hope that we will bring the Government and its supporters to their senses before it is too late, so that both the Government and its policies can be changed before matters reach the desperate state of civil war."

The initial plan was based on a careful analysis of the political and economic situation of our country. We believed that South Africa depended to a large extent on foreign capital and foreign trade. We felt that planned destruction of power plants, and interference with rail and telephone communications, would tend to scare away capital from the country, make it more difficult for goods from the industrial areas to reach the seaports on schedule, and would in the long run be a heavy drain on the economic life of the country, thus compelling the voters of the country to reconsider their position.

Attacks on the economic life lines of the country were to be linked with sabotage on Government buildings and other symbols of apartheid. These attacks would serve as a source of inspiration to our people. In addition, they would provide an outlet for those people who were urging the adoption of violent methods and would enable us to give concrete proof to our followers that we had adopted a stronger line and were fighting back against Government violence.

In addition, if mass action were successfully organized, and mass reprisals taken, we felt that sympathy for our cause would be roused in other countries, and that greater pressure would be brought to bear on the South African Government.

This then was the plan. Umkhonto was to perform sabotage, and strict instructions were given to its members right from the start, that on no account were they to injure or kill people in planning or carrying out operations. These instructions have been referred to in the evidence of `Mr. X` and `Mr. Z`.

The affairs of the Umkhonto were controlled and directed by a National High Command, which had powers of co-option and which could, and did, appoint Regional Commands. The High Command was the body which determined tactics and targets and was in charge of training and finance. Under the High Command there were Regional Commands which were responsible for the direction of the local sabotage groups. Within the framework of the policy laid down by the National High Command, the Regional Commands had authority to select the targets to be attacked. They had no authority to go beyond the prescribed framework and thus had no authority to embark upon acts which endangered life, or which did not fit into the overall plan of sabotage. For instance, Umkhonto members were forbidden ever to go armed into operation. Incidentally, the terms High Command and Regional Command were an importation from the Jewish national underground organization Irgun Zvai Leumi, which operated in Israel between 1944 and 1948.

Umkhonto had its first operation on 16 December 1961, when Government buildings in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban were attacked. The selection of targets is proof of the policy to which I have referred. Had we intended to attack life we would have selected targets where people congregated and not empty buildings and power stations. The sabotage which was committed before 16 December 1961 was the work of isolated groups and had no connection whatever with Umkhonto. In fact, some of these and a number of later acts were claimed by other organizations.

The Manifesto of Umkhonto was issued on the day that operations commenced. The response to our actions and Manifesto among the white population was characteristically violent. The Government threatened to take strong action, and called upon its supporters to stand firm and to ignore the demands of the Africans. The Whites failed to respond by suggesting change; they responded to our call by suggesting the laager.

In contrast, the response of the Africans was one of encouragement. Suddenly there was hope again. Things were happening. People in the townships became eager for political news. A great deal of enthusiasm was generated by the initial successes, and people began to speculate on how soon freedom would be obtained.

But we in Umkhonto weighed up the white response with anxiety. The lines were being drawn. The whites and blacks were moving into separate camps, and the prospects of avoiding a civil war were made less. The white newspapers carried reports that sabotage would be punished by death. If this was so, how could we continue to keep Africans away from terrorism?

Already scores of Africans had died as a result of racial friction. In 1920 when the famous leader, Masabala, was held in Port Elizabeth jail, twenty-four of a group of Africans who had gathered to demand his release were killed by the police and white civilians. In 1921, more than one hundred Africans died in the Bulhoek affair. In 1924 over two hundred Africans were killed when the Administrator of South-West Africa led a force against a group which had rebelled against the imposition of dog tax. On 1 May 1950, eighteen Africans died as a result of police shootings during the strike. On 21 March 1960, sixty-nine unarmed Africans died at Sharpeville.

How many more Sharpevilles would there be in the history of our country? And how many more Sharpevilles could the country stand without violence and terror becoming the order of the day? And what would happen to our people when that stage was reached? In the long run we felt certain we must succeed, but at what cost to ourselves and the rest of the country? And if this happened, how could black and white ever live together again in peace and harmony? These were the problems that faced us, and these were our decisions.

Experience convinced us that rebellion would offer the Government limitless opportunities for the indiscriminate slaughter of our people. But it was precisely because the soil of South Africa is already drenched with the blood of innocent Africans that we felt it our duty to make preparations as a long-term undertaking to use force in order to defend ourselves against force. If war were inevitable, we wanted the fight to be conducted on terms most favourable to our people. The fight which held out prospects best for us and the least risk of life to both sides was guerrilla warfare. We decided, therefore, in our preparations for the future, to make provision for the possibility of guerrilla warfare.

All whites undergo compulsory military training, but no such training was given to Africans. It was in our view essential to build up a nucleus of trained men who would be able to provide the leadership which would be required if guerrilla warfare started. We had to prepare for such a situation before it became too late to make proper preparations. It was also necessary to build up a nucleus of men trained in civil administration and other professions, so that Africans would be equipped to participate in the government of this country as soon as they were allowed to do so.

At this stage it was decided that I should attend the Conference of the Pan-African Freedom Movement for Central, East, and Southern Africa, which was to be held early in 1962 in Addis Ababa, and, because of our need for preparation, it was also decided that, after the conference, I would undertake a tour of the African States with a view to obtaining facilities for the training of soldiers, and that I would also solicit scholarships for the higher education of matriculated Africans. Training in both fields would be necessary, even if changes came about by peaceful means. Administrators would be necessary who would be willing and able to administer a non-racial State and so would men be necessary to control the army and police force of such a State.

It was on this note that I left South Africa to proceed to Addis Ababa as a delegate of the ANC. My tour was a success. Wherever I went I met sympathy for our cause and promises of help. All Africa was united against the stand of White South Africa, and even in London I was received with great sympathy by political leaders, such as Mr. Gaitskell and Mr. Grimond. In Africa I was promised support by such men as Julius Nyerere, now President of Tanganyika; Mr. Kawawa, then Prime Minister of Tanganyika; Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; General Abboud, President of the Sudan; Habib Bourguiba, President of Tunisia; Ben Bella, now President of Algeria; Modibo Keita, President of Mali; Leopold Senghor, President of Senegal; Sekou Toure, President of Guinea; President Tubman of Liberia; and Milton Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda. It was Ben Bella who invited me to visit Oujda, the Headquarters of the Algerian Army of National Liberation, the visit which is described in my diary, one of the Exhibits.

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them. Notes of lectures which I received in Algeria are contained in Exhibit 16, produced in evidence. Summaries of books on guerrilla warfare and military strategy have also been produced. I have already admitted that these documents are in my writing, and I acknowledge that I made these studies to equip myself for the role which I might have to play if the struggle drifted into guerrilla warfare. I approached this question as every African Nationalist should do. I was completely objective. The Court will see that I attempted to examine all types of authority on the subject - from the East and from the West, going back to the classic work of Clausewitz, and covering such a variety as Mao Tse Tung and Che Guevara on the one hand, and the writings on the Anglo-Boer War on the other. Of course, these notes are merely summaries of the books I read and do not contain my personal views.

I also made arrangements for our recruits to undergo military training. But here it was impossible to organize any scheme without the co-operation of the ANC offices in Africa. I consequently obtained the permission of the ANC in South Africa to do this. To this extent then there was a departure from the original decision of the ANC, but it applied outside South Africa only. The first batch of recruits actually arrived in Tanganyika when I was passing through that country on my way back to South Africa.

I returned to South Africa and reported to my colleagues on the results of my trip. On my return I found that there had been little alteration in the political scene save that the threat of a death penalty for sabotage had now become a fact. The attitude of my colleagues in Umkhonto was much the same as it had been before I left. They were feeling their way cautiously and felt that it would be a long time before the possibilities of sabotage were exhausted. In fact, the view was expressed by some that the training of recruits was premature. This is recorded by me in the document which is Exhibit R.14. After a full discussion, however, it was decided to go ahead with the plans for military training because of the fact that it would take many years to build up a sufficient nucleus of trained soldiers to start a guerrilla campaign, and whatever happened the training would be of value.

I wish to turn now to certain general allegations made in this case by the State. But before doing so, I wish to revert to certain occurrences said by witnesses to have happened in Port Elizabeth and East London. I am referring to the bombing of private houses of pro-Government persons during September, October and November 1962. I do not know what justification there was for these acts, nor what provocation had been given. But if what I have said already is accepted, then it is clear that these acts had nothing to do with the carrying out of the policy of Umkhonto.

One of the chief allegations in the indictment is that the ANC was a party to a general conspiracy to commit sabotage. I have already explained why this is incorrect but how, externally, there was a departure from the original principle laid down by the ANC. There has, of course, been overlapping of functions internally as well, because there is a difference between a resolution adopted in the atmosphere of a committee room and the concrete difficulties that arise in the field of practical activity. At a later stage the position was further affected by bannings and house arrests, and by persons leaving the country to take up political work abroad. This led to individuals having to do work in different capacities. But though this may have blurred the distinction between Umkhonto and the ANC, it by no means abolished that distinction. Great care was taken to keep the activities of the two organizations in South Africa distinct. The ANC remained a mass political body of Africans only carrying on the type of political work they had conducted prior to 1961. Umkhonto remained a small organization recruiting its members from different races and organizations and trying to achieve its own particular object. The fact that members of Umkhonto were recruited from the ANC, and the fact that persons served both organizations, like Solomon Mbanjwa, did not, in our view, change the nature of the ANC or give it a policy of violence. This overlapping of officers, however, was more the exception than the rule. This is why persons such as `Mr. X` and `Mr. Z`, who were on the Regional Command of their respective areas, did not participate in any of the ANC committees or activities, and why people such as Mr. Bennett Mashiyana and Mr. Reginald Ndubi did not hear of sabotage at their ANC meetings.

Another of the allegations in the indictment is that Rivonia was the headquarters of Umkhonto. This is not true of the time when I was there. I was told, of course, and knew that certain of the activities of the Communist Party were carried on there. But this is no reason (as I shall presently explain) why I should not use the place.

I came there in the following manner:

1. As already indicated, early in April 1961 I went underground to organize the May general strike. My work entailed travelling throughout the country, living now in African townships, then in country villages and again in cities.

2. During the second half of the year I started visiting the Parktown home of Arthur Goldreich, where I used to meet my family privately. Although I had no direct political association with him, I had known Arthur Goldreich socially since 1958.

3. In October, Arthur Goldreich informed me that he was moving out of town and offered me a hiding place there. A few days thereafter, he arranged for Michael Harmel to take me to Rivonia. I naturally found Rivonia an ideal place for the man who lived the life of an outlaw. Up to that time I had been compelled to live indoors during the daytime and could only venture out under cover of darkness. But at Liliesleaf [farm, Rivonia,] I could live differently and work far more efficiently.
4. For obvious reasons, I had to disguise myself and I assumed the fictitious name of David. In December, Arthur Goldreich and his family moved in. I stayed there until I went abroad on 11 January 1962. As already indicated, I returned in July 1962 and was arrested in Natal on 5 August.
5. Up to the time of my arrest, Liliesleaf farm was the headquarters of neither the African National Congress nor Umkhonto. With the exception of myself, none of the officials or members of these bodies lived there, no meetings of the governing bodies were ever held there, and no activities connected with them were either organized or directed from there. On numerous occasions during my stay at Liliesleaf farm I met both the Executive Committee of the ANC, as well as the NHC, but such meetings were held elsewhere and not on the farm.
6. Whilst staying at Liliesleaf farm, I frequently visited Arthur Goldreich in the main house and he also paid me visits in my room. We had numerous political discussions covering a variety of subjects. We discussed ideological and practical questions, the Congress Alliance, Umkhonto and its activities generally, and his experiences as a soldier in the Palmach, the military wing of the Haganah. Haganah was the political authority of the Jewish National Movement in Palestine.
7. Because of what I had got to know of Goldreich, I recommended on my return to South Africa that he should be recruited to Umkhonto. I do not know of my personal knowledge whether this was done.

Another of the allegations made by the State is that the aims and objects of the ANC and the Communist Party are the same. I wish to deal with this and with my own political position, because I must assume that the State may try to argue from certain Exhibits that I tried to introduce Marxism into the ANC. The allegation as to the ANC is false. This is an old allegation which was disproved at the Treason Trial and which has again reared its head. But since the allegation has been made again, I shall deal with it as well as with the relationship between the ANC and the Communist Party and Umkhonto and that party.

The ideological creed of the ANC is, and always has been, the creed of African Nationalism. It is not the concept of African Nationalism expressed in the cry, `Drive the White man into the sea`. The African Nationalism for which the ANC stands is the concept of freedom and fulfilment for the African people in their own land. The most important political document ever adopted by the ANC is the `Freedom Charter`. It is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. It calls for redistribution, but not nationalization, of land; it provides for nationalization of mines, banks, and monopoly industry, because big monopolies are owned by one race only, and without such nationalization racial domination would be perpetuated despite the spread of political power. It would be a hollow gesture to repeal the Gold Law prohibitions against Africans when all gold mines are owned by European companies. In this respect the ANC`s policy corresponds with the old policy of the present Nationalist Party which, for many years, had as part of its programme the nationalization of the gold mines which, at that time, were controlled by foreign capital. Under the Freedom Charter, nationalization would take place in an economy based on private enterprise. The realization of the Freedom Charter would open up fresh fields for a prosperous African population of all classes, including the middle class. The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.

As far as the Communist Party is concerned, and if I understand its policy correctly, it stands for the establishment of a State based on the principles of Marxism. Although it is prepared to work for the Freedom Charter, as a short term solution to the problems created by white supremacy, it regards the Freedom Charter as the beginning, and not the end, of its programme.

The ANC, unlike the Communist Party, admitted Africans only as members. Its chief goal was, and is, for the African people to win unity and full political rights. The Communist Party`s main aim, on the other hand, was to remove the capitalists and to replace them with a working-class government. The Communist Party sought to emphasize class distinctions whilst the ANC seeks to harmonize them. This is a vital distinction.

It is true that there has often been close co-operation between the ANC and the Communist Party. But co-operation is merely proof of a common goal - in this case the removal of white supremacy - and is not proof of a complete community of interests.

The history of the world is full of similar examples. Perhaps the most striking illustration is to be found in the co-operation between Great Britain, the United States of America, and the Soviet Union in the fight against Hitler. Nobody but Hitler would have dared to suggest that such co-operation turned Churchill or Roosevelt into communists or communist tools, or that Britain and America were working to bring about a communist world.

Another instance of such co-operation is to be found precisely in Umkhonto. Shortly after Umkhonto was constituted, I was informed by some of its members that the Communist Party would support Umkhonto, and this then occurred. At a later stage the support was made openly.

I believe that communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements. Thus communists have played an important role in the freedom struggles fought in countries such as Malaya, Algeria, and Indonesia, yet none of these States today are communist countries. Similarly in the underground resistance movements which sprung up in Europe during the last World War, communists played an important role. Even General Chiang Kai-Shek, today one of the bitterest enemies of communism, fought together with the communists against the ruling class in the struggle which led to his assumption of power in China in the 1930s.

This pattern of co-operation between communists and non-communists has been repeated in the National Liberation Movement of South Africa. Prior to the banning of the Communist Party, joint campaigns involving the Communist Party and the Congress movements were accepted practice. African communists could, and did, become members of the ANC, and some served on the National, Provincial, and local committees. Amongst those who served on the National Executive are Albert Nzula, a former Secretary of the Communist Party, Moses Kotane, another former Secretary, and J. B. Marks, a former member of the Central Committee.

I joined the ANC in 1944, and in my younger days I held the view that the policy of admitting communists to the ANC, and the close co-operation which existed at times on specific issues between the ANC and the Communist Party, would lead to a watering down of the concept of African Nationalism. At that stage I was a member of the African National Congress Youth League, and was one of a group which moved for the expulsion of communists from the ANC. This proposal was heavily defeated. Amongst those who voted against the proposal were some of the most conservative sections of African political opinion. They defended the policy on the ground that from its inception the ANC was formed and built up, not as a political party with one school of political thought, but as a Parliament of the African people, accommodating people of various political convictions, all united by the common goal of national liberation. I was eventually won over to this point of view and I have upheld it ever since.

It is perhaps difficult for white South Africans, with an ingrained prejudice against communism, to understand why experienced African politicians so readily accept communists as their friends. But to us the reason is obvious. Theoretical differences amongst those fighting against oppression is a luxury we cannot afford at this stage. What is more, for many decades communists were the only political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as human beings and their equals; who were prepared to eat with us; talk with us, live with us, and work with us. They were the only political group which was prepared to work with the Africans for the attainment of political rights and a stake in society. Because of this, there are many Africans who, today, tend to equate freedom with communism. They are supported in this belief by a legislature which brands all exponents of democratic government and African freedom as communists and bans many of them (who are not communists) under the Suppression of Communism Act. Although I have never been a member of the Communist Party, I myself have been named under that pernicious Act because of the role I played in the Defiance Campaign. I have also been banned and imprisoned under that Act.

It is not only in internal politics that we count communists as amongst those who support our cause. In the international field, communist countries have always come to our aid. In the United Nations and other Councils of the world the communist bloc has supported the Afro-Asian struggle against colonialism and often seems to be more sympathetic to our plight than some of the Western powers. Although there is a universal condemnation of apartheid, the communist bloc speaks out against it with a louder voice than most of the white world. In these circumstances, it would take a brash young politician, such as I was in 1949, to proclaim that the Communists are our enemies.

I turn now to my own position. I have denied that I am a communist, and I think that in the circumstances I am obliged to state exactly what my political beliefs are.

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot. After all, I was born in Umtata, forty-six years ago. My guardian was my cousin, who was the acting paramount chief of Tembuland, and I am related both to the present paramount chief of Tembuland, Sabata Dalindyebo, and to Kaizer Matanzima, the Chief Minister of the Transkei.

Today I am attracted by the idea of a classless society, an attraction which springs in part from Marxist reading and, in part, from my admiration of the structure and organization of early African societies in this country. The land, then the main means of production, belonged to the tribe. There were no rich or poor and there was no exploitation.

It is true, as I have already stated, that I have been influenced by Marxist thought. But this is also true of many of the leaders of the new independent States. Such widely different persons as Gandhi, Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser all acknowledge this fact. We all accept the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of this world and to overcome their legacy of extreme poverty. But this does not mean we are Marxists.

Indeed, for my own part, I believe that it is open to debate whether the Communist Party has any specific role to play at this particular stage of our political struggle. The basic task at the present moment is the removal of race discrimination and the attainment of democratic rights on the basis of the Freedom Charter. In so far as that Party furthers this task, I welcome its assistance. I realize that it is one of the means by which people of all races can be drawn into our struggle.

From my reading of Marxist literature and from conversations with Marxists, I have gained the impression that communists regard the parliamentary system of the West as undemocratic and reactionary. But, on the contrary, I am an admirer of such a system.

The Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights are documents which are held in veneration by democrats throughout the world.

I have great respect for British political institutions, and for the country`s system of justice. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration.

The American Congress, that country`s doctrine of separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary, arouses in me similar sentiments.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both West and East. All this has led me to feel that in my search for a political formula, I should be absolutely impartial and objective. I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism. I must leave myself free to borrow the best from the West and from the East . . .

There are certain Exhibits which suggest that we received financial support from abroad, and I wish to deal with this question.

Our political struggle has always been financed from internal sources - from funds raised by our own people and by our own supporters. Whenever we had a special campaign or an important political case - for example, the Treason Trial - we received financial assistance from sympathetic individuals and organizations in the Western countries. We had never felt it necessary to go beyond these sources.

But when in 1961 the Umkhonto was formed, and a new phase of struggle introduced, we realized that these events would make a heavy call on our slender resources, and that the scale of our activities would be hampered by the lack of funds. One of my instructions, as I went abroad in January 1962, was to raise funds from the African states.

I must add that, whilst abroad, I had discussions with leaders of political movements in Africa and discovered that almost every single one of them, in areas which had still not attained independence, had received all forms of assistance from the socialist countries, as well as from the West, including that of financial support. I also discovered that some well-known African states, all of them non-communists, and even anti-communists, had received similar assistance.

On my return to the Republic, I made a strong recommendation to the ANC that we should not confine ourselves to Africa and the Western countries, but that we should also send a mission to the socialist countries to raise the funds which we so urgently needed.

I have been told that after I was convicted such a mission was sent, but I am not prepared to name any countries to which it went, nor am I at liberty to disclose the names of the organizations and countries which gave us support or promised to do so.

As I understand the State case, and in particular the evidence of `Mr. X`, the suggestion is that Umkhonto was the inspiration of the Communist Party which sought by playing upon imaginary grievances to enrol the African people into an army which ostensibly was to fight for African freedom, but in reality was fighting for a communist state. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact the suggestion is preposterous. Umkhonto was formed by Africans to further their struggle for freedom in their own land. Communists and others supported the movement, and we only wish that more sections of the community would join us.

Our fight is against real, and not imaginary, hardships or, to use the language of the State Prosecutor, `so-called hardships`. Basically, we fight against two features which are the hallmarks of African life in South Africa and which are entrenched by legislation which we seek to have repealed. These features are poverty and lack of human dignity, and we do not need communists or so-called `agitators` to teach us about these things.

South Africa is the richest country in Africa, and could be one of the richest countries in the world. But it is a land of extremes and remarkable contrasts. The whites enjoy what may well be the highest standard of living in the world, whilst Africans live in poverty and misery. Forty per cent of the Africans live in hopelessly overcrowded and, in some cases, drought-stricken Reserves, where soil erosion and the overworking of the soil makes it impossible for them to live properly off the land. Thirty per cent are labourers, labour tenants, and squatters on white farms and work and live under conditions similar to those of the serfs of the Middle Ages. The other 30 per cent live in towns where they have developed economic and social habits which bring them closer in many respects to white standards. Yet most Africans, even in this group, are impoverished by low incomes and high cost of living.

The highest-paid and the most prosperous section of urban African life is in Johannesburg. Yet their actual position is desperate. The latest figures were given on 25 March 1964 by Mr. Carr, Manager of the Johannesburg Non-European Affairs Department. The poverty datum line for the average African family in Johannesburg (according to Mr. Carr`s department) is R42.84 per month. He showed that the average monthly wage is R32.24 and that 46 per cent of all African families in Johannesburg do not earn enough to keep them going.

Poverty goes hand in hand with malnutrition and disease. The incidence of malnutrition and deficiency diseases is very high amongst Africans. Tuberculosis, pellagra, kwashiorkor, gastro-enteritis, and scurvy bring death and destruction of health. The incidence of infant mortality is one of the highest in the world. According to the Medical Officer of Health for Pretoria, tuberculosis kills forty people a day (almost all Africans), and in 1961 there were 58,491 new cases reported. These diseases not only destroy the vital organs of the body, but they result in retarded mental conditions and lack of initiative, and reduce powers of concentration. The secondary results of such conditions affect the whole community and the standard of work performed by African labourers.

The complaint of Africans, however, is not only that they are poor and the whites are rich, but that the laws which are made by the whites are designed to preserve this situation. There are two ways to break out of poverty. The first is by formal education, and the second is by the worker acquiring a greater skill at his work and thus higher wages. As far as Africans are concerned, both these avenues of advancement are deliberately curtailed by legislation.

The present Government has always sought to hamper Africans in their search for education. One of their early acts, after coming into power, was to stop subsidies for African school feeding. Many African children who attended schools depended on this supplement to their diet. This was a cruel act.

There is compulsory education for all white children at virtually no cost to their parents, be they rich or poor. Similar facilities are not provided for the African children, though there are some who receive such assistance. African children, however, generally have to pay more for their schooling than whites. According to figures quoted by the South African Institute of Race Relations in its 1963 journal, approximately 40 per cent of African children in the age group between seven to fourteen do not attend school. For those who do attend school, the standards are vastly different from those afforded to white children. In 1960-61 the per capita Government spending on African students at State-aided schools was estimated at R12.46. In the same years, the per capita spending on white children in the Cape Province (which are the only figures available to me) was R144.57. Although there are no figures available to me, it can be stated, without doubt, that the white children on whom R144.57 per head was being spent all came from wealthier homes than African children on whom R12.46 per head was being spent.

The quality of education is also different. According to the Bantu Educational Journal, only 5,660 African children in the whole of South Africa passed their Junior Certificate in 1962, and in that year only 362 passed matric. This is presumably consistent with the policy of Bantu education about which the present Prime Minister said, during the debate on the Bantu Education Bill in 1953:

"When I have control of Native education I will reform it so that Natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them . . . People who believe in equality are not desirable teachers for Natives. When my Department controls Native education it will know for what class of higher education a Native is fitted, and whether he will have a chance in life to use his knowledge."

The other main obstacle to the economic advancement of the African is the industrial colour-bar under which all the better jobs of industry are reserved for Whites only. Moreover, Africans who do obtain employment in the unskilled and semi-skilled occupations which are open to them are not allowed to form trade unions which have recognition under the Industrial Conciliation Act. This means that strikes of African workers are illegal, and that they are denied the right of collective bargaining which is permitted to the better-paid White workers. The discrimination in the policy of successive South African Governments towards African workers is demonstrated by the so-called `civilized labour policy` under which sheltered, unskilled Government jobs are found for those white workers who cannot make the grade in industry, at wages which far exceed the earnings of the average African employee in industry.

The Government often answers its critics by saying that Africans in South Africa are economically better off than the inhabitants of the other countries in Africa. I do not know whether this statement is true and doubt whether any comparison can be made without having regard to the cost-of-living index in such countries. But even if it is true, as far as the African people are concerned it is irrelevant. Our complaint is not that we are poor by comparison with people in other countries, but that we are poor by comparison with the white people in our own country, and that we are prevented by legislation from altering this imbalance.

The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority. Legislation designed to preserve white supremacy entrenches this notion. Menial tasks in South Africa are invariably performed by Africans. When anything has to be carried or cleaned the white man will look around for an African to do it for him, whether the African is employed by him or not. Because of this sort of attitude, whites tend to regard Africans as a separate breed. They do not look upon them as people with families of their own; they do not realize that they have emotions - that they fall in love like white people do; that they want to be with their wives and children like white people want to be with theirs; that they want to earn enough money to support their families properly, to feed and clothe them and send them to school. And what `house-boy` or `garden-boy` or labourer can ever hope to do this?

Pass laws, which to the Africans are among the most hated bits of legislation in South Africa, render any African liable to police surveillance at any time. I doubt whether there is a single African male in South Africa who has not at some stage had a brush with the police over his pass. Hundreds and thousands of Africans are thrown into jail each year under pass laws. Even worse than this is the fact that pass laws keep husband and wife apart and lead to the breakdown of family life.

Poverty and the breakdown of family life have secondary effects. Children wander about the streets of the townships because they have no schools to go to, or no money to enable them to go to school, or no parents at home to see that they go to school, because both parents (if there be two) have to work to keep the family alive. This leads to a breakdown in moral standards, to an alarming rise in illegitimacy, and to growing violence which erupts not only politically, but everywhere. Life in the townships is dangerous. There is not a day that goes by without somebody being stabbed or assaulted. And violence is carried out of the townships in the white living areas. People are afraid to walk alone in the streets after dark. Housebreakings and robberies are increasing, despite the fact that the death sentence can now be imposed for such offences. Death sentences cannot cure the festering sore.

Africans want to be paid a living wage. Africans want to perform work which they are capable of doing, and not work which the Government declares them to be capable o Africans want to be allowed to live where they obtain work, and not be endorsed out of an area because they were not born there. Africans want to be allowed to own land in places where they work, and not to be obliged to live in rented houses which they can never call their own. Africans want to be part of the general population, and not confined to living in their own ghettoes. African men want to have their wives and children to live with them where they work, and not be forced into an unnatural existence in men`s hostels. African women want to be with their menfolk and not be left permanently widowed in the Reserves. Africans want to be allowed out after eleven o`clock at night and not to be confined to their rooms like little children. Africans want to be allowed

to travel in their own country and to seek work where they want to and not where the Labour Bureau tells them to. Africans want a just share in the whole of South Africa; they want security and a stake in society.

Above all, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy.

But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs it will not change that policy.

This then is what the ANC is fighting. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.