RACING MANDELA

THE STORY OF THE LESOTHO LIBERATION ARMY

AND
THE AZANIAN PEOPLES LIBERATION ARMY

Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe

Potlako Kitchener Leballo

Lt.Gen. Bernard Ben Leeman

Azanian Peoples Liberation Army

UNIVERSITY OF AZANIA
ISBN 978-9980-85-006-5
21 March 2012
lesotho.azania@gmail.com

Ntsu Mokhehle

RACING MANDELA
The Story of the Lesotho Liberation Army and the
Azanian Peoples Liberation Army
Lieutenant-General Ben Leeman
Azanian Peoples Liberation Army
ISBN 978-99-85-006-5
University of Azania
21 March 2012

lesotho.azania@gmail.com

RACING MANDELA: THE STORY OF THE LESOTHO LIBERATION ARMY AND THE
AZANIAN PEOPLES LIBERATION ARMY
Personal Background
My first home was in the town of Songea, very close to the Mozambican border
and Lake Nyasa, in the south west of the East African territory of Tanganyika.
Tanganyika (1919-1961)1 was not a colony but a mandate administered by the British
on behalf of the League of Nations and (from 1945) the United Nations. Although the
Nazi German Government financed German resettlement, and a British governor
quietly suggested it became a Jewish homeland, local Whites always knew Tanganyika
would never become a White settler country like Kenya and the Rhodesias (Zambia
and Zimbabwe). Nevertheless, the racially discriminatory laws of Tanganyika enabled
my parents rapidly to attain a much higher social and financial status than they would
have achieved in their own countries.
My fathers family quit Alsace2 during the 17th century Thirty Years War for what is
now Northern Ireland. My father was born in Belfast in 1895, the son of a Protestant
trade union leader who had founded Loyal Orange Lodge 309 two years earlier at
Ballyrea, Armagh, an institution whose premises and members have since respectively
been regularly torched and shot by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). My fathers
mothers family, Ulster Scots, long ago had been Scottish highlander hereditary
teachers of the MacInnes clan but had been driven from their lands at Ardgour in the
Great Glen first to the far western peninsula of ird nam Murchan (headland of the
great seas) by the MacLeans and then to Ulster during the Bishopswars (1639-40).
This explains why I chose to learn Scots Gaelic instead of Irish, and have a dim view of
chiefs. In the Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries the Scottish chiefs stole
communal clan land, destroyed the villages, drove their people out, and replaced them
with lucrative flocks of a new breed of sheep. The Basutoland Congress Party of
Lesotho was always right to suspect the motives of the countrys chiefs, most of
whom, given a chance, would have done the same.
1

German East Africa was divided after the First Word War. The kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi were
handed over to Belgian administration, a small strip was given to Uganda but most became Tanganyika.
Tanganyika became independent in 1961 and then joined Zanzibar in April 1964 as the United Republic of
Tanzania.
2
Germany was not then a state. There is therefore a family dispute as to whether we are of French or German
origin. However, in the 1600s we would have been neither, merely from Alsace. Our language would have
been a dialect of Elsssisch, mutually intelligible with Schwiizerttsch (Swiss German).

Persecuted peoples easily become persecutors and my refugee ancestors allied

themselves to the Anglo-Dutch monarchy to deprive the Catholic Irish of their lands.
Until 1909, when my drunken great grandfather died of hypothermia in his pony trap
outside the farmhouse, my family farmed the area on and around the Celtic fortress of
Emain Macha, Irelands equivalent of Thaba Bosiu. Northern Irish Protestants have
traditionally had a garrison mentality, believing military service is a duty, which is why,
along with Scottish highlanders, they are sometimes known as the desert English. My
remote ancestor was the last defender killed at the Siege of Derry in 1689 and my
great uncle, who boarded with my fathers family, lost a leg in the Boer War. My father
joined the Queens University Officer Training Corps in 1913 and then volunteered for
the Machine Gun Corps of the 4th (Ugandan) Kings African Rifles. He fought against the
German Army in German East Africa and Mozambique during the First World War,
surviving malaria, blackwater fever, a bullet through the arm and shrapnel in the leg.
Ironically it was his student engineer younger brother that died in Belfast in 1918 from
the Spanish Influenza pandemic. After the war my father settled in Songea Tanganyika
(now Tanzania), working as an elephant hunter, labour recruiter and coffee farmer. He
was a fine singer and crack shot. He once swiftly killed a snake that had startled my
sister with a single stone hurled at long range. In the Second World War he served as a
British Army captain in military intelligence at Mikindani and died of cancer in Nairobi
in 1949 at the age of fifty four. His remote 1,032 acre (418 hectares) leasehold farm
near Mbinga, Ruvuma Province, is now the Ugano Coffee Research Institute. This
successful transition from White settler control to an African cooperative, combined
with my later experience with the Chagga coffee cooperative in Kilimanjaro that
brought widespread prosperity to the peasantry, influenced my political allegiances in
Lesotho and South Africa.
My mothers father was an ORourke, from a County Cork family of Protestant Irish
gamblers and gas engineers of distant Norwegian origin. Her mother was from Rye in
East Sussex, England. My mother married my father in Songea in 1940 aged twenty
two while working as a governess and nanny to the children of a British colonial
administrator. During and after the Second World War my mother lived with my sister
and me in Cape Town, which is how we became South African citizens. Following my
fathers death the British administration in Tanganyika rejected my mothers
application to continue his business, stating that it believed a woman would not be
able to cope with such work. She sold up, returned to Cape Town but eventually took
us to England to a small marsh village named Camber Sands near her home town of

Rye. I was therefore fortunately spared an upbringing as a privileged colonial child.

My mother, having briefly tasted the life of a colonial memsahib, now reverted to her
original class status. She became a secretary in a concrete factory. She cycled to work
daily in all weathers across the marsh and dunes to the Rother estuary which she then
crossed by rowing boat.
Aged eight, I won a scholarship to a boarding school at Selsey Bill, Sussex, which
specialised in singing, music and art. This eventually proved useful when, in my 60s, I
got work teaching traditional English songs to Japanese and Korean university
students. When I turned thirteen, my mothers low pay enabled me to receive a full
government grant first to study at Kings School Worcester, and then at London
University. In 1963, aged seventeen, I spent a short time as a member of the school
Combined Cadet Force in the British Armys Queens Own Hussars tank regiment in
Germany. From 1965 to 1968 I read African, Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine and Arabian
History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (UK), and
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Nigeria). I majored in Southern African history (in
particular labour history and the Lifaqane), Afrikaans and Swahili. In 1965 I also began
the first of a series of travels as a hitchhiker with hardly any funds for food; and a
sleeping bag and groundsheet for shelter. Between 1965 and 1968 I went all over
Europe from Arctic Scandinavia to Portugal and down to the Greek Islands, then across
the Sahara, followed by a journey from England down to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Jordan and
down the Nile to Uganda and on to Cape Town.
At university I was an officer cadet in British Army military intelligence and in the
1970s served in the British army reserve of the Royal Anglian Regiment, the Royal
Artillery (Sussex Yeomanry), and the 21st Special Air Service (SAS). However, my
military interests have always focused on the concept of the soldier/guerrilla as a
social reformer. Consequently, I had no interest in a career in any first world military
force. I graduated in 1968 and returned to Tanzania by hitch-hiking. In 1973 I married
into the Lauwo clan of Marangu, Kilimanjaro. I have homes in Marangu and
Endasenaiti, a village near Adwa, Ethiopia.
From 1970 onwards I became heavily involved in the Basutoland Congress Party
(BCP) of Lesotho and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania 3. I was PAC education
secretary, acting BCP representative in Britain and Ireland, and PAC representative in
Asia and the Pacific. I served in the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA), in the Azanian
Azania was chosen as a future name for a free South Africa from the Ancient Azanians described in a
1930s archaeological report as occupying the Iron Age settlement of Mapungubwe in the northern Transvaal.
3

Peoples Liberation Army (APLA) as a lieutenant-general in charge of military

intelligence and also undercover as a major in the Lesotho Paramilitary Force (to assist
the LLA). I edited The Africanist and founded the University of Azania. In 1985 I was
awarded my PhD (magna cum laude) at Bremen University, Germany, on the study of
the ANC, SACP, PAC and BCP and have since published other related works: Lesotho
and the Struggle for Azania (1986), Lesole la Mokhehle (1992), The PAC of Azania
(1995), and Mandela and Sisulu: Equivocation, Treachery and the Road to Sharpeville
(2010). I have made a DVD data disk containing BCP/LLA and PAC/APLA
correspondence (particularly concerning Potlako Leballo) and photographs relating to
the build up and aftermath of the LLA attack on Lesotho as well as the destruction of
PAC/APLA. The disk contains over twenty hours of audio interviews with Ntsu
Mokhehle, Ntsukunyane Mphanya, Koenyama Chakela, Metsing Lekhanya, Gerard
Ramoreboli, and Moses Qhobela Molapo and has served as primary source material
for academic theses.
Before I finished writing this book I read Ntsukunyane Mphanyas two 2010
publications on his life in the BCP and his biography of Ntsu Mokhehle, which informed
me that the BCP leadership had deceived the PAC leader/APLA commander Potlako
Leballo and myself from 1970 onwards by secretly working with the South African
Bureau of State Security (BOSS) and later well funded rogue American intelligence
agencies linked to the CIA, the US State Department, the Religious Right and
American/Rhodesian mercenaries. Had I known this I would certainly not have
financed the LLA nor joined the Lesotho Paramilitary Force as an LLA spy. Consequently
I have made substantial alterations to my original text.
Bernard Leeman
March 2012
**********************************************************************

CHAPTER ONE
For twenty years I was the only White member of two allied Southern African
liberation armies that perceived Nelson Mandela and the Congress Alliance 4 as a threat
to true freedom in South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho. We believed, with
considerable justification, that Mandela and his fellow leaders in the Congress Alliance
were primarily an urban elitist group who wanted, for selfish class interests, to
compromise with rather than defeat the minority White regime in South Africa and
oppose the restoration of democracy in Lesotho.
In 1978, acting on false information from Ntsu Mokhehle and Ntsukunyane
Mphanya of the Basutoland Congress Party, I made a fateful error. Ntsu Mokhehle
(1918-1999), the exiled elected prime minister of Lesotho, appealed to me to finance
the rescue of his partys military wing, the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA), from Itumbi
Camp, Chunya, Tanzania. The year before, at Mokhehles request, I had joined the
enemy army, the Lesotho Paramilitary Force (LPF), and served for three months as an
assistant to its commander, Brigadier-General Justin Metsing Lekhanya, with the rank
of major. Since then I had established a profitable correspondence college and felt
obliged to help Mokhehle, although it ruined me and began a war that was doomed to
fail because of the duplicity of the BCP leadership. If I had known that Mokhehle was
working secretly with the South African security services I would have terminated my
association with BCP and would therefore have been able to assist the Pan Africanist
Congress leader, Potlako Leballo, and the Second Azanian Peoples Liberation Army
(also at Itumbi camp) relocate to pseudo Zaire 5 after the American financed
Tanzanian backed coup of David Sibeko in 1979.
Therefore, when my funds enabled the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) to enter
South Africa on its way to Lesotho in 1978/9 most of its 178 members including myself
believed we were launching the first African liberation army attack into South Africa.
We viewed it as the start of the final phase of the Africanist ideology pioneered in the
1940s by Anton Muziwakhe Lembede and other young militants in South Africa. When
the LLA went into action in the northern mountains of Lesotho it was an example of
4

In 1955 the African National Congress (ANC) split into two bitterly opposed factions
when the upper class leadership agreed to become part of a five member multi-racial
organisation known as the Congress Alliance to stifle the increasingly critical lower
class activists that had emerged in the townships and rural areas since 1945.
5
pseudo Zaire was that area of north-eastern present day Congo(K) where Ugandan
revolutionary forces operated and received Libyan air supplies.

the extreme even suicidal measures a disenfranchised, impoverished, marginalised and

brutalised group of people will take when a just cause is ignored by the international
community. Now, over thirty years later, we know that despite the heroism and
sacrifice of the LLA, its political leaders had no confidence in its abilities and were even
betraying its more militant members to the South African security services before they
crossed the wire from Botswana into South Africa. Among those betrayed and
murdered was my colleague Jama Mbeki, the future South African presidents brother.
When the Basutoland Congress Party was founded in 1952 a large section of its
membership believed it was not just a local anti-colonial movement. They thought that
if they could become the national government of an independent Lesotho they could
play a major role in the liberation of South Africa and either join it in a united Azania or
regain the large swath of valuable agricultural land lost to Afrikaner aggression and
British perfidy in the 19th century. Basotho politics generally revolved around the issues
of the relations between the monarchy, the principal chiefs, the lesser chiefs, the
peasant commoners, the rising middle class and White privilege. However, because of
the constant fear of South Africa annexing the kingdom combined with the humiliation
of working in the White racist Union many of the rising generation of African political
leaders in the 1940s were attracted to the ideas of Anton Lembede (1913-1947).
Lembede was a puritanical Zulu intellectual who maintained the austere
impoverished way of life of his childhood and shunned the elite social and economic
status his academic studies could have brought him in African society. In 1943/4 he
was a co-founder and second president of the African National Congress Youth League
(ANCYL) and worked to formulate a new resistance strategy in the aftermath of the
near demise of the ANC and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in 1940.
Lembede rejected the ANCs Christian liberal capitalist ideology because it had been
developed in Britain in a system where a White minority prospered through exploited
colonial labour, captive resources and captive consumer markets. He and his
ideological successors such as Ashley Peter Mda, Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, Potlako
Kitchener Leballo and John Nyati Pokela believed that a future ANC government under
leaders such as Albert Lutuli, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela would
replicate the same system in South Africa whereby a privileged multi ethnic elitist
minority would enjoy disproportionate wealth in a sort of internal colonial situation
at the expense of the vast majority. Lembede et al had sympathy with the early CPSA
which had been inspirational in the later 1920s attempting to implement Stalins
Black Republic vision through leaders from the lower socio-economic echelons of

African society rather through upper class doctors, lawyers, academics, editors,
intellectuals, Christian clergy and aristocrats. Despite the work of the CPSA activist
John Beaver Marks during the 1945 miners strike, the South African authorities,
mining executives, British and other investors ensured that mine security would never
again be threatened. This crushed the CPSA plan to achieve power through worker
disruption leading to revolutionary control of heavy industries and culminating in the
defeat of the White regime.
Lembede therefore examined alternative strategies and decided to utilise mass
demonstrations. This idea had been implemented with great success by Mahatma
Gandhi and the Indian Congress Party to achieve independence in 1948. However, as
Sobukwe miscalculated in 1960, the volatile national-socialist nature of Africanists was
ill suited to Satyagraha. Whereas upper class ANC leaders in the full glare of the
worlds press could play at being Gandhi or the Messiah, the aggressive lower class
Africanist militants, whom the press usually avoided as too dangerous to approach,
could not relate to such behaviour. 6 Because of the pervasive police informant system
Lembede, like Mandela, Sobukwe, Koenyama Chakela, and Mokhehle in later
campaigns, was cautious about too openly expressing certain ideas. He wanted
Africans to experience confrontation in national peaceful demonstrations but he gave
no directions about what to do once violence erupted. Lembede was very rural
oriented and had he known more about events in China he may have tended more
towards Maoism than dabbling in Black Fascism.
Lembede died in 1947, allegedly poisoned by a jealous girlfriend, but his concept of
mass peaceful demonstrations to politicise the African masses inspired the ANCs
Programme of Action of December 1949. The Programme of Action however deviated
from Lembedes national socialist objective of replacing upper class resistance
leadership with representatives of the rapidly expanding post war impatient
generation of schoolteachers, artisans, nurses, former soldiers, petty entrepreneurs,
lesser clergy, clerks, migrant workers, subsistence farmers, criminal gangs, factory
workers, and unemployed youth. This class was interested in a wide range of economic
and social issues and did not unquestioningly accept aristocrats, graduates and
churchmen as leaders. The post war African townships had a high concentration of
intelligent skilled innovative and ambitious workers forming networks in long term
residential areas and this inevitably heightened political awareness and facilitated
6

Gandhi urged the Jews in 1938 to find joy in the impending holocaust.

political organization. A troika of ambitious Xhosa speakers, Nelson Mandela, Walter

Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, swiftly out-manoeuvred Lembedes former colleague and
successor Ashley P. Mda, to seize control of the ANC in 1949 under an ineffectual new
president, Dr James Moroka. Sisulu, who had a European father, had been racially
taunted and humiliated by Lembede in the latters School of African Nationalism and
eventually took spectacular revenge on the Africanists in 1955.The CPSA dissolved
itself in 1950 to escape prosecution under an impending law banning communism.
Nevertheless it had several non African leaders of national importance who did not
have dual membership of the ANC like Marks and Moses Kotane. The new ANC
executive therefore agreed to let the Franchise Action Council (FAC), a mixed-race
organisation, and the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) participate in planning and
participation for the Defiance Campaign of 1952. Although upstaged by Mandela,
Sisulu and Tambo, Mda gathered together a group of Africanists to concentrate on
politicising the Eastern Cape area where the CPSA had never been strong but where
peasant and elitist African resistance had both flourished. It was also the location of
the most prestigious African educational institution, University College, Fort Hare,
where the Programme of Action had been originally drafted under the supervision of
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe and Ntsu Mokhehle. Mda quietly launched the Bureau of
African Nationalism in January 1952 and distributed ideological leaflets. The Bureau
was greatly influenced by George Padmore 7 and Kwame Nkrumahs activism in West
Africa and therefore used Lenins democratic centralist model of a small tight-knit
group of trained revolutionaries [Lenin 1902]. Nelson Mandela was in charge of the
Defiance Campaign as leader of thousands of African volunteers who systematically
violated racial segregation laws by using or entering facilities reserved for Whites. The
plan was to engulf the NP regimes judicial and administrative system, making it
impossible to try and sentence Africans for breaking the pass and racial segregation
laws. Defiance began on 26 June 6 1952. Mandela, Sisulu and other leaders including
SAIC activists were arrested in August. Mdas Bureau kept reminding Africanists not to
let their efforts be hijacked to serve as part of a communist and liberal media publicity
exercise to enhance the cause of upper class multiracial solidarity.
The Africanists concentrated their campaign in the Eastern Cape and it was there
that the majority of arrests were made for violating apartheid laws. Police
7

George Padmore had led the Negro Bureau of the Communist International of Labour Unions and the
International African Services Bureau. Padmore, expelled from the Comintern, later created a similar
organisation in Ghana - the Bureau of African Affairs - to aid African liberation movements.

reinforcements were called into Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and East London and
resistance eventually became violent when police broke up gatherings. Arson
escalated and rioting in October and November resulting in fourteen African and six
White deaths. When Moroka, Mandela and eighteen other leaders went on trial in
December for furthering the communist cause, the leadership of the ANC and its allies
felt the Defiance campaign had gone far enough. Moroka distanced himself from his
colleagues and pleaded for clemency. All received harsh but suspended sentences.
Moroka was immediately replaced as ANC leader by Chief Albert Lutuli, who
terminated the Defiance Campaign in January 1953.
Lutulis decision caused a permanent split in the South African resistance that
lasted until the death of Potlako Leballo in 1986. On one side were the Africanists, who
advocated revolutionary mass demonstrations to overwhelm the apartheid regime and
replace it with a directly elected democratic government. On the other were the
gradualists who opposed dramatic lower class initiatives and rapid change, dreaming,
as Richard Gibson8 noted of the great conference table in the sky where they would
negotiate with the NP regime. Whereas the Africanists believed the NP regime was evil
and beyond redemption, Lutuli did not. At the Treason Trial in 1957 he stated:
The African National Congress was not working for the overthrow of the ruling
classes. It was working for being given an opportunity to participate in the government
of the country.
This contrasted sharply with Leballo, who intended to drive the white foreign dogs
into the sea, and Peter Molotsi, who wanted to get the bloody bastards, that's all.
Lutuli and other conservative Christian ANC leaders had been unnerved by the
racial violence that marked the final two months of the Defiance Campaign but the
main reason for ending the Defiance Campaign was the NPs plan to pass two
draconian new laws in early 1953 designed to make public political protests
impossible. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 4 March forbade any form of public
protest and punished offenders with a 300 fine, three years' imprisonment and/or
ten lashes of the whip and instigators (such as Mandela) with a 500 fine, five-year jail
sentence and/or 15 lashes. The Public Safety Law of 4 March permitted the declaration
of a State of Emergency and rule by decree. Similar legislation passed in Kenya resulted
in Kenyatta being jailed on 8 April 1953 for seven years.
8

Richard Gibson, an African-American Marxist and a leader of the Fair Play for Cuba movement (he signed
up Lee Harvey Oswald as a member), published the authorative African Liberation Movements in 1972 and
was one of the few writers to detail the true reasons for the PAC break with ANC in 1959.

The Africanists were irredeemably angry because, encouraged by Nkrumahs

campaign of Positive Action success in the Gold Coast (Ghana) 9 a few months earlier,
they believed mass demonstrations had reached a self generating stage no longer
dependent on centralised control and would soon spread across the country creating
new leaders and eventually overwhelming the apartheid state. The new laws were
implemented in March and Africanists felt that if the campaign had lasted until then,
the NP regime would have seriously challenged. The ANC was united, White opinion
was divided (many thought Whites in Natal would leave the Union), Malan was aging
with no visible successor, there was far greater White support for the ANC than in
1960 when it was banned, and the NP regime did not yet have the legal power to deal
swiftly and drastically with breakdown in order. Sobukwe commented: ...the leaders
got cold feet. When these laws were passed it became clear they werent actually
prepared to make sacrifices.
The controversy surrounding the termination of the Defiance Campaign split the
ANC into two camps defined by nationalism, ethnicity, gender, class and strategy. The
issue was complicated by the secret resurrection of the CPSA in 1953 as the
clandestine SACP; the equally clandestine and increasing influence of the Basotho in
both South Africa and Lesotho in ANC politics; and Mdas withdrawal from active
politics.
The main group within the ANC was nominally led by Albert Lutuli (a government
recognised Zulu chief and committed Christian) but real power was in the hands of
socially upwardly mobile Transvaal ANC Xhosa speakers (Mandela, Sisulu, Tambo) with
their Indian allies. The Africanists were on a lower social scale with a significant
Basotho following and predominantly young volatile males who stressed their African
identity. The Africanists found it extremely difficult convincing the essentially
conservative ANC of the need to adopt radical measures. Sobukwe commented:
It was hard to fight an established organization like the ANC It had the tradition
and aura of a church.
The Africanist strategy remained that of the Defiance Campaign wave after wave
of mass African demonstrations to paralyse the NP regimes police, prison and judicial
system and finally overwhelming the apartheid state through numerical attrition.
Lutulis circle and allies argued otherwise. If they launched any new demonstrations
they would immediately be jailed or heavily fined. They therefore adopted a new
9

Nkrumah had been jailed for leading public protests but released from jail to be elected prime minister on
21 March 1952.

10

strategy. Firstly they would plan large scale meetings not demonstrations where
important proclamations would be announced to gain national publicity and
demonstrate the party was still very active. The large number of lawyers in the ANC
hierarchy ensured that the NP regime would find it difficult to convict them for such
activities. While safeguarding the ANC leaders the new strategy it stifled resistance and
angered the lower classes, who desperately needed effective leadership as the
apartheid Bantustan system caused massive disruption, economic hardship,
educational disaster and other hardships. Secondly the closet SACP members in the
ANC would make dual party membership attractive through financial incentives and
international linkages. Without Lutulis knowledge Duma Nokwe (1927-1978), a former
CP Youth Leaguer who was the chairman of the powerful ANC Orlando township
branch (with 28 sub branches) of the ANC (and a SACP member), Henry Makgothi
(1928- ), and Andrew Mlangeni (1925- ) left the country without Lutulis knowledge.
Nokwe, Makgothi, and Mlangeni were all dual ANC/SACP members who had been
recruited by Tambo while students at St Peters School. Sisulus delegation flew to the
Soviet bloc state of Romania, and then journeyed on for five months to visit the Soviet
Union, Poland, China (where Sisulu enquired about arms supplies), Britain, and Israel.
Lutuli was restricted to Groutville in rural Natal but even when he was aware of
Sisulus unauthorised activities he did not assert his authority. The Africanists
launched a ferocious attack on Sisulus clique on the Rand by disrupting meetings and
shouting abuse about Stalin and heckling the SACP converts as eastern functionaries.
Because of stress related lethargy and restriction Lutuli was unable to control
ANC/SACP power brokers on the Rand, who spent the next two years bringing the ANC
under the control of the SACP. After secretly reviving the Communist Party in 1953 the
communists cooperated with non communist movements so that very soon the Whites
only Congress of Democrats (COD), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the South
African Coloured Peoples Organisation (SACPO), and the South African Congress of
Trade Unions (SACTU) all had secretary-generals who were members of the secret
SACP. In 1955 Walter Sisulu, the ANC secretary-general, also joined the SACP and this
was never revealed until 2003 after his death.
Today it is quite common for Europeans of all classes to accept assimilation into
African culture, for example adopting Rastafarian beliefs or taking a deep interest in
African music, dance or other artistic expression. However in the 1950s not many
radical Whites and, surprisingly, some radical Blacks such as Sobukwe were uncertain if
Africans could successfully govern and administer their own countries unaided.

11

Therefore there was a general trend to dilute democracy with appointed officials or
representatives elected by a disproportionate method. Such a system exists in the
United States where the state of Wyoming (2009 population 544,270) elects two
Senators and one Congress representative while California (2009 population
36,961,664) also elects two Senators but fifty-three Congress representatives. In
Southern Africa the right wing Capricorn Society and the SACP (former CPSA) both
used multi-racial alliances to block African democracy, while the Bantustans and British
Protectorates used nomination (see Chapter Two).
Because the SACP did not officially exist, Africanist anti-communist agitation often
sounded like Cold War red scaremongering of right wing Americans. The Africanists
demanded African leadership of the resistance and African solutions based on African
experience not an imposed Soviet system or the pre 1894 Cape Colony model of
gradual assimilation by qualified franchise into the liberal-capitalist system. They
sought Pan African unity and inspiration for Nkrumahs Ghana. Sisulus group, dubious
of Pan African ability to bring down the NP regime, believed that a Soviet alliance
would serve them better, especially because the NP regime feared the Soviets far
more than Nkrumah. Immediately after the Defiance Campaign the ANC leadership
retreated from mass revolutionary strategy to multi racial elitist solidarity. However
the protests against the Bantu Education Act and Western Areas removals that year
were ineffectual because the ANC leaders used an English cleric, Rev. Trevor
Huddleston, as their figurehead to avoid prosecution under Criminal Law Amendment
Act and participation was low because the campaigns seemed designed to enhance
multi-racial elitist solidarity.
The Africans suffered a setback in early 1953 when the highly stressed Mda, aged
thirty-seven, quit active politics to settle in Herschel, a remote township in the Eastern
Cape near Lesotho. His former colleagues continued to meet regularly at Leballos
house in Orlando and oppose the ANC shift from mass Positive Action. The ANC also
suffered from bannings forcing Mandela to resign as ANC vice president and Transvaal
Province president, and Sisulu as ANC secretary general.
The ANC Cape leader Professor Z. Matthews inadvertently provided a scheme that
enabled the SACP to take over the ANC and reverse the lower class advance in the
ANC. Matthews, who had been very influential in creating alliances with Trotskyites
before the Second World War, suggested in 1953 that since open demonstrations were
banned it would be better to convene a large public meeting to assure the majority of
South Africans that the ANC was still a formidable force and proclaim a vision of what

12

kind of South Africa would emerge after the end of apartheid. In 1953, a special
conference of the ANC met at Queenstown in the Cape to discuss a proposed Freedom
Charter. The Bureau of African Nationalism campaigned against the idea, but no bus or
train tickets were issued to its delegates. A. P. Mda and others managed to attend and
attacked the idea of the Charter. Victor Mbobo, secretary of the Orlando ANCYL,
criticised Professor Matthews, for advocating Coloured over African advancement but
the Africanists main concern that Matthews was a retreat from the Programme of
Action plan which they upheld as their main ideological statement. To them the
proposed new Freedom Charter was a Cowards Charter, created by cautious elitist
leaders who wanted to retain their high political, economic and social status but
refrain from challenging the NP regime for fear of jail. At the Queenstown conference
Matthews proposed that the Freedom Charter should reflect the demands or visions of
a future society, filtered upwards from the mass of common men and women.
Matthews later said that his idea of convening such a meeting was to aid the instilling
of political consciousness into the people and the encouraging of political activity.
The most active Africanist, the manically energised Potlako Leballo, was not
confident that the mayhem and trauma he was causing the Sisulu group on the Rand
was conducive to winning over the conservatives and gaining control of the ANC. He
therefore supported the new leadership of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe (1924-1978).
Sobukwe had a high social and economic status in the African community through his
work as a minor academic at the University of the Witwatersrand but his populist
approach earned him respect among low class activists including tsotsi gangs. Sobukwe
focused on getting Africanists elected to key ANC positions in order to take control of
the party. In March 1954 Leballo defeated Duma Nokwe, a SACP apparatchik, for the
post of chairman of the ANCYL branch in Orlando East. The acting ANC office bearers
were very insecure. They tried to expel Leballo and MacDonald Maseko, chairman of
the Orlando Branch. Leballos Africanist main branch (his post was in the Youth
League) retaliated by expelling B. G. Makgothi, the ANCYL Transvaal president, who
had gone to Romania. Violence erupted between the two groups. Sobukwe
commented:
the real leaders were banned and couldnt speak openly. Therefore we
couldnt directly attack them personally, and there was no way they could
personally reply to us in public. We knew however that it was they who were
responsible for the course of events in the ANC. While these banned men
were behind the scenes, men of much lesser caliber - total fools - were

13

actually in the leadership positions in Congress. We had no respect for any of

these people; yet there was no point in personally attacking them, because
they were simply carrying out instructions from the banned leaders, saying
what theyd been told to say by the big boys. They tended to be dogmatic and
there was no point in trying to engage them in argument. Our tactics in the
face of this were to try to use every meeting and conference to speak directly
to the people, to hammer home our line with all the persuasiveness we could.
Pretty soon they got wise to this and began to exclude us from conferences.
But we were up against a situation that has always existed in South Africa,
namely that the masses will automatically follow a leader or organization that
they have a loyalty to, without thinking about the wisdom or weakness of
particular policies they are told to support. This is particularly true of the
women. Oh, the women! We knew that our numbers were small and that it
would be hard to put our views across. I was ANC chairman in Mofolo [in
Soweto], and their tactic there was to have their own man with a rival branch,
and when conferences came they would recognize him as a delegate instead
of me. [Gerhart interview 1970]
In November 1954, the Africanists launched their newspaper The Africanist, with a
run of 5,800 copies, edited by William Jalobe, then Peter Molotsi and eventually
Sobukwe. Mda contributed articles and sometimes met the Africanists either in the
townships or rural locations. However, because of the lack of funds, The Africanist
could not complete with national distribution with the Communist and Liberal press.
Albert Lutulis weak leadership, Mandelas indifference, and Walter Sisulus secret
defection to the SACP enabled the SACP to dominate events. The adoption of the
Freedom Charter was scheduled for a large open air meeting named The Congress of
the People at Kliptown between 25 and 26 June 1955. The Charter was written by two
White SACP members, Joe Slovo a Lithuanian immigrant - and his wife Ruth First and
thousands of copies were distributed in Johannesburg before the document was
discussed by a handful of ANC officials on 22 June. Lutuli never saw the Freedom
Charter until after it had been adopted and his representative Dr Conco only read a
copy the day the Congress of the People opened. Two thousand eight hundred and
eighty four people attended, including 320 Indians, 230 Coloureds and 112 Europeans.
African battle honours were awarded Rev. Huddleston and, in absentia, to Pieter
Byleveld (an Afrikaner) and Dr Dadoo (an Indian), respectively SACP secretary-general
of the Congress of Democrats and the SACP leader of the SAIC; and Albert Lutuli. The

14

Freedom Charter was read out section by section and adopted by roars of approval
from the crowd.
Frustrated lower socio-economic strata male Africans generally supported
expulsion of Europeans from South Africa if that would bring a vast improvement to
their lives and did not result in economic collapse. This attitude was reflected in
Africanist objections to what they felt was the Freedom Charters extremely insensitive
preamble stating South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, thus,
without discussion, overturning the beliefs that sparked the 1912 and 1935 protests
against the Land Acts and not only recognising that Europeans were citizens and not
uncompromising invaders but also accepting White ownership of 87% of the land.
Worse, the Charter declared that there should be equal status in the bodies of state,
in the courts and in the schools for all national groups and races. This clause enabled
the SACP to seize power over the ANC. The African National Congress, SACPO, SAIC,
COD and the newly formed South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) were
created equal partners in an ANC Congress Alliance, each organisation having one
member of equal power in the executive. This structure was duplicated right down the
national structure to the branches. Since each partner had one vote in the executive,
this relegated the ANC to a position equal to the White COD, which never had more
than five hundred members. Since the secretary-generals of all five organisations were
SACP or (like Oliver Tambo, Sisulus ANC successor) SACP-oriented, the acceptance of
the Freedom Charter marked a spectacular turn in fortune for the SACP.
The considerable outcry against the Freedom Charter forced Lutuli and his
conservative Christian circle to reconsider. The Transvaal Province conference of the
ANC, where the Africanists were strongest, refused to accept the Freedom Charter
later that year and, when the ANC met at its annual conference at the end of 1955,
Lutuli himself did not support it and the conference refused to endorse the document.
However, Sobukwe commented:
We didnt put much faith in Lutuli. He was a gentle old man, but he didnt have
much political sense. He was politically nave. I dont suppose there was ever a speech
of Lutulis delivered at a conference that was in the original form in which Lutuli had
drafted it. Leaders like Mandela had a cynical attitude to Lutuli At one ANC annual
conference - probably 1955 where the Freedom Charter was debated - there was a
violent fracas. Calata was presiding. The Charter was finally shelved on the grounds
that it was contrary to the constitution of the ANC to adopt it. They postponed it and
then called a special conference the following April to adopt it. The conference was

15

actually meant to consider another issue - passes for women - but this wasnt
discussed. People were just brought there to ratify the Charter. [Gerhart interview
1970]
Lutulis decision eventually to recognise the Freedom Charter and the Congress
Alliance was probably guided by his fear that events were moving too fast and that the
relative economic and social gains his upper class colleagues had achieved might be
swept away by township demagogues inflaming the underclass into violent revolution.
In this he was supported by Tambo, the new ANC secretary general, who changed the
ANC constitution in 1957 to confirm the overall power of the SACP controlled Congress
Alliance. There were similar developments in Central and East Africa, most notably in
the Central African Federation (now present Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) where a
qualified franchise gave power to Whites; and Kenya and Tanzania where Whites,
Indians, and conservative Africans tried to counter African democracy. In Ghana the
future Nigerian president, Nnamdi Azikiwe, warned against those Africans who
belonged to the elite of colonial society and favoured retaining the existing order, as
they regarded it as the basis of their well being, while in the Caribbean there was a
move to incorporate the British oriented islands into Canada. All this was indicative of
a lack of faith in African self-determination.
Stressed, vacillating, and restricted, Lutuli did nothing to prevent the ANC sliding
into civil war. He was not aware, even in 1962, that the Communist Party still existed.
He believed that the ANC could handle the communists in the party and wrote,
unconsciously reflecting his own inept leadership, If there is any danger of their using
Congress for their ends and infiltrating into key positions, it can only be the result of
apathy among non-Communists. Rather than accommodate the Africanists justified
anger about the Congress Alliance, he dismissed them as racist fanatics. However the
Africanists intensified their campaign to take over the Transvaal ANC leadership, which
was financed and supported by the SACP controlled Congress Alliance. The Transvaal
leaders were only substitutes for the banned leadership and a leadership ANC internal
report stated:
There exists great inefficiency at varying levels of Congress leadership: the inability
to understand simple local situations, inefficiency in attending to the simple things,
such as small complaints, replying to letters, visiting of branches. There is complete
lack of confidence of one another, lack of teamwork in committees, individualism and
the lust for power. The result is sabotage of Congress decisions and directives, gossip
and unprincipled criticism.

16

The Charterists (supporters of the Congress Alliance and the Freedom Charter)
experienced mixed fortunes by the prosecution of many of their leaders including
Lutuli, Mandela, Sisulu, Tambo, Dadoo, Professor Matthews, and the Slovos, during the
1956-1961 Treason Trial, which gave them national publicity and equated them in the
eyes of the general public with serious resistance to the NP regime, even though they
were all acquitted as the judge declared that there was no evidence that the Freedom
Charter was a communist document or there had been any plan to overthrow the NP
regime by force. The Congress Alliance nevertheless suffered huge legal costs and
years of uncertainty while the Africanists were being highly successful in recruiting
new ANC members attracted to their more militant standpoint.
The Congress Alliance continued its non confrontational approach with a new
strategy of boycotts but the Africanist-Charterist conflict made a unified approach
impossible. The Charterists boycotted cigarettes and the Africanists organised a bus
boycott, protesting against price hikes. The ANYCL official Vus Make (1931-2006),
prominent in the bus boycott, was one of the few Africanists to face charges in the
Treason Trial. Although none of the boycotts had any impact on White prosperity they
were significant in that South Africa was becoming a multi-racial consumer society and
the future economy would be reliant on a well paid cooperative African workforce
using its wages to buy locally manufactured goods. The obdurate Afrikaner farming
regime failed to recognise this and instead of dealing with the rising anger of the
African lower class concentrated on smashing communists, who were mostly rather
harmless middle and upper class Jewish activists, Indian professionals, members of
small trade unions, and African apparatchiks with revolutionary rhetoric but upper
class aspirations.
At the Transvaal Provincial conference of the ANC in October 1957, the shadow
Transvaal Executive failed to get Africanist support to accept it en bloc for re-election.
Criticism escalated at the annual conference in December. Africanist petitioners in the
Transvaal and the Cape, backed by articles in the African press, expressed widespread
dissatisfaction with the Transvaal and national leadership of the party. A vote of no
confidence in the Transvaal leadership failed but the matter was set aside for a special
conference held on 23 February, 1958.
When Stephen Segale, leader of The Petitioners, a group opposing ANC electoral
corruption, denounced the Transvaal leadership in February 1958 tempers worsened
as Charterists tried to prevent Africanists from entering the Orlando Hall where the
conference was being held. Leballo called for new elections, intending that Sobukwe

17

would become the Transvaal Provincial leader although Josiah Madzunya (19091970s), based in Alexandra Township, was a strong candidate. Charterists, chairing the
meeting, hurriedly closed the conference, saying that the time for leasing the hall had
expired. Eventually the Transvaal leadership was suspended and the ANC executive
committee took direct control of the Provincial branch, through emergency powers
rather than risk fair elections that might usher in an Africanist leadership.
In 1958, the COD and SAIC partners in the ANC Alliance succeeded in forcing
through a resolution calling for a stay-at-home strike, although the ANC itself, after
discussions throughout its branches, rejected the idea. The Africanist branches, which
were growing in number, had been chiefly responsible for opposition to the proposed
strike and, when the strike failed in April 1958, the Alliance called for the Africanists to
be disciplined. Mandela, the ANC Transvaal president, convened a dubiouslyconstituted caucus in May 1958 that expelled Leballo and Madzunya from the ANC.
There was a delay until August 1958 when a NP ban was lifted on African political
gatherings. On 1 November, 1958, the ANC met for the annual Transvaal Provincial
conference. When the Africanists attempted to elect either Sobukwe or Leballo as the
new Transvaal leader, Oliver Tambo disqualified all the Africanist branch delegates and
closed the hall. The next day both sides squared off outside Orlando Communal Hall,
which was defended by Charterist thugs, armed with iron bars and clubs, who were
determined to allow entry only to Tambo-approved delegates.
In retrospect many Africanists including Leballo believed that they should have
stayed within the ANC and eventually got their own leaders elected. However, when
Sobukwe, Leballo and Madzunya visited Lesotho for the Basutoland Congress Party
(BCP) conference in December 1958, Ntsu Mokhehle, the BCP leader and Nkrumahs
All African Convention representative in Southern Africa, urged them to form a new
political party and advised Sobukwe to quit his prestigious university job.

18

CHAPTER TWO
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not
make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already,
given and transmitted from the past.
Karl Marx 1852
One of the most neglected issues in South African political history is the
involvement of the Basotho in the ANC Africanist-Charterist crisis of the 1950s. I was
fortunate to work closely with both Potlako Leballo before and after the Sibeko coup
of 1979; and Ntsu Mokhehle until his astonishing and badly bungled defection to
Pretoria in 1981. Like Leballo, Nyati Pokela, Zephaniah Mothopeng, Jama Mbeki,
Matooane Mapefane, and other Pan Africanists, I served in both the BCP and PAC as
well as LLA and APLA and, like them, accepted that the Basotho in Lesotho and in
South Africa were part of the same struggle. However, politics in colonial Basutoland
were not conducive to Africanist ideology but concerned with the failing chiefly
administrative structure, the ineffectual regency rule since 1940 of Paramount Seeisos
senior widow Amelia Mantsebo, the frustration of the rising educated class, severe
land erosion, White trader monopolies, economic overdependence on migrant labour
remittances from South African mines, and fear that British indifference would hand
the kingdom over to apartheid South Africa.
The most prominent politicians in Lesotho from 1952 until 1986 were Ntsu
Mokhehle and Chief Leabua Jonathan. Ntsu Clement Cicerone Sejabanana (the seizer
of girls) Mokhehle was born on 26 December 1918 into a family of Anglican bahlalefi,
- Basotho who had adopted western education and become part of the rising middle
class. He was the sixth child and third son of Cicerone Mokhehle, a village headman
and one of the first two Basotho education inspectors. Cicerone had introduced
sundials in schools that had no clocks. He had five daughters and five sons. The eldest
son, Maoba William Mokhehle (1911-69), served in the Second World War and
became the first Mosotho magistrate in the 1960s. Two daughters became nurses in
South Africa while a third, 'Malejapoli, taught domestic science at Langa High School in
Cape Town, and later married E. Lesoli, a well known trader at Ha Sekake in Qacha's
Nek District. The ninth child was a son named Shakhane (1927-2005), who became
Ntsus close political colleague. The tenth child, also a son, was Thaele, who became a
teacher and then an Anglican priest. The Anglicans were associated with the British
and were the minority main stream Christian Church after the French Calvinist led

19

PEMS Protestants and French Canadian led OMI Catholics. Their reputation had
suffered slightly for being associated with the English Cape Colony during the Gun War.
Mokhehle was a commoner not a chief although he remarked to me that his
headman father Cicerone administered more followers and land than Chief Leabua
Jonathan, Ntsus nemesis. Mokhehle first became involved in politics in about 1931
through meeting militant peasant Lekhotla la Bafo (Commoners League) members
including their leader Josiel Lefela, when Ntsus brother was delivering them under
arrest to Teyateyaneng. In 1932, two of Ntsus cousins took him at weekends to attend
Lefelas meetings at Mapoteng. Mokhehle learned about the Sotho prophet Mohlomi,
and began to research his life. He did not, however, become a member of the Zionist
Church, Kereke ea Moshoeshoe.
Writing in May 1980, Mokhehle, in response to my enquiry concerning prophets,
declared:
I have not many persons that I really believe had prophetic gifts - in the history of
my people. I consider Mohlomi Monyane and Mantsopa Makhetha the only two such
persons - if prophesy there is indeed. A third one did not call himself a prophet. But he
had miraculous powers of extra-sensory perception. I knew him personally. He was
murdered at Berea by his chief - Leshoboro Majara. His name was Mohlolo
Ramachoea. He did and foretold a few things that startled me - the most conservative
unbelievers in these matters. The rest self-styled prophets are, for my part, deceivers.
People like Chapi [Japie], Katse, etc.
Despite his scientific abilities, Mokhehle respected traditional beliefs and created a
traditionalist doctor section in the BCP.
At St. Matthews high school in the Eastern Cape Mokhehle began writing articles
for the Lesotho newspaper Mochochonono and, in particular, denounced the findings
of the 1939 publication of the South African Council for Educational and Social
Research, The Educability of the South African Native, by Dr. Lawrence Fick, who
concluded Africans were incapable of learning through European methods. From St.
Matthews, Mokhehle entered University College, Fort Hare, in 1940. He was
squeamish about medicine and therefore specialised in zoology, after initial studies in
science.
Mokhehle organised Fort Hares first student strike after a European employee
kicked an African domestic servant. The strikers were fined one pound each. . In 1942,
there was a second strike that resulted in Mokhehles expulsion. He was permitted to
resume his studies in 1944. In 1945, Mokhehle left Fort Hare to work as a teacher to

20

finance his MSc degree on the parasitology of the swift. On his return to Fort Hare in
1946 Mokhehle found that Lembedes ideas had fired student imagination and the Fort
Hare ANCYL Branch was formally launched in November 1948. Godfrey Pitje was
elected chairman and Joe Matthews secretary. In 1949, the Programme of Action was
drawn up by the Fort Hare ANCYL (Victoria East Branch) of which Robert Mangaliso
Sobukwe was president and Mokhehle his deputy. His rural background and interest in
Basotho culture made him highly critical of the political motives of urbanised African
graduates who aspired to enter the elitist world of White liberals and communists.
Mokhehle followed his MSc with a teaching diploma in 1949. The British refused
him a high school position in Lesotho so he took a post at Ermelo. The next year he
returned to Lesotho to be a political activist and accepted the lower status job as
headmaster of Maseru Intermediate School. One of his colleagues was Potlako Leballo,
whose teacher training course had been interrupted by war service and expulsion for
rioting at Lovedale. He, Mokhehle, Sobukwe, Pokela, and Conco were members of
Mdas July 1950 Hard Core Africanists who met at Bochebela Township,
Bloemfontein.
Mokhehle and Leballo both did work for the Ladybrand Branch of the ANC. Nyati
Pokela moved to the Basutoland High School and soon they were discussing the need
to implement the resolution of the 1949 conference, which had called for the
establishment of Congress parties in the High Commission Territories. Preliminary
discussions took place during picnics and, at length, an Interim Committee of
Seventeen was formed to enquire into the problems of establishing a Congress Party,
and writing its manifesto. Mokhehle had spent the two years of his return to
Basutoland fusing together the various associations and organisations existent among
the African community in Maseru. He was president of the National Sports Association,
president of the Teachers' Association, president of the Co-operatives and retained his
influence as part-president of the Basutoland African National He was elected
president of the Interim Council of Seventeen, while Leballo and Pokela were elected
respectively chairman and secretary. As Mokhehle moved towards founding the first
political party in Basutoland, Sisulu, Mandela and J.B. Marks tried to dissuade him,
urging the formation of an ANC branch in Maseru. The covert communists and the
liberal-Christian, multi-racial elitists opposed the establishment of an Africanist party,
believing justifiably that it would strengthen the Africanist Movement in the Union.
Mokhehle was an ANC member and during the 1962 Defiance Campaign was called to
help organise ANC activities in Bloemfontein. However the Basutoland African

21

Congress (BAC), the BCPs original name, was not the ANC with a Sesotho name.
Southern Africas highly respected communist, Edwin Mofutsanyana, a Mosotho, tried
to persuade Mokhehle to remain in Lekhotla la Bafo and transform it into a modern
political party probably on similar lines to Maoism or as in Kerala, where a peasantbased communist government was elected in India 1957 but was dismissed by Indian
Congress premier Nehru in 1959 over its land and education reform policies.
Leballo was arrested during the 1952 Defiance Campaign, but had been released by
the time the BAC was inaugurated on 7th October, 1952. He was prevented from
entering Basutoland but elected the Transvaal provincial secretary. The 1952 BAC
Manifesto denounced White interference in Basotho affairs, the lack of democratic
representation, increasing South African influence, and racial discrimination in the civil
service and social functions. Members of the PEMS (LEC), Anglicans, Roman Catholics,
AME members, elitists, chiefs of all ranks, trade unionists, and members of Lekhotla la
Bafo all joined the BAC, attracted by its broad nationalist appeal, Gani Surtie, the IndoMosotho who later became treasurer of the Basotho National Party (BNP), was one of
its founders. Chief Leabua Jonathan, Anthony Manyeli, Chief Patrick 'Mota, Chief Peete
Peete - all future BNP Ministers - and Chief Samuel Matete, who later founded the
Marema Tlou Party (MTP), all joined the BAC in its early days. Unlike the ANC where
Moroka and Lutuli did not seek the presidency, Mokhehle wanted to be leader of the
BAC. Mandela was the same age as Mokhehle and had he become ANC leader in 1952
instead of Lutuli, he would have delivered a far more robust response to SACP intrigue
and probably held the ANC together.
The BACs first success was their successful campaign against the 1954 Moore
Commission, when they argued that the commissions recommendation of
administrative decentralisation and the appointment of British district officers to
replace the chaotic chiefly administration was a ploy to weaken the kingdom and hand
the country it over to South Africa. The BAC also attracted the westernised Basotho
elite such as Bennet Khaketla, a prominent writer. However a backlash developed
among conservative and Catholic members after Lefela urged his Lekhotla la Bafo on
12 March 1957 to join the BAC; and significant numbers of migrant mine workers
began registering as party members. It was becoming clear that the BAC was evolving
into a militant republican minded, migrant worker and peasant party with Africanist,
trade unionist, Protestant and African Zionist Church connections. Disaffected
members quit to form rival parties. While the political activity in the other two
protectorates of Bechuanaland (Botswana) and Swaziland was dominated by

22

aristocrats; the Basotho senior chiefs, the lesser chiefs and the BAC opposed the reestablishment of a powerful paramount chief with a centralised administration.
Nevertheless Chief Samuel Matetes Marema Tlou (MT) had some success when it
succeeded in obtaining an undertaking that Constantine Bereng Seeiso (1938-1996),
the heir to the paramountcy, would be installed as paramount in 1960, despite the
Regents reservations.
In 1955 Mokhehle, Khaketla and Mothopeng were expelled from their teaching
posts at Basutoland High School for their articles in Khaketlas newspaper Mohlabani
and Mokhehle eventually became a full time politician in 1957 mostly sustained by
party membership dues. Until 1960 most Congress members were not in Lesotho but
on the Rand. The Rand Basotho were far more radical and Africanist minded than
those in the protectorate but although their political and especially financial influence
was strong, Mokhehle was committed to parliamentary democracy not mass
demonstrations and revolution. Nevertheless there were some sections of the
community where he had little success. The Catholic Church in Lesotho was arch
conservative and dominated by French Canadian missionaries who had substantial
property and ran the countrys only university college. They were zealous in following
Pope Pius XIIs instruction to excommunicate anyone furthering communism, which
they interpreted as including advocating workers rights, equitable pay, and an end to
foreign exploitation. They were ignorant of Mokhehles hostility to the SACP.
Consequently many Catholic school teachers, clergy and lay personnel were alienated
by Mokhehles socialist and anti-missionary statements and at first formed a Catholic
oriented Christian Democratic Party under the Manyeli brothers. This merged with
Chief Leabua Jonathans Basotho National Party (BNP).
Chief Kaizer Leabua Jonathan Molapo was born in 1914, the son of one of Chief
Jonathan Molapo Moshoeshoe's junior wives. Leabua attended the PEMS primary
school in Leribe District but left for the mines before completing standard six. He
became a mine induna at Brakpan but was forced home in 1936 after his brutality
incited a riot. In 1951, Chief Leabua was appointed assessor to the Judicial
Commissioner, a British official named Patrick Duncan, son of a former governorgeneral of South Africa. In 1956, Chief Leabua became a member of the district council
for Leribe and, from there, a member of the National Council. The same year, his
cousin Chief Patrick 'Mota, an adviser to the Regent, used his influence to make Chief
Leabua the fourth of Mantsebos advisers. In 1957, Chief Leabua was a member of a
delegation to London and at the end of 1957 he approached Patrick Duncan on the

23

possibility of making a new political party. Duncan, fluent in Sesotho, had quit the
colonial service to participate in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and had already been
helpful to the BAC by duplicating Khaketlas Mohlabani. Patrick Duncans draft for the
BNP manifesto was amended by the French Canadian Bishop of Maseru, Joseph
Delphis Des Rosiers (1906-1989) on 10 January 1958. Leabua also converted to
Catholicism.
From 1957 onwards Chief Leabua gathered support among the minor chiefs during
rural sessions of the Chieftainship Committee, of which he was a member. During
constitutional talks in London in December 1958 at St Ermins Hotel (where British
Intelligence was still using electronic surveillance on Robert Mugabe and other guests
as late as the 1980s), the Christian Democratic Party dissolved to become part of the
BNP, recognising that Chief Leabua had more political capital as a chief and an adviser
to the Regent. The founding of the BNP was announced on the return to Basutoland.
The constitution of the BNP pledged support for the hereditary chieftainship of
Basutoland on the understanding that chiefs must rule according to the wishes of the
people. It also stated that, The party will oppose anybody, any organisation or any
party from interfering in the religious affairs of any Church, and, The party is firmly
opposed to communist ideology and detests anybody who aligns himself with it or
propagates that ideology. A month later, the Sunday Times of Johannesburg, through
Duncan, described Chief Leabua as a man tipped by many as the protectorate's first
prime minister.
Despite Mokhehles activism, the BAC, now renamed Basutoland Congress Party
(BCP), had been outmanoeuvred in constitutional developments. The British
government, uncomfortable with the NP regime but heavily dependent on South
African investment, proceeded cautiously so although Lesotho had several advantages
that should have assisted a speedy independence, it had to wait until 1966. Although
Mokhehle managed to serve in the Advisory Council, constitutional discussions were
dominated by the Basotho chiefs, the Regent and British officials. No commoner was
included in delegation that left for final talks in London in November 1958 but the BCP
raised funds to send Mokhehle in a vain attempt to lobby support for a more
democratic constitution. The result, although deeply flawed, was more equitable than
the ANC Alliance constitution. Lesotho would have a Legislature Council with eighty
seats, forty open to election by members already elected to the nine district councils,
the other forty nominated. There would be an Executive Council with three seats open
to election by members of the Legislative Council, and the other five nominated. Most

24

women were secluded from the electoral roll and no serious attempt was made for
absentee voting in South Africa as that would antagonise the NP regime.
Mokhehle flew to Accra where his speech arguing that Africa could not enjoy true
freedom until South Africa was free gained him a post, along with Joshua Nkomo
(Southern Rhodesia), on the Steering Committee of George Padmores All Africa
Peoples Conference (AAPC) that met from 5 to -13 December 1958 and was attended
by two hundred and forty delegates from 28 African countries including Patrice
Lumumba (Belgian Congo) and Tom Mboya (Kenya), who was elected Chairman. The
conference resolved to support armed risings against colonial and White minority rule
where necessary. A few days later Mokhehle met Sobukwe, Leballo and Madzunya in
Maseru to urge them to form a new party, for which Ghana would provide funds.
The Pan Africanist Congress was formed at its inaugural conference of 6 April
1959 at Orlando Communal Hall. Sobukwe was elected president, Leballo secretarygeneral, but they falsified the vote to prevent Madzunya from becoming treasurer
because he had an elementary education, was from the Venda minority and
considered too low class. The PAC national executive council was mostly urban middle
class intellectuals, teachers and white collar workers as if to rival the social status of
the ANC leaders. The new party considered itself the natural heir to the Programme of
Action and the Defiance Campaign. The PAC reiterated its belief that minority groups
should assimilate into African society and Africans had no future unless they showed
they could free themselves and solve their own problems free of European and Indian
radical alliances. The PAC demanded the return of African land (Whites owned 87% of
the country) and was committed to a socialist ideology and the concept to a united
Africa. The rays of its rising sun flag on a map of Africa emanated from Ghana not
South Africa.
The new party had several advantages. Sobukwe was the first African major
political party leader since Xuma in 1940 who actually sought office. Secondly the party
power structure was clear and not ambiguous like the ANC Congress Alliance which
was controlled by a party that did not officially exist and was even unknown to Lutuli.
Thirdly it was centered on the Rand, like the Congress Alliance, but had not been
weakened by the Treason Trial and the rural restriction of its leader. Fourthly it was
young, militant and bold unlike the ANC leadership which seemed emasculated by the
Criminal Amendment Act. Sobukwe had a clear message that the PAC had a plan that
would require considerable sacrifice but would soon bring freedom if people kept their
nerve.

25

It is extremely difficult to break away from a long established respected political

party and create a new one that seriously challenges it. The PACs initial success was
quite astonishing. Although Leballo expressed disappointment at not achieving a target
of 100,000 members by December 1959, the registered total was 31,035 in 153
branches, which rivalled and probably exceeded ANC membership, which had
witnessed a dramatic drop since 1955. The PAC concentrated on fresh recruiting not
poaching ANC members and this appears to support Mokhehles later statement:
"Mr Potlako Leballo was the Basutoland African Congress provincial secretary in the
Transvaal when they started the PAC - the decision to break away from the ANC was
taken in Maseru before me - and Leballo was the link between the Pan Africanist group
in the ANC and the BAC. From the Transvaal provincial secretary, Leballo easily became
the secretary-general - this we did to keep the PAC - BAC links strong and it continued
until 1960. Leballo is the real founder of the PAC - and he is the man who decided,
promoted and sponsored Sobukwe's presidency of the PAC - some ignorant people
may be startled by this and tend to challenge it - but it just happens to be true - here
much of what I say is what took place before me and, to a greater extent than not with
my help." [Letter to Leeman November 1978]
The PAC was criticised for being too ambitious and acting too soon but since it had
been so vocal attacking the ANC leadership for timidity and over-caution it needed to
demonstrate that it was party of action. It had initially intended to launch a Status
campaign to gain experience and test its new structures but quickly abandoned that
when the ANC decided to launch further economic boycotts and a national burning of
passes on 31 March 1960. This was a lawyers plan that was designed to defy the
government without endangering the Alliance leadership. It would demonstrate that
the ANC Congress Alliance had national support and in theory would not violate the
Criminal Amendment Act. If the NP charged the Congress Alliance leaders under the
Act, there were enough lawyers to argue the case and, despite the inconvenience and
costs of a trial, this would, like the Treason Trial, give further national publicity to their
cause. The PAC responded by cancelling the Status campaign and announced instead
its own anti pass campaign with the vital difference that its leaders would lead
marches on police stations demanding to be arrested for not carrying passes. It was as
if they had all gone back in time to January 1953 and the Africanists were again
challenging the ANC leaderships manhood saying We have balls, do you?
Although up to 1959 the South African judiciary had dealt fairly mildly with leading
ANC defendants it had no leeway under the provisions of the Criminal Law

26

Amendment Act dealing with anti-government protesters. The mandatory sentence for
convicted activists was three to five year prison sentences. However, if Sobukwe had
been elected ANC Transvaal leader in 1958 and gone on to win over rather than
remove the ANC leaders Lutuli (president), Tambo (secretary-general) and Mandela
(vice-president), his anti pass campaign would have been even more effective because
Lutuli et al had national recognition and if they had followed Sobukwes directive of
no plea, no bail, no fine there would have been a far greater demand for their
release than for Sobukwes. The PAC also pre-empted the ANC pass burning of 30
March 1960 by planning their campaign launch for 7 March. They would then try to
overwhelm the White legal and security apparatus with thousands of protestors
demanding to be arrested for breaking the law. The ANC could have countered by
changing their campaign to an even earlier date but held back probably to take
advantage of the PACs inevitable martyrdom. The PAC campaign would start twentyfour days before the ANCs, which gave the ANC plenty of time to introduce
contingency plans. Another vital difference between the PAC and ANC was that a
significant number of PAC members believed that Whites were irredeemably evil and
that their economic system should be destroyed and replaced with a vaguely defined
African socialism, while the Congress Alliance, despite the SACPs Soviet linkages,
believed in joining and reforming the existing capitalist system.
Although the PAC had been founded after the AAPC Accra Conference of December
1958, Mokhehles influence appears to have assisted the new party being granted
AAPC funds. The funds enabled Sobukwe, Leballo, A.B. Ngcobo and Howard Ngcobo to
use Howard Ngcobos Volkswagen van to link with Selby Ndendane and John Nyati
Pokela on campaign rallies in the Vaal Triangle townships, Aliwal North and the Cape
Town townships. It was significant that Sobukwe and Leballo received enthusiastic
responses when they respectively harangued crowds in Xhosa and Sesotho for it
marked the reemergence of mass lower class political involvement that had been
suffocated by the termination of the defiance campaign in 1953 and Charterist elitism
during the previous five years. What the PAC was beginning to realise, perhaps too
late, was that they were not so much politicising the lower echelons of African society
but providing a rallying point and basic party structure for an ideology that already
existed. In the late 1950s law and order were already breaking down in the Transkei
where peasants had been agitating against corrupt NP regime appointed chiefs and
other symbols of oppression. Although the militants were acting independently they
were the natural constituency of the PAC and would later form the backbone of PAC

27

armed resistance. Had the PAC leaders known what lay ahead they might have
considered a more dramatic sacrifice on the lines of the Irish Easter 1916 rising or the
American anti-slaver John Browns 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry in order to seize control
10
of the liberation movement.
Critics of the PAC state that social and economic hardships were not severe enough
to cause national unrest but such data related to the urban areas and only explain why
Orlando, the headquarters of the PAC and the most prestigious township, responded
poorly to the PACs call for action. By March the PAC had not only been encouraged by
the enthusiasm of crowds in the townships and rural areas but also Ntsu Mokhehles
triumph in the 1960 election, French rejection of White settler demands in Algeria, the
granting of or scheduling of independence for seventeen African states including
Nigeria., Congo-Kinshasa and Ivory Coast, and the British prime ministers Cape Town
speech urging the NP regime to recognize there was a wind of change in Africa.
There were however drawbacks. Sobukwes plan for PAC supporters to present
themselves for arrest for breaking the pass laws was not suited to the partys mostly
young aggressive lower class male membership and the class aspirations of most
members of his national executive. Secondly, the PAC was completely untested and
nobody knew how the leadership would act under severe stress in what was a
completely uncompromising all or nothing assault on the NP regime. Thirdly,
although the Transvaal BCP members had joined the PAC in large numbers the
enthusiasm of many of the new recruits could only be short term as there no stockpiles
of food, funds or communication network to sustain anything but a short sharp
campaign. Given more time the PAC could have planned in depth but they believed
they had to act before the March 30 ANC campaign deadline.
Sobukwe gave no instructions on what to do if the police began killing unarmed
activists, but was insistent the PAC should avoid violence. While he refused to consider
Leballos demand for a contingency plan if the police killed marchers he did not
foresee how the campaign would be undone by a temporary suspension of the pass
laws. Nevertheless, the campaign came very near to achieving astonishing results.

10

The Irish Republican rising in Dublin had no chance of succeeding and its participants were initially jeered since
210,000 Irish troops (140,000 of them volunteers), including Lance-Corporal Michael O'Leary V.C., were fighting
in the British Army, However, after the British executed the leaders of the rising, public opinion swung behind
their cause and a survivor, Michael Collins, devised a urban assassin and rural guerrilla strategy to force the British
out of what is now the Irish Republic.

28

A setback to PACs plans came a vital printing order was not fulfilled so the
campaign launch was changed to March 21. The campaign began quietly in Orlando
with a low turnout of marchers joining Sobukwe, Leballo and other leaders on their
way to the police station. After a wait they were eventually arrested. Madzunya,
angered by being denied a position in the NEC, refused to lead his substantial following
in Alexandra. At Sharpeville Township in the Vaal Triangle the PAC leader Nyakane
Tsolo was arrested but the police refused to arrest the crowd accompanying him.
Eventually, following a scuffle at the police compound gates the police opened fire
massacring at least sixty nine PAC supporters including ten children. The police killed
other marchers in the Vaal Triangle and Cape Town areas and there were strikes and
sporadic violence11.
The Sharpeville Massacre is a highly emotive and controversial issue. The
consequences of the massacre resulted in the banning of the PAC and ANC for forty
years, the beginning of armed resistance, and the exile and imprisonment of many
resistance leaders. Subsequent investigations confirmed most victims were shot in the
back and were unarmed yet Sharpeville is the location where Leballo implored
Sobukwe to be ready to retaliate against police violence and was so insistent that
Sobukwe prevented him from travelling there on the evening before 21 March. From
what Leballo told Gail Gerhart (1977) and myself (1984) there is a strong suspicion
(which Leballo obviously encouraged) that he and a small group at Sharpeville
intended to linger on the fringes of the crowd and order an attack to capture weapons
if the police lost control. I knew and corresponded with Nyakane Tsolo during his exile
in Rotterdam but he was always reluctant to speak on the issue with me or his
family.
Although the Eastern Cape and the Rand had been the traditional areas of political
resistance to White rule, Sobukwes plan of inflaming the country and creating a selfgenerating struggle nearly succeeded in the Western Cape, in Cape Town itself. On 20
March the PAC Western Cape secretary, Philip Kgosana, led a crowd of about ten
thousand to Langa police station, sixteen kilometers from Cape Town and were
violently dispersed by the police. The next day the PAC returned to invite arrest
outside Langa, Nyanga, Nyanga West, and Wynberg police stations. Over a thousand
were arrested at Wynberg but at Langa Kgosana told his five thousand followers to
disperse, fearing police violence. He told them to meet again that evening in case new
For a fuller account see my book Mandela and Sisulu: equivocation, treachery and the road to
Sharpeville on www.scribd.com
11

29

instructions were forthcoming from PAC headquarters on the Rand. However, on

hearing of deaths at Sharpeville, Kgosana abandoned his group and left them
leaderless and without direction. They gathered at Langa police station but were
attacked by the police. Rioting and arson erupted and on Tuesday morning 22 March
the police attacked workers hostels at Langa. The PAC retaliated with a bus blockade
at Nyanga but Kgosana did not return. In an almost surrealist episode he met Patrick
Duncan and accepted a dinner invitation on Wednesday evening 23 March where the
other guests were Anton Rupert, the countrys leading Afrikaner businessman;
Randoph Vigne, the Liberal Party vice-president; and Thomas Ngwenya, a dual Liberal
Party and ANC member. Duncan had recently been the Liberal Partys national
organizer and its representative at the 1958 AAPC conference in Accra. Vigne and
Duncan later joined the armed resistance but Kgosana, by attending the dinner, had
flagrantly disobeyed Sobukwes instructions to shun the Liberals. On Thursday 24
March he still ignored his followers and instead visited SACP and Liberal Party
newspaper offices in Cape Town where he gave interviews.
The same day Sobukwe and other PAC leaders faced court and refused to accept
bail or pay fines, expecting thousands of other supporters to follow suit and clog the
judicial system. However, the NP regime quickly moved to outmanoeuvre the PAC with
a plan to suspend the pass laws ostensibly to protect innocent Bantu from PAC
intimidation. By this stratagem, the PAC leaders would be imprisoned and no one else
would be arrested until economic hardship, suppression, and the absence of the
leaders forced the campaign to fade away.
The evening of Friday March 25 Kgosana at last resumed his activist role by leading
about three thousand supporters to demand arrest at Caledon Square, Cape Towns
main police station. Kgosana and a few others were arrested but soon released
probably because the police commander, Rademeyer, knew of the plan to neutralize
the PAC campaign the next day.
On Saturday 26 March the Pass laws were suspended, which made the PAC and
ANC anti-pass campaigns meaningless although Mandela and Lutuli had press
photographs taken defiantly burning passes as it was safe to do so. The ANC then
called for a national day of mourning which infuriated Sobukwe, who suspected the
ANC had written the statement much earlier in case there were PAC deaths. Whatever
the intention, the plan backfired on the ANC because the leaderless PAC, their antipass campaign in tatters, used it to re-energize their resistance.

30

The ANC call for a Day of Mourning for Sharpeville was scheduled for Monday 28
March. Large numbers of workers were already on strike or staying at home and there
was enormous response to the ANCs call with over 95% of workers staying at home in
some urban areas. On Tuesday 29 Z.B. Molete, the most senior PAC leader still free,
was arrested. On Wednesday 30 March the police and Kgosana were caught
completely unawares when a gigantic march, numbering between thirty to fifty
thousand PAC supporters arrived in central Cape Town from Langa and other
townships. Kgosana was asleep when the march began but caught up with it in Cape
Town and took control as the most senior PAC official. The police had cordoned off
parliament so the marchers ended up in central Cape Town around Caledon Square in
front of the police station. The police commander, Colonel Terblanche, had been
utilizing a curious mix of violence and compromise during the previous week and this
certainly threw Kgosana off balance. Kgosana demanded the release of Sobukwe and
the other detained leaders. Terblanche apparently refused the telephoned order by
justice minister Frans Erasmus to open fire on the crowd and instead persuaded
Kgosana to send the crowd home and meet Erasmus at 5pm. Kgosana returned for the
appointment but was arrested and held without trial for five months. A state of
emergency was declared under the 1953 Public Safety Act that lasted until 26 August.
Terblanche wrecked his career by disobeying Erasmus. Had he shot at the Caledon
Square marchers there would probably have been have been many deaths,
considerable destruction and possibly as had been Sobukwes intention a self
generating increasing pattern of larger and more widespread protests, followed by
police retaliation until the African population as a whole would realize that its
numerical superiority allied to open contempt, disobedience and opportunistic
violence would eventually bring against the White regime down, as it almost did in the
late 1980s when even young children were openly defying the regime. In fact violence
did break out in the centre of Durban on March 31 and 1 April, while commuters were
threatened in Johannesburg when they tried to go to work. The NP regime was forced
to employ sailors to augment the security forces, which were becoming overstretched
leaving the rural areas open to an onslaught as police forces had been rushed to the
cities.
Kgosana was a talented organizer but although he lived in the townships he was
from the assimilated, educated class fascinated at how senior Afrikaner policemen,
White communist journalists and Liberal politicians were treating him with caution and
respect. Consequently he had absented himself from his followers at the crucial

31

moment but then assumed authority over them at Caledon Square without
understanding fully their intentions. The most justified criticism of his behaviour at
Caledon Square on March 30 was that he should have insisted the PAC leaders be
released before he ordered the crowd to disperse. The police would have attacked the
marchers but the reaction from such a massive crowd would have been catastrophic
for the city centre with incalculable consequences. At the very least there would have
been other massive marches demanding Sobukwes release, further bloodshed, a
continuation of the flight of capital, increased White insecurity and emigration, and the
start of widespread violent resistance.
By the beginning of April the PAC was in complete disarray. The leaders were in jail
and refusing to contest their case in court. Arrests had removed the partys leadership
down to the third and fourth levels and the suspension of the pass laws removed the
reason for further protests. Although the PAC remained a powerful force in exile until
an American financed Tanzanian backed coup removed Leballo in 1979, the party
never recovered again inside South Africa. It came as no surprise that the PAC was
banned on 8 April. However it came as an immense shock that the ANC, which had
behaved very mildly throughout the crisis, was also banned, despite protests in
parliament. On 9 April a White sympathizer shot but only wounded the NP prime
minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, and the pass laws were restored on 10 April. There were
humiliating scenes when large numbers of Africans queued to pay for new ones.
The banning of the PAC and ANC meant that the only way Africans could oppose
the NP apartheid regime was by armed insurrection. Naturally both the PAC and
Congress Alliance began to investigate Lesotho as a possible base for operations. This
would have serious consequences for Basotho politics. In the meantime, on 4 May the
PAC leaders were jailed for terms up to three years with hard labour.

32

CHAPTER THREE
The 1959 Basutoland Constitution brought uncertainty and political chaos as the
democratic vote was rendered almost meaningless because of feudal patronage and
meddling by British officials, the Verwoerd regime, French Canadian missionaries, PAC
liberation activities, and Soviet financed SACP intrigue. Under a sane parliamentary
system Ntsu Mokhehle should have become chief minister and then gained experience
in parliamentary procedures and ministerial responsibilities before standing for the
pre-independence election of 1965. The reason behind the provisions of the
constitution were probably grounded on the British belief that the protectorate would
eventually be dominated by the young new Oxford educated liberal Catholic
paramount and develop (as Chief Constantine Bereng Seeiso intended) on similar lines
to the executive monarchy in Swaziland.
Basutoland held its first national election on 20 January 1960. The electorate did
not vote directly for the legislative assembly but for one hundred and seventy seats on
nine local district councils. Only 88,518 tax payers over the age of twenty one were
eligible to vote so no more than fifty six women were registered. There was no
absentee voting system for the thousands of Basotho in South Africa. Many candidates
stood for parties that had not endorsed them so, for example, four of the five
candidates at Koro Koro claimed to represent the BCP. In other cases party members
stood as independents such as future BNP ministers including Sekhonyana
Maseribane, who became the countrys first prime minister in 1965. Voter turnout
was only 35,302 (24%) but the British regarded this as very promising for a first
election. The BCP gained 36% of the vote and won 70 of the 162 seats. The
independents came second with 35% and 51seats, the BNP third with 19% and 22
seats, and the MT fourth with 8% and 16 seats. Most independents revealed
themselves as BCP after the election so that the BCP gained control over eight of the
nine district councils. The MT won the district council of Mokhotlong. Of the party
leaders, Chief Leabua Jonathan (BNP) lost in his constituency, coming third, but Ntsu
Mokhehle (BCP) and Chief Samuel Matete (uncontested MT) won their seats. The
winning candidates then elected forty members to the legislative assembly. Thirty
were BCP including Mokhehle, five MT including Matete, four were independents, and
one BNP. An additional fourteen members were appointed by the new paramount and
these did not reflect electoral strength. Three were from minuscule Progressive Party,
the epitome of the Black upper class cultured educated English Christian gentleman
ideal, which had been soundly thrashed in the election receiving a mere two hundred

33

and thirty votes. The paramount could have appointed Chief Leabua Jonathan but
instead chose Chief Sekhonyana Maseribane, who had also lost in his constituency.
In the final stage the legislative council elected three members to the executive
council. This was an extremely badly thought out procedure that enabled the
conservative forces to block Mokhehle from holding the power he deserved and
caused serious friction within the BCP. Mokhehle could rely on the thirty BCP members
but none of the others. He therefore gained 30 votes but came sixth, losing to the MT
leader Samuel Matete (44 votes) the BCP deputy leader Bennet Khaketla (41 votes)
and the powerful principal chief and former BCP member Chief Leshoboro Majara
(BNP). The paramount also nominated MacFarlane Lepolesa of the Progressive Party to
the executive council. Ntsu Mokhehle had expected to be the dominant political figure
in Basutoland when the PAC launched its March 1960 campaign. Instead he had been
upstaged by Khaketla and the new paramount.
The BCP had by 1960 become identified with what conservative politicians, upper
class administrators and authoritarian missionaries regarded as irresponsible grasping
rabble rousers such as Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, the PAC, and Gamal Abdul
Nasser. After the former Belgian Congo descended into chaos the BCP was dubbed
Congo by its opponents, and its association with Nkrumah was tarnished by the
Ghanaian presidents increasingly dictatorial rule and messianic delusions. The French
Canadian missionaries were outraged by the BCPs electoral success, writing in their
French language journal Voice of Basutoland that the BCP were evil and must be
stopped otherwise the Catholic Church would lose all its property and schools.
Consequently the Catholic Church launched a sustained vicious anti-Congress
campaign that attacked the BCP from the church pulpit, excommunicated Catholic
Congress supporters, verbally abused their young children in schools, and put its
weight behind the BNP.
The BCP did not at first consider the BNP a threat, given its poor election result and
marginalisation in the new national assembly. The BCP knew it had only gained
support because of the weakness of the Regent (1940-1960) and that Basutoland had a
tradition of powerful paramounts that Constantine Bereng was attempting to revive.
The young paramount had sympathy and some support from British officials who
believed the BNP too inept and the BCP too radical to guarantee a prosperous and
happy future for independent Lesotho. The government secretary, Gordon Hector,
therefore grew close to Khaketla, the only credible nationally elected politician in the
executive council.

34

Bennet Khaketla was a talented writer in Sesotho but had only joined the BCP in
December 1958 partly because his newspaper Mohlabani was losing ground to the
new official BCP paper Makatolle. Khaketla was an asset to the party even though he
never grasped that the BCP was mostly peasant-worker based. He was diplomatic with
the British, related to the Black Englishman concept and had been elected through
Royalist MT and elitist anglophile Progressive Party support. The BCP had advised him
not to join the executive council but he refused, claiming he could not disobey the new
paramount even though he would have been aware of the anger and humiliation it
caused Mokhehle, always highly suspicious of potential rivals. The talented Nking
Monokoa, elected as BCP secretary general in 1958, lasted only one year before
retiring from politics.
Khaketla, a fervent Anglican who was assigned the portfolio of health and
education, refused to divulge to his BCP colleagues what was discussed in confidence
in executive meetings because he had taken an oath of secrecy. When Khaketla
addressed his party branch to explain his decision to join the executive council he was
pelted with eggs and tomatoes by the BCP Youth League. The situation was
exacerbated by Hectors attempt to create a political coalition well disposed to the
British that would lead the country to independence. This was part of the post second
world war British strategy to cultivate elitist westernised African leaders in preference
to more militant leaders. Hector wrote of Khaketla "I have good reason to know that
he is undergoing what must be a painful reappraisal of his own attitude towards the
party," and believed that Khaketla "might develop into Basutoland's Nyerere [the
Tanganyikan leader, at that time an elitist anglophile]."
University College, Roma, was controlled by the Canadian Catholic Canadian OMI.
Student and BCPYL unrest after Sharpeville resulted in riots, school closures and
expulsions. This led to scholarships for BCP students in Soviet bloc countries and since
they had little chance of employment on their return most remained overseas. The
BCPs Soviet connection caused further anxiety in business and missionary circles and
among the chieftaincy. In December 1960 tensions mounted as BCP rallies were
banned and Mokhehles car was shot up. Khaketla then received more votes at the
BCP annual conference endorsing him as deputy leader than Mokhehle received as
leader. Mokhehle immediately responded with a vicious attack about elitist, anglicised
political leaders causing Khaketla to resign from the BCP two days later. In April 1961
he launched the Freedom Party, which in essence was an expansion of the Progressive
Party.

35

Khaketla was not a natural politician but a respected literary figure. Nevertheless,
his defection from the BCP was one of the major reasons why the BCP lost the 1965
election because he was used as a credible figurehead in the SACP plan to establish
itself in Basutoland and stop the BCP, the PACs close ally, from becoming the
government of independent Lesotho. The SACPs Joe Matthews, son of Professor
Matthews, was despatched to Maseru with considerable Soviet funding to take over
the BCP or form a credible new party. He backed Jack Mosianes strike and then
formed the Lesotho Communist Party in October 1961 before launching an
unsuccessful takeover of the BCP leadership in December. The following year a second
attempt, led by Matthews ally, a BCP member of the legislative assembly named
Robert Matji, also failed. When the LCP began displaying an independent line,
Matthews decided to abandon both the LCP and attempts to take over the BCP and
instead funded the Freedom Party. He paid for Khaketla to visit Moscow, and then the
formation of the Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP), which was an amalgamation of
Khaketlas Freedom Party, elements within the MT, and ANC oriented activists.
Constantine Bereng Seeiso had been installed as paramount in March 1960 and
worked covertly to establish a political party that would give him executive powers. He
had revived Chief Leabuas political career by nominating him to fill a vacant legislative
council position but Chief Leabua was not interested in boosting the powers of the
paramount. The paramount then brought his friend Khaketla into discussions with
Chief Samuel Matete, whose MT party was in decline, and the new MFP was launched
in January 1963 with all four executive council members in its leadership. The MFP
received support not only from the ANC Congress Alliance and British officials but
many others disturbed by the BCPs suspected involvement in the PAC-Poqo rising in
the Transkei.
In South Africa the Congress Alliance and PAC considered reconciliation after both
organisations had been banned in April 1960. The Alliance was better placed for
negotiations because although its leaders were mostly banned, exiled, restricted or
facing court cases they were not, like the PAC leaders, in rural prisons enduing hard
labour. In addition pressure from independent African counties led to external talks to
consider joint strategy or even unity. Exiled PAC, ANC, SAIC and South-West African
National Union met in June, 1960 in London but inside South Africa an All-In
Conference held on 25 and 26 March 1961 in Pietermaritzburg exacerbated the
disagreements between the ANC and its rivals. The conference had ostensibly been
called to discuss the NP decision to declare a republic on 31 May. South Africa was

36

obliged to re-apply for membership of the Commonwealth but refused to do so

because of new regulations concerning racial equality. The All-In conference was
attended by a handful of PAC members, some African Liberals as well as Whites,
Indians and Coloureds. The ANC dominated the 1,400 member conference. During it,
Mandela appeared dramatically - his first public platform appearance since his banning
in 1952 - to issue an ultimatum to the NP regime. Mandela was then proclaimed
secretary of a newly-formed National Action Council, but that the identity of the other
members of this organisation must be kept secret. With that, he disappeared. The ANC
dominated conference endorsed Mandelas call for a stay-at-home strike to coincide
with Republic Day. The police responded on 24th May by arresting eight to ten
thousand ANC suspects. The PAC denounced the stay-at-home call and the protests
were a failure. Mokhehle criticised Mandela for alerting the police in advance and also
accused him of intending to take over the BCP.
In January 1962 Mandela secretly left South Africa to attend a conference in
Algeria, meet African leaders and undertake basic military training in the hills around
Addis Ababa. His exposure to independent African countries, their preference for the
PAC and the criticism he received concerning SACP control over the ANC caused him to
insist to the SACP on his return to South Africa that although the ANC was grateful for
SACP assistance the ANC should become the dominant partner and try to resolve
differences with the PAC. He then visited Lutuli to get his support for armed struggle.
Immediately afterwards he was apprehended by a police patrol that knew exactly
where to find him. The evidence strongly suggests that the SACP betrayed him. He was
jailed for five years for illegally leaving the country. Mandela had intended to meet the
PAC leaders in Basutoland but was arrested the day before Leballo reached Maseru.
Sobukwes strategy of passive resistance not unexpectedly proved to be a mere
faade totally unsuited to youthful volatile character of the PACs membership.
Released from jail Zephaniah Mothopeng brought Sobukwes endorsement for an
armed insurrection. Potlako Leballo had also been released from prison in mid 1962
and escaped restriction to join other exiled PAC activists in Maseru on 6 August 1962,
the day after Nelson Mandela was captured in Natal. In September 1962, the PAC
formed a presidential council consisting of Leballo as acting president, J. N. Pokela, P.
L. Gqobose, Z. B. Molete, E. Mfaxa, N. M. Ntantala and J. J. Letlaka. The PAC was not
prepared for a rising. Its structure, assembled hastily in eleven months before
Sharpeville and with too many aspiring elitists in its NEC, was still reliant on a handful
of inspirational individuals. They therefore allied themselves to the Transkei insurgents

37

who were virulently anti White and already included many migrant workers from PAC
urban branches. The Transkei peasant militants were a loosely controlled organisation
known as Poqo, meaning pure unadulterated African nationalists whose general
objective was to force most of the countrys White population to leave. Some adhered
to the original PAC objective of replacing the political and economic system with a
universally elected central lower class oriented African socialist government. However,
after Sharpeville the PAC activists were on a continuum between African socialism and
Black Nazism, with growing emphasis on the latter. Some PAC leaders were tolerant of
Indians, Coloureds and Whites who supported lower class aspirations but the more
marginalised elements had no little or no political ideology except extermination of
Whites and prosperous Indians and this eventually became the post-Leballo
catastrophic PAC 1994 election slogan of one settler one bullet. The PAC leaders in
Maseru realised that the original power base of Orlando was too bourgeois to support
any rising and so the only practical solution was to supply Poqo with weapons.
Smuggling weapons by land was difficult because the nearest independent countries
were Tanganyika, Congo-Kinshasa and Madagascar. This may explain Che Guevaras
strange choice of the Congo as his starting point for African revolution. In October
1962 Leballo managed to overfly South Africa and addressed the United Nations in
New York and then Accra and Ghana where he was disappointed with the low numbers
of PAC receiving military training. A successful rising would therefore depend on
arming the Transkei rural militants. Ghana supplied 124,000 to buy a Swedish ship
that loaded weapons in Egypt and sailed to the Transkei coast in early 1963.
Between October and December 1962, Poqo violence escalated, particularly in the
Transkei. In October an adviser of the Bantustan leader Chief Matanzima was
assassinated at Comfimbava, and Chief Mayeza Dalesile at Encobo while at Paarl near
Langa two hundred and fifty PAC activists attacked the prison and police station on the
night of 22nd/23rd November 1962. Five were killed, fourteen wounded and two
Whites killed. In December militants tried to assassinate Matanzima. On the night of 2
February 1963 about fifty militants attacked a caravan park at the Mbashe (Bashee)
River Bridge in the Transkei. They slaughtered five Whites, including a woman and two
young girls, and allegedly roasted their bodies on a bonfire.
The PACs reputation never recovered from its association with the Bashee River
Bridge atrocity and the party not only never expressed any regret about it but also saw
it as a model for future action. Despite Leballos conversion to the Maoist concept of
the guerrilla as a social reformer, after his death in 1986 the PAC became fascist and

38

elected a leader who had ordered the murder of a church congregation. In 1999 a PAC
official demanded the thirteen executed Bashee murderers should be awarded
medals.
In early 1963, the PAC ship and its weapons vanished after docking in Madagascar.
A report eventually emerged that it had been sold elsewhere for 160,000. Nobody
could account for its sale, let alone its cargo. This severely compromised the PAC plan,
announced in December 1962, to escalate the conflict and free the country in 1963.
Although it was evident the Poqo rising could not escalate without a large arms supply
and the townships were in no position to launch a rising the PAC felt obligated to act.
Ironically, although there was no hope of a prolonged conflict, the deteriorating
security situation in the Transkei had resulted in severe criticism of the NP regime in
the press and the Republics parliament. A commission recommended that the regime
should act with maximum severity against Poqo. The role of the British Basutoland
police during the crisis is not entirely clear but from my own undercover experience as
a Major in the Lesotho paramilitary I believe that all British officers were hostile to the
BCP and PAC and certainly some were clandestinely recruited and paid by the South
African security services up until at least 1972. Although the British could do little to
assist the NP regime deal with Poqo in the Transkei they severely hindered the PAC
leaders communicating with the township cells in the rest of South Africa and also
denied BCP members passports to visit the republic. The PAC headquarters in Maseru
shared offices in Bonhomme House with the BCP across from the Catholic cathedral. In
those days Maseru was a small town with few vehicles and the surroundings were as
now barren and open. The PAC had little available funds and although the BCP was
sympathetic, it could not afford openly to support the proposed rising. Leballo was a
chief from Lifelekoaneng, a border village near Mafeteng but he and other PAC
members from Lesotho did not have any clandestine base such as the farm the SACP
bought at Rivonia. The rains were heaviest between November to March and the
Caledon often in flood, which made covert crossings into South Africa impossible. In
addition belligerent and sometimes murderous Orange Free State Afrikaner farmers
dealt savagely with trespassers, let alone political activists. The PAC membership
December 1959 had been as follows: Transvaal 47 branches, 13,324 members; Cape 34
branches, 7427 members; Natal 15 branches, 3612 members; Orange Free State 5
branches, 301 members. Leballo, stationed next to the OFS therefore was in some
logistical difficulty. He wrote seventy letters warning PAC leaders to remain low but
before despatching them, he publicly announced on 21 March (Sharpeville Day) that

39

the time was ripe for a knock out blow against the Whites and that it was possible
that White women and children would suffer in the months to come. Whereas in
another context this could be construed as a warning that angry desperate Blacks
could do to Whites what Whites had been doing to Blacks for three centuries, it was
interpreted as approval for the Bashee Bridge atrocity and transformed the PAC in
international opinion from an unjustly treated peaceful civil rights protest movement
into Black fascists who enjoyed killing little girls. The same day, the South African
parliament was informed that Poqo and PAC were the same organisation and posed a
serious threat.
On Sunday, 24th March, Leballo and Z.B. Molete met a single journalist in what was
reported as at a press conference behind locked doors in (Leballo's) Maseru office.
The next day the Rand Daily Mail carried banner headlines BLACK WAVE NEARS
sandwiched between two lesser headlinesOnly Arms Can Save S.A.- Dnges 12 and
Vorster and Fouch Face Poqo Probe. Die Burger printed a cartoon of a giant snake
marked "Poqo and called for action in an editorial on Black Terrorism. The Rand
Daily Mail added that Leballo had stated that Poqo and PAC were the same while other
reports said that Leballo had claimed Poqo was 155,000 in strength, divided into 1000
cells, all poised for the order to attack.
Even if Leballo had remained silent or denied any link to violence it was still likely
the apartheid regime would have demanded Leballos elimination. Even the vapid
United Party was criticising the NP regime for being too slow in reacting to Poqo.
However although Leballo was in no position to escalate the rising Die Burger took his
claims seriously, announcing that, The police and army are standing ready," and that
John Vorster, the Minister of Justice, was assuring parliament that action was
imminent.
On 29 March two PAC messengers, Cynthia Lichaba (18) and Patricia Lethalo (19),
were arrested at the Caledon Bridge frontier in possession of Leballos seventy letters
to be posted in Ladybrand, warning that there was danger in Basutoland and urging
members in South Africa to stay put until the situation in Maseru was clarified.
Patrick Duncan, who became PAC representative in Algeria 13, theorised that Leballo

Dr Theophilus Dnges was minister of the interior from 1948 to 1961 and minister of finance from 1958
to 1967
Johannes Vorster was minister of justice from 1961-1966
Jacobus Fouch was minister of defence from 1959-1966
13 Leballo sacked Duncan when Duncan congratulated Leabua Jonathan on his 1965 election win
12

40

may have been hoping for a South African invasion and a robust British response, but a
border chief like Leballo probably knew his history of British involvement in Basutoland
better and had held the press conference to give publicity to the PAC and to show it
was still alive after three years of repression.
Inevitably South African pressure led to a raid by the British led Basutoland Police
on PAC headquarters on 1 April. Leballo evaded capture by hiding in Dr. Maema's
surgery and then in the grounds of the Evangelical Church. He was discovered by a
Mosotho policeman, who warned him to keep low as the police had orders to shoot
him on sight. In the evening, Pokela and Mokhehle took him by land rover to Tsius
Village at Berea Mountain on the edge of Maseru where the headman gave him
shelter. The British raid on PAC headquarters was believed to have been undertaken
with members of the South African security forces. Captured material may have been
passed to South Africa through them. Lieutenant-General J.M. Keevy of the South
African police denied that captured lists of PAC members had been handed over by the
British but, in the British parliament, the Duke of Devonshire, under-secretary for
Commonwealth Relations, fuelled suspicions when he stated that it was "unwise to
reply" to reports of a Poqo list being found. The story of captured lists or rather the
copying of a list of 20,000 PAC members by Gordon Winter, a police informer whose
subsequent memoirs were so unreliable and libellous than nobody could be sure of
any parts were true or not, were nevertheless used, especially by the SACP, to discredit
and lampoon Leballos leadership. The SACP in fact learnt nothing from this incident
because Mandelas eventual life imprisonment was caused by the SACP keeping his
diary at their Rivonia headquarters until it was captured in 1963. Leballo needed to
keep membership records and addresses and anyone experienced in intelligence
matters knows this can be a major problem especially because Leballo was operating
in British territory and reliant on another political party. 14
The Congress Alliance new military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, was formed in
November 1961 with Mandela as its commander. The other ten members of his
Mandelas high command (Dennis Goldberg, Jack Hodgson, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan
Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Andrew Mlangeni, Joe Modise, Elias Motsoaledi, Walter
14

The meticulous IRA commander Michael Collins kept several copies of membership lists and the
British captured one along with highly secretive documents in a raid on 31 December 1920. Despite his
excellent counter intelligence network and incorruptible activists, Collins was criticised for not being
careful in protecting his material. If the SACP had not been so immensely stupid about keeping records,
Mandela would never have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Ntsu Mokhehle gave his own diaries to a
villager for safekeeping but I do not know if they were ever returned.

41

Sisulu, and Joe Slovo), were all members of the SACP. Communist Party and other
funds were used to buy Lillesleaf Farm at Travallyn, Rivonia, near Krugersdorp, in the
name of Arthur Goldreich (1929- ), a talented Zionist painter with brief military
experience in the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. Dennis Goldberg, an engineer, was given the
title of Comrade Commandant and, using an interpreter, gave military instruction at
another camp in the Cape, at Mamre. A cottage at Mountain View, Johannesburg, was
also used for planning and training. The Standing Orders of the new ANC army were
drawn up by Harold Wolpe, an SACP lawyer who is alleged to have channelled the
funds to buy the Rivonia farm. A radio transmitter was set up at Rivonia and a general
plan of campaign was prepared by Goldreich. Mandela stated that the structure of
Umkhonto we Sizwe owed much to the Jewish national underground organisation,
Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL), which operated in Israel between 1944 and l948. IZL had been
led by Menachem Begin, who later became prime minister of Israel. Umkhonto we
Size saboteurs were African, White and Indian. At the subsequent Rivonia Trial, one
hundred and ninety three acts of sabotage were mentioned, beginning on 16th
December, 1961, with attacks on power lines and government offices and occasional
non sanctioned attacks on unpopular officials. In early 1963, Goldberg ordered enough
timber to make 48,000 boxes and also asked a foundry to give a quotation for 210,000
castings. It appears that he was organising the assembly of a vast number of land
mines and other explosive devices, particularly so because the foundry had produced
hand grenades during the Second World War.
On 3 April 3 1963, as result of Leballos captured letters fifty three suspected Poqo
members were arrested in Johannesburg and another twenty in Cape on 4 April.
Despite the Maseru raid some scattered disruption and violence did occur as planned
on 8 April. The police station and airport at East London were attacked, as was the
police station at King Williams Town. On 9 April, Poqo attempted to destroy
Johannesburg's power lines and seize arms and ammunition. The ninety day law was
rushed through the South African parliament, enabling police to detain people without
trial. When Sobukwe was due for release from jail in May 1963 he was detained
indefinitely under another law, called The Sobukwe Clause and on 3 May 1963 he
was sent to open the new prison on Robben Island which measured 250 x 150 yards the exact size of the Koffiefontein internment camp where the vindictive justice
minister, John Vorster, had been held as a suspected traitor by the Smuts government
during the Second World War.

42

By 5th June, 1963, a total of 3,246 suspected Poqo members were under arrest,
124 of whom had already been convicted of murder. Further activity continued. In
April 1965, 200 PAC members were found guilty of anti-state activities in the Port
Elizabeth area, and an additional 30 were sentenced for planning a rising in the
Western Cape. Scattered outbreaks continued until 1968.
On 11 July 1963 the police raided the Rivonia farm and captured Sisulu, Mbeki,
Bernstein, Goldberg and thirteen others. Evidence taken from Mandelas diary resulted
in a new trial and a life sentence on Robben Island where he joined Sobukwe in 1964.
Mandela was amenable to cooperation but Sobukwe spurned him.
Leballo remained hidden at Ha Tsiu until September 1963, by which time it was
generally believed he was dead. When he reappeared in Maseru in the spectators'
gallery in the House of Assembly, it provoked the NP regime to introduce legislation
under the Prevention of Violence Abroad Proclamation aimed at anyone planning
insurrection against the South African government from another country. The ANC
leader, Albert Lutuli, remained restricted in rural Natal and grew increasingly
despondent as Mandela became the global face of resistance and martyrdom. He died
in 1967 on a railway track near his home.
In 2004 a perceptive critic ridiculed the Umkhonto we Sizwe high command whose
lax security led to Mandelas life sentence:
What this shows is that they were a bunch of bungling intellectuals. They didn't
really know how to do this. The fact that they kept hundreds of incriminating
documents is ludicrous. Im sure that no other underground guerrilla movement, in
basically a police state, kept documents that could send them away for eternity. But
they did because they realised they were making history and needed to keep all this
stuff.
BBC Interview 26 March 2004
In mitigation probably no critic of the ANC and PAC military activities between 1961
and 1964 had ever experienced serious military service let alone tried to start a
revolution from scratch. The Alliance leaders in particular were disadvantaged for
being mostly assimilated Christian elitists or urban professionals who had been using
peaceful means to be accepted into the White social, economic and political
framework. Any student of revolutions and military campaigns can sympathise with
Mandela and Leballo trying to start armed conflict in such unpromising circumstances.
Che Guevara, who played an important part in the Cuban revolution, failed dismally in
the Congo and Bolivia but commentators display a keen understanding of his

43

problems. Mandelas brief attempt to organise resistance is generally praised while

Leballos is denigrated because, in my view, most White and Indian writers and
academics saw Mandela as their chance to retain their elitist life style while accepting
an African government whereas, under a Leballo government, they would possibly
have been sent to a re-education camp in an arid remote part of Azania but certainly
been subject to equitable salary and property ownership laws similar to those
implemented in Castros Cuba.
Until 1960 the Congress Alliance and PAC had officially been committed to peaceful
change although the PACs was nothing but a thin veneer. When both movements
turned to violence the Alliance immediately clarified that it did not intend to kill
anyone, only use sabotage to cripple the NP regimes infrastructure and economy and
force it into talks. That is why even extreme Poqo activists were shocked by Mandelas
life sentence. The Alliance had issued fliers denouncing PACs guerrilla war such as The
Leballo way is wrong! and Mandelas activities were considered fairly innocuous since
they were so obviously aimed at the destruction of property not lives. The Alliance
strategy remained constant from 1955 until 1994. It was committed to reforming the
apartheid state while the PAC had a revolutionary approach similar to the Algerians.
The ANC wanted bloodless violence sabotage, while the PAC sought open warfare.
However the Alliance was disadvantaged because it was dominated by SACP
professional class Europeans, Mixed Race and Asians, some with World War II service
but ill suited to clandestine guerrilla activities. They chose to stay inside the country
organising resistance but once they realised that African countries could offer only
limited assistance (Joe Slovo not unreasonably expected airdropped supplies) they
would have better served the struggle by personally lobbying the Soviet bloc, India and
Pakistan for substantial arms shipments. They also faced the dilemma that if the
struggle escalated they would be unable to maintain their tight minority control, which
complicated moves towards united resistance.
Although Tambo and, later, other Alliance leaders made homes in UK, the Alliances
relationship with the SACP, well known by British Intelligence, cost the ANC much
goodwill when South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth besides alienating the
United States civil rights movement which explains why many African Americans
supported the Zulu based Inkatha movement. As for the PAC, the Sino-Soviet split
enabled Leballo and his colleagues to gain a powerful new ally in Maoist China and
therefore compensate for the partys failure to link up with the Moscow allied (and
therefore ANC oriented) Cubans and North Vietnamese, whose experiences would

44

have greatly benefitted the PAC and may have moved it away from fascism. In
conclusion perhaps Mandela should have sought the ANC presidency in 1952. Despite
his aristocratic arrogance and penchant for elitist multiracial society a Mandela
presidency would probably have accommodated the Africanists and kept the SACP at
bay as a useful but not domineering ally. On Robben Island he tried to befriend
Sobukwe but was rebuffed. Certainly uniting SACP funding and legal expertise, the
Africanists volatility and ability to attract mass lower class membership, the ANC
Christian leaders moral stance, the Transkei peasantrys anger, and the aspirations of a
rising urban class with international pressure from newly independent African states,
the American civil rights movement, left wing western parties, China and the Soviet
bloc would have produced a stronger challenge to the NP regime than the
acrimoniously divided political and military campaigns of 1960-3. In retrospect there
should have been an early post Second World War acceptance among the ANC/SACP
leadership that the National Party regime from 1948 onwards would be impervious to
reason and could only be changed by force. Unfortunately most in the resistance never
knew that the Soviet Union did not desire nor support a revolution in South Africa but
wanted it to fall into the Soviet orbit when capitalism in America and Western Europe
collapsed. Despite the examples of Indonesia, Vietnam, Algeria, and China the
ANC/SACP still acted mildly as if the NP regime was the Cape Colony before Glen Grey.
After it established a large army in Angola after 1976 many of its recruits mutinied
when they realised the Alliances revolutionary rhetoric was a faade and most of its
leadership overcautious or self serving.

45

CHAPTER FOUR
In August 1964 South African pressure on Britain resulted in the deportation of
Potlako Leballo from Basutoland, his birthplace and where he ranked as chief. He was
issued a British passport and August 1964 and flew to Ghana. Leballo's expulsion from
Basutoland also marked the beginning of his transformation from a disciple of Mda
and Lembede into the dominant theoretician of the Africanist Movement. Sobukwe,
isolated on Robben Island, endorsed his secretary-general in his projection of
Lembede-ist thought to incorporate the lessons of the Chinese Revolution. This move
has studiously been ignored by commentators who knew Sobukwe and want him
revered as a sort of crucified peace-loving messiah.15 The Chinese experience was also
important in that it gave the PAC a new perspective. Leballo, despite his reputation for
urgency and spontaneity, reoriented the party towards the idea of a lengthy struggle
reliant on the same illiterate and semi-literate masses to whom Sobukwe had
appealed. The crises within the PAC in exile thereafter were primarily caused by this
radical shift in emphasis, which was not acceptable to the bulk of the status conscious
personnel in the external missions who were moving towards the Alliance reformist
stance. Another problem was that the Chinese were nowhere as reliable as the Soviets.
The BCP was also becoming more radical and began to identify more with Maoist
China partly because land tenure in Lesotho was communal. However the party
remained committed to parliamentary democracy and one reason for its banishment
to the wilderness in the years 1970-1993 was that activists, despite their vocal criticism
of the BNPs undemocratic intentions, had done nothing to prepare for armed
insurrection. The warning signs were already apparent in 1963 when the Lesotho
Mounted Police was augmented by a six hundred and fifty strong new paramilitary
force, the Police Mobile Unit (PMU), based on Britains only armed police force,
ironically the aggressively anti-Catholic Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) of
Northern Ireland. Coming from a staunch Orange Order Northern Irish Protestant
military family 16 I had a sound idea of how such forces operated. Police Mobile Units
15

In 2008 I was asked by the Star newspaper of South Africa to write an article marking the 30 th
anniversary of Sobukwes death. I submitted my piece, pointing out Sobukwes embrance of Maoist
warfare but never heard anything again.
16
My ancestor was Captain Robert Pooler of Tyross, the last Protestant army officer killed at the Siege of
Derry in 1689. When the troubles reignited in 1969 I believed, despite inevitable Protestant fury, that
peace should have been kept by mixed patrols of the British Army and the Irish Republic as we
northerners are joint citizens of both countries. I never served in Northern Ireland where my regiment, the
Special Air Service, was anathema to the republicans.

46

were also introduced in Bechuanaland and Swaziland. The reason for the PMUs
introduction in Basutoland was to combat cross border security but during my service
in 1977 I was informed by the commanding officer, Justin Metsing Lekhanya, that it
had been formed to combat the BCP, which is exactly what the BCP had always
assumed.
The imprisonment and banishment of Congress Alliance and PAC leaders eased
tensions in Basutoland but the BCP was seriously challenged by the MFP up until 1964.
Paramount Constantine Bereng had hoped that the new independence constitution
would restore the authority of the old paramounts. However Chief Matete leader of
the MFP (kings party) surprisingly did not support an executive monarchy so
although the MFP dominated the constitutional commission it recommended that the
paramount should remain as a constitutional monarch with certain limited executive
powers like the British queen. In 1964 the king reportedly supported Dr. Seth
Makotoko to oust Chief Matete as leader of the MFP. Matete resuscitated his MT party
and charged Makotoko with being manipulated by the Congress Alliance. Funds
channelled by Matthews allegedly financed in Mokhehles words MFP vehicles,
supplies, buildings and patronage, and some idea of Moscow's generosity can be
gained by the incident when Lebenya Chakela and other BCP members in transit in
London intercepted and destroyed a Soviet cheque for 3000 for Matthews. While the
SACP funds were indubitably of great assistance, the main political thrust against the
BCP initially came from the senior chiefs, twenty two of whom received British salaries
averaging 500 a year. For example, Ntsu Mokhehles chieftainess, Mamathe G.
Masupha, who occasionally amused herself by summoning him for village labour while
protecting him from other chiefs, received 1,126 a year; and Chief Leshoboro Majara
(BNP) 220. The paramount received 3,600.17 However, both SACP and chiefly funds
were soon overshadowed by White commercial interests that saw the MFP an
amenable partner in exploiting Basutolands resources and using the country for
enterprises prohibited in South Africa. The MFP White business cooperation may
have lasted longer had it not been for the hybrid nature of the MFP. The membership
of Khaketlas Freedom Party, the inheritor of the Progressive Party, were urbane
anglophiles but with no electoral strength and had only become a viable party through
its links with the paramountcy and ANC oriented politicians like Robert Matji, who
were critical of Mokhehle. After Chief Matetes departure the Marema-Tlou remnant

17

Hansard House of Commons (UK) Debates 22 July 1960 volume 627 cc72-3W

47

within the MFP was dominated by often brutal senior chiefs with a following of rural
thugs who frequently clashed with BCP activists. The SACP was reluctant to back this
faction but was in a dilemma over backing the Freedom Party faction because of the
ineffectual leadership of Makotoko and Khaketla. The king had some slight satisfaction
in being able to appoint eleven of the thirty three members of the new senate (the
other twenty two were the principal chiefs) , which had delaying power for legislation
passed by the new directly elected sixty seat parliamentary lower house of assembly.
Since eighteen of the twenty two principal chiefs had been supporters of the MFP
before the election, the paramount believed the senate would be his ally against Chief
Leabua.
Ultimately the brutality of the MFP right wing destroyed the partys credibility. On
18th October 1964, a BCP motor procession, on its way to a public meeting at
Thupelikaka, Rothe, was ambushed by Chief Mohlalefi Bereng and his villagers, all of
whom were strong supporters of the paramount and the MFP. A platoon of PMU,
including its future commander, Justin Lekhanya, had been stationed in the area the
night before since trouble was expected. Chief Mohlalefi's men shot and killed four
people, including a woman and a PAC refugee. The deputy leader of the BCP, Gerard
Ramoreboli, was also wounded. At the funeral in Maseru, an MFP vehicle equipped
with a loudhailer harassed the proceedings and warned of future attacks. The PMU
unit failed to intervene in the ambush and Chief Mohlalefi and his accomplices were
not apprehended for several days. When eventually sentenced, the chief received two
years imprisonment. The killings marked a turn in fortune for the MFP, although one of
the accused was later elected to parliament in 1966 from jail. Nevertheless at the time
most commentators agreed that after Rothe there was a massive shift of support from
the MFP to Chief Leabua Jonathans BNP. However before the 1965 election, the BCP
could count on only seventeen of its original thirty one members in the legislative
council, due to defections to the MFP
The Basutoland pre-independence election was held on 29 April 1965, only seven
months after Rothe. The BCP had reason to be confident because it had won Hlotse
district council by-election in May 1964 with 69% of the vote, followed by the MFP
with 28% and the BNP with 3%. Mokhehle even took time off in the election month to
visit Beijing. Although Mokhehle was a respected continental figure he was not only
acquiring powerful enemies inside Basutoland and in South Africa but was also
confrontational instead of reconciliatory in local politics. Worst of all and this cost
the BCP government was the BCPs offhand dismissal of electoral boundary changes.

48

The population increase in north-west areas of Basutoland meant their constituencies

had more voters than in some of those in the mountains, which worked against the
BCP. David Lucas, the relevant British official, told me in 1995 that he estimated that
the BCP would have won the election if they had insisted on redrawn electoral
boundaries.
It is generally acknowledged that the Catholic womens vote was crucial in the 1965
election. In the election women were voting for the first time and, since they
outnumbered men in the territory itself by four to three, they were a substantial but
unknown factor Aforementioned, only fifty-six women had been eligible to vote in
1960 and the Canadian missionary OMI had specifically targeted the thousands of new
female Catholic voters, threatening excommunication if any supported the BCP. In
addition the BCP had been distracted by political infighting in Maseru and had done
little campaigning in the Catholic eastern mountains. Thirdly, an Absent Voters Form
scheme to allow between 118,000 and 125,000 registered voters in South Africa at the
time of the election to vote was abandoned after the BCP, MFP and MT accused the
OMI missionaries of misusing the scheme inside Basutoland to assist the BNP.
Ironically, in the BNP view, the bulk of the migrant workers in South Africa were BCP
supporters. On election day, only three to four thousand Basotho from South Africa
returned to vote. Since over 90% of those registered in Basutoland itself voted, while
the number of overall registered voters who voted was 62.3%, it would indicate that
the bulk of the Basotho labour force, and therefore the country's economic mainstay,
had no part in the 1965 election
Next, the NP regime supported Chief Leabua Jonathans BNP with funds and
vehicles and lastly Chief Leabua Jonathan was surprisingly more of a natural politician
than Mokhehle. While Mokhehles international status gave the BCP prestige, and his
antagonism to foreign control and advocacy of peasant self-reliant socialist initiatives
was commendable in some circles, voters were not necessarily impressed. Firstly, the
BCP links with Lumumba, Nkrumah, the PAC, Maos China, Nassers Egypt and the
Soviet bloc (through student scholarships) did not translate into economic benefits and
also alarmed moderate and conservative forces who, while loathing apartheid South
Africa, were disturbed at the failure of ostensibly idealistic African states as they
became more authoritarian, mismanaged and corrupt either through one party
systems, military coups or unsavoury foreign alliances. The White led gradualist
Central African Federation had collapsed in 1963 because of African opposition and
in January 1964 an unknown Ugandan stone mason named John Okello had

49

overthrown the Zanzibar government, an act that sparked army mutinies in

Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda. In February President Nkrumah declared Ghana a one
party state, while in Zambia President Kaunda had introduced a perpetual state of
emergency. White led Rhodesia was heading towards an illegal declaration of
independence. To many Basotho voters, cut off from the rest of free Africa by White
dictatorships, the BCP appeared like Pandora anxious to dabble with irresponsible
unstable forces. Pragmatists looked for a conservative politician who would act with
caution, not antagonise Pretoria, and support established institutions and business
interests. Chief Leabua Jonathans political philosophy went no further than a belief in
authoritarian Catholic Christian conservative rule backed by foreign friends but that
was what most Basotho Catholic women voters supported in the 1965 election.
Basutoland experienced the worst drought in thirty years during 1965 and
consequently, by February, the numbers of Basotho working on the mines was 10,531
up on the year before. The women did not want their only means of income
jeopardised by a BCP government irritating South Africa. .After the elections, the
country experienced a severe winter so, generally, the Basotho were more conscious
than usual of their vulnerable economic situation. Even if voters had not heard Chief
Leabua urge them to think of their stomachs, many must have voted for the BNP
since the BCPs economic policies appeared somewhat nebulous, untried, and
antagonistic to White large business enterprises that supplied basic necessities to the
protectorate.
The BNP won the election with 108,162 votes (41.6%) votes, followed by the BCP
with 103,050 (39.7%), the MFP with 40,837 (16.5%), the Marematlou with 5,697 (2.2%)
and the Independent candidates with 79. In Maseru Shakhane Mokhehle (BCP 4669
votes) defeated Khaketla (MFP 223 votes), Jack Mosiane (Independent 25 votes), Leo
Matlebe (BNP 876 votes) and E. T. Naledi (Marematlou 88 votes), all his rivals losing
their deposits. Dr Makotoko, the MFP leader, was also defeated. Although Chief
Leabua had addressed what observers felt was the biggest rally of the campaign, in
Maseru, he was again beaten by Walter Khasu of the BCP. The BNP secretary-general,
C. D. Molapo, as well as the BNP party chairman, the vice-chairman, the treasurer and
the publicity secretary were all defeated. The BNP gained 31 seats, the BCP 25 and the
MFP 4. The BNP had gained an overall majority vote in only twenty three
constituencies. In thirty seven constituencies the combined BCP-MFP vote was larger
than the BNP vote, as it was nationally. In 1965, the paramount was no longer
associated with Mokhotlong, and both the MTP and the MFP did badly there, the four

50

MFP seats being won in the area around Matsieng, where the Paramounts influence
was strong. Chief Nathaniel Qhobela Molapo and Dr. Makotoko of the MFP were
nominated to the senate by the king, as were the BCP and BNP secretary-generals,
Godfrey Kolisang and Charles Dube Molapo. In the BNP's first public statement after
winning the election, it invited foreign industrialists to invest in Basutoland and
declared it was looking forward to co-operative and friendly relations with South
Africa. On 4 May, Chief Leabua declared he wanted to establish diplomatic relations
with South Africa as soon as possible, but not with Ghana. Chief Sekhonyana
'Maseribane, a Catholic minor chief who had fought the 1960 election as an
Independent, became prime minister. Chief Leabua had to await a by-election. The
following day, Dr. Verwoerd's government said that it welcomed the BNP victory.
Twenty-eight of the thirty-one BNP members of the national assembly were Catholics,
fifteen being former teachers in OMI schools, the remainder being chiefs and
catechists. The cabinet contained seven Catholics and two PEMS chiefs. Seven
members of the cabinet were junior chiefs and two were commoners. Four of the nine
ministers, including Chief Leabua, had not completed six years of schooling. One had
failed Junior Certificate, but two had passed. Anthony Manyeli, the minister of
education, possessed a degree. Chief Patrick Mota had undertaken a health assistant's
course and was appointed minister of health and social welfare.
Chief Leabua decided to fight for a seat at Mpharane, where the BNP had gained its
largest majority. The by-election was due on 1 July and on 9 June it was announced
that the South African government had decided to make a gift to Chief Leabua
personally of 100,000 bags of maize valued at R315,000. Khaketla denounced the gift
as a cheap political trick intended to buy support for Chief Leabua Jonathan and his
National Party, and the BCP vigorously attacked the issue in the new assembly. The
Basutoland Chamber of Commerce (all Whites) welcomed the gift. Chief Leabua
defended his acceptance of the maize on the grounds that the country was starving.
The BCP countered that the maize was sold in many places and that three hundred
bags of Basotho wheat were being exported daily from Mafeteng to Wepener. The
maize was distributed throughout Basutoland by twenty aircraft, much of it bearing
the message Leabua is feeding the people. Chief Leabua won the Mpharane byelection with a reduced majority and replaced Chief Maseribane as prime minister.
The BNP faced immediate challenges. Two of its seats Masemouse and Qaqatu,
were declared void and scheduled for new elections reducing it to twenty nine seats,
the same as the combined BCP-MFP seats. The BCP requested the paramount to

51

declare there was no government but Bereng Seeiso refused and Chief Setenane
Mapheleba, an MFP member of the assembly, then crossed the floor to join the BNP.
The two by-elections returned BNP candidates. The next challenges concerned the
1966 Independence Constitution and the date of independence. The paramount and
the BCP opposed the constitutional clause giving the prime minister control of the
armed forces. In the senate debate five of the paramounts nominees opposed the
paramounts stance that he, the future king, should control them. These included
Nathaniel Qhobela Molapo and Justice Mokotso of the MFP and Charles Dube Molapo.
Bereng Seeiso promptly terminated the nomination of these five and appointed five
replacements. The matter was taken to the high court. In the meantime the BCP and
MFP tried to delay independence since it would usher in a BNP government. Their
efforts were thwarted by substantial bribery that caused MFP senators to join the BNP,
oust Dr Makotoko as president of the senate and replace him with Chief Nathaniel
Qhobela Molapo, brother of the BCPs external representative Moses Qhobela
Molapo18. The paramount lost the five nominated senators case. Mokotso, the MFP
secretary general became a BNP minister. The now BNP dominated senate passed the
independence motion on 27 May 1966 and in June talks began in London about
formalising independence. The paramount, the MFP and BCP delegations withdrew
angrily from the discussions on the issue of emergency powers.
By the time Lesotho became independent on 4 October 1966 with Bereng Seeiso as
King Moshoeshoe II, the BCP and the new king were both planning a peoples coup. In
December 1966, after his return to Lesotho and the granting of independence, King
Moshoeshoe carried out his previous threat of consulting the Basotho about his role,
irrespective of the constitution and the warnings by the BNP government. On 11
September 1966 the BCP and MFP had held an enormous meeting in Maseru in
opposition to the Emergency Powers Bill, the Internal Security (Public Meetings and
Processions) Bill, the Societies Bill, and the Printing and Publishing Bill. The first of
these permitted the prime minister to declare a state of emergency whenever he felt
the need, as well as to detain, remove and exclude people from Lesotho. Without
consulting parliament, he had the power to suspend the laws of the country. The
Internal Security Bill made it possible for the minister concerned to permit or ban any
public meeting or procession. The Societies Bill was modelled on the Unlawful
18

Moses resembled his brother so closely that he was sometimes violently abused by BCP supporters in
Lesotho and South Africa. He eventually became BCP leader in the 1990s after expelling Mokhehle
from the party.

52

Organisations Act of South Africa, while the Printing and Publishing Bill empowered the
police or any official authorised by the prime minister to interfere with mail. All four
bills were passed. The king participated in the independence celebrations but warned
that the act of independence, by itself, is not necessarily a solution to all these
stresses and strains. He also swore to defend the very constitution he despised. The
king, encouraged by Mokhehle and Makotoko, decided to hold his final public meeting
of the year beside Moshoeshoes grave on Thaba Bosiu on 27 December 1966.
December is when thousands of migrant workers return for holidays to Lesotho and
BCP national conferences are held. The king had by that time antagonised Chief Leabua
to such an extent that the government, thoroughly alarmed by the growing opposition,
issued a ban on 22 December that was too late to prevent thousands of Basotho from
attending. The king planned to address a series of public meetings to rally the Basotho
against the BNP. The BCP plan was for the new secretary general, Koenyama Chakela,
to lead the crowds assembled at Thaba Bosiu down to Maseru, overwhelm and occupy
the government offices and seize control. Like the PAC in 1960 he had no plan to deal
with a violent response.
Frightened by events, Chief Leabua instructed C. D. Molapo to present the king
with an agreement deal whereby the two controversial parts of the constitution,
sections 76(4) and (5) (see Appendix A) would be repealed in return for the
cancellation of the meeting at Thaba Bosiu. The king agreed and signed a document to
that effect. Chief Leabua did not countersign, but this was not known to the king, who
went to Thaba Bosiu the following day to disperse the crowds and announce the
agreement. However, the police and PMU were sent to prevent anyone reaching the
mountain. While they were able to erect roadblocks, thousands of people travelling on
foot or by horse evaded them and reached Thaba Bosiu. The police ordered the people
to disperse. Simultaneously a large column of horsemen appeared seemingly led by
the king. The people refused to move and the Police Mobile Unit opened fire, killing
ten people, including the man mistaken as the king, and eighty horses. A PMU British
officer, John McFall, earned the Queen's Gallantry Medal. In the chaos nobody could
address the meeting, let alone lead a march on Maseru. Short lived isolated violence
occurred in BCP areas in the north-west.
After the Thaba Bosiu incident, one hundred and eighty people were arrested,
including Mokhehle and Dr. Makotoko. On the 5th January, 1967 the king, already
under house arrest, was forced to sign an agreement to obey the constitution and not
participate in politics. He was only permitted visitors permitted by the government. If

53

he contravened any of the provisions of this agreement the government would assume
he had automatically abdicated. Charges were then dropped against Mokhehle and Dr.
Makotoko. The kings personal aide and other officials were removed from the palace,
isolating him to such an extent that he had to extinguish a chimney fire unaided.
There were three whole years before the next election, scheduled for January 1970
and although the BNP government was accused of being a right wing Canadian
Catholic missionary creation supported by the South African NP regime, the years
1967-1970 were a laudable experience in parliamentary democracy for not only did
the BCP act as a vigorous opposition but the BCP district councils were determined to
show that peasant initiatives would better serve the country than foreign aid. 19 In
addition the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in February 1966, the reluctance of China
to support the BCP against a legitimate government, the failure of the SACP to
establish itself in Lesotho, and the absence of distracting resistance politics in South
Africa during those years enabled the BCP to concentrate fully on domestic issues and
form practical strategies to suit its Africanist philosophy.
The BCP was able successfully to challenge the BNP government because the BNP,
being politically inexperienced, relied too visibly on foreign guidance, favoured a small
relatively privileged urban section of the community, was excessively obsessed with
security, preferred foreign to local experts and senior police officers, and was
obsequious in its relations with South Africa. However, funding for the public service
including police salaries came from British grants. In retrospect the BNP government
compared favourably with other African governments largely because it was not strong
enough to follow their example. For instance Ghana (1964), Tanzania (1965), Uganda
(1966), and Malawi (1966) all became one party states with extremely unsatisfactory
results. However, although Chief Leabuas autocratic style caused resentment and his
pompous manner amusement, his dramatic fall in popularity was mainly due to the
governments cooperation with South Africa concerning the return of animals
considered to be stolen from White South African farmers. A special South African
funded Lesotho Police Stock Theft Unit rounded up stock suspected as being rustled
from South Africa. White farmers were allowed to enter Lesotho and claim animals
(several often claiming the same fine animal) but Basotho farmers were barred from
19

To prove their point, on one occasion local BCP rural activists constructed a parallel road to one
financed by foreign aid. Later, during the period of the BNP-military regime, in an expression of their
hatred of dubious foreign linkages, other activists killed an entire herd of horses provided by Irish aid by
driving it over a cliff.

54

doing likewise in South Africa. Outrage at this policy cost the BNP all the eastern
mountain constituencies in the 1970 election. The BNP government also caused anger
by trying to hand over mining of alluvial diamonds to a foreign company rather than to
individual diggers. In brief by 1970 there were clear ideological divisions between the
BNP and BCP on the economic and social future of the country (the MFP had faded
away through Khaketla and Makotokos ineptitude). The BNP was integrating the
country into the South African economy exacerbating the rural crisis where farmers
were deserting the land for work on the mines. The BCPs final message to the
electorate in its paper Makatolle promised to raise the standard of education to
enable the Basotho to take over the running of the country from expatriates, and
provide social services as well as development projects reliant on the people
themselves. The article promised that the party would protect the king and the
freedom of religion. The party noted in January that the BNP was threatening
"Uncooperative Churches" and had denounced Lesinlinyana, the PEMS newspaper, on
Radio Lesotho. While appealing to Protestant voters the BCP call for greater emphasis
on self reliant rural development and small scale businesses also resonated with the
Catholic women who had brought the BNP to power. The OMI had toned down its
assault on the BCP as it had been alarmed at the fury directed against it after the 1965
election and was disgusted with the BNPs establishment of entertainment centres,
including a casino, where White South Africans could enjoy gambling and interracial
prostitution. Nevertheless the PMU was mostly recruited from Catholic families and in
1970 had a British Catholic commander, Fred Roach.
Chief Maseribane was in charge of the 1970 elections. He gave the BNP advanced
notice but informed the BCP and MFP of the nomination date only seven days before,
cutting the period from seven and a half hours to three. The MFP candidate for Thaba
Moea succeeded in registering after an epic journey but the BCP candidate failed to
reach the office in time. Polling stations were mostly in locations favouring BNP
villages. A leading BNP member told Khaketla shortly before the 1970 election:
How can we lose the match? The ball is ours; the jerseys are ours; the field is ours;
and, more important, the referee, too, is ours.
Given such BNP overconfidence the election result came as a severe shock. Polling
began on the 27th January. The Friend- of Bloemfontein reported that the campaign
had been dull and notable for its lack of violence and public controversy. Compared
with the country's first election (sic) in May, 1965, when tempers and riots flared, this
has been a tame affair.....

55

Of the accusations of BNP vote rigging, The Friend commented:

While the government may not have deliberately omitted large numbers off the
voters' roll, neither has it been energetic about getting them on. The Friend reported
on 28 January that It has certainly been the quietest election anyone could wish for,
with no serious incidents reported.
There were six hundred and fifty polling stations. The BNP had ordered only the
police to accompany the voting boxes to be accompanied to the constituency counting
centres but in the event most boxes reached their destination followed by
representatives of all parties. Counting was witnessed by all parties but counting itself
was in the hands of mostly BNP supporters nominated by Maseribane. When the
result of the poll was known, two announcements were made, first to the officials and
candidates inside the hall, and then to the people outside. Two lists of results were
posted outside and inside the hall. The returning officer had to fill and date stamp
forms listing the results for the chief electoral officer and a copy for the electoral
constituency itself. Each candidate was given a certificate of results as well. The
constituency result was sent to Maseru headquarters by government vehicles, aircraft,
telegraph, telephone and by police transmitter. The Catholic mission radio was
forbidden to broadcast results but apparently informed each of its mission stations in
French, a language rarely understood by Basotho. In the districts the results were
posted up outside polling stations as soon as word had been received from
constituency head-quarters, and the nine administrative centres also displayed the
results. The BCP had its own network of messengers to party headquarters in Maseru.
Therefore by the time the election results had been announced there were three
independent bodies in receipt of them - the parties concerned, the district
administrations, and the electoral headquarters in Maseru. The University of
Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (UBLS) also compiled election results identical to
those of the BCP.
The government controlled radio never announced the full results of the 1970
election. The final broadcast stated that the BNP and BCP had each won twenty three
seats. The final score was BCP thirty six seats, BNP twenty three, MFP one (Thaba
Moea, where the BCP could not field a candidate). Interestingly the BNP vote increased
on its 1965 total by 21, 272, while the MFP sank by 22, 558. The BCP increased by
nearly 50,000. The BCP won 49.8% of the vote, the BNP 42.2%, and the MFP 7.3%. The
Moscow oriented Communist Party received sixty eight votes. The BCP believed it

56

should have won forty five seats and intended to challenge the results in several
constituencies.
Chief Leabua at first accepted he had been defeated. His permanent secretaries
were summoned and told that a change of government was imminent. Mr. A. T.
Monaheng, permanent secretary in the ministry of home affairs and a BNP supporter,
telephoned Mokhehle to offer his congratulations. Foreign missions also received the
news through Mr Ntoampe, the personal secretary to Chief Leabua. From all reports
Chief Leabua knew the election result by Thursday night and held a special cabinet
meeting the same day to discuss the hand-over of power. At the meeting he was
opposed by Chiefs Maseribane and Peete Peete (the BNPs most formidable
parliamentarian), and also Justice Mokotso. Nevertheless Chief Leabua went to bed
that night intending to hand over power to the BCP. The BCP office continued to
receive congratulatory messages the following morning from diplomats and civil
servants. The West German Embassy told its citizens in Lesotho that the BCP had won.
On Friday 30 January Chief Leabua met with further pressure. A private meeting
had taken place between the two senior British police commanders, Roach and
Hindmarsh, with Maseribane, Peete Peete and Mokotso. The exact status of
Hindmarsh and Roach was unclear. Hindmarsh was the commissioner of police and
senior to Roach, who commanded the Police Mobile Unit. Hindmarsh appears to have
been a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) while Roach was
indisputably in the pay of South African intelligence operatives and seems to have
served as a member of the SIS until about 1964, being senior to Hindmarsh. The PMU
and the Lesotho Mounted Police (LMP) were commanded by fifteen contracted British
police officers. Clement Mooki Leepa had hoped to become commissioner of police
but had been superseded by Hindmarsh on the recommendation of the Lesotho high
commissioner in London, Joseph Kotsokoane. The five members of the meeting then
approached Chief Leabua, who was already making enquiries about leaving for Malawi.
He wavered and then began to look into possibilities of retaining power by force.
Roach later proved that he had South African police or military backing and if this was
not told Chief Leabua, then some other tactic must have been presented to show that
the police, who had voted for the BCP, would support retention of power. The senior
civil service, political appointees, would support a coup. Next, Dr. Otto Bamhawer, a
West German legal adviser was called in. Bamhawer was an expert on constitutional
law, seconded to the Lesotho government by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
Bamhawer advised Chief Leabua to suspend the constitution, declare a state of

57

emergency and arrest the opposition. D. Geldenhuys, the chief legal adviser to Chief
Leabua and later the attorney general of Lesotho, attempted to dissuade the BNP
leaders and British police to launch a coup but after consultation with Cape Town,
South African personnel immediately left Lesotho. By Friday morning the BCP had been
told of the contents of telegrams to and from South Africa and knew a state of
emergency was going to be declared. The national executive met and concluded that
the courts could probably deal satisfactorily with any attempt by Chief Leabua to retain
power. At noon Mokhehle gave a press conference announcing his partys election
victory. Radio Lesotho informed listeners Chief Leabua would address the nation at
3pm. It was generally assumed the broadcast would concede power to the BCP. This is
what Chief Leabua said:
I, the prime minister of Lesotho, in terms of the Constitution, do hereby declare
Lesotho to be in a state of emergency. The decision I and my ministers have just made
is taken in full consideration of the best interests of the nation. This drastic step has
been taken in order to protect not only the liberty of the individual but also law and
order. An atmosphere of fear and threats of violence was spread throughout the
country by the Opposition on the eve of the elections. On election day the elections
were marred by actual acts of violence all over the country. Now that I have declared
the state of emergency, I hereby suspend the constitution, pending the drafting of a
new one. I call upon you to remain quiet and go about your daily duties in the normal
manner. Wait for further instructions.
A BNP song Leabua ke 'Muso, ngoanka (Leabua is the government, my child) was
then played, followed by The Last Post and Count Your Blessings. Within minutes the
police surrounded the two BCP offices on either side of the Catholic Cathedral and
arrested Mokhehle without a struggle.
In 1977 I was serving in the Lesotho Paramilitary Force and I tape recorded General
Lekhanyas account of the 1970 coup when he was a PMU sergeant who accompanied
Mokhehle after his arrest (see photograph and recording on my DVD data disk).
Lekhanya said he had been surprised at the declaration of the state of emergency
because things had been so quiet. Although there had been some scattered minor
incidents after polling had closed the main complaints had been against the governing
BNPs brutality and vote rigging. However there had been deliberate alarmist reports
that panicked Whites into fleeing Lesotho. The South African press sensationalised
events, the Rand Daily Mail proclaiming: Lesotho Emergency - S. A. Whites are urged
to leave the country. Hindmarshs daughter Julie was photographed in her bikini safe

58

from the BCP in South Africa while I myself met Mrs Humphreys, the wife of Courtney
Humphreys of the Lesotho Mounted Police, when she arrived in a highly agitated state
in Johannesburg speaking of barbed wire, pliers and testicles.
A curfew was introduced in Maseru to last from 6pm to 6am for a fortnight and
was extended the following day to cover the urban areas (the camps) and the ButhaButhe to Quthing road. Eight top PAC members in Lesotho were arrested, while the
rest went underground. On Saturday morning, 31 January, Leabua Jonathan broadcast
on Radio Lesotho:
The reports received indicate that the declaration of the State of Emergency in the
country has been received with calm and full support of the people. The Government
is determined to see that no acts of violence or thuggery are perpetrated in the
country. We have just passed through a difficult period; great mockery was made of
the democratic principles to which we are dedicated. The government had in its
possession lots of information that voters were intimidated before they went to the
polls. In many constituencies, BNP supporters were threatened with arson, malicious
injury to their property, assault, and even death if they went to the polls. Some chiefs
abused their powers and threatened BNP supporters with deprivation of their lands if
they voted. Ex-BCP supporters have also been threatened with victimisation. Weapons
of (a) highly dangerous nature were seized in the hands of BCP followers on election
day. In consequence, some BCP supporters have been arrested. It is unfortunate that
these perpetrators of violence and intimidation received the support of certain highly
placed people in the country. This is not democracy as we understand it. This act
negated the existence of free elections. Whilst we have suspended this foreign and
hybrid constitution, the nation will be pleased to know that a feasible and workable
constitution is being drafted. It will be made to measure to our way of life and our
conception of democracy. Democracy is not an exportable and importable product. It
is native to a people. It is a product of their way of life and traditions. The next
elections will be held as soon as we are confident that they will be conducted in
freedom and peace. All communist-inspired stamps of suppression, intimidation and
bribery will first have to be eradicated. Our first objective is to wipe out all forms of
corruption at elections. We need peace and stability in the country, but those may not
be attained as long as the elections are not free and democratic.
If Leabuas statement had any substance, the legal process was quite clearly stated
in the Lesotho constitution. The outgoing parliament should have been recalled to
discuss and investigate the reasons for the declaration of the state of emergency and

59

legal proceedings taken against lawbreakers. However since Leabua could to support
his accusations, he not only did not follow constitutional procedures but suspended
the constitution itself. A state of emergency could only last fourteen days and an
extension could only be sanctioned by parliament. Therefore On 10 February 1970
Leabua issued The Lesotho Order 1970, being Order No. 1 of 1970, a totally
unconstitutional and illegal document that gave him dictatorial powers.
In February Clement Mooki Leepa began armed attacks against the new regime.
Leepa had been bitter at being passed over for command of the police and had
secretly been stockpiling weapons and ammunition before the election. Eventually he
was tracked down by Lekhanya and killed by a PMU patrol on 3 March. BCP activists
were not so well prepared but launched sporadic resistance most notably under David
Nteso, who was badly wounded by a burst of automatic fire. Other attempts by the
BCP secretary-general Koenyama Chakela and his half brother Lebenya failed because
of lack of weapons. The PMU, BNP Youth League and the BNP Young Pioneers
committed widespread atrocities throughout Lesotho. BCP supporters were raped,
castrated, burnt alive, hacked, stabbed and shot to death, mutilated and tortured.
Whole villages were destroyed. So brutal were these and the subsequent 1974
atrocities that villagers believed census enumerators work consisted of finding out
how many people were left to kill. Twenty-eight pages of detailed atrocities and many
copies of newspaper articles on the same were finally presented to the United Nations
Committee on Human Rights, where they received cursory attention. Although illequipped, BCP militants began counterattacking. Most resistance came in April from
diamond miners at Kao, Mothae, Koasa and Letseng la Terai, who were dispersed or
killed by aircraft dropping grenades and police allegedly reinforced by South African
units. However the police became restless when their pay dried up.
The British paid the Lesotho public service and police salaries. However the Labour
party prime minister Harold Wilson did not have the resolve of the previous prime
minister, the Conservative partys Sir Alec Douglas Home, an amiable Scots aristocrat
who had promptly despatched the British army to crush mutinies in a mere two days in
Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda (24-25 January 1964). Labour had already displayed
fatal irresolution when dealing with Rhodesias White settler minority when they
defied Britain by refusing to introduce democracy for the African population and
instead proclaimed independence in November 1965. Labours pusillanimous handling
of the Rhodesian issue led to a civil war that lasted until 1980, while its unimaginative
handling of strife in Northern Ireland exacerbated divisions that led to civil war; and its

60

March 1969 invasion of the harmless tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla made it a
laughing stock. However the British Labour government at first acted judiciously when
confronted with the Lesotho coup. It had already expressed dissatisfaction over BNP
government mismanagement of funding and refused to resume aid when the next
financial year began in April. British termination of aid almost brought Leabua down.
It is extremely surprising that, given the experience of the PAC in March 1960 and
the BCPs frequent expressions of doubt that the BNP would ever give up power, the
BCP had no plan ready to deal with a coup in 1970. Mokhehle could have adamantly
refused to compromise by insisting constitutional procedures should be followed but
there was a strong possibility that he would be murdered in prison and the death
ascribed by a BNP doctor on a health condition such as a heart attack. The BNP could
have sentenced him to death on trumped up charges. Eventually Leabua managed to
outwit him because Mokhehle spoke rather than thinking things through and then
committing himself to a written answer. He was not however in the best state of mind
because he was held incommunicado for thirty five days and kept ignorant of events.
Eventually McFall, Humphrys and some other British and Basotho officers visited
Mokhehle in jail and asked him to issue an order to his followers to stop fighting.
Mokhehle was unmoved, stating that his people had not begun the trouble. Roach only
permitted Mokhehle to see two men - Ramoreboli and Stephen Motlamelle.
Ramoreboli had not stood up well to prison and his family in Mafeteng had been
beaten. He was an excommunicated Catholic and under considerable pressure to
recant his communist associations. Motlamelle was still free but thoroughly alarmed
by the violence. Both men pressured Mokhehle to order an end to the fighting and as
time passed he began to waver. Later in exile he explained to me that it was very
difficult to think objectively when the only people to whom you are allowed to talk are
urgently repeating the same thing. He should have argued for holding a BCP national
executive meeting as he had no authority to make a decision without party
consultation.
On 27 March, three days after Roach had been appointed acting commissioner of
police in Hindmarshs absence, Mokhehle, Leabua, Mohaleroe (MFP leader) and
Charles Mofeli, a dissident BCP member who had founded the United Democratic
Party (UDP) whose four candidates has won five hundred and one votes between them
in the election, signed a communiqu announcing their intention to hold talks and
dissociating themselves from violence. On 29 April Mokhehle issued another

61

statement calling on seven BCP guerrilla and political leaders to surrender. This made
armed resistance impossible.
If the British Labour government had held its nerve and Mokhehle had used
Sesotho words with greater care there might have been a satisfactory outcome.
However, Harold Wilsons Labour government was obsessed with media publicity and
had been accused of causing the deaths of Biafran babies in the Nigerian civil war,
which finally ended in January 1970. Labour decided to hold a national election in June
rather than October and was under attack by conservative party members such as a
Catholic supporter of the BNP, former Major Patrick Wall, for causing hardship to the
Basotho by withdrawing aid just before the southern winter. Most Basotho relied on
migrant wages and their own food stocks but the public service and police had not
been paid and unless the issue was resolved, Leabua and Roach could not count on
support from the LMP and perhaps a significant number of troopers in the PMU. The
South Africans were also displeased with the political instability and Roach, who
supplemented his income with a rabbit farm and extorting protection money from
traders, could not rely on funds from South Africas intelligence services to finance
continued suppression. Talks lasted from 9 April till 12 June although Mokhehle still
returned to jail after every meeting. At the end the 10 April meeting, he made a fatal
mistake by agreeing to disregard the Lesotho elections of 27 January 1970. The
Sesotho he used, he claimed, meant set aside in the sense put it to one side for later
discussion. The BNP used his statement to persuade the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU) of its legitimacy. As discussions continued the BCP stance hardened and the
party leaders reiterated the constitutional formula for settling the crisis. The British
Labour government then folded, resuming aid on 12 June, six days ahead of the British
election. The talks abruptly ended and nearly all fifty nine BCP election candidates
remained in jail without charges for two to three years. The British Labour Party lost
the election

62

CHAPTER FIVE
In the wake of the coup the BCP found it had hardly any friends. The PAC strongly
objected to the BNP-PMU coup but had to wait until the OAU Addis Ababa conference
in September to raise the issue of recognition. Lebenya Chakela fled from Lesotho on 5
July 1970 but was unable to attract any overseas support. Moses Qhobela Molapo, the
London representative encountered indifference from foreign embassies and the
British government. My own attempt came to nothing.
I was in Johannesburg at the time of the coup. The press had predicted a slightly
increased majority for the BNP. When I heard of the coup I was extremely angry and
decided to do something about it. One Friday I drove my dilapidated Tanzanian
registered Volkswagen beetle car overnight to Maseru accompanied by a friend named
Mike Strong. We scouted round the PMU camp and bumped into Fred Roach, who was
driving round looking dramatic. We spent the night at Lancers Inn, which in those days
was a sedate refined sort of place. Maseru was very quiet and we had some innocuous
conversations with Basotho shopkeepers, saw from afar where Mokhehle was being
held, and then drove back to Johannesburg. From what I had seen I believed that I
could, as a former British Officer-Cadet, ingratiate myself with the British officers and
then neutralise Roach. With like-minded companions, we could deal with most of the
British officers commanding the PMU and LMP if the BCP decided to launch a countercoup. This plan was later denigrated by White members of the chattering classes but in
1977, with less credentials and a false identity, I was able to place myself in a similar
situation actually sharing a tent with General Lekhanya, Roachs eventual successor. It
was extremely difficult finding recruits for this scheme because South African White
society was claustrophobic and riddled with informers. Had I not been expelled from
South Africa in June 1970 I think there would not have been any chance of me having a
future role in Basotho affairs. In May I was given three weeks to leave South Africa and
was not permitted to return until after Mandelas release. I had no proof of my South
African citizenship because I had been included on my mothers passport which she no
longer possessed and the regimes authorities probably disliked my studies at a
Nigerian university and a year of teaching in Tanzania. I had very little money left I
had entered South Africa in November 1969 with ten pounds and my VW was in bad
state. I reached the Zambian border and was deported back into Rhodesia. My car
shook to pieces crossing Mozambique and I got a new passport in Blantyre but had to
abandon my car at Salima. I hitchhiked through a small strip of Zambia and returned to
Tanzania on July 8. I made my way straight to the headquarters of the African

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Liberation Committee of the Organisation of African Unity (ACL-OAU) in Dar es Salaam

where I presented maps of Maseru and my plan to help the BCP seize power to the
rather easy going security personnel at the gate. Soon afterwards I received a letter
asking me to meet George Magombe, the ALC OAU secretary-general. I met Magombe
at OAU Liberation headquarters where he declared he was not at all happy about
events in Lesotho and that Leabua should be removed from power. He put me in the
Seaview Hotel in Dar es Salaam for a week and then advised me to look for a job and
wait for his next call. I found a job teaching History, Political Education and English at
Kibo Secondary school Moshi where the racist Indian Brahmin manager, after nine
years of independence, paid Indian staff 1800/- a month, myself 1000/- and Africans
750/-irrespective of qualifications and experience.
In September 1970 the OAU met in Addis Ababa. The most prominent BCP member
outside Lesotho was its former secretary-general Godfrey Kolisang, studying law in
Britain. Kolisang was a good administrator and fervent publicist after the coup.
However he was very poor at focussing on vital issues and believed he would solve the
crisis through legal argument. He flew to Addis to attend the OAU conference. The
British had recognized Leabua's regime but the PAC, which was assisting Kolisang, felt
that if Kolisang was firm, he could achieve recognition for the BCP as the rightful
government of Lesotho in the eyes of the OAU. At the very least a stand by Kolisang
would have made the Lesotho coup a major issue in the OAU Conference. Kolisang,
afraid of consequences for his extremely attractive wife in Maseru, wavered, but
Leballo was determined to force the issue. Leabua Jonathan also attended the
conference. On his way to the auditorium he was waylaid by David Sibeko and other
members of the PAC. Sibeko told Leabua's entourage they did not represent the
people of Lesotho and Leabua had no right to call himself the prime minister20 of
Lesotho. In the meantime Leballo had procured a delegate's badge for Kolisang and
was trying to propel him towards the auditorium to take the seat for Lesotho. Kolisang
balked but the PAC persevered, overpowered Leabua, chased away Desmond Sixishe
and other BNP delegates, and then threw Leabua on the floor of the OAU corridor
where David Sibeko made a spirited effort to throttle him before the Ethiopian and
OAU security police could intervene. Despite this, Kolisang refused to enter the
auditorium to claim the Lesotho seat for the BCP. When the conference convened,
Leballo denounced the BNP delegation, stating it was unfortunate that an indubitably
In fact, as a legal ploy, Leabua called himself Tono-kholo which is a translation of prime minister but not a
word found in the constitution
20

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Panafricanist party such as the BCP should immediately be abandoned when it was
clear that imperialist interests had prevented it from taking its place as the rightful
government of Lesotho. Because the appeal came from the PAC, the matter remained
a minor one in the discussions. If Kolisang had fought for the BCP's rights as the
legitimate representative of Lesotho there was a possibility that recognition of the BNP
regime might at the very least have been delayed pending a commission of enquiry.
The host of the conference, Emperor Haile Selaisse, threatened Leballo for his party's
attempt to choke Leabua and prevent the BNP delegation from entering the
auditorium, but no reprisals occurred. At the conference the BNP delegation and
Malawi abstained from voting on the question of British arms sales to South Africa. The
PAC continued its verbal attacks on the BNP and Magombe wrote in the Daily Standard
of Tanzania on 18 September 1970 saying that he hoped that countries which
abstained from voting on the arms issue would realise and come back to the folds of
African unity. I responded:
What are they to realise? That the OAU denounces only white minority and
colonial regimes and turns a blind eye to the rampant injustices flourishing in its own
member states? Does the OAU condone these injustices just because those member
states are African and thus the same criterion by which South Africa and Rhodesia are
condemned minority rule bolstered by force - is inapplicable? [The Standard,
Tanzania, 19 September 1970].
In October Magombe wrote saying that Godfrey Kolisang was visiting Tanzania and
could be contacted at the PAC office in Dar es Salaam. By this time I had made friends
with a militant English socialist Warwick University graduate named Rob (even in 2012
he still wishes to remain anonymous), a gifted rugby union player (consensus has it
that if he had played at fly half instead of wing, Tanzania would not have been
defeated 19-17 by Kenya in 1971), cricketer and childhood friend of the mega-music
star Elton John, teaching for a mere Shs 240/- a month at Kibosho Girls Secondary
school 15 km from Moshi. Rob and I hitch-hiked to Dar es Salaam and met Kolisang on
17 October at the PAC office. Kolisang enthusiastically welcomed the idea of our
proposed counter-coup. Kolisang predicted that the South Africans would intervene
after a counter-coup but the mountains would echo to the name of Mokhehle and
the Basotho would defeat the enemy and ignite revolution in South Africa. We felt
quite elated but when the meeting was over Kolisang denounced the whole idea in a
three page diatribe, accusing me of being a South African army officer or a CIA agent or
both. In an effort to have me arrested and tried as a spy, Kolisang sent a copy to

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Magombe, who ignored it. Kolisang never reported the offer to his colleagues, only
mentioning to the Zambian based Mosotho lawyer, Gloria Moruthane, that he had
been approached by Boer spies in Dar es Salaam. Magombe fortunately ignored
Kolisangs denunciations and advised me by letter that the OAU liberation committee
could not interfere in the internal affairs of member states. Unofficially he was
prepared to help but without Kolisang this was not possible. I also approached a
number of other organisations and governments to assist the BCP and eventually, after
two years of enquiries, the new ANC representative in Dar es Salaam, Ken Mntungwa,
accepted me into party in 1972 and offered me Soviet military training in Odessa. I
liked Mntungwa but told him that it had taken two years and seven letters to be
noticed and I didnt have much faith in the ANCs efficiency.
I remained in Tanzania until January 1973. I joined Rob at Kibosho, became
chairman of Kilimanjaro Region historical association, wrote books on the local
languages, led tourists round the battlefields of the First World War, climbed
Kilimanjaro three times and was picked to represent Tanzania at rugby at XV and VII
level. In January I got married and went to England. Life was rather difficult as my wife
not only faced frequent racism and abuse but found her Tanzanian qualifications were
not recognised. She sat British school exams and then started a Pharmacy degree in
1974. To make ends meet I worked as a high school teacher, security guard and a
soldier in the British army reserve. By that time Bennet Khaketla had published his
book Lesotho 1970 but the democratic cause in Lesotho seemed dead.
The majority of the BCP leadership and the parliamentary candidature remained in
prison or under restriction for two to three years. Mokhehle spent his first days in
solitary confinement with a Bible to read, on which he made notes. Ramoreboli was in
an adjoining cell but was given more freedom and other prisoners saw him often
appearing at the window of an ante-room. He was released in mid October 1970. The
other BCP members were housed away from Mokhehle in the maximum security
building, which they described as being opened by them, since they were its first
residents. After a three hunger strike there was an improvement in food, washing
facilities and latrines, increasing the number of wash taps and providing the prisoners
with wash basins. The BCP candidature and NEC were not wealthy men and, despite
helpful neighbours, imprisonment hit their families hard. Roach and the BNP targeted
Catholic BCP members such as Ramoreboli (deputy leader) and Ntsukunyane Mphanya
(deputy secretary-general). Mphanya was almost the victim of a trial for liretlo (ritual
murder) which utilized fabricated evidence in an attempt either to have him executed

66

for murder or silenced politically in fear that the evidence would be used against him
whenever the BNP regime saw fit. In 1977 when I was a Lesotho paramilitary Major I
asked Ramoreboli (then the regimes justice minister) for details but none were
forthcoming. PMU Mokhehle noticed that Ramoreboli became more withdrawn,
oversensitive and moody as time progressed. Ramoreboli was inexplicably released but
confined to Maseru.
By the end of 1970 Fred Roach was in full command of Lesotho. According to the
New Statesman journalist Duncan Campbell, Roach was funded by the South African
Bureau of State Security (BOSS) and also part of unofficial but well funded right wing
British and South African political and intelligence groups. He allegedly provided a
Lesotho passport to Louis Luyt, a millionaire, former OFS rugby captain, founder of the
giant explosives company Triomf Fertiliser and later the Citizen newspaper. He was
President of the South African Rugby football Union when the Springboks won the
world cup in 1995. Luyt was a member of the Club of Ten a wealthy pressure group
pressing for South Africa's international acceptability. Luyts Lesotho passport enabled
him to travel more widely. In 1971 Roach was in Uganda playing some part in General
Amins coup that ousted President Obote. Back in Lesotho Roach began a series of
manoeuvres to create a Catholic BNP-BCP coalition co-opting Ramoreboli, Phoka
Chaolana, a BCP ex-OMI seminarian, and Ntsukunyane Mphanya. Their instructions
were to persuade seven members of the BCP NEC together to overthrow Mokhehle.
Mphanya was returned to jail for non cooperation.
PMU Basotho officers strongly suspected that Roach planned to establish himself
as Ian Smith of Lesotho. Roach certainly did not avoid self-aggrandisement. His
command of 650 paramilitary police and 1,200 LMP gave him the rank of
commissioner but he styled himself General Roach and the rank was taken by his
successors although in normal military practice 1.850 troops would be commanded by
a colonel. Later, Lesothos tiny forces were to possess four generals at the same time.
Whatever Roachs delusions of grandeur it is difficult to imagine he believed he could
establish himself in a role similar to Gilbert Bourgeaud (aka Robert Denard/Said
Mustapha Mahdjoub), a French mercenary who achieved a fantasy lifestyle with seven
wives in the Comoros islands after his May 1978 coup. Mokhehle was released from
prison on 8 June 1971 and confined to house detention. Shortly afterwards, on 28
June, the high court sentenced eight men to imprisonment, seven for terms of 4
years, one for 3 years. They had planned to launch an armed attack on Maseru, seizing

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cabinet ministers, Maseru police station, and key government installations. On 9

August a further nineteen people were jailed for armed insurrection.
In early 1972 Roach made his move. Supporters of Leabua in the PMU sent a
message to the Lesotho high commission in Nairobi warning that There's a white man
here that wants to make himself ruler.
According to several separate reports Roach convened a meeting in early 1972 of
senior police officers and told them he intended to execute the king, Ntsu Mokhehle
and Leabua. He said that a large number of civil servants and some politicians from
both major parties were behind him. The police informed Leabua. Roach was disarmed
by Lieutenant Justin Metsing Lekhanya of the PMU and deported. Roach was given a
"front" job by Luyt at Triomf Fertilizer, and jetted around the continent in a plane
normally used by South African government ministers. He was banned in Swaziland
and retired in 1977 to become landlord of the Town Arms, Wallingford, England, next
to the bridge across the River Thames where Moses Qhobela Molapo caused him vast
consternation when I took Molapo there for a drink. Roach left England on 8 January
1982 for South Africa where he tried to recruit former members of elite British
regiments, including myself, as mercenaries for Rhodesia. He was later killed in a car
crash near Capetown. Roach was succeeded as police commissioner by John McFall,
who had killed Basotho at Thaba Bosiu in 1966. Lekhanya was rewarded by being
chosen as the "heir apparent." He attended police college in Scotland and visited the
USA. In June and July 1972 BNP critics and suspected disloyal leaders were expelled or
resigned from the party.
At the beginning of 1972 the BCP prisoners were freed and restricted to their home
villages where they accomplished much work in re-establishing links between the
peasants and the executive. Consequently the BCP felt it was stronger at the beginning
of 1973 than in 1970. Many female supporters of the BNP had been horrified at BNP
atrocities and in many areas their animosity to the BCP evaporated. During the years in
prison the BCP had functioned on the outside through the scaling down of the number
of members required to fill a quorum. The regular committees of the party could
operate if only two members were present. In this way meetings could be held within
the letter of the regimes laws on gatherings. The restriction of the leadership to the
villages also helped in recruiting BNP peasants to the BCP.
On 4 April 1973 Leabua produced a plan to create a parliamentary assembly that
would facilitate a dictatorship. Other African counties states including Kenya (1969)
Zambia (1972) had joined the list of one party states but Leabuas plan went beyond

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party rule. There would be ninety three members, sixty in the lower house, thirty three
in the upper. Eleven members of the upper house would be chosen from citizens who
had rendered distinguished service to the country. The others would be the twenty
two principal and ward chiefs. In the lower house seats would be reserved for the
regimes ministers, while the remaining forty eight would be shared according to the
strength of the political parties. The king had no part of the plan but a notice was
issued in his name of a list of National Assembly members to meet at 10am on Friday
27 April 1973. The BCP was allotted twenty of the sixty seats but only five of these
(including Mokhehle and Ramoreboli) had been successful candidates in the 1970
election. Leabua intended to change the Lesotho constitution by a two thirds majority
vote in new assembly to a dictatorship and eventually (he had been stopped once
before by an outraged Chief Leshoboro Majara) to make himself king with powers
similar to King Sobhuza of Swaziland. Mokhehle and other BCP members refused to
attend the new assembly but Ramoreboli and thirteen nominated BCP members defied
orders, attended the assembly and were expelled from the BCP. Leabua reacted by
stating the Basotho needed a new constitution based directly on the institutions that
are linked to the cultural, traditional, social and economic life of the indigenous
people, and it is from this firm basis that it must follow an evolutionary rather than
revolutionary development. . It must grow with the people and their traditions, rather
than alien concepts .... It must be our motto to place economic development first and
politics after.
In July 1973 the regime lifted the three and a half year state of emergency was
lifted and on 17 November the assembly passed the Limitation of Legal Proceedings
Act (1973) making it impossible to take legal action concerning the bloodshed,
destruction, imprisonment and other occurrences which took place between 30
January 1970 and 17 November 1973. Since this assembly had no legitimacy itself,
such legislation was technically meaningless. In practice illegal laws made by illegal
regimes seem to last.
By December tensions had risen dangerously as the regime retaliated against BCP
enthusiasm and at a meeting at Thaba Bosiu, Ramoreboli warned, If Mr. Mokhehle
disappeared, people should not ask where he was because he would have been eaten
by The Unknown (Koeoko). When Mokhehle and church and political leaders including
the BNP secretary-general Masupha Katiso (BNP secretary-general) signed a letter
demanding a new assembly an arrest warrant was issued on 14 December but
Mokhehle went into hiding and was never seen publicly until he fled the country on 16

69

January. Despite the escalating crisis the BCP still went ahead with preparations for its
annual conference, the first since 1969. A successful conference would be a serious
challenge to the regime and steps were immediately taken to oppose it. The police
gave permission for the conference to last for a mere sixteen hours instead of the
usual minimum of sixty eight. Chakela, Mphanya, Chakela and the deputy leader
Tseliso Makhakhe decided to postpone the conference until Easter 1974.
The BCP had already decided to fight. The NEC was convinced that Mokhehles life
was in danger and that violence was inevitable. The party was obviously very much
alive but even less militarily prepared than in 1970 for the arms it possessed that year,
although mostly old, had been surrendered. Having considered all possibilities, the
executive decided to seize power by force. The rising was very badly prepared. The
leader chosen by the NEC for military insurgency was Hlenyane Mkhabela, who had
trained in China and also Israel (as a bogus Anyanya from the Sudan). Mkhabela arrived
from Botswana shortly before the date of the rising. BCP supporters were instructed to
gather in groups all over the country and await the delivery of arms. The word was out
that Someone had talked with people in Bloemfontein to supply arms that would be
delivered at night.
The reported contact in these negotiations was Herbert Nqamakele Malahleha, the
businessman who had been forced to watch his daughter being raped by the BNP
Young Pioneers in 1970. According to Ntsukunyane Mphanya (email 8 August 2011),
members of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) in South Africa had been disturbed by a
report at Sebaboleng in 1970 that PMU troopers had burned a PEMS Bible. Malahleha
was a member of the DRC at Taung in Mohales Hoek and took the remains of the Bible
to DRC headquarters in Bloemfontein. DRC officials then met with Khasu and
Koenyama Chakela of the BCP National Executive Committee to offer assistance after
Ramorebolis Koeoko21 speech.
On 5 January 1974 a car bearing a Germiston number plate was stopped by the
Lesotho police and two of its three occupants arrested, the third fleeing. In the car the
police found sulphur and other chemicals. The next night the BCP attacked Mapoteng,
Peka, Ha Rokolo and Monontsa police stations. However, a nation-wide rising had
been frustrated by poor communications, ill preparation, lack of weapons and security
leaks (BCPYL had boasted to girlfriends). Mofeheletsi Moerane, the BCP youth leader,
was arrested on the eve of the rising. He had been instructed to lead the Maseru21

Mphanya insists the Koeoeko speech was made by Leabua Jonathan. My taped interviews with
Ramoreboli suggest otherwise.

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Qeme attack from Qeme where explosives had been collected. The BCP had intended
to seize police stations throughout the whole country. No arms arrived at the
gatherings. At Mapoteng the insurgents, led by Ntsukunyane Mphanya and Tsokolo
Lekamola, possessed one rifle, a revolver and a single bullet. They rushed the police
station in the early hours of 7 January and captured the armoury. One policeman got
clear with a rifle and full magazine and opened fire, killing a BCP attacker. The BCP
fired its only bullet in reply and he fled. The BCP broke into the armoury and killed a
drunken and aggressive policeman with a blow from a knobkerrie when he intervened.
Although many weapons were captured from the armoury, hardly anybody knew how
to use them. Consolidating their position as best they could, the BCP waited for radio
reports to indicate how successful the rising had been elsewhere in the country.
At Hlotse, the insurgents had gathered in three separate groups. About twenty five
met to the south of the police camp, while another thirty gathered to the east and
some were believed to have collected to the north. Koenyama Chakela had been
detailed to lead the attack but he had instead crossed the Caledon into South Africa in
the early evening and watched from the shelter of some poplar trees as the southern
Hlotse group gathered. The southern group possessed a handful of pistols and David
Nteso had brought along four explosive charges of his own manufacture to blow the
entrance of the ammunition store at Hlotse police station. Gauda Khasu, who was also
to have joined in leading the attack on Hlotse camp, decided instead to direct
operations at Peka. The Hlotse groups waited until 2am and then dispersed since no
arms had appeared and Chakela remained across the river. At 3am the Hlotse police,
alerted by Mapoteng radio going off the air, began rounding up known BCP supporters.
At Peka Khasu's group charged the police station and shot up the home of a police
sergeant who fled, abandoning his rifle. The insurgents were unable to understand its
mechanism. At Ha Rokolo, the home of Leabua, the BCP were driven off. Leabua was
not at home anyway. At Monontsa, near where Mokhehle was hiding, a relative of the
future police commissioner Shadrack Matela, led an attack which killed several
policemen. The fire-fight came close to the valley where Mokhehle was sheltering. The
BCP abandoned the automatic rifle they used to gun down their pursuers when it ran
out of ammunition. At Teyateyaneng Shakhane Mokhehle fled rather than obey his
instructions to attack. His deserted followers proceeded regardless but met an off-duty
officer at whom they fired, thus raising the alarm. They were driven off by police fire at
the station. Shakhane Mokhehle surrendered himself, blaming the Youth League for

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the attack, a repetition of his conduct in 1970 when he castigated the Youth League for
its refusal to surrender. The police beat him anyway, permanently damaging his leg.
On the morning of 7 January the PMU, alerted by the loss of radio reports,
counterattacked in strength. The insurgents still had no indication of how successful
their rising had been as in 1970 radio co-ordination had been a decisive factor in the
struggle and the PMU swept into Mapoteng as Mphanya and others were waiting for
the BCP in Maseru to broadcast over the captured Radio Lesotho station, or for reports
from other stations as to how the rising had fared. The BCP in Mapoteng put up some
initial resistance with the weapons they had captured but were forced back and then
broke. The PMU, guided by the Young Pioneers, began destroying and killing
throughout the area. The property of the late Josiel Lefela and that of Mphanya were
burned while Ramokhele Lekamola was dragged from Mapoteng hospital and
murdered. Lefela's son, newly arrived from the Soviet Union, was also butchered as
were fifty men brought from their homes one by one and shot at the police station.
The PMU commander during this episode was a British officer, Colonel John McFall.
Lekhanya, recently arrived in Lesotho from overseas training, reportedly used a
sniper's rifle to gun down fleeing peasants in the valley below Mapoteng. Mphanya hid
near his store in a hut and managed to escape down the nearby cliff face at night. After
an epic journey he crossed into South Africa but was arrested on a train at Fouriesburg
and jailed in Bloemfontein until May 1974. Mkhabela was also caught in South Africa
and was detained with Mphanya at Bloemfontein.
In Bloemfontein, according to his own account (email 8 August 2011), Mphanya
was visited by Johann van der Merwe of the South African Police an ardent DRC
member. Van der Merwe was connected to the earlier Dutch Reformed Church
meeting with Khasu and Chakela. He told Mphanya that militant BCP cadres would be
allowed to cross South Africa to attack Lesotho and overthrow the BNP-PMU regime.
In January 1986 Van der Merwe became the Commanding Officer of the Security
Branch of the South African Police. In October 1989 he was promoted to Deputy
Commissioner and in January 1990 became General Van der Merwe, the countrys
most senior policeman - Commissioner of the Police. Van der Merwe retired in March
1995 after serving in Nelson Mandelas administration. In October 2007 he was
sentenced to ten years imprisonment, suspended for five years, for the attempted
murder of the Rev Frank Chikane by using poisoned underwear. He commented,
People say to me how could you have been involved in such a horrifying deed but you
cant explain to them the spirit of the time in which we operated the fear, the

72

paranoia. We were in a life and death struggle every day. If you take away the political
murders, the police were dealing in those days with 17,000 murders a year.
Mphanya has excused this diabolical alliance by saying that without the apartheid
regimes assistance the LLA could not have crossed South Africa. As a LLA cadre myself,
who shared Lekhanyas tent, I argue that therefore the LLA should never have been
formed and instead the BCP should have adopted the Irish Republican Army leader
Michael Collins way (see below).
Chakela was joined by Khasu in South Africa - Khasu's store had been destroyed by
the PMU and together they travelled by train across South Africa and eventually got
to Botswana. Matooane Mapefane, the talented footballer and party activist whose
mother was a close relative of Leabua and whose father had recruited Leabua into the
BAC years earlier, had returned home after the Hlotse attack had been called off. In
the early hours of the morning he was arrested at home but made a spectacular
escape from Hlotse police station scaling the three metre wire, sprinting across fields
dodging police fire and throwing himself into the flooded Caledon river to reach South
Africa and eventually Botswana where he encountered a filthy and ragged Mokhehle in
the office of the Zambian high commission.
Mokhehle had stayed in the mountains for a week after the rising moving around
to avoid the reprisals. A spotter plane and PMU-Young Pioneer patrols passed nearby
on the slopes above and when one young BCP guerrilla was shot near his hiding place,
a message came to Mokhehle that the police intended to conduct a thorough search of
all the cattle posts in the area. The messenger brought advice that Mokhehle should
leave the country at once before he was killed. The BCP leader refused but about three
days later the same messenger returned with an urgent letter strongly advising him to
get out and seek help on the outside. He also brought money. Mokhehle therefore set
out on horseback with Mofeli 'Mou, the successful BCP candidate for Matsoaing,
across the northern mountains. In heavy rain and falling nearly every step, the two
men descended the escarpment and sheltered in a cattle kraal whore two BCPYL girls
brought them food and blankets. On Monday night, 16 January 1974, Mokhehle and
Mou were guided along the Caledon river by a couple with a baby. The mountain
reached right down to the river at that point and the refugees had to pass beneath and
beside several police and immigration posts on each side of the border. As they came
to the final one, in South Africa, the baby wept and had to be fed as they all stood
fearfully in the water waiting for a challenge that never came. In the morning
Mokhehle and Mou caught a bus from Harrismith. On the bus a young woman,

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recognising Mokhehle, asked him Aren't you Ntsu Mokhehle? Mokhehle tried to fob
her off and when she persisted told her, Who are you? Youre a naughty girl who
doesnt respect her elders, thus silencing her. Mokhehle and Mou reached
Johannesburg without further problems and were sheltered in the townships by the
Transvaal Provincial BCP. Mokhehle shaved his head to disguise himself and the two
men were driven to the Botswana border. There they were left to find their way across
the wire and crossed on 30 January 1974, a fortnight after leaving Lesotho. When
Mokhehle was eventually given a new jacket the brand name read Rebel.
More Basotho refugees crossed into Botswana border in groups and as individuals
in a disorganised flight from the terror in Lesotho. a flamboyant and energetic party
supporter with a flair for business named Nooe Liau. For security reasons Mokhehle,
Makhakhe, Chakela, Khasu and Mapefane moved to Zambia and were allocated a
house at Woodlands in Lusaka. Mphanya, Mkhabela and seven others in jail in
Bloemfontein were eventually released and flown through the Red Cross to Botswana
and Zambia.
After the abortive rising, the BNP regime continued a campaign of terrorism and
destruction against the BCP. For two weeks Afrikaner farmers witnessed shootings and
burning across the Caledon River. BCP supporters were killed, raped, castrated and
tortured. The dead were often left to rot in the villages. BCP supporters were used as
forced labour on Leabuas lands, villages were destroyed, vehicles confiscated, cattle
run off or butchered, businesses looted and stock in shops which could not be carried
away was destroyed. The BCP collected data, which probably underestimated the
situation, putting the figure killed at 1,125 and the value of property destroyed at
Rl,082,640. Mokhehles zealous supporter and alleged lover, Mrs. Makoloi Koloi, was
murdered and hideously mutilated. Lekhanya was especially violent against BCP
women half strangling Lebenya Chakelas wife. The churches, in particular the OMI,
expressed their horror, and in a Statement of Reconciliation their leaders wrote, Our
divisions have divided the Basotho nation.....In order that no Church be any longer
identified with this or that political party, we as heads of Churches have resolved that
any Christian who holds a position of responsibility within a political party, shall not
hold a position of responsibility in the Church. In May 1974 the PMU commander,
Colonel John McFall, left Lesotho to work in Malta. He was succeeded as PMU
commander by Lekhanya. During 1974 the Iranians, still under the rule of the Shah,
established links with the PMU and gave Lekhanya a substantial amount of equipment.

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By the time I joined the Lesotho paramilitary in 1977 it was also being trained and
equipped by South Korea, at that time a military dictatorship.
In the aftermath of the failed coup, thirty two members of the BCP, including
Shakhane Mokhehle, Mofelehetsi Moerane (BCPYL leader and unsuccessful candidate
at Maama), and Putsoa Matsobane, a highly regarded youth member, went on trial
charged with treason, sedition and conspiracy. Shakhane Mokhehle and four others
were eventually acquitted, but fifteen more were convicted of treason and two of
these for sedition. Moerane received nine years, two of which were suspended, while
the others received lesser terms. On sentencing, Chief Justice Mapetla severely
criticised the savagery of BNP-PMU regime and died soon afterwards at a social
function of suspected poisoning. The regimes Internal Security (General Amendment)
Act (1974) ruled that no action could be taken against the government and its agents
for any activity from January 1970 till March 1974. However such legislation in other
countries such as Argentina and Greece did not protect members of brutal regimes
once democracy had been restored but it explains why many accounts of the years
1970-4 especially my own were denigrated or suppressed by White and African
academics and politicians who had benefitted from their close collaboration with
Leabua Jonathan and Justin Lekhanya.
In exile the BCP organised two offices. Nooe Liau helped the party with his
photographic studio and taxi service. The studio was used as the BCP office. Makhakhe
became the BCP representative in Botswana. Mokhehle remained in Lusaka, fearing
South African and Lesotho agents. Mphanya joined him in the house in Woodlands,
while Khasu and Chakela moved to a second house. Before the release of the
Bloemfontein prisoners, Mokhehle, Makhakhe, Chakela, Khasu and Mapefane met in
an official capacity over breakfast one morning at Woodlands. It was at this meeting
that they decided that only an armed struggle could solve the crisis in their country.
When Mphanya arrived he brought the message of support from Van der Merwe.
Unfortunately it was taken seriously by Ntsu Mokhehle, who brought Shakhane
Mokhehle, Moses Qhobela Molapo and Stephen Motlamelle into the secret. It appears
that Mapefane and other leaders were not informed of the offer, let alone its
acceptance.

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CHAPTER SIX
Military campaigns require a massive supply and reserve of arms, ammunition
food, shelter, and medical care. Whereas Mao Zedong Red Army grew vast amounts of
opium poppies to fund their revolution, Lesothos terrain is barren and there is little
surplus food or illegal cash crops such as dagga to raise funds to sustain an insurgency.
Despite the Basotho long experience with mines, there has never been a clandestine
tunnel culture such as in Vietnam and Ukraine which are in any case forested. Most
important, Lesotho is totally surrounded by South Africa and under the OAU charter in
1974 no African state was allowed to assist the BCP militarily.
However, there were some apparently positive developments for the BCP. In
retrospect Mokhehle could have spent his years in exile as an academic while
continuing to campaign for democratic rule, thus avoiding the ghastly betrayal of his
ideals. On 25 April 1974 a left wing coup in Portugal ended forty eight years of
dictatorship and four hundred years of colonisation. In 1975 the new Portuguese
regime assisted Marxist movements to take power in Angola and Mozambique. The
Rhodesian regime was suddenly outflanked and South Africa and South West Africa
(Namibia) threatened. Within twenty years White minority rule ended in all three
countries. Secondly the PAC was amenable to offering military training to the BCP if
they agreed to masquerade as members of their party. Thirdly the main strength of the
BCP was in South Africa on the Rand and Welkom goldfields not in Lesotho itself and it
had a superior organisation than the Alliance and PAC in both areas. The 1974
repression in Lesotho caused bitter resentment among the Basotho miners on and
even four years afterwards the migrant workers and Basotho urban residents were
able and willing to transport the unarmed Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA) through
South Africa, giving them food, shelter and several weapons, besides raising an initial
R17, 000 for the attack on Lesotho.
None of the five men who decided to launch an armed struggle in Lesotho, had
received a military training. Mokhehle and Makhakhe had both been teachers. Khasu,
the party chairman, was a successful farmer; Chakela, the secretary-general, had been
a clerk. Mapefane, the BCP executive and administrative secretary, was the only one
who had intended to be a soldier. When he had gone to the Soviet Union for studies,
he had insisted on being accepted for a military career and had left the country when
his demand was ignored. He then trained as a journalist in East Germany, Indonesia
and China before becoming editor of the BCP newspapers The Range and The
Commentator.

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The concept of war posed a dilemma for the BCP leaders. Mokhehle was in two
minds about fighting. He himself had had a violent reputation even in his thirties but
he had become a parliamentarian dedicated to change through peaceful democratic
methods. The party possessed several ex-policemen from the LMP and PMU. Others
had read Mao and Leballos 1967 analysis (see below) and were influenced by wars in
Vietnam, Kenya, Cuba and Algeria. Among the elite there was a general identification
with a loosely defined peoples war. The general membership of the party had had
years of experience as herd-boys in Lesotho or as miners in the toughest areas of
South Africa. There was little that they could be taught about living rough in
inhospitable conditions. Many had been smugglers and stock rustlers and were hard
enduring men. Lebenya Chakela and his companions were respected because of their
party position and their training in China but their failure to infiltrate back to Lesotho
was indicative of a still very much elitist attitude the rank and file thought in terms of
walking rather than getting lifts and flying and this division in attitude extended to
the way in which the war was planned. The elitist theoretical wing of the leadership,
despite its rhetorical adherence to self-reliance and trust in the masses, adopted a
martial extension of its own outlook. To these leaders the correct method was to
receive external training and then return to free the masses. In particular Mokhehle
and Mapefane were blinded by theory. They wanted a peoples war for its own sake,
disregarding the reasons why guerrillas in China, Algeria and, later, Zimbabwe had
evolved such a strategy. Peoples war as a concept had been developed to combat a
more powerful military enemy and win over the population. Lesotho already
supported Mokhehle yet as late as 1980 the BCP leadership was jubilant that LLA
guerrillas had been reported helping one village in its ploughing - proof to them that
they were fulfilling the criteria of a peoples war. In 1981 Mapefane dismissed Leballos
offer of pistols from sympathisers in Zimbabwe believing guerrillas in a peoples war
needed rifles. Mokhehle rejected Gauda Khasu's view that the grass roots merely
wanted weapons and basic arms training, a stand supported by Ntsukunyane Mphanya
when he eventually reached Zambia. Mphanya and Khasu had actually participated in
the fighting of 1974 and knew that much of their failure of that rising had been due to
the cowardice of the BCP hierarchy. They felt that if the leadership stood with the
masses, overseas military training was not necessary. Moreover, they argued that the
South Africans would never permit a foreign trained guerrilla army to win a protracted
struggle in Lesotho, let alone pour triumphantly into Maseru, a few meters across the
Caledon River. In contrast to this, Mapefane believed that since the Portuguese coup it

77

was very likely that the escalating Basotho struggle would inevitably merge with armed
resistance in South Africa. He argued that the BCP should therefore prepare itself for
such a conflict by getting foreign military training. Leballo supported this idea and
sought joint BCP/PAC LLA/APLA close cooperation. This kind of cooperation was later
successful with Eritrean and Ethiopian rebel groups; and Rwandan and Ugandan
resistance movements.
Although the BCP had little hope of accumulating a huge arsenal and supplies,
steady regular collections from the South African Basotho could have sustained a low
level but ongoing armed insurrection in Lesotho. However this would have meant
circumventing the centralised BCP treasurers department and when Mapefane related
his troops recommendation for direct funding in 1980 he was immediately sacked as
Lesotho Liberation Army commander.
There was disagreement among the BCP leaders on the length of the training.
Those close to the grassroots, such as Khasu, wanted a few months. Ntsukunyane
Mphanya's action at Mapoteng indicated the almost suicidal willingness of the
peasantry to fight, but also revealed their ignorance of the mechanisms of the
weapons they captured. He too supported a brief training period. Such ideas were
overruled by Mokhehle, who believed that if the campaign was not immediately
successful the BCP would have to rely on fully trained militants. For that reason he
advocated a long training course, which was, unknown to him, to include slow
marching with swords in Uganda. In my own opinion probably the best model for the
newly formed Lesotho Liberation Army was Michael Collins 1917-1921 campaign that
forced the British, after seven hundred years of colonial rule, to give independence to
the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland). Collins (1890-1922) ran a ruthlessly
efficient intelligence service, a financial system that even granted a loan to the new
Soviet government, an assassination squad that eliminated informers and, early one
Sunday, twelve of Britains top counter intelligence agents in Dublin. Collins and his
colleagues led highly effective urban and rural guerrilla armies that did not rely on
external supplies. However, while the LLA leaders could identify with Mao Zedong and
Che Guevara they could not relate to a clandestine ruthless incorruptible Catholic Irish
gunman.
The OAU would not give aid to the BCP it did not criticise the BNP-PMU regime
receiving British, South African, Israeli, South Korean, Taiwanese, Iranian, West
German, Irish and eventually Soviet bloc equipment, soldiers, pilots and advisers
against the BCP. Nevertheless both Mphanya and Dr Tsiu Selatile say that the

78

Tanzanians, who controlled the OAU Liberation Committee, gave a firm offer of
military training to the BCP after the 1974 rising. Later Tanzania trained Ugandan,
Seychellois and possibly other groups to overthrow their home governments, but the
BCP did not accept the offer. Leballo denied there was any offer was forthcoming and
he himself pressed Selatile to approach the Chinese for assistance. The PACs
association with China had not been easy mostly because the often xenophobic and
puritanical Maoists had been appalled at PAC cadres obsession with women and the
cadres resented the Chinese emphasis on tedious unimaginative political
indoctrination. The Chinese had trained ten BCP members in the 1960s including
Lebenya Chakela as security personnel and one of them, Naleli Ntlama, had hung
around Dar es Salaam and had become an alcoholic. The Chinese were disgusted with
him and had formed a low opinion of the BCP ever since the ten had failed to return to
Lesotho. However Mokhehle explained in 1976 that the Chinese were at that time
preoccupied with rapprochement with the United States (President Nixon visited
Beijing in February 1972) and had asked the BCP for a guarantee that if arms were
forthcoming these would not be discovered while being smuggled across South Africa.
Mokhehle could not give that guarantee but if the Chinese had been committed they
could have supplied weapons from old Soviet stocks, caches of captured Indian Army,
Nationalist Chinese and United Nations Korean War weapons, or even removed the
identification stamp from its own Type-56 version of the Kalashnikov AK 47 assault
rifle.
The Chinese campaign for international respectability terminated its role as the
champion of third world revolution and enhanced the Soviet Unions reputation as a
reliable ally. The PAC and other Chinese allied movements such as ZANU and SWANU
were suddenly disadvantaged. Their status had already been challenged in January
1969 when the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO) held a special
conference at Khartoum which, toeing the Soviet line, endorsed sole recognition for
the ANC, SWAPO, ZAPU, MPLA, FRELIMO and PAIGC, calling them authentic
movements and demanded the OAU Liberation Committee withdraw all support for
other movements. The same year the Lusaka Manifesto, written by President Nyerere
of Tanzania without consulting the PAC, declared that negotiated settlements took
priority over guerrilla warfare in South Africa and Rhodesia. There was a similar shift in
the PAC itself. Several leaders began talking in terms of external pressure being applied
on South Africa by the United Nations and other international bodies instead of
attempting to utilise African aggression in South Africa to achieve freedom.

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Stephen Burgess summarised the attitude of the reformists, Many of the

dissidents were intellectually inclined individuals who had played a significant role in
founding the PAC and who aspired to higher class positions. An attitude persisted
among the dissidents which was resentful of the leadership roles given to those who
were from less-educated and lower class backgrounds; this partly explains the
antagonism of PAC dissidents towards P.K. Leballo. This explains why criticism of
Leballo focussed on his personality rather than his politics. Leballo could be
exasperating but Sobukwe knew how to channel his enormous energies and never lost
confidence in him. With Sobukwes approval Leballo reoriented the PAC towards
Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong Thought, which emphasised mass mobilisation in the
revolutionary development of national independence, socialism and internationalism.
Leballo intended to transform the external PAC into a Maoist Red Army subscribing in
which guerrillas would be social reformers. A debilitating struggle commenced
between the supporters of the relatively self-reliant revolutionary line, led by Leballo,
and the external mission personnel, who had upper class financial aspirations and
therefore favoured reformism and reliance on external powers. While the factional
struggle continued eighteen PAC members led by Gerald Kibwe Kondlo attempted to
break through to South Africa by way of Portuguese occupied Mozambique in 1968 but
were destroyed at Vila Peri on the Beira railway by Portuguese troops with South
African assistance. Another seventeen guerrillas sent by the PAC to South Africa
through Zambia and Botswana were arrested and sentenced to three years
imprisonment. When Botswana became independent they were released and sent to
Tanzania. The Zambians had already taken a risk allowing the 1967 ANC/ZAPU force to
assemble before attacking into Rhodesia in 1968. The ANC/ZAPU and PAC
Mozambique campaigns starkly illuminated the practical problems facing infiltrators
but it led to extreme pressure on Zambia from the South Africans, Rhodesians and
Portuguese for helping Marxist insurgents. The PAC were expelled from Zambia and
their Senkobo camp closed in August 1968. The PAC moved back to Chunya near
Mbeya to join the Zimbabwean guerrillas under Tongogara. The internal conflict within
PAC was finally resolved by the OAU Liberation Committee in Leballos favour in
November. The Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) commander, Templeton
Ntantala, and the treasurer-general, David Sibeko, also gained power and authority by
the decision. However the PACs relations with Tanzania were further soured when
Leballo seemed to have waited too long before reporting a planned coup attempt for
October 1969 by Oscar Kambona, the former secretary-general of Tanzanias ruling

80

party. The Tanzanians thereafter made it difficult for the liberation forces to have
access to armouries. George Magombe, who appeared too sympathetic to
revolutionary movements, was replaced by Hashim Mbita, a political appointee who
held the army rank of major, later colonel.
By 1974 both the ANC and PAC had acute recruitment problems. The Congress
Alliance had been successful in dominating overseas publicity and publishing its
version of history during the PAC's debilitating leadership quarrels. Despite this both
the Congress Alliance and PAC possessed only a handful of soldiers. The PACs Azanian
People's Liberation Army (APLA) numbered about seventy trained guerrillas but clung
to their status as senior personnel while refusing to fight. In 1974 the PAC received an
offer of training by the Libyans but could muster only twenty five recruits. The PAC's
credibility as a serious resistance movement was in jeopardy. Although its military
position was no different to that of the ANC, and its internal support probably
superior, it lacked the ANCs international backing and was hard pressed to defend
itself from the ANCs frequent demand to be recognised in external circles as the sole
liberation movement in South Africa. When the BCP refugees poured into exile, the
PAC tried to recruit them to bolster their flagging military efforts while the Congress
Alliance wanted them partly to bring the BCP under their control but more to deny
them to the PAC. Tambo may not have been willing to train the LLA troops but he now
desperately wanted to neutralise them.
The PAC executive was divided about offering military training to the BCP. Most felt
accepting the BCP cadres would solve the APLA manpower crisis and restore its waning
international credibility. A minority pointed out the difficulties of the BCP pretending
to be PAC, receiving APLA weapons, transiting through Zambia and Botswana as APLA
but returning to Lesotho as the Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA). Mokhehle received the
PAC offer of help shortly after his arrival in exile but Koenyama Chakela supported an
alliance with the ANC/SACP. However, according to Mphanya, Oliver Tambo informed
the BCP personally that no ANC /SACP funds were available to train the Lesotho
Liberation Army. The Alliance and the incoming FRELIMO government of Mozambique
were allied to the Soviet Union, whereas the PAC was not. An alliance with the ANC
would have enabled the BCP to benefit from Cuban and Vietnamese advice.
Theoretically it was easier for the LLA to smuggle large quantities of arms from
Mozambique than Botswana but it is doubtful if the ANC Congress Alliance would have
allowed an escalation of armed resistance in Lesotho since both Umkonto we Sizwe
and ZIPRA (the Zimbabwean Soviet allied ZAPU army of Joshua Nkomo) were never

81

committed in any strength despite vast resources, Soviet bloc backing, and impressive
manpower. The BCP therefore chose the PAC.
Ntsukunyane Mphanya was at first proposed as the logical choice as recruiting
officer and senior party representative to accompany the recruits to Libya but he
declined through ill health. Gauda Khasu was appointed in his stead. Khasu was a
courageous man whose home and store had been destroyed for his part in the 1974
rising. Khasu also had a tremendous political reputation, being the man who had twice
defeated Leabua in elections to the national assembly. However his position was
immediately undermined when he was sent to Libya train alongside his own troops
instead of being been sent earlier or undertaken a separate officers course. This kind
of situation was hardly new. Many nations including the United States and Britain had
suffered military disasters because landowning families bought army commissions for
their sons. British ineptitude in the First World War was very much due to its officer
corps, despite reforms, being drawn from a narrow social circle the landed gentry. In
southern Africa Shaka Zulu had been unusual in choosing military commanders by
merit rather than chiefly status. In the circumstances, Khasu did not know how to
conduct himself and the result was catastrophic. There was also controversy over the
LLA recruits. Most were approved by Ntsu and Shakhane Mokhehle. They preferred
illiterate migrant workers on the Rand, famed for their anarchistic tendencies which
had earned them the nickname of Russians. Of the one hundred and eighty seven
members of the LLA, only about fifty were under the age of fifty. These older men
agreed with Khasu that a few months military training would suffice. The choice of
such men by the Mokhehles and (in the early days) Khasu was motivated by the
universal principle that fighting is done by relatively unintelligent men, and was
reinforced as a policy because it was unlikely that the Russians could ever produce a
commander to challenge the political authority of Mokhehle. Nowhere Liau was
responsible for recruiting the younger, more educated members of the LLA. These
later formed the high command and clashed with Shakhane Mokhehle. All the recruits
were sent to Libya.
In July 1974 twelve recruits travelled in two groups to Entebbe via Nairobi. They
consisted of eleven BCP members, including Mapefane, and a single PAC cadre named
Mpokana. They met with Leballo in Kampala where they were briefed concerning their
onward journey and were also introduced to a highly enthusiastic and friendly
President Amin. The twelve flew to Cairo by Egyptian and then took a flight to Tripoli
by Sudanair. On landing in Libya they encountered total incomprehension from the

82

immigration authorities, who promptly deported them to Cairo where they remained
in detention for 13 days at the airport while Sudanair and Egyptair quarrelled over the
responsibility for transporting them back to Entebbe. Since they were masquerading as
PAC, they could not make any attempt to alert the Cairo BCP office to their
predicament. Eventually Egyptair lost the dispute and flew them to Entebbe, losing
Mapefanes and Mpokanas luggage in the process. The PAC representative for the
Middle East, Victor Mayekiso, was called to Kampala by Leballo and the group then
flew by Air France to Athens, where they connected with a flight to Tripoli via
Benghazi. From August till November 1974 they were housed in a hotel in Bengashir, a
suburb of Tripoli. A delay then occurred as the group waited for further recruits to
arrive. The Libyans and Mayekiso met and then despatched Khasu to Gaborone to
speed up the process. In November 1974 Khasu arrived with another BCP group from
Botswana, bringing the total to 33 ready for training. They were taken to Qums, about
a hundred miles east of Tripoli. Training at last commenced but on the third morning a
crisis happened. Many of the elderly illiterates from the Rand and Welkom had been
terrified by the sight of the Mediterranean and particularly by the appearance of the
half-cast Libyans. To exacerbate the situation, Khasu had attempted to establish
himself as a swashbuckling and violent leader. He harangued the recruits, although he
was no more proficient than they, saying he would kill anyone that stood in his way.
One recruit, a sexagenarian named Tsenekela, who was already highly stressed by his
circumstances, rapidly deteriorated in morale after this outburst and was convinced
that if he failed to please Khasu would have him executed. He had good reason. Later,
when the LLA occupied Chunya camp they found the graves of large numbers of ZANU
trained guerrillas who had been executed for indiscipline. In the early morning of the
third day Tsenekela knifed Khasu several times as he was washing himself at a basin.
Screaming for help, Khasu kicked at the old man and fell, but other recruits saved him
before Tsenekela could finish him off. The Libyans wanted to expel the entire group
from the country at once but Mapefane, who spoke Arabic with his usual soft
diplomatic voice, calmed them down and accompanied Tsenekela, who was illiterate
and spoke only Sesotho. Interpreting for the old man, Mapefane informed the
authorities that Tsenekela had attacked Khasu over a money matter. He ignored
Tsenekela's vehement assertions that he was a BCP not a PAC member. Tsenekela was
placed in police custody and then transferred to a military prison in Tripoli. He was
eventually returned to Dar es Salaam. The recruits were divided among themselves
over the old man, some wanting him killed, others anxious for him to be flown back to

83

Tanzania. Training eventually resumed but Khasu could only join them two months
later when he had recovered from his wounds. He therefore missed a substantial part
of the training. By April 1975 they had become proficient in marksmanship, weapons
training and drill, and Khasu declared the training was now complete and they should
return at once to Lesotho. In this he was opposed by Mohlakoena Mafela, Mapefane,
Sehlaho 'Moletsane, Moeketsi Mokoena and Motlatsi Matlanyane. Mafela was a
physicist who had studied in the Soviet Union. He was young, aggressive intelligent and
a crack shot. He was emerging as the most promising of the recruits. He and the others
argued from the undeclared standpoint that the Lesotho struggle would ultimately
lead to a struggle with totalitarianism, either Afrikaner or ANC/SACP, in South Africa.
Mafela's group insisted that their training was insufficient if a direct assault on Lesotho
failed. The other recruits sided with Khasu, but before the quarrel worsened, they
were visited by Leballo and Mayekiso. They paraded and were addressed in the camp
call by Leballo, who told them Mokhehle and the BCP Cairo representative, Pakane
Khala, were in Tripoli but could not visit the camp since the PAC/APLA faade had to be
maintained. This infuriated Khasu, who objected to the PAC label, and he was further
enraged when Leballo announced that the recruits were to go for further training on
Mokhehle's recommendation. Mapefane, with diabolical humour, rose to thank
Leballo sincerely for his valuable assistance. Khasu rose angrily and promptly attacked
Mapefane for stating that there was disagreement among the recruits. Leballo called
Khasu to order and proceeded to humiliate him completely after all he had been the
Transvaal Province BCP leader -with a blackboard and chalk lecture on the duties of a
soldier. That evening Khasu convened a meeting which called for Mapefane to be
reprimanded for disobedience, but the latter refused to apologise, saying that he
declined to walk over a precipice together, meaning that to quit training at that
moment was the road to disaster. The situation became serious as insults and threats
were hurled at the five who wished to continue training.
At the beginning of May 1975 the recruits were ordered to Benghazi for further
training and Mapefane and Mafela's group rose to seven as Maekane Chefolane and
Hlenyane Mkhabela, the 1974 leader, deserted the Khasu line. Besides Mkhabela, the
only member present of the original ten who had gone to China under Lebenya
Chakela was Naleli Ntlama. Throughout the training period Ntlama suffered ill health.
Alcoholism had left him emaciated and with intestinal problems. There was no alcohol
available in Libya and he hardly trained at all. By the time the men moved to Benghazi
there was open hostility towards the Mafela-Mapefane group, which many refused to

84

conceal. Mapefane had capitalised on his knowledge of Arabic but had also proved to
be a competent trainee, whom the Libyans began using for instructing the others
during revision exercises. Some of Khasu's group began calling him a sell-out to the
PAC. During the 1,000 mile (1,600 km) journey by bus across the desert to Benghazi
there was no instance of singing, a unique incident in BCP history, an indication not
only of the depth of animosity but also of the party's indiscipline during the most
important task in its history. Khasu insisted that had they been united they would have
already left for Lesotho. Mapefane exacerbated the situation by convening his own
local constituency branch meeting for Mkhabela, Matlanyane, Masoabi, Mokhapeli
and Loko Thamae, ostensibly in his capacity of constituency secretary-general in order
to urge adherence to the party line. Khasu convened a general meeting as party
chairman at which he tearfully (with rage) harangued Mapefane, cursing him for
keeping them in Libya. Military ideology was only part of the quarrel; Mapefane
represented the younger generation's bid for power against the old style circle
around Mokhehle. With the rank of instructor, Mapefane was bound to come into
conflict with Khasu, who had been the original choice for leader. Soon afterwards the
LLA were sent to study the use of the 81mm mortar and Khasu led a mutiny. Some of
his followers had already refused to obey Mapefane's instructions in training and
Khasu now took his stand. The Libyans at first did nothing so after three days Khasu
stormed round to the Libyan major's office with his luggage, ready to leave at once.
There he found a captain who coldly informed him his companions were not yet
soldiers and if they had been Libyans and not guests of the government they would
have been shot. Khasu demanded to go to Tripoli to meet higher authority. This
request was granted and when he met with the course organisers he denied that
Victor Mayekiso was his representative. Mayekiso was summoned, and a quarrel broke
out between them, with Khasu stating that he was the leader of his men, and did not
recognise Mayekisos authority. He did however avoid the issue of BCP/PAC and when
he asked to leave the country, Mayekiso gave his assent, handing him a letter from
Mokhehle which ordered the LLA to continue training. Khasu refused to obey, saying
that a decision had already been taken so the letter should be ignored. He then left the
country.
Khasu's departure coincided with the arrival in Libya of a new group of recruits
consisting of 26 members of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) and 6 BCP
members. A SASO member, Mfundo, brought a letter from Leballo addressed to
Mkhabela and Mapefane. In it Leballo wrote that the group already trained was to be

85

sent to Uganda for explosives training but the move could only take place once the
OAU conference in Kampala had finished. Mkhabela gave the news to the others but
when they heard that the letter had also been addressed to Mapefane, they said the
letter should be read again in his presence. They hid knobkerries under the dormitory
beds and then provoked an incident when Mapefane arrived. They accused him of
forcing them to serve the wishes of the PAC against their will and then reached for
their weapons. Moletsane called for reason but he, Mokoena and Mafela were
attacked. Mkhabela, who was chairing the meeting, fled and the attackers then turned
on Mapefane, striking him on the shoulder with a steel girder, nearly breaking it. He
stood his ground and they fled but Moletsane and Mafela were hospitalised for head
and hand injuries. That afternoon an exasperated Libyan captain arrived to demand an
explanation and was further frustrated when he was told that the recruits had merely
wanted a letter read. Mkhabela read it on the captain's orders, and the Libyan, further
confused by the innocence of the contents, warned them, We don't want your blood
here in Libya. It must be spilt in your own country in the struggle for liberation. We
don't need your blood here. The problem remained unsolved. Meanwhile in Lusaka
Khasu had reported that the course had finished and Mokhehle should order the LLA
to come to the south at once. Mokhehle disregarded this advice, leaving the affair in
Leballos hands. After the conclusion of the OAU conference, the LLA left Libya for
Entebbe. In Kampala Mapefane reported to President Amin's assistant, Mr. Etiang.
Amin himself sent an invitation to the group to meet him at a party by Lake Victoria at
Cape Town View. Amin arrived late in the afternoon, listened to martial songs which
included praises of himself, the Libyan leader Qathafi and the PAC leader Leballo and
then gave them a speech in which he urged them never to forget that they were
soldiers fighting to liberate Azania. Now that they had completed desert training they
had to undergo further training in Uganda and get used to tropical conditions. He
reminded them they were the nucleus of the new Azanian army and would have to
train others. Many photographs were taken at this party which later found their way
into the hands of the BNP-PMU regime. The LLA then left for Masaka in south-western
Uganda where they were to train with the Mechanised Suicide Brigade in explosives.
At Masaka they received further training reserved, according to Mapefane, for
Ugandan officers, but when the lieutenant-colonel commanding at Masaka announced
he would he taking them on manoeuvres at Mukakata for two weeks in order to
familiarise them with the workings of an armoured corps, all but the usual seven
mutinied. Leballo was called in. A parade took place with vice-president Mustafa on

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the reviewing stand as the LLA showed off their slow march and sword drill. Leballo
proposed that the conflicting groups should choose representatives to present their
differences to Mokhehle. Mapefane and Lesole Khonthu were picked and left with
Leballo after a second parade, this time before Amin himself. In Dar es Salaam they
met Mokhehle at Leballos flat where Mapefane spoke first. When Khonthu began his
case Mokhehle became irritated and said he had had enough of stupid disobedience.
From Gaborone he had learned that Khasu had continued his volatile divisive
behaviour. Shakhane Mokhehle, having fled Lesotho, had adhered to the policy of
recruiting elderly anarchists and Khasu divided the new recruits into two groups, one
of which was termed the elite, and had been placed under the command of Lesoli
Malunga. Each member of the elite had been given a rank by Khasu captain, colonel
and other commissioned titles - while Khasu promoted himself to general. Khasu then
doctored the elite with traditional Basotho medicine as his personal followers. The
elite were permitted to beat members of the other group. All of them were totally
untrained. Leballo exercised his caustic tongue on Khasus pretensions of military
grandeur and Mokhehle had already lost faith in his party chairman. Mokhehle
ordered Mapefane and Khonthu to return to Uganda to unite the conflicting groups.
However, in mid December 1975 while Mapefane was still in Dar es Salaam, he
received a phone message from the Libyan ambassador in Kampala stating that the
Libyan army officers in Benghazi wanted him to return there as an instructor for the
SASO-BCP group. At a meeting of senior APLA officers, including Leballo and his
commander, Templeton Ntantala, Mapefane was appointed PAC military attach in
the Middle East as well as assistant to Victor Mayekiso. At no time did Mapefane,
APLA, or BCP envisage that this appointment was anything but a cover. A further 120
BCP recruits were being assembled in the south and his duty was to them. Mokhehle
gave his approval to the position. Mapefane spent Christmas 1975 in Kampala with
Leballo and the new Kampala PAC representative, and then flew on to Libya. He did
not foresee any problems since he had already met Malunga on his way through
Kampala from Masaka on his way to Dar es Salaam. Malunga and others of the elite
had not objected when they had been told that the Libyan training would be
supplemented by further training in Syria. In Benghazi Mapefane was given a house in
the officers' quarters. Although all sources testify that he was a competent instructor,
his new appointment and treatment made him feel, as he told me, that he had
qualified for the rank of full colonel, and this impression affected his behaviour
thereafter. Malunga arrived in Libya with 30 BCP and one PAC recruit. The group was

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met by Mayekiso, who repeated Mapefane's news that they were to receive additional
training in Syria. Malunga, ordered by Khasu to leave after three or four months,
immediately objected. Three of the group rejected Malunga's suggestions and
accepted Syrian training. Mapefane alerted to the disobedience of the elite, ordered
them all to accept the conditions of training and then drove to Benghazi. A few weeks
of inactivity followed until a total of 120 had been assembled, 24 of whom were PAC.
Four BCP and nine PAC members were chosen for Syrian training and left. The new
group responded better than the original group to training, and persevered, but after
three months had passed discontent flared up. Mapefane was made aware of Khasu's
instructions by Lefatle Sello, Tselakhosi Letsie and Liphafa Rapeane as well as some
others who supported the party line on the length of training. A BCP 1970 candidate,
Mphahama, read a letter from Mokhehle urging them to persevere and learn
explosives training. A proposed move to Syria by Mapefane of 65 mostly younger
members of the BCP but including some elderly soldiers such as Lefatle Sello and a
number of APLA troops was opposed by Malunga and Motebang, a 1970 resistance
leader. In the event the group did not go because of the troubles in the Lebanon. At
the time Malunga declared flatly, "Rona noka e ntso ha re tsele" (We are not going to
cross the Black River (Mediterranean), while Motebang summarised the suspicions of
the Khasu group by saying, I'm not going to die for Mokhehle. Taking us to Syria is a
ploy to have us killed in a foreign land instead of fighting in our own country for the
liberation of our people.
In June 1976 Mapefane was called to Tripoli and given a cargo of arms to take by
chartered aircraft from Benghazi to Dar es Salaam. The consignment consisted of Suez
32 automatic pistols, FN rifles, Kalashnikov AK-47 Soviet assault rifles, 33mm mortars,
Soviet rocket launchers, binoculars, radios and green uniforms, in all sufficient to equip
an infantry force of 165 men. A Topolov manned by thirteen Bulgarian aircrew flew
with Mapefane to Dar es Salaam. On approaching Dar es Salaam airport, it was
revealed that the flight was unannounced and Mapefane had to negotiate with the
control tower for permission to land. Leballo was absent in Mauritius attending an
OAU conference and Mapefane met instead with Nkula, the Dar PAC representative,
and explained the circumstances.
Together they went to see Kibassa, the Tanzanian official in charge of
arrangements for liberation movements in the country. Kibassa requested further
details and asked them to meet with the OAU liberation committee executive
secretary, Hashim Mbita, Magombe's successor. A Home Affairs meeting took place

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and the cargo listed. A meeting with foreign affairs officials revealed that the
Tanzanians had been insulted by the unexpected arrival of the arms-bearing plane
from Libya. One official protested that "Tanzania is not a province of Libya." The
Bulgarians remained at the Kilimanjaro Flats, Dar es Salaam, growing increasingly more
anxious over their delayed return. Mapefane interpreted for them in Russian.
Negotiations between embassies ensued. Selatile, awakened by Mapefanes arrival
from his introverted power fantasies to take over control of a united BCP-PAC, was
then disturbed a second time by a visit from a Libyan embassy official who told him
that Major Matiko of the TPDF was waiting at the airport to check and clear the cargo.
Mapefane produced the bill of landing and Matiko declared that the arms would be
stored for future use. The cargo was offloaded and the Bulgarians left, having lost
charter contracts but expressing the hope of eventual Libyan compensation. Mapefane
remained in Dar es Salaam and asked Mokhehle by letter to issue an order which could
help him put down the discontent in Libya over the time limit for training. Malunga
and Motebang had informed the others that Mokhehle had stated that weapons were
already in Botswana in anticipation of their imminent return. Mokhehle complied with
Mapefane's request and the latter left for Libya. The letter made no difference, for the
Malunga group accused Mapefane of forcing them into the PAC. Next they smuggled a
letter out of the camp to the authorities in Tripoli in which they revealed their true
identity as the LLA. In addition other letters were smuggled out to Lesotho, one or
more of which were intercepted by, or presented to, the PMU-BNP regime. Three BNP
delegations left in turn for Libya carrying photographs. C. D. Molapo and Leabua
himself after the Mauritius OAU conference came to Libya in this connection. The
pictures they brought matched the faces though not the names of the LLA men in
training. The BCP had utilised aliases. During C. D. Molapo's visit, Leballo was called to
answer the allegations that he was training BCP. He replied to Molapo I am a
Mosotho and a small chief at Mafeteng. Do you claim me? The Libyans urged them to
work things out between them, and begged the BNP delegation to withdraw its threat
of denouncing Libya for breaking the OAU Charter provisions.
In the Libyan camp indiscipline by the elite continued. Two telegrams were sent to
Mokhehle claiming that training had been completed and therefore he should arrange
for their return. The Lebanon crisis did prevent training in Syria and a Lebanese charter
plane took the 120 from Benghazi to Dar es Salaam. The flight crew were Palestinian
and the plane touched down at Kisangani in Zaire. The engines were kept running
because of the lack of a starter at the airport and the plane was unable to obtain an

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adequate amount of fuel. Mapefane urged the crew to land at Entebbe, even though
strict fuel rationing was in force. They circled Entebbe and Mapefane requested the
control tower to convey his greetings to President Amin. They touched down and a
message arrived from Amin regretting he was too busy to see them but wishing them
well and giving permission for their plane to be refuelled. At Dar es Salaam Leballo and
Major Matiko were waiting for them with a convoy of trucks, which took them south to
Chunya, near Mbeya, to the former ZANU camp at Itumbi now under the command of
the PAC. It was August 1976. Leballo informed the group that Mokhehle had been
disturbed by the two telegrams and thus snuffed out the elites demand to be sent
straight to Lusaka. Mapefane followed a new group of thirty to Libya, half of which was
PAC. By this time the Libyans were harbouring strong reservations about their trainees'
true identities. They were partly mollified by the BNPs links with Iran and Israel,
feeling that if indeed their trainees were from Lesotho, they were justified in training
them. Nevertheless, fearing OAU condemnation, the Libyans tried to make sure their
new intakes were not BCP.

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CHAPTER SEVEN
In June 1976 student fury over the issue of compulsory Afrikaans medium
education led to violent protests in Soweto, Langa and other African urban areas.
Although the African National Congress was well organised outside South Africa the
uprising owned more to the ideology of the Africanist Movement and Pan Africanist
Congress partly because the students could not relate to the Alliances upper class
multi-racial elitism and had been influenced by many ex-Robben Island PAC and Poqo
prisoners active in the townships. Steve Biko, who launched the Black Consciousness
Movement, had a brother in Poqo, and much of what he wrote and said was a
continuation of the same ideology pioneered by Lembede and Sobukwe. At the
inauguration of the Black People's Convention in 1972 (a Black Consciousness
organization), Ntsu Mokhehle had been invited to chair the meeting. He was still under
restriction and banned in South Africa so he sent a tape-recorded address which was
played from an empty chair. When the African and Coloured youth poured into exile,
the PAC did not possess an adequate recruiting scheme because the external
representatives had been reluctant, because of personal interests, to establish such a
structure. Many young people joined the ANC in frustration. The ANC, understanding
the self-interest of many seemingly "revolutionary youth, could offer Soviet
scholarships for the brighter ones and military training for the others to enhance the
non-combatant leadership. Nevertheless, the PAC's manpower problems came to an
end with the arrival of an initial 300 recruits. The PAC recruits said that there were
about 2,000 volunteers for the liberation movements, divided equally between the
two movements. However, because of PAC representatives incompetence, only 500 of
the 1,000 applicants were sent for training. Mapefane did not train these newcomers.
He left Libya at the end of 1976 for Chunya with his group. They flew via Rome to Dar
es Salaam.
In 1976, before the Soweto and Langa Uprisings, three meetings took place
between PAC/APLA and BCP committees on the question of a merger or a united front.
Leballo believed that the reality for the true liberation of Lesotho should be linked
with the total liberation of Azania. He and Mokhehle had political roots firmly
embedded in the 19th century. To them the entire history of Africa south of the
Limpopo if not beyond was one of inevitable unity. South Africa was an aberration, a
temporary nightmare, a slave-labour system run by white settlers, who would go the
same way as the pieds noirs of Algeria. Lesotho was not so much an independent

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country but the surviving island of resistance to white settler occupation. To them the
OAU's analysis of their situation was meaningless. Leballo was a Mosotho chief but
founder of the PAC. Mapefane, Chakela and Mkhabela were Basotho descendants of
Nguni soldiers from the last century. Robert Sobukwe was the Xhosa descendant of
Rasobukwe, a Mosotho emigrant from the Herchel area of Moshoeshoe's kingdom.
They felt they were a single people and inevitably, as comrade parties in the Africanist
tradition, they sought unity. Self-interest played an important role. Ntantala, the APLA
Commander, wanted to use the BCP's superior organisational structure in the
Transvaal and Welkom to raise funds and recruit guerrillas. There was some disquiet
that if the LLA did not make some sort of agreement with the PAC, a LLA attack on
Lesotho would seriously damage Azanians faith in the PAC and ANC, who had the
facilities, funds and official backing the BCP lacked. The APLA high command was far
more enthusiastic for a merger than the civilian elements in the external PAC. David
Sibeko, Vus Make and E. L. Makoti, representing a diplomatic-theorist group
amenable to international (particularly American) pressures which called for a political
and not a military solution to the South African situation, regarded APLA as a threat.
For years the personnel in the PAC external offices had squandered funds on
socialising and self-advancement as the austere tee-total Leballo struggled to keep the
army together and seek ways of infiltration. The arrival of the Basotho had posed a
problem for the external mission. After the Soweto rising, with the influx of hundreds
of young Azanians into the external structure, the PAC mission personnel felt that. a
counterattack was needed to protect their interests.
The BCP and PAC nevertheless tried to formalise their relationship to discuss
whether they should act as separate units, in cooperation, or as a united organisation.
Any decisions made by the negotiating teams would have to be ratified at
constitutional conferences of both parties. The first meeting was attended by
Mokhehle and Dr Tsiu Selatile (BCP), Leballo, Ntantala and the rest of the APLA high
command, all members of the PAC central committee, in Dar es Salaam. Unfortunately
Selatile, whom had left Lesotho in December 1961 and had become an assimilated
Russian, did most of the talking for the BCP and angered Ntantala and other PAC/APLA
members with academic arrogance and no further meetings were convened..
The meeting ended and was never reconvened. With the arrival of the Soweto and
Cape youth in November 1976, PAC manpower shortages ended and a new recruiting
organisation was established inside South Africa under Zephaniah Mothopeng, which
sent recruits north for training. The BCP continued to receive refugees from Lesotho,

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especially after the school strikes of 1977, but never utilised its LLA membership to
give them training on any significant scale. By the time they had reached Botswana and
other places, the LLAs position at Chunya was growing precarious due to animosity
from the diplomat-theorist PAC backlash in alliance with Ntantalas high command.
Further recruitment to Tanzanian or Libyan camps could no longer be considered.
At the end of 1976 the secretary-general of the BCP, Koenyama Chakela, tried to
overthrow Mokhehle, partly to put the LLA under ANC/SACP control.
The Soviet Union had ruled out a military solution to Lesothos political problems
because it believed that firm bases had first to be secured before a struggle could
commence. The ANC initial interest in the LLA had probably been motivated by
political not military considerations - the Whites who commanded Umkhonto we Sizwe
had already spent ten years thwarting African attempts to escalate the struggle. In
1975 the APLA commander, Templeton Ntantala, restored PAC credibility and shocked
the ANC when he announced at the Maputo session of the OAU liberation committee
the numbers of PAC recruits despatched on the northern camp training expedition.
ANC/SACP enquiries to Chakela revealed the true situation and steps were taken to
bring the LLA and BCP over to "authenticity.
Koenyama Stephen Chakela was born at Hloeheng, Leribe, in 1935. He was the
illegitimate son of a chief, who eventually brought him into his family. Chakela was the
eldest son and later in exile attempted to succeed his father as chief, but was
prevented by his younger half-brother, the BCPYL deputy leader Lebenya Chakela. As a
child he excelled at school but his father denied him the chance of a secondary
education and he left for the Rand where he worked for the Northern Line mining
company office in Pritchard Street, Johannesburg, as a messenger. He became a useful
and dedicated footballer. During a train journey between the city and the townships,
his conversation impressed a BCP Transvaal Province leader, Mr. Motebang, who
approached the young man and asked him to join the Congress. Chakela refused but
Motebang persevered and eventually won him over. The Congress did not possess a
youth league at that time and Chakela proved to be a hard working party activist and
was elected assistant secretary of the Transvaal Province, serving under Moses
Qhobela Molapo, Nathaniels brother. When Molapo begged to be relieved of party
duties to further his studies, Chakela succeeded him, but the party insisted that
Molapo serve as treasurer. In 1961 Chakela and Molapo were sent respectively to
Cairo and Accra as the BCP's first external representatives. Chakela visited Moscow in
1962, 1963 and 1964 en route from Beijing and worked with the Russians in the Cairo

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secretariat of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement. The Russians liked him. In 1964
Chakela returned to Lesotho, informing Molapo that he was needed. He had
Mokhehle's admiration and there is little doubt that the BCP leader looked on Chakela
as his probable successor. No other member of the BCP ever rose to such a position of
power near Mokhehle. The Transvaal Province was still very powerful and remained
the financial centre for fund raising. Chakela was part of the Transvaal attempt to
dominate the BCP in Lesotho. The Leribe area sought dynamic young men to stand
against BNP fanatics, and Chakela was chosen as parliamentary candidate at Likhetlane
in 1965. During the voting he brought Basotho across the Caledon from the OFS and
won the seat, having curbed his tendency to talk to peasants of Afro-Asian solidarity
and the World Order. In parliament he was a forceful and able speaker and he led the
youth at Thaba Bosiu at the end of 1966 in an attempt to overthrow the BNP
government. In 1967 he became secretary-general of the party after Kolisang had
failed to prevent Ramoreboli's conservatism from influencing the BCP. In 1968, when
the Soviet Union was trying to restore relations between the CPSU and the BCP, the
Russians made it known that they would like Chakela to be one of the two men in the
goodwill delegation to Moscow. He went with Motanyane and told his hosts that he
had only one message for the Soviet Union:-The necessity of friendship. The same
year Mokhehle was involved in a heated exchange with the East Germans in Berlin
over BCP-PAC collaboration and the activities of Joe Matthews, whose well-financed
spending tactics on behalf of the SACP had split the nationalist movement in Lesotho
and enabled the BNP to win government. Soviet officials encouraged Chakela to
believe he was the BCPs most capable diplomat and imminent successor to Mokhehle.
He gained the impression that the whole state of international relations in Southern
Africa would be substantially improved if he replaced the stubborn, enigmatic and
socially uncouth Mokhehle. Mokhehle never drank, hated small talk, preferred baggy
comfortable clothes and no longer bothered with Motlamelles well-tailored suits.
Chakela, before his physical appearance rapidly deteriorated after 1976 through heavy
drinking, was an impressive and good looking man who dressed well and was fond of
socialising.
Chakelas popularity suffered during the 1970 rising for his indecision, lack of
preparation, unreliability, and willingness to surrender. Nevertheless, the capture of
Chakela's diary at Qeme by the PMU, and his conversations with C. D. Molapo during
plane journeys and conferences outside Lesotho after 1974 made the BNP regime
believe Chakela was capable of overthrowing Mokhehle. In 1973 Chakela and Khasu

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had attended the World Congress of Peace Forces in Moscow. The decision to launch
the 1974 rising was not taken at their suggestion, although they supported it
enthusiastically. In 1974 critics accused Chakela of avoiding the rising so he could
become BCP leader if Mokhehle were killed. From 1974 to 1975 he tried to make
Mokhehle change his mind after PAC training, tempting him with promises of Soviet
money, gifts, transport, better accommodation, air tickets and scholarships. By late
1974 Chakela was receiving funds through the Soviet embassy in Lusaka. In 1975 he
was invited by the Soviet Union to attend the September World Peace conference.
When he and Mokhehle visited Moscow, the Russians collected Chakela in a better car
and placed him in superior accommodation. Mokhehle announced his imminent
departure and the situation was rectified. Back in Lusaka the Soviet Union was
lobbying for support for the MPLA of Angola. Mokhehle was sceptical, aware that the
MPLA was a minority movement, elitist, tied to Moscow and installed in power
through Portuguese army officer. At that time he had cordial relations with Savimbi of
UNITA although the rumour that BCP members fought on UNITA's side in the Angola
civil war was a garbled report of Ntantala's despatch of a handful of APLA to aid UNITA,
all of whom were withdrawn when the South Africans intervened. Chakela, acting
without authority, told the Soviets that he was willing to go to Luanda to represent the
BCP. The Soviet consul arrived at Woodlands with Chakela's air ticket and Mokhehle
refused it, denouncing Russian interference in BCP affairs. In December 1976 that year,
encouraged by Duma Nokwe of the ANC/SACP (who apparently came to Gaborone to
supervise the affair) Chakela attempted a coup against Mokhehle. He declared that
Mokhehle had been expelled as leader of the BCP by the executive committee of the
party. He was supported by Gauda Khasu, who shared lodgings with him in Lusaka,
Tseliso Makhakhe, Mama Fokotsane and Pelesana Mofelehetsi, all members of the
NEC. The reasons for ousting Mokhehle were stated as financial malpractice,
favouritism in the allocation of scholarships, and scandalous sexual behaviour. Two
years later, when these charges had failed to bring Mokhehle down, Chakela added
another allegation, saying that the coup had been undertaken because Mokhehle had
been working for BOSS, the South African Security Service, since 1975. While the
charges of serious financial irregularities and sexual adventure were true Chakela's
coup was more an attempt to stop the BCP waging a guerrilla struggle in Lesotho, and
was perpetrated through the Soviet design, by its proxies the SACP/ANC, to eliminate
peasant military activity in Southern Africa, particularly those belonging to Pan
Africanist parties with links with the late Mao Zedong. Possibly the Soviet Union was

95

looking for a new African leader for Southern Africa. Joe Matthews, who had fulfilled
that role, had been accused of mishandling Soviet funds to establish business
enterprises of some magnitude in Botswana.
Strangely enough, the attempted coup of December 1976 was conducted in such
an inept way that people who knew Chakela, including myself, found it difficult to
equate the ridiculous statements made by him during that time with the lucid, logical,
and powerful speeches made by the same man in the Lesotho Parliament. The kindest
words that can describe the statements put out by the former secretary-general are
awkward, illogical and fumbling. When the executive in exile met during Christmas
1976, the matters mentioned in Chakela's attack were not raised. The conspirators
were too afraid of a direct confrontation. Chakela's subsequent writings destroyed his
credibility. He proved that Mokhehle had worked hand in hand with Leabua because
he was not beaten up during his prison days in 1970-1, and had then been nominated
by Leabua to the national assembly in 1973. In addition, Mokhehle, by not being forced
to sleep on a concrete floor in a cell and by being allowed to receive a delegation in
1976 from Lesotho (consisting of Motlamelle, Thabane and two other BCP leaders to
discuss the possibility of talks about talks) had, in Chakela's view, been working in
league with Leabua. Yet Chakela continued by saying that he and the other four
members of the failed coup were ready for talks with Leabua himself. Nor did
Chakela make more than a frivolous effort to make the coup appear constitutional.
He quoted Section 22, 23(h) and 21(e) of the party constitution, in justifying the
expulsion of Mokhehle from the party. Section 22 consisted of The Composition of the
District Council Committee. It listed eleven office bearers and stated that they should
be elected in the annual conference of the district in January, and when their term
expired, they could be re-elected. Section 23(h) said that one of the functions of the
district council committee was to encourage the National Executive Council to assist
the branch, to expel a member from the Party, and to deprive the expelled
affiliation/organisation of all its rights. Section 21 (e) declared that one of the
functions of the national executive committee (NEC) was to ensure good discipline
within the party, to reprimand members or suspend or expel from the Party; in the
case of a District Council it can be suspended or abolished altogether. The members of
the abolished council who can be given re-admission shall have the rights of organising
themselves and establishing another council constitutionally. Yet the number of NEC
members needed to fill a quorum had to be eight, and Chakela only mustered five.
Pelesana Mofelehetsi went to the South African-Lesotho border to collect three

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signatures from the seven members of the NEC in Lesotho. He contacted four, none of
whom wanted any part of the coup. Nevertheless Chakela went ahead and
announced that Mokhehle had been overthrown by a meeting of the BCP national
executive committee. The story was immediately propagated internationally by the
SACP/ANC. Chakela was proclaimed as the new BCP leader but in reality he and the
other four conspirators were expelled from the NEC and the BCP on the 25th February
1977, following a decision by the majority (eleven out of sixteen) of the NEC.
Nevertheless, Chakelas support from his colleagues in the executive had nothing to do
with SACP/ANC intrigue. Apart from Khasu's injured pride there was growing disquiet
with party affairs caused by Shakhane Mokhehle's attempt to re-establish himself in
the hierarchy. Shakhane Mokhehle had what can only be described in the kindest
terms as a severe personality disorder, which Ntsu recognised and told me, not at all
convincingly, that he tried keep Shakhane engaged in office work away from the
general party membership. Shakhane had been a very good speaker in Parliament but
had to change his constituency at every election because of his unpopularity. One of
the major reasons why the BCPs promising trade union movement never achieved its
full potential was because he ran it. When he failed to act in the 1974 rising his
position in the party was weakened and this was compounded by his surrender to the
police, who nevertheless beat him so badly that he walked thereafter with a limp. By
the time he fled into exile he was a badly shaken man whose paranoia worsened to
such an extent that some believed he was deranged. He became the BCP
representative in Gaborone, using Liau's studio. He took delight in chasing away
customers and denouncing refugee school children as CIA, KGB or Boer agents and
persisted in treating well wishers and fund raisers badly. Liau, horrified at the decline
in business, quarrelled with him and left. The studio became a mere shell housing
Shakhane. He was however BCP treasurer-general. It was undeniable that Ntsu
Mokhehle ran a most impressive party machine and wisely used the bulk of the funds
received from the membership. But it did not escape notice that the treasurer's report
came near the end of the annual conference and was a hurried affair that contained
few details. It was always approved. Ntsu Mokhehle obviously used some money that
was unaccountable in order to help subversive projects such as housing and feeding
Leballo during 1963. He himself never had a house of his own and in exile lived
frugally. But his insistence that Shakhane controlled party funds in exile as party
treasurer led to serious irregularities. The Gaborone Holiday Inn and other attractions

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lured Shakhane and he began gambling heavily with money sent to the party from the
Rand and elsewhere.
Chakela's accusations about Mokhehles sex life do not need much elaboration.
Mokhehle was always extremely active in this sphere and it would be dishonest to
ignore it. He bitterly attacked the monogamy preached by the missionaries yet as a
western educated intellectual attempted to cling to accepted social norms. Unlike
Mangaliso Sobukwe he never accepted that the leader of a political party, though
attracting all sorts of elements under his banner, should maintain a morality
acceptable to European missionary standards. But Chakela was hardly the person to
denounce Mokhehle for sexual adventures. He himself had fathered a child by his own
brothers wife and had fought Khasu when they both each other sneaking along the
corridor in underpants to molest a BCP woman in the next room. The liberation
movements all exploited women. Girls usually could only get scholarships if they slept
with the leadership. Pretty girl refugees arriving in Botswana found their overseas
academic future literally lay in the bed of Isaac Makopo, an ANC official. Ramoreboli
once had his legs cut behind the knees when he was caught by an irate husband.
Mphanya tried to curb Mokhehles excesses in Woodlands and this was one of the
reasons why they later grew apart.
Makhakhe's grounds for complaint were partly personal. He was a deceptively
mild-mannered intellectual, who had been headmaster of Peka High School, but was
capable of great violence when roused and would brawl in the street if necessary.
Mokhehle had never liked academics with influence near him in the party and had
been known to humiliate lesser qualified members of the party with a resume of his
academic status. He frequently insulted Makhakhe in the presence of others, and
allowed Shakhane to override his authority. Makhakhe joined the coup attempt mainly
because of the deteriorating situation in the Gaborone office, as did the other two
members of the NEC. Not a single one of them was prepared to follow Chakela when
he finally went back to Lesotho, despite the pressure and inducements they
experienced from the Soviet embassy in Gaborone. Chakela's coup attempt was
therefore an opportunist strike utilising some genuine party grievances. Mokhehles
sex life was his own affair unless it interfered with party business. The party however
was everybodys affair and the facts were clear that by the end of 1976 Mokhehle was
ignoring or attempting to circumvent the party machinery, concentrating on control of
the essentials - the LLA and funds.

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Chakela's coup had certain consequences on the BNP regime's thinking and
inadvertently led to totally unforeseen developments. In 1970 Lekhanya had captured
Chakela's diary and its contents convinced the PMU and BNP that Chakela had been
the mastermind behind the whole rising that year. In 1976 Lekhanya had informed the
BNP that they had better settle the political crisis quickly and he paid for three BCP
members, including Thabane and Motlamelle, to go to Botswana to meet Mokhehle.
Mokhehle asked me to discover what Lekhanya was thinking.
After the 1974 rising I wrote a very ignorant article about its background that was
published in the Moscow allied British Communist Party newspaper The Morning Star.
This enhanced my lowly position in the London branch of the ANC Congress Alliance,
which was always looking for young preferably Marxist White activists. However I was
quickly marginalised by Joe Slovo, Dr Dadoo and Reg September. Whereas the late Ken
Mntungwa had been an ANC nationalist with a friendly demeanour, the SACP leaders
in London seemed to be a sort of paranoid middle class cult obsessed with the NP
regime as if they could not survive without them. I found the atmosphere stifling. At
my final meeting some young African refugees said they had thought the ANC
Congress Alliance was an African liberation movement but had been surprised to find
that it was under the control of Whites. At that time I was ignorant of the Alliances
true history and spoke in their support. Joe Slovo was clearly unhappy and I never
heard from the ANC London branch again. I joined the PAC, partly because of its
military strategy and partly because of its stand on the land issue. My fathers farm at
Ugano had been turned into a successful cooperative and I had also witnessed the
enormous social and economic benefits of the cooperative movement in Kilimanjaro
region, Tanzania.
In 1974 I went to Saudi Arabia for a year to finance my wife through her British
pharmacy degree and by working at a high school during the day and teaching adults
at evening classes I managed to save enough money to start a PhD research degree.
My first choice of subject had been the Kilimanjaro Cooperative (coffee) Union but
Tanzanian authorities only wanted studies on the Ujamaa experiment, which was
doomed to failure from the very start because the peasants were not permitted to
make executive decisions. I therefore applied to Sussex University to study the BCP.
Had I gone there, my colleagues would have included Thabo Mbeki. However the Saudi
mail was inefficient and I heard nothing from Sussex. Eventually I was accepted at
Leicester University in October 1975. My supervisor was Professor Jack Spence, who
had written Lesotho, the Politics of Dependence. In December 1975 I joined the British

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army reserve as a trooper in the 21st Special Air Service (SAS) serving at Headquarters
detachment at the Duke of York Barracks, Sloane Square, London. The SAS is the elite
of the British army and specialises in sending or parachuting four man teams deep
behind enemy lines and living off the land without supplies in extreme conditions.
However like any elite corps from a first world country it can and has been effectively
challenged by insurgents who have been raised in harsh poverty stricken conditions,
such as Yemenis, Somalis, and Afghans as well as urban Northern Irish Catholic
republicans.
In 1976 Koenyama Chakela wrote to me saying I was welcome to interview BCP
leaders in Lusaka. I flew to Nairobi and hitchhiked to Lusaka where I first met
Ntsukunyane Mphanya, Mamocha Moruthane, and her lawyer cousin Thaloana Gloira
Moruthane. I stayed with the Moruthanes and soon afterwards met Ntsu Mokhehle. I
recorded interviews for two weeks with Mokhehle, Mphanya and Koenyama Chakela
and then I hitchhiked back to Nairobi. I established such a good relationship with the
BCP and thereafter worked hard for their cause. In 1977 I wrote a letter from a
fictitious university offering Brigadier Lekhanya and Gerard Ramoreboli PhD
scholarships. Both accepted. I was still banned in South Africa even as a transit
passenger and there were no flights overflying the country to Lesotho. However at that
time it was not difficult to obtain passports in a fake identity and certainly far simpler
than the procedure described in Frederick Forsyths The Day of the Jackal.I obtained
one in two days. I flew to Nairobi again and caught the train to Lusaka from Dar es
Salaam. Mokhehle warned me not to visit the BCP office in Gaborone and when Gloria
Moruthane took me to the outskirts of Lusaka to hitch-hike south I only told her I was
going to visit the city of Livingstone. By good luck I got a lift from the Botswana river
border to Maseru with a highly paid Canadian United Nations couple who charged me
the cost of fuel for the journey. Stephen Motlamelle found me a room in Borokhaneng
and then I walked round to Lesotho Paramilitary Force headquarters at Ratjamose and
informed the guards I was Lekhanyas academic tutor. Lekhanya gave me the rank of
Major, a LPF security identity card, a LPF Kia Honda motorcycle and free fuel.
Lekhanya was quite hospitable and I certainly did not enjoy being a spy. However I
was fairly open about my views, which probably made Lekhanya suspect I was some
sort of British agent sounding him out as a leader to replace Leabua. One weekend, we
travelled together to Mount Moorosi. I had a very serious conversation with Lekhanya
suggesting he should overthrow Leabua and restore democracy but he declined stating
that he didnt trust the BCP. We shared a tent together as he said he didnt want to

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stay with Chief Maseribane as the chief had an agenda for him. However, after we
climbed Mt Moorosi and inspected the battlefield around it he decided to visit Chief
Maseribane and we also found Evaristas Sekhonyana there. From their conversation I
realised that they believed Chakela had overthrown Mokhehle and that Mokhehle
could be lured back to Lesotho by a promise a power sharing and then be murdered.
Although taking photographs of Ratjamose camp incurred a fourteen year jail
sentence, I made a highly detailed study, with photographs, of how to launch a night
attack on camp. I also bought a large map of the camp from the survey department
that included everything an attacking force needed to know. I then photographed
approaches to the camp up to a distance of several kilometres to the south. Later I
bought Soviet 7 x 50 night binoculars but more importantly a large Rank Xerox British
army star-scope night sight for two thousand five hundred pounds, which would have
enabled the LLA to see clearly in a green light at a far distance at night. I also used my
LPF motorcycle to visit Mapoteng and the LPF camp at Khabos. Lekhanya also showed
me letters, photographs (including one of Lefatle Sello outside Mokhehles house in
Lusaka) and miners applications for work on the Rand that had been sent by his
agents. Occasionally I liaised with Stephen Motlamelle and one day at his shop to my
horror I met Godfrey Kolisang, who fortunately didnt recognise me. We became
friends and sometimes sat outside Bonhomme House discussing anything but politics.
One day he read a letter of mine in The Friend of Bloemfontein and exclaimed to
Motlamelle, who knew my real name Ah! That Leeman! Motlamelle asked politely
who Leeman was, but Kolisang made a series of disapproving hisses and declined.
When Lekhanya flew to London to attend the Silver Jubilee celebrations he took my
undeveloped films with him which he posted to my wife, who then forwarded the
printed photographs to Mphanya in Lusaka. I also held tape recorded interviews with
Gerard Ramoreboli, a sad alcoholic who confessed that he had been installed as a BNP
regime minister through South African pressure. He and Lekhanya gave me air tickets
to fly from Maseru to Botswana via Johannesburg from Botswana to Lusaka and Dar es
Salaam, where I was met by Mokhehle at the airport and housed in David Sibekos flat.
There I was accused of being a Boer spy by Victor Makeyiso, who used the flat for
sexual adventures, so I moved to Selatiles overcrowded flat. On 12 August 1977 I
addressed the LLA high command at Sibekos flat. I told them that the Lesotho Cabinet
and the PMU believed that Chakela had taken control of the LLA and that Mokhehle
was a spent force. Mokhehle could therefore not take the BNP regime's offer of
reconciliation seriously they thought they were dealing with a man who had nothing

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to hope for. In my view, it was highly likely that Mokhehle would also be returning to
his death should be accept reconciliation. The PMU was discussed in depth. The
camp at Ratjomose was extremely vulnerable. At the rear of the camp there was a
bent post holding up the wire. This had been caused by the PMU climbing in and out at
night for illicit entertainment. There was a sentry at that position and the LLA was
shown that they could enter the camp by the path which passed between the wire and
the dam at its narrowest point. A few yards further on it was possible to reach a
position where the main guard house, containing thirty soldiers, could be rushed. The
commanding officer's house lay a short way from the guard house and the key to the
front door had been lost. The glass panelled door could be broken and the bolt drawn
back at the second pane at the top. Lekhanya slept in the bedroom to the right of the
door on entering. There were no guard dogs, only geese. Patrol times had been
carefully logged as had the sentry positions and the contents of every building inside
the inner wire, where most of the seventeen platoons of the PMU slept. I knew the
wavelengths of the PMU UHF 220 radios 22 and details of the standby generator
system. The photograph in front of Lefatle Sello in front of Mokhehles house in Lusaka
had been printed in Liau Studio in Gaborone. I had photographed approaches to the
camp from the south to a distance of three kilometres, marking salient features which
would enable men in a night attack. I emphasised that the PMU knew that the LLA
intended to wage a northern based guerrilla campaign and had already taken steps in
preparation for the attack. I proposed that the LLA carry out a direct assault on the
PMU HQ at Ratjomose where one of their officers, Colonel Kopo, had told me We are
very safe. I felt I would be able to provide the LLA with night vision equipment, a
promise I fulfilled. In the subsequent discussion it was agreed that if enough men could
penetrate far enough into Lesotho or through South Africa to be in a position to carry
out the attack on Ratjomose, then the attack would take place because a few members
of the LLA had actually served in the PMU and knew the camp well. In the meantime,
despite the discovery of a spy in the LLA, if not a traitor, the LLA decided to continue
with the very plan that Lekhanya was preparing to counter. I think Mapefane and
others were not interested in the realities of the situation, only in making a name for
themselves as practitioners of a peoples war. My questions concerning the readiness
of the LLA were brushed aside and I was left with the impression that my work was of
little consequence because they had the situation completely in hand. By 1977 I had
I was indebted to the Scottish investigative reporter and Oxford University First Class physics graduate,
Duncan Campbell, a genius at uncovering intelligence secrets.
22

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completed eight years military service in British Army infantry, artillery, intelligence,
special forces and tank regiments but did not realise that many in LLA and APLA
especially Mapefane and the seventy original members of APLA regarded the military
as a means to wealth and high social status. Unfortunately Mokhehle and Leballo
dispensed grand titles. Consequently a barely trained aspirant guerrilla with a title such
as chief intelligence officer would feel it demeaning to be asked to risk combat or
another physical risk. As Zola Vimba of APLA said Everyone wanted to be Chiefs but
nobody the Indians. After the meeting we met with Leballo but Mokhehle asked me
not to discuss details of the proposed attack because he believed (rightly) that PK
would want to participate. It was during this conversation that Mokhehle hinted that
PK was a lot older than he claimed.
After Mandela became president of South Africa in 1994 many hoped that past
mysteries would be explained including the former NP regimes involvement in
Lesotho politics. This has not yet occurred. In addition most people who witnessed
sensitive or brutal events have not spoken out and there is therefore still much
speculation. While in Dar es Salaam, I discovered that the letter I had brought
Mokhehle from Motlamelle was a message from Klopper, the tall blond Afrikaner BOSS
agent stationed at Ladybrand, who had always made the BCP his field and had visited
BCP prisoners in Bloemfontein in jail after the 1974 rising. Klopper once entered
Motlamelles shop while I was sitting there. Klopper, wrote Motlamelle, had said that if
the LLA decided to attack they must do it as soon as possible. Other news was that
Klopper was trying to recruit Basotho to the idea of accepting large areas of
Bantustan South Africa into incorporation with Lesotho. As mentioned earlier during
the suppression after the 1970 coup Catholic PMU troopers defaced a PEMS Bible and
this deeply angered Afrikaners, most of whom are Calvinist Protestants and therefore
close to the Calvinist PEMS. This led to Van der Merwes offer. However, when
MokhehIe eventually did accept help, and although Shakhane bungled the operation it
is clear now that Van der Merwe had deceived Mphanya and Mokhehle. Inevitably the
LLA ended up in the Transkei under the control of former Rhodesian soldiers in the pay
of a former top CIA operative who controlled massive private funds. Mokhehle had
evidently believed that the South Africans would have arranged to meet the LLA troops
near the Botswana border and transported them to a camp where, cut off from all
communication with the outside world they would have been given intensive training
for an infiltration into Ratjamose camp with automatic rifles and grenades to
overwhelm the guardhouse, the officers quarters, the armoury and the troopers

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barracks. Since nothing like this eventuated, it is clear that Van der Merwe merely
wanted to round up the LLA for psychological experiments assisted by Rhodesians and
Americans. As for myself, had I known that the BCP was negotiating with Van under
Merwe for safe passage through South Africa to attack Lesotho, I would have cut all
ties with the BCP and perhaps led a more prosperous but maybe not so interesting life
rather than giving almost everything I had to send the LLA south from Tanzania. The
BCP lied to me stating that the Afrikaners Boers had offered help but they had ignored
them. I think Ntsu Mokhehle and Ntsukunyane Mphanya, given their past record of
virulently denouncing any collaboration with Pretoria or the CIA, were simple minded
when they dealt with Van der Merwe.
In Dar es Salaam Mokhehle encountered obstruction from the PAC about releasing
the LLA to go south to start the war. He was leaving for medical treatment in Romania
and while waiting for clearance in Cairo he wrote to me:
There is so much hesitation on the part of our helpers (PAC) which is hard to
understand. A hollow promise was that (twenty-eight) would leave at about the same
time I left while the rest I would find.....in Gaborone by the end of September. We
are unable to make our own plans as long as our (troops) are not fully in our hands and
under our control......I must really thank you for the sacrifices that you have made to
help promote our project. I am satisfied that there are very few people that are as
displeased as you are at this our dangerous delay. I can assure you it is not our choice
nor have we hesitated to express our displeasure about it to our helpers. Probably with
one more eye to see them and a tumour less behind my left lower jaw I will be able to
put a more effective pressure on them.
Chakela's attempted coup had complicated Mokhehle's relations with the Eastern
bloc but eventually he managed to leave Cairo for medical treatment for his eye
cataracts and tumour in Romania. He was unable to attend the 25th anniversary
celebrations of the foundation of the BCP, held at Tlokweng, Gaborone, but was back
in time for the BCP's 1977 December conference held at Tlokweng Community Centre.
By that time the issue of the BCP had become a major factor in the PAC's internal
disputes. During his absence friction continued between elements in the party. The
photographs of Ratjomose arrived in Lusaka after I had left for Dar es Salaam. I asked
Mphanya to send them to Dar but Mphanya refused, summoning me back to Lusaka.
Mapefane and Selatile asked me to spy on Mphanya for them, as they felt this refusal
was an indication the deputy secretary-general was going over to Khasu. I objected
strongly for it had been mainly Mphanyas work that had enlisted my support for the

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dangerous visit to Lesotho. I had flown to Dar at Romaerobili and Lekhnyas expense
and I deeply resented returning third class to Zambia on the Tazara railway by the
slow service. I found that Mphanya was annoyed that the party machinery was being
deliberately circumvented. The LLA high command had not been formally constituted
by the party leadership convening as the NEC. Until that time he could not hand over
any military material to Mapefane. He had been kept ignorant of developments
concerning the LLA and was not going to be ordered around by party members with no
rank, such as Selatile, who happened to have Mokhehle's ear. In the end he gave me
my photos, since they were mine anyway and the meeting in Dar had been with the
leaders of the LLA who would inevitably be formally appointed sooner or later. I caught
the train back to Dar es Salaam and reported to Mapefane and Selatile that Mphanya
wanted the party run on correct lines. It seemed to me that Mapefane and particularly
Selatile were working not so much against Mphanya but trying to take over the Pan
Africanist Congress. Complicating the situation was the LLAs ignorance that the
Mokhehles intended to weed out the militants from those who would cooperate with
Van der Merwe.

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CHAPTER EIGHT
The LLA troops faced major challenges after their arrival in Tanzania because of
their nebulous identity, ambivalent role, and unstable party leadership. They were
ostensibly APLA troops under PAC control and their BCP leaders were in Zambia and
Botswana. For practical and political reasons the PAC did not want them to start the
campaign in Lesotho until APLA could be sent into action. The ANC/SACP Alliance was
working to discredit and block the LLA and both the exiled BCP and PAC leadership
were beset by serious internal feuds, exacerbated by challanges from younger cadres,
well funded external meddling, and a dramatic decline in African and Chinese support
for revolutionary strategies. The BCP party structure inside South Africa functioned
admirably in extremely adverse conditions but was frustrated by what Mapefane
correctly termed the commercialisation of the revolution as venal external party
personnel such as Shakhane Mokhehle and Qhobela Molapo and opportunistic camp
followers siphoned off funds designated for the LLA. Complicating everything was that
LLA, PAC and APLA were unaware of the Mokhehles understanding with Van der
Merwe and this would envitably lead to a serious confrontation once the double
dealing was revealed.
The PAC camp at Itumbi Camp, Chunya, was at first organised by the LLA, until
larger numbers of APLA arrived from Libya. The LLA kept in training but also grew crops
and raised pigs and chickens. Early morning parade was followed by report and
allocation of duties. No arms were kept in the camp in case widespread executions
took place as in the days of ZANU occupation. The camp was guarded by Tanzanian
troops, and additional supplies came from the Tanzanian garrison at Mbeya. The camp
medical section served the local Nyakusa community, the soldiers helped in house
building and harvesting for the villagers and the camp football team won the Chunya
area cup three times. Ntantala was the APLA commander. Before the intake of the LLA
recruits, faction rivalry with PAC/APLA had centred on ideological stances mostly allied
to social and financial aspirations. Leballo had fought a debilitating struggle in exile
with personnel in the external missions who wanted reform, money and high social
status, while he represented lower class party activists in South Africa who had no faith
in the economic system and supported a land and property war to ensure some
security. In addition there had been instances when Xhosa-speaking groups had
ganged together, as during the Poqo rising when the Pokela faction had murdered
members of the Mlokoti faction. Ntantala had been a member of Pokelas faction but
the threat to his position after 1976 was due to ideological differences not Xhosa

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chauvinism. Ntantala's APLA numbered about seventy men, recruited in the early and
mid 1960s. They had been stationed at Chunya for many years and had fathered an
entire village nearby. They had lost the will to fight but were not prepared to have
their seniority challenged by the intake of Soweto and Cape youth. The bulk of the new
recruits were highly critical of Ntantala and his high command. Ntantala had several
wives and mistresses dotted around the continent, although he excused himself by
saying he was a Muslim. All the APLA and LLA cadres had nominally converted to Islam
during their training in Libya and had been given Muslim names. But the high
command used relief supplies, in particular clothing parcels from aid organisations, to
keep their own families and entice more girls their way. Other clothes were sold and
the profits kept by the high command. Many leaders drank heavily, in particular Sibeko
and Vus Make. APLA complaints in February 1977 brought Leballo to Chunya to restore
order. His manic enthusiasm, austerity, tee-totalism and willingness to train with the
cadres gave him more respect than that felt for anyone else in the hierarchy.
Ntantalas position was deteriorating and he took measures to overthrow Leballo, who
was now a power in his own right through the allegiance of the new APLA and no
longer so reliant on a combination of messages of support from Sobukwe and OAU
backing for constitutional procedure. Ntantala at first tried to enlist support from the
powerful PAC UN representative, David Sibeko, failed, but Leballo still faced hostility
from the external party representatives who correctly interpreted the influx of the
highly critical Soweto and Cape youth as a threat to their positions. The external offices
controlled the bulk of the funds Gqobose alone had control of more than 40% of the
PAC budget. Ntantala obtained more funds from Marxist-Leninist groups in Western
Europe, in particular the Norwegians and West Germans. Sibeko siphoned off a quarter
of a million dollars donated by the Nigerian military government, and other large
amounts given by United States sources through Andrew Young, the US ambassador to
the UN. Hardly any of this filtered down to the new army. Ntantala eventually
launched a coup to overthrow Leballo intending to seize him in Dar es Salaam and
occupying the party offices. However the new APLA and the LLA discovered the basic
details of the plot, which involved the theft of a truck and weapons and a nine hundred
kilometre drive from Chunya to Dar es Salaam. The camp commander, Mahlakoana
Mafela of the LLA, was in Dar es Salaam, and learnt of the plot from a phone call from
Mapefane in Chunya. Mapefane had not been able to discover the date for which the
coup attempt was planned. When Ntantalas group broke out in November 1977, the
LLA warning phone call arrived barely before the attack itself swept into Dar es Salaam.

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Mafela led the defence of the PAC offices with Soweto students, and the attackers
found Leballo's flat empty. Mafelas followers beat off the attack but the Tanzanian
police, confused by the situation but knowing Ntantala's men, all of whom spoke fluent
Swahili, locked up the defending students. The attackers were confined to the environs
of PAC houses in Dar es Salaam. Ntantala's group, bitter that the LLA had led the
defence and had thwarted the coup, denounced them to the Tanzanians, saying that
the men in the camps were not PAC but BCP. This episode led to the story that Leballo
was using the LLA as a personal bodyguard to bolster a supposedly flagging leadership
against the wishes of his party. The Tanzanians told the PAC to sort out their own
problems and made no move concerning the BCP. The situation had been exacerbated
because Malunga had arrived in Dar es Salaam with eleven BCP dissidents from Chunya
before the coup attempt was launched. He corroborated Ntantala's story and helped
spread the canard that the LLA was controlling the PAC although his quarrel in Libya
had been about PAC control of the BCP/LLA. This accusation had gained ground in Dar
es Salaam because of the activities of Selatile and some of the LLA high command,
including Mapefane, who had been chosen as commander of the LLA under Mokhehle,
despite Leballo's preference for Mafela. During Mokhehle's absence, Mapefane and
Selatile were not only acting independently of the BCP party machinery but were
openly encouraging the idea that members of the BCP NEC were not to be trusted. Not
only was Mphanya in Lusaka suspicious of what was going on in Dar but so too were
Lebenya Chakela and others in Gaborone. They were irritated by Mokhehles penchant
for the company of junior members of the party, or (in the case of Selatile) elitists who
had never had any experience in the party at all. Selatiles remark that the LLA had
put the PAC leadership on the throne had angered PAC members and undermined
confidence in Mokhehles ability to control BCP members during delicate negotiations
and under stressful conditions. When I appealed to Mokhehle to exercise your
leadership in this dispute (Selatile and Mapefane asking me to spy on Mphanya),
Mokhehle merely showed Mphanya the letter and let suspicion and animosity remain
unchecked. My intelligence reports, photographs, maps, training manuals and
binoculars therefore became Mapefanes personal property.
Ntantala was sacked from his military post, and a new APLA high command was
chosen from the five hundred strong 1976 generation APLA at Chunya. Since it was
inconceivable that the 500 strong force would be committed to one area, perhaps it
might have been better to have created a more flexible structure able to operate in
both rural and urban settings in squads of four as in my own regiment, the Special Air

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Service. A major disadvantage was money. A lot of lessons could have been leaned
from Chris Hani and other ANC/SACP cadres who fought in Rhodesia in 1968. Tey had
been issued only five pounds each and quickly ran out of food. Ideally APLA would
infiltrate into a large number of townships and operate using money they carried with
them so ostensibly they would be employees of small enterprises such as taxi
companies although without pay and therefore have time to collect intelligence before
committing themselves to action. This was what the ANC/SACP operatives were able to
do but most were middle class and their most effective couriers were incorruptible
Indians. Consequently the security services could far more easily spot middle class and
Indian ANC/SACP operatives than lower class PAC/APLA cadres in the shanty towns
and although ANC/SACP saboteurs did cause damage, sometimes spectacularly, their
military strategy was not to escalate the struggle by recruiting volatile lower class
African activists. Supplying funds to APLA cells often had most unfortunate results with
cadres using the money to enhance their social status, improve their dress style, and
swill expensive liquor. If the 1955 SACP coup had not split the ANC along class lines,
the struggle would have been more effective.
Between 16 and 18 December 1977 the central committee of the PAC met to
discuss the aftermath of the November coup attempt. The central committee knew
that Sobukwe was dying of lung cancer and planned a constitutional conference for
March or April 1978. In mid-January 1978, APLA demanded that Ntantala should be
properly punished and when the central committee agreed six of his supporters
walked out. Sobukwe died on 26 February 1978 at the age of fifty three. He was buried
in his home town of Graaf-Reneit. Ntantalas followers increased their agitation against
Leballo in the run-up to the party conference now set for June. Gqobose, still PAC
treasurer, and other others travelled to raise funds, and in April a statement was
issued in Dar es Salaam describing Leballo as a madman who was running the PAC in
a Mafia style. In Swaziland about forty of the hundred members of APLA present in
the country went over to Ntantala, and the Swazi authorities lodged a complaint with
the PAC stating that these men were openly carrying weapons and molesting Swazi
women. Leballo and Sibeko led a delegation to Swaziland. They discovered that
Ntantala was apparently involved in a plot concerning feudal rivals to the leadership of
King Sobhuza. Gatsha Buthelezis Kwa Zulu Inkatha political organisation was tied into
the plot. Leballo stated later that it seemed that Ntantalas APLA followers would join
with elements of Inkatha to help overthrow Sobhuza and place on the throne, Ntunja,
Chief of the Mgomezulu, a people who straddled the border with South Africa. Ntunja

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had been deposed by the South Africans and his followers driven out to Swaziland. The
PAC provided Ntunjas people with military instruction and Ntantala smuggled arms to
the area from Botswana instead of using them against the South Africans. The new
Swazi king would recognise Ntantala as a liberation group leader and Ntantala would
provide military training for Inkatha. Ntantala had already used PAC funds to buy land
for himself in Swaziland - S.E.M. Pheko, a president of the post 1994 faction of the PAC
that accepted the 1994 settlement, later justified this by saying that it was going to be
used for feeding guerrilla forces. None of this was publicly announced but the Swazis
nevertheless brought in the Refugees Control Order which clamped down on the
activities of both the PAC and ANC, and arrested fourteen of Ntantalas group after
Leballo and Sibekos visit. In May 1978 PAC members in Swaziland demonstrated
against the arrests but on 18 May reconciliation talks took place to prepare for the
June conference. Agreement was forthcoming that sixty members of Ntantalas group
would be represented at the Conference by sixteen delegates, the five hundred and
sixty APLA cadres by twenty four delegates and the PAC membership in South Africa
and elsewhere by two hundred and fifty delegates. The PAC consultative conference
met at Arusha, Tanzania, from 28 June to 4 July 1978. The conference itself opened on
29 June to confirm the party leadership and establish a home-going program of action
for APLA. Mapefane, the LLA commander, was technically a PAC and APLA member but
Leballo advised him not to attend. Sobukwes death, PAC infighting, and the arrest for
Mothopeng and seventeen others in South Africa had further delayed a decision on
permitting the LLA to leave for Lesotho with PAC assistance. Leballo could count on the
support of APLA, which was by that time under a youthful leadership dedicated to an
early resumption of the armed struggle. Some preparatory work had been
accomplished in the Bantustans while in the area of the Limpopo River PAC cells had
been assisting ZANU units using the northern Transvaal. However, Leballo was
challenged by Sibeko, Make and other diplomatic-theorists in the external missions
who resented the rise of the new APLA and therefore accepted the OAU and United
States strategy of abandoning revolution and advocating reform as this would
marginalise the troops and consolidate their own positions. Leballo was kept aware of
American policy through Stephen Burgess, an American Maoist university lecturer and
researcher whose uncle was Senator John Danforth, later US ambassador to the United
Nations 23. Burgess reports enabled Leballo to make sense not only of his opponents
Burgesss later married an American wife, Janet Bielstein, who frequently denigrated Leballo and the
PAC while exploiting their hospitality and crippling them with massive utility bills. She urged her
23

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manourverings but also the political agenda of Andrew Young, the Carter
administrations UN ambassador and guardian of three of four of Sobukwes children.
However, since the death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong in 1976 Leballo had few allies
in exile and his new one, Libya, was regarded by America as a pariah state. On 29
December 1979 the US designated Libya a state sponsor of terrorism.
Global strategic changes meant that time had almost run out for the PAC. China
had abandoned world revolution and the Soviet Union did not have the economic
power to counter growing American influence. Henry Kissinger, the American secretary
of state, visited Africa in 1976 and strengthened the idea of African states
compromising with Pretoria under the slogan of dialogue and dtente. Secondly the
South African Afrikaner officer corps and Afrikaner business interests were pressurising
the NP regime to moderate or abolish apartheid. Consequently during the 1970s
onwards there were many clandestine contacts between elitist, reform minded, or
opportunistic politicians and businessmen on both sides such as Oliver Tambo, Dr.
Marquand de Villiers, Anton Rupert, Gatsha Buthelezi, Vus Make, and even John
Voster as well as American and South African pressures on ostensibly militant African
leaders such as Nyerere, Machel and Kaunda that included nuclear threats. The PAC
feared there would be an American blessed concordat between Black and White elites
in South Africa that would institutionalise under a liberal democratic parliamentary
system the unresolved injusticies such as land ownership and past security services
atrocities. The PAC hoped that if Zimbabwe became independent, its ideological ally
ZANU (PF) would continue to support guerrilla warfare against apartheid South Africa.
The ZANLA commander, Josiah Tongogara, was supportive but was killed in December
1979.
At the Arusha Conference Leballo was elected chairman, not president of the PAC.
Sibeko utilised his Nigerian and American funds to play a dominant role in the
nomination and election of the new central committee, overcoming objections from
Leballo and APLA. Ntantala was denounced as having links with Savimbi's UNITA and
Buthelezis Inkatha. Ntatalas followers were labelled a Xhosa clique, which had
operated its own cells after 1960. The conference, against Leballo and APLA's wishes,
called for normal relations with the BNP regime in Lesotho, but this was unenforceable
because of APLA's hostility and the inability of the reformist-diplomat leaders to enter
Chunya camp. APLA was particularly angered by the election as PAC secretary of
husband to become respectable. Burgess abandoned his PhD on the PAC after two failed submissions
and he and his wife now teach at the United States Airforce Academy in Alabama.

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defence of E. L. Makoti, known primarily as an erratic theoretician whose work needed

severe editing to make it coherent. Leballo wanted Ntantala to remain as an APLA and
PAC member as he appreciated his smuggling abilities, having sent weapons through
South Africa, even if they went to Swaziland, and had seen to the training of the
Mgomezulu. However, the conference expelled Ntantala along with Gqobose, who
couldn't account for the use of party funds, and one hundred and one others, most of
whom were Ntantala's old APLA. The provisional APLA high command was confirmed
and Eddie Phiri became Leballo's deputy in the army. After Phiri was killed in a
mysterious car crash at the Ruaha Bridge, he was succeeded by Justice Nkonyane. The
new central committee was dominated by Sibeko's followers. Leballos position had
been weakened in part because he personally had been blamed for the decisions to
recruit the LLA as PAC members. The conference's call for dissociation with LLA was a
result of a process of reconciliation between Sibeko and V. Mooki Molapo, the BNP
regime's UN representative, and BNP delegations visits to Libya. Sibeko had confirmed
that the PAC was harbouring the LLA and at a meeting with Leballo and Mokhehle at
Woodlands Sibeko urged them to admit the fact openly. Mokhehle was deeply
disturbed and Leballo refused. The conference announced that no PAC funds would be
forthcoming to transport the LLA south, nor would arms be issued them. Sibekos wife,
now a member of the executive, spitefully announced that the new green American
uniforms destined for Chunya would be denied to the LLA. Sibeko wanted all rations to
cease for the LLA and demanded their immediate expulsion. APLAs attitude made the
latter impossible to enforce, but APLA itself was not anxious to be upstaged by the LLA
beginning the revolution first. Ideally, both forces should have begun their respective
struggles together, but the Arusha conference wrecked any co-operation. Leballo's
own position as chairman had been another victory for Sibeko, whose suggestion that
the title of president, being associated with the late Mangaliso Sobukwe, could not be
used so near to his death, as it would imply disrespect. In July 1978 the Swazis released
forty detainees, many of whom were ex-PAC. In October Joe Mkwanasi, Leballos one
time helper during his days of restriction but now a leading critic, was freed and in
1979 a further four left jail. Ntantala's group joined with some of them to form the
Azanian People's Revolutionary Party (APRP).
Leballo had been weakened by the 1978 conference that made him PAC leader
although he was supported by the majority of the party inside South Africa and in exile
but his strength was in the remote Chunya camp not in the diplomatic power bases at
the United Nations in New York and at OAU Liberation Committee headquarters in Dar

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es Salaam. David Sibeko in New York was being pushed strongly by the Americans to
orient the PAC towards dialogue and a policy of reform, in opposition to the militancy
in APLA and among the lower class and students in South Africa itself. The ANC/SACP,
moderate Afrikaner politicians and army officers, South African business interests, the
OAU, the Americans and the declining Soviets all wanted South Africa to remain
stable with no dramatic social or economic change. Whereas during the Algerian
revolution the leaders of Morocco and Tunisia had stood firm beside the Algerian
revolutionaries, the leaders of Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and eventually
Zimbabwe were not prepared to support a liberation war in South Africa.
The LLA had been placed in a precarious position after the conference, not allowed
to leave the camp and denied food and clothing. APLA helped but Sibeko was
determined to neutralise their influence too. Leballo met Mapefane in Dar es Salaam
after the conference and said he wished he had never helped the LLA, because the
issue had been used against him to boost Sibeko and Make. He warned Mapefane
against involvement with either man. When Mapefane met them they were cool and
refused to supply him with air tickets to enable him to look for arms in Europe with
me. I had been discharged from the SAS in December 1977 and I was willing to assist
but felt I needed an African soldier to make my search more credible. Mapefane had
been to Gaborone in June to see about transport arrangements for the LLA and
reconnoitre along the border fence with South Africa. In July 1978 Mokhehle wrote to
me, (Leballo) has come out victorious but weak and nervous to assist us any further.
And so the transferring of our boys from Dar es Salaam to Gaborone has become our
problem No.1 -especially as you should realise that as BCP's we are not permitted to
pass through Zambia and certainly not to enter Botswana. We can only do so as
covered by the PAC this Leballo and his men are prepared to do. But as far as fares
and all the rest we must do them on our own. By planes, this would cost P30,
000=K30,000 = +/- 15, 000. We are working some plan by which they start by train up
to Lusaka as PACs. The problem is not frightfully difficult but for the money...... The
initial investigations seem to show that from Gaborone to a place across the Caledon
or nearby there requires a minimum of R100 - this involves the use of unusual routes
and modes of travel.
In August he felt that a transit camp was needed somewhere in RSA or in the hills
(Lesotho), which indicates that the Mokhehles were having second thoughts about Van
der Merwe. Eventually the LLA decided to collect together in the Bantustans and in the
more inhospitable areas of Lesotho. Leballos freedom of action and movement was

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being curtailed by Sibeko and Make, in league with the Tanzanians. Uganda was now
closed to him after his quarrel with Amin and his henchmen in 1976 over their
treatment of PAC women cadres. He met with Mokhehle to inform him that funds and
arms could not be forthcoming for the LLA, let alone transport. Mokhehle said that I
was dealing with the arms problem. I was indeed willing to undertake such work and
offered plane fares to anyone who would come, but Mokhehle never approached me
on the matter. Leballo told Mokhehle that getting the boys south is not a game, an
observation that Mokhehle believed was a deliberate attempt to humiliate him.
Leballo, speaking of the same meeting, said he would not allow unarmed men to be
sent to fight. Mokhehle was however facing a crisis. His men were trapped in Chunya
and he had to get them out. He could get funds from his supporters on the Rand and at
Welkom but Rends, Pulas and Malutis (Lesotho currency) could not be sent out of the
South African currency area. Nor would the Basotho miners undertake a massive fund
collection unless they were convinced Mokhehle meant business. The only way in
which Mokhehle could prove that was to send large numbers of the LLA south.
Without funds from his supporters this was impossible. There was an additional fear in
the Chunya camp that if the LLA began trickling out, the PAC might prevent further
cadres leaving. In some desperation, he turned once more to me for help. I had by this
time launched a distance education college preparing Nigerian students for external
London university degrees and credit examinations for American universities.
Mokhehle became interested in the scheme and promised that should the BCP
become the government of Lesotho, I could make a private university there. This was
the only period in my life that I ever made a large amount of money but I was so
disillusioned by the way the BCP behaved it was the last time I wanted to do so.
During late 1978 I managed to raise a clear profit of 13,000 in a single month and
some lesser amounts thereafter until early 1979 when I returned to Africa. At first I
sent a large Bedford van to transport the LLA from Chunya southwards. Mokhehle had
made arrangements with SWAPO to import it free of charge under their OAU privilege.
Mokhehle unfortunately left importation and liaison affairs in the hands of Selatile,
who claimed to have influence far in excess to his real standing. In normal
circumstances an international carnet of importation would have been procured,
enabling the LLA to use the van anywhere for a year before importing it. However,
Selatile was so adamant about his ability to deal with SWAPO that the van was sent
without the carnet. I had now left the British Armys Special Air Service regiment but I
was still reluctant to put SWAPO on the despatch documents, more so because it

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was shipped on a Soviet vessel, albeit from London. I was also trying to keep a very low
profile because of British intelligences inept and hysterical behaviour concerning the
journalist Duncan Campbell24, who had supplied information to me about Roachs
South African links and the South African nuclear weapon program. I had assisted
Campbell by driving him between safe houses in Brighton and London and was
cautious because the British security services had raided people who had merely sent
him Christmas cards. I feared a security service raid would reveal my connection with
the PAC/APLA and LLA. The large Bedford van cost 500 and shipping 1,300. When it
arrived, SWAPO, in my opinion Dar es Salaam whisky commissars, declared that they
had been insulted because the bill of landing at Dar es Salaam did not state their
name, only their box number. Their headquarters in Lusaka demanded an explanation
and an apology. I wrote pointing out that a recent member of an elite British regiment
could hardly afford to draw attention to myself by providing such an obvious clue to
my activities with movements perhaps somewhat unpopular with my past colleagues.
SWAPO refused to accept the van. Selatile asked for an additional 1,500 to be sent to
import it but I refused and the van was lost. Simultaneously I sent 5,000 to Mokhehle
and this was used to send the bulk of the LLA south. Another of 2,300 was used to
buy a night sight for use with a rifle but this was kept from the LLA because by then I
was beginning to doubt the competence of their commanders and Mphanya later
agreed with my joking suggestion that the night sight would probably have been used
to look for girls instead of LPF sentries. I had been led to believe that the LLA had arms
Mokhehles assertion that I was searching for weapons in Europe had no foundation
and I was not asked for such help until 1980 when I went to Zimbabwe. If I had known
the true situation I would not have provided the funds without proper explanations. I
had operated in a different military tradition where it was essential to report the truth.
I took Mapefane and Selatile at their word and it was only too late that I discovered
nothing at all had been prepared. Mapefanes idea of a briefing was to look silent and
masterful. On one occasion Mapefane, whose military experience was considerable
less than a PMU drill instructor of the rank of corporal while I had been a genuine LPF
Major, had told me if I had you in my army, I'd have shown you. Nevertheless, the
initial 5,000 gave the LLA the start they needed. Another 500 went to Selatile for rail
fares and altogether these funds provided the spur to fund collection that miners had

24

The Justice Game, Geoffrey Robertson, Vintage, London, 1999, ISBN 0-09-958191-4, pp. 104-134.
The full story is also available online at http://cryptome.org/jya/justice-dc.htm

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sought. Makolo Ntlaloe, a BCP activist in Gaborone at the time of the crisis, said later
that if I had not acted there would never have been a war.
The infiltration south began disastrously. Mokhehle had succeeded in obtaining
several plane tickets before I sent 5,000. Mphanya, manning the Lusaka office, was
under tremendous pressure from the Rand and Welkom to get the LLA down to
Botswana but was however kept ignorant of much of what was happening on the
military side of affairs. Malunga led eleven dissidents from Chunya to Mbeya and then
to Dar es Salaam. Lebenya Chakela had been creating more pressure through an
anonymous circular denouncing Selatile for petty machinations which had resulted in
Mokhehle being forced to rely on the PAC. Lebenya, like Mphanya, had been kept out
of preparations for the war partly because of differences with Shakhane and partly
because he was ambitious. Mphanya believed that if Lebenya didnt drink so much he
would have been the ideal LLA commander. Malunga's group reached the TanzanianZambian border and Mokhehle, vacillating, eventually gave way to their request to
vouch for them and thus clear them for entry into Zambia. To have refused would have
deepened Rand suspicions of LLA lack of will. It was a major mistake and he blamed
Mphanya for persuading him. His problems were increasing. Mapefane, who had
disliked remaining in the remote Chunya camp, had distanced himself further from his
troops and then got married without informing Mokhehle. Selatile, Mokhehle's
unfortunate choice for certain negotiations in Dar es Salaam, had proved totally
incapable of action when Mokhehle was absent. Chakelas coup attempt had shaken
Mokhehle, however much he said it was the least serious of all the attempts to
overthrow him. He no longer felt anyone in the hierarchy could be trusted. His health
was poor and he justifiably feared further opportunist coup attempts. He therefore
relied solely on his own judgement and took personal direction of party and the LLA
affairs without bothering to consult his colleagues. From Gaborone the Malunga group
sent a telegram to Johannesburg where a friend was advised to expect two parcels
soon. They crossed the fence into South Africa and two were arrested at the address
where the telegram had been despatched. The captured men led the police to their
companions. One in the group had not crossed the fence and later joined the LLA. Ten
of the eleven others remained in detention. Late in 1978 four of them were taken to
the Lesotho border in a covert operation to be exchanged with South African refugees.
One managed to escape and return to Botswana. The fate of his three companions was
unknown. By the time that the LLA were due to cross South Africa, the police were
fully aware of their intentions, after interrogating Malungas followers. Van der Merwe

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had not delivered on his promises and so it was astonishing that Mokhehle still
believed he would.
My funds enabled the LLA to travel by plane in groups of five to ten to Botswana in
a flow that convinced the Rand and Welkom that fund raising was an immediate
priority. The Basotho in South Africa raised seventeen thousand rand in an initial
collection to start the war. In December I produced fifteen thousand cards in the party
colours, the first batch bearing Mokhehles photograph on a diamond in the midst of a
map of Lesotho in the BCP tricolour with the Sesotho caption of Leader of the Basotho
People; the second with the photograph of the murdered BCP activist Mrs Koloi
Makoloi and a third with the party flag and title. These sold for fifty cents each but the
amount raised was unknown. I asked for some of the profits to be returned as school
fees (for which foreign remittances were allowed) so I could reinvest in more cards.
Nothing was forthcoming and the PMU murdered people who possessed them. I also
paid for Mphanya and Qhobela Molapo to visit New York and Washington to seek
congressional and UN support and financed Molapo with 3,000 for party work, which
Molapo spent on personal luxuries that included a stereo system from Harrods,
Britains most prestigious store. Molapo asked for a plane ticket for his wife, whom he
wished to send back to Lesotho against her will, and refused to refund it when I
discovered his duplicity. I despatched binoculars, digital watches (in those days a five
dollar watch could be sold for one hundred dollars in Lusaka), radios, forged Lesotho
government documents, books and other items. Unfortunately some couriers kept the
goods for themselves, justifying their theft to the BCP by claiming I was a Boer spy. I
gave 1,200 to Lira Rametse, a BCP academic for Plan C, to complement Plan A
(guerrilla war) and Plan B (a direct attack on Ratjamose). Leballo told me never to write
about Plan C. The LLA encountered entry problems in Botswana, which they ascribed
to the influence of Steenkamp, the permanent secretary in the office of the president.
Six LLA members were twice returned to Lusaka. Some used their local Lesotho
passports from Lusaka although they were only valid for travel in South Africa,
Swaziland and Botswana. The LLA field commanders had made journeys to Lesotho to
inspect infiltration routes. Letsie, an ex-PMU sergeant and Mapefanes subordinate,;
Moeketsi Sello, Tseliso Rapitsi and Samwel Lieta were aided in their work by Lefatle
Sello, who knew the Qoa-Qoa and OFS areas well from his dagga smuggling days.
Between 1974 and 1978 no significant work had been done to establish a staging post
in Botswana, partly because it has a small population and is mostly barren so any
abnormal activity is quickly noticed. Laws prevented non citizens buying farms and

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houses had to be rented. The LLA therefore briefly transited Botswana. Shakhane
Mokhehle had collected forged local documents from the Transkei, South Africa and
Lesotho. The LLA held Tanzanian travel documents in aliases. For example Mapefane
was known as Lod Mochoko. They travelled unarmed and it would have been
reasonable to assume, in a well organized exercise, that the LLA could have passed
through Botswana in a one day's transit and then have re-entered Botswana though
another check-point either on a forged document or as Lesotho refugees. In the event
the LLA arrived in Botswana in separate batches and were rushed through. There was
therefore no formal meeting of the LLA high command in Botswana before the LLA
began the infiltration. In fact no high command meeting took place at all because
Mapefane was on honeymoon in Tanzania. The LLA troops were sent to Qoa-Qoa, the
Transkei and Thaba Nchu. They had to regroup there and prepare for the attack on
Lesotho. Some weapons had been gathered, mostly old Lee-Enfields and an antique
elephant gun that exploded the second time it was fired. The LLA had received
instructions in making improvised munitions and Mafela in particular became
extremely proficient. They decided to follow their original plan of guerrilla warfare in
northern Lesotho, which they knew Lekhanya had already discovered. The strength of
the plan was that north-west Lesotho, from Butha-Buthe to Maseru was BCP territory
and relatively prosperous. It was bordered by Qoa-Qoa and was also near Welkom,
from where the Basotho miners could send supplies.
Regrettably, controversial party accounting before the 1970 coup escalated into a
major problem for the LLA and ultimately split the BCP into several parties after 1993
besides causing arrests and murders of prominent activists including Jama Mbeki,
Thabos brother. Shakhane Mokhehle was party treasurer and though junior to
Chakela, Mphanya, Makhakhe and Khasu he behaved as Ntsus deputy. Nevertheless,
as party treasurer he had the right to control finances. Having an incorruptible
leadership does wonders for morale and attracts idealists. However, whereas my
familys nemesis, the Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins 25 kept meticulous
accounts while evading British troops and police and even personally delivering weekly
payments on bicycle to the jailed republican leader De Valeras family, Shakhane
Mokhehle kept no accounts at all although he was safe from enemy raids in Gaborone.
The Mokhehles demanded that all funds for the LLA should be sent to Gaborone. This
25

I have huge respect for Michael Collins as a revolutionary leader but after the Irish Free State was
established in January 1922 (there is no official independence day) the large Protestant population in
County Cork was ethnically cleansed.

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was extremely inefficient because the Basotho miners had to hire a car to drive west
from Welkom and the Rand over a weekend to deliver the funds. The Mokhehles
would then decide how to use the money for troops operating east of Welkom. This
process was complicated by the Mokhehles reliance on acting party officials such as
Selatile and myself. When I sent Mokhehle thousands of pounds it went into his
personal account, of which party officials such as Mphanya were ignorant. Mokhehle
also confided in me that he relied heavily on criminal political sympathisers and
specifically referred to the brothers Moeketsi and Lefatle Sello, who dealt in illicit
diamonds and dagga. One of Mokhehles nephews also confirmed this to me. While
this might have been excused if the profits had been used for the war, I learned later
from my informants in Gaborone that from any early date Shakhane Mokhehle was
misusing the miners donations by gambling heavily and unsuccessfully in the
Gaborone Casino.
The LLA High Command was drawn from those younger members of the army
recruited by Nooe Liau. Apart from the dissident Malunga group, no member of the
LLA had been caught in South Africa before the high command crossed. Before they
crossed the high command quarrelled with Shakhane Mokhehle who kept no account
of the large amounts that began to pour in from 1978. His gambling was widely known
and confirmed by my wife (who rapidly learned Setswana and later fluent Shona) when
she decided to investigate his activities at the Gaborone Casino. He was also involved
in illicit diamond dealing and one day when I was scheduled to meet him I was hustled
away by his nephew, who reported that Shakhane was under interrogation by the
Botswana police for this. There were other reasons for hostility between the LLA high
command and Shakhane. Shakhane was a pragmatic Basotho politician with no
interest in South African revolutionary politics. He and Ntsu still had faith in Van der
Merwes offer to allow the LLA to cross South Africa and attack Lesotho. In retrospect
they may have decided to write off the LLA as being associated with Libya and PAC and
(as actually occurred) recruit new activists for training in the Transkei. The LLA leaders
did not know this and therefore did not understand why Shakhane was hindering their
plan to infiltrate through South Africa. Shakhane was ostensibly collecting donations
from the BCP miners on the Rand and Welkom to transit and supply the LLA. However
he was in fact waiting for Van der Merwe to do this for him and therefore did not wish
to hand over any funds. He also knew that if the LLA tried to infiltrate and were
captured by South African security services, it would indicate to Van der Merwe that
the BCP had no control over their troops. The LLA, angered at what they felt was

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embezzlement of funds, refused to take orders from Shakhane, telling him that in
Botswana he was junior to Mphanya, and they were not under the jurisdiction of any
corrupt sycophant who happened to have Mokhehles ear. I strongly suspect, given my
own later experiences when Shakhane tried to eliminate me, that Shakhane Mokhehle
betrayed the LLA commanders to the South African Police.
Moses Qhobela explained to me later that Mokhehle was using Moshoeshoes
nineteenth century strategy of throwing a bone between two powerful dogs meaning
he was playing off the Lesotho and South African regimes against each other. I think
Molapo was confusing Moshoeshoes strategy with Molapos great grandfathers
strategy of allying himself to the Boer republics to save his own skin. Ntsu Mokhehle
and Molapo should rightfully have been leaders of Lesotho (as they ultimately were in
1993) but in my view Mokhehles agreement with Van der Merwe and the entourage
of former senior CIA operative Ray Cline (see below) was an act far more shameful that
Molapo Moshoeshoes betrayal or Leabua Jonathans relations with Verwoerd and
Vorster. Whereas my views on Mokhehles treachery were dismissed by BCP members
as coming from a small boy who got a PhD out of us or a White man who does not
understand the Basotho, they dared not admit the alliance to Leballo and refused to
reply to requests to assist him.
The LLA high command crossed the border fence to make their way to a
rendezvous in Welkom. They travelled in separate buses and by train. In Welkom they
were to meet Basotho with cars to take them to Qoa-Qoa but instead walked into a
trap set by security police who had told to expect them. Chefolane, travelling by train,
was arrested on board and disappeared. In all, Letsie, the LLA commander-in-chief
(Mokhehle was supreme commander, Mapefane deputy supreme commander) his
deputy Chefolane, the deputy chief of staff Matela, the deputy chief of research
Mphahama, the deputy chief of intelligence Katse and twenty other LLA men were
caught. Apart from Chefolane, whose fate remained unknown, they were taken to
Pretoria, where they were held thereafter without trial. The BCP Transvaal Province
tried unsuccessfully to get them released.
Even if there had been no mismanagement, inappropriate training, betrayal and
corruption I do not believe a rural based guerrilla campaign launched by the Libyan
trained LLA would have succeeded. It is true that in 1979 the Lesotho Paramilitary
Force was not formidable. It relied on foreign instructors for the most basic
requirements and its personnel had spent most of its existence terrorising civilians.
However, unlike the LLA guerrillas, its troops had safe places to sleep, weapons,

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ammunition, food, water, transport, money and communications as well as informants

in the exiled BCP. I think that only a few young educated athletic BCP should have been
sent for foreign training and the party should have accumulated weapons locally and
found, as the PACs commander Templeton Ntantala did, means of smuggling other
weapons in from outside. The BCP should have used women and children extensively
to find out the habits and locations of the BNP/LPF hierarchy and when the time came
for action struck at them as well as the camp at Ratjamose in a single night. The
Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle, which sprayed bullets like a high powered hose, was a
superior weapon for close range night fighting than the LPFs FN SLR rifle, which was
designed for long range semi automatic firing. I knew both weapons and had fired
them on the LPF range with Lekhanya. However, assembling a force capable of
accomplishing these tasks would have required great attrition until a reliable hard core
was formed and a solution reached over dealing with the ubiquitous curse of
informants. This cannot be overstated and I recall the story told me by a Dutch friend I
knew, now a notable photographer, who used to visit Julie Hindmarsh in Lesotho and
later in the Bahamas. He said that his father was a decorated resistance fighter against
the Nazis and one night, when they were planning to attack, his father suddenly
discovered his best friend was a traitor. He immediately strangled him to death. Even
today, ninety years after the partition of Ireland into two states, the official files of
those years are closed because they would reveal who in the Irish government had
earlier been a traitor working for the British. According to Mphanya bus drivers in
Lesotho were often paid informers for the South African police; and in such open
th
terrain as Lesotho it was extremely difficult to work clandestinely. Whereas 19
century mountain guns had made the Basotho mountain forts indefensible, 20 th
century helicopters, radio and better roads made guerrilla warfare unsustainable.
In 1978 it was difficult to imagine what fresh horror would curse Lesotho but that
was the year that an even more satanic operative than Johann Van der Merwe set up
business in South Africa. His name was Ray Steiner Cline.

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CHAPTER NINE
I knew Dr Ray Cline from 1967/8 when his daughter Judy May (died of brain cancer
in 1999) had been my girlfriend at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London
University, where she had been studying Chinese and I was in my final year of African
History. She said her father was an embassy official in Bonn, West Germany, who
enjoyed reading the letters I sent her, and it was only in 1969 that I discovered he had
in fact been CIA station chief in Frankfurt. Judy ended our relationship because, in her
words, she did not believe in exploiting impecunious students. I bore her no ill-will
and never contacted her again but after I learned the truth about her father I followed
his career closely.
Dr Ray Steiner Cline (1918-1996) was the CIA head of intelligence for Korea who
disastrously miscalculated by predicting that the Chinese would not intervene in the
Korean War (1950-3). He did however foresee the Sino-Soviet split and was appointed
CIA chief in Taiwan (1957-62). In 1965 Cline was one of the leading candidates to
become head of the CIA and was disgusted with the appointment of Admiral William F.
"Red" Raborn whom he despised as an unintelligent and incompetent amateur.
Cline engineered Raborns removal in 1966 but although he did not take his place he
was eventually appointed as President Richard Nixons Director of the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (October 26, 1969 until November 24, 1973).
Ray Cline used his political contacts, particularly with the ousted Chinese leader
Chiang Kai-shek, who controlled Taiwan, to form the World Anti-Communist League.
This organisation became very rich and influential with backing from right wing
American and Christian groups as well as President Marcos of the Philippines, the
Korean CIA, members of the Japanese Yakuza criminal fraternity, and the Unification
Church of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who set up the newspaper Washington Times for
which Clines son- in law Roger Fontaine (Judys husband) and eventually Judys son
Matthew Fontaine worked. Clines younger daughter Sibyl married Stefan Halper, who
organised banking arrangements for President George Bush Seniors clandestine
Iranian and Nicaraguan Contra arms deals. In 1973 Cline retired from the US
government and in 1978 set up a headquarters in South Africa to support UNITA in
Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique. By that time Sibyl had divorced Halper and
married Major Robert Mackenzie, an obese incompetent American ex-Rhodesian
mercenary. Mackenzie had been wounded during a brief stint in Vietnam and
discharged from the US forces as being unfit for further military activity. His sympathy
with White racism and his fund raising for the Smith regime with the American right

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wing mercenary magazine Soldier of Fortune was enough to obtain a commission in the
Rhodesian Armys Special Air Service, a very inferior imitation of the real (British)
S.A.S., in which I served. Ray Cline made Mackenzie a fellow director on Clines
Washington based Global Strategy Council along with Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary
of Defence (1975- 1977) for President Gerald Ford, and US Secretary of Defence (20012006) for President George W. Bush; and Janet Morris, who was linked to
psychotronics - mind bending techniques. Sybil and Robert Mackenzie publicised the
cause of UNITA and RENAMO in Soldier of Fortune and MacKenzie was then appointed
deputy commander with the rank of Major of a clandestinely funded unit based in the
Transkei at Lusikisiki near Port St Johns where experiments were carried out on
dissident Africans to make them obey the White apartheid regime. This is where Ntsu
Mokhehle was eventually taken and from where the second LLA was directed. When I
heard that a second LLA had been recruited and trained by the South Africans I
disbelieved it at first because I reasoned that if it were true then Ratjamose would
have quickly been taken. The truth was that Mackenzie was in my opinion little more
than an ignorant thug lacking elementary military skills, who had obtained command
merely through patronage. His ineptitude later cost him his life in Sierra Leone.
Foolishly wandering ahead of his troops he was surprised and dismembered by child
soldiers, which, in the light of RENAMOs penchant for hacking off their victims limbs,
could be considered a case of karma.
Where extreme right American operatives linked to the U.S. Republican Party,
Christian Religious Right and C.I.A. destroyed the effectiveness and credibility of the
Lesotho Liberation Army, their Democratic Party opponents did likewise not only to
the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army but also to the Pan Africanist Congress itself.
U.S. Democratic Party President Jimmy Carter (1977-81) had decided to settle the
conflict in Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe) by convincing the South Africans to put
pressure on the Smith regime by terminating the rebel colonys oil supply. The South
Africans asked what benefit would accrue. The Americans said they would put pressure
on the ANC, PAC and African front-line states to abandon armed conflict with South
Africa and instead engage in dtente and dialogue.
It is not clear if Sibeko originally intended to oust Leballo or merely use his
American and Nigerian funding to push for a reformist line that fell short of dtente
and dialogue. I never met him but our Maoist American colleague, Stephen Burgess,
interviewed him for his PhD thesis and was also kept informed of U.S. policies through
his maternal uncle, Senator John Danforth. Leballo was a Pan Africanist who felt any

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activity in any African country was his business and this consequently made him an
unwelcome loose cannon in Tanzania, the pivotal country in the liberation struggle for
southern Africa. Leballo had lost much power in 1978 for his support for the LLA and
while there was truth in the accusation that APLA and PAC did not want the LLA to
start the war and thus upstage them, once the struggle had got underway Leballo
would have done his best to send in arms for both APLA and the LLA. His later career in
Zimbabwe confirmed this was the case. Sibeko knew this and because he opposed the
revolutionary line and needed Tanzanian and American backing he felt he had either to
curb Leballo or remove him. If Leballo embarrassed PAC again in diplomatic circles, it
might cost the party OAU recognition.
However, in May and June 1979 the PAC was shattered by three events. In May the
Tanzanians backed a coup against Leballo and his revolutionary line, while in June
APLA retaliated by killing Sibeko, Nyerere's nominee leader, and in South Africa,
Zephaniah Mothupeng, the PAC leader inside the country, was sentenced to fifteen
years imprisonment.
Leballo had quarrelled with Colonel Hashim Mbita, regarded by the PAC as venal
and corrupt. Leballo claimed Mbita, the Tanzanian executive secretary of the OAU
liberation committee, had demanded payoffs to use his influence to prevent the OAU
withdrawing recognition from the PAC. When Leballo refused, Mbita threatened him.
In October 1978 the Tanzanians commandeered the PACs military supplies for their
own use against Ugandan aggression. Leballo ostensibly believed that under the OAU
Charter a South African liberation group could not condemn one party in a dispute
between two African states. Privately he saw the war as a means of installing Nyerere's
friend Milton Obote to power against the wishes of most Ugandans. Therefore when
Nyerere requested him to condemn Amins aggression, he refused and strongly
demanded the return of his weapons. The Tanzanians were suspicious of Leballo
because of his previous links with the Ugandan military and his reputation as a Pan
African serial revolutionary intriguer who considered politics in any African country his
business.
The struggle within the PAC of the contending military and diplomat-reformist
factions was still unresolved. The Arusha conference had laid the framework for a PAC
revival. Leballo had the support of the army, while Sibeko controlled the funds and
excelled on the diplomatic circuit. However, as Burgess wrote, Affluence and
international contacts no longer satisfied the diplomatic group; it moved to

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consolidate control over the PAC in the face of the rising threat posed by APLA. Sibeko
was encouraged to oust Leballo.
APLA, on its part, were incensed by the stories about lavish parties, corruption and
contacts with politically suspect figures (Andrew Young), which surrounded Sibeko. In
late 1978 a commission of enquiry was convened, dominated by Sibeko's supporters,
notably Ngila Muendane, a future post-1994 secretary-general of the sell out PAC, to
investigate dissension in APLA. APLA was extremely hostile to Muendane. His
commission recommended a slowing down of the home going programme. The
Tanzanians, allying themselves to this reformist approach, increased patrols around
Chunya camp and removed APLA's weapons. In January 1979 Eddie Phiri was killed at
the Ruaha river bridge and the same month APLA elements were ambushed on the
West Rand. Leballo and Sibeko were informed by the Botswana authorities that
Douglas Mantshontsho had been intercepted on the phone telling the South African
authorities where to expect these forces. In February 1979 forty APLA cadres gate
crashed a Dar es Salaam party being held by the diplomatic group and badly beat the
revellers. The Tanzanians demanded that those responsible should be handed over but
Leballo, shielding them, announced they had been sent on a mission to South Africa.
This angered the Tanzanians but nobody in the reformist-diplomat group had the
courage to enter the Chunya camp to seek them out. On Sharpeville Day 1979 Henry
Isaacs got some revenge by having Leballo held hostage by twenty young refugees who
had refused to undertake military training. He persuaded them that Leballo had been
responsible for preventing them going for educational scholarships in West Germany.
An APLA force crashed on its way to rescue Leballo and four were killed. Leballo was
eventually released but his demand that the kidnappers should he shot was not
implemented. In April 1979 relations between the Tanzanians and Leballo's
revolutionary line reached a crisis. The Ugandan war and the Zimbabwe negotiations
were weighing heavily on the Tanzanians, whose tolerance of Leballo seems to have
finally snapped over the forty cadres who had badly beaten the PAC old guard. Leballo
was summoned and threatened by the Tanzanian minister of home affairs. This stormy
interview and advice from sympathetic high ranking Tanzanian officials persuaded him
that he was about to be detained or even killed. Meanwhile Mbita and other members
of the OAU liberation committee and Tanzanian hierarchy were preparing for Sibeko to
take over. Leballo's health was poor during 1978 and 1979. He had an operation for
piles at Morogoro, and still suffered from high blood pressure. He was still young for
his age and physically fit, but needed further medical treatment. In mid 1979 the PAC

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central committee agreed that it would be best for him to leave for further medical
treatment in London. The central committee met from 30 April to 1 May 1979 in Dar es
Salaam and decided to appoint a presidential council of three members of the central
committee, charged with the responsibility of fulfilling the chairman's duties. The three
members chosen for this task were Vusumzi (Vus) L. Make (administrative secretary),
David Sibeko director of foreign affairs), and Elias Ntloedibe (director of publicity and
information). The minutes of the meeting decreed that,
The Presidential Council will maintain regular contact and communication with the
Chairman of the Central Committee.
After Leballo's departure, the presidential council announced that he had resigned
and that the presidential council was in control of the party. The coup received
immediate support from the Tanzanians as it constituted a victory for their policy of
reformism and dialogue in the South African struggle. New African and other journals
accepted and publicised the story. Leballo was still undergoing medical treatment and
was unable to retaliate. Not so, APLA. APLA was still based at Chunya and did not
accept Leballos so-called resignation. The new intake of 300 Soweto and Cape
students fully supported Leballo, and the entire army refused to obey any order from
the central committee and the coup leaders. Money and supplies were therefore
terminated. The PAC finance officer in Dar supported APLA and allowed himself to be
waylaid and relieved of the pay roll by a Sowetan group in Dar after his visit to the
bank. The police were called in by Make and the new APLA commander, Justice
Nkonyane, was arrested and detained for a day. A central committee meeting was
called and Sibeko again recalled from New York. Sibeko met privately with the Soweto
group and then clashed with them at the PAC office, where according to Mapefane
they demanded more power and money. That evening Sibeko criticised the finance
officer for giving up without a fight and accused him of complicity in the snatch. Sibeko
spent the evening drinking heavily in various bars in Dar es Salaam and was tailed by
the Soweto group, who had heard that one of his threats had been to fix him up a
reference to Leballo for refusing to go quietly. Sibeko and Make reached the PAC flat
behind the Sea View Hotel around midnight and were there confronted by the APLA
militants demanding a meeting at Leballo's empty flat. Make, sensing danger, waddled
away from the door but Sibeko was gunned down. The Tanzanians arrested the
following members of the APLA high command: Justice Nkonyane, Moses Dlamini,
Mike Mkangwane, Donald Morwatshehle, Nzwandile Gumbi, Raymond Setsmedi, Sam
Ngombeni, Glenville Viliams, Jina Mthimkhulu, Richard Zakwe, Cedric Masters and

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Mfundu Njikelema. These were eventually released in May 1980. Also arrested were
Titus Soni, Daniel Monakgotla, Abraham Zwane, James Hlogwane, Shindo Mahlangu
and Ingram Mazibuko. These too were members of the APLA high command and went
on trial for the murder. Another member of the APLA High Command, Zola Vimba,
number six in the APLA hierarchy, escaped from the country. APLA remained in Chunya
and were later joined there by a score of comrades who had trained by the Khymer
Rouge in Kampuchea (Cambodia).
Leballo was now exiled from his army. He had originally hoped to play a part in the
attack on Lesotho. Mokhehle felt that Leballo was too old (he was actually 64 not 54 as
he claimed) and dangerous. After Leballo left Tanzania he again offered his services to
Mokhehle, who didn't reply. If Leballo had been part of any successful action in
Lesotho, he would have been a formidable political obstacle to Mokhehle. Mokhehle's
strategy for the war was at first to assemble the LLA in Qoa-Qoa, the Herchel area of
the Transkei, and Thaba Nchu in Bophuthatswana. From there the LLA would launch an
attack into Lesotho. He envisaged a people's war whereby the LLA would be sustained
by the civilian party membership in Lesotho, while arms and funds would be gathered
by the Basotho on the Rand and at Welkom. The LLA's first objective would be to gain
control of the mountainous areas and then move into the plains. But it was
inconceivable that the South Africans would permit the LLA to make significant
progress along such lines. Secondly the ANC/SACP were desperate to stop the LLA,
whose success would further damage the credibility of their political and military
theories, already reeling from events in Zimbabwe. Thirdly Leabua had demonstrated
that world opinion was easily deceived indeed wanted to be deceived if he
protested that South Africa was bullying Lesotho. Fourthly, Mokhehle couldn't see the
reality of the situation. He saw armed men in armed bases crossing to hostile territory
to win the population over and organise and supply them for the eventual overthrow
of the Leabua regime. But the LLA consisted of mostly extremely tough but elderly men
without weapons sheltering in various parts of the Bantustans. The first photographs
that came of the LLA in Lesotho and Qoa-Qoa showed the younger section dressed in
ordinary clothes with one or two rifles. The Basotho miners succeeded in stealing old
bits of explosives and also detonators. Some were even caught and jailed. When the
campaign commenced, the LLA possessed thirteen rifles, four of which, according to
Mokhehle, were AK47s dug up from an ANC cache in Botswana. Some of the
remainder were South African FNs (Rand 1s) but most were Lee-Enfields. Mokhehle
said that Afrikaner black marketers had cheated BCP supporters out of several

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thousand Rand. Apart from the ANC arms the rest had come from black market
dealings with tsotsis. Several LLA cadres knew how to make improvised explosives but
were presented with the problem of buying chemicals needed for the task. Such
purchases aroused suspicion. None of this supported the classic examples of peoples
war. The Basotho were hard pressed to feed the additional mouths, hide the guerrillas,
or get weapons from any source. No administrative structure could be built up in any
area claimed to be liberated. On the contrary the BCP structure shrank as the war
progressed. It was some time before Mokhehle realised that peoples war was out of
the question so long as he was unwilling to delegate authority. When this realisation
came, he refused to adapt and instead waged a gunman's campaign of assassination
and sabotage, which may have been a better choice of strategy in 1974 than the
Libyan training option. He would have done better to have accepted ZANU (PF)s
hospitality in Zimbabwe over Van der Merwes torture camps. It would have preserved
his international respectability and gained him superior allies than the inept Major
Mackenzie and his psych-op ghouls.
Initially there was considerable over-optimism about the war. The LLA and BCP
leadership despised the LPF and believed the campaign would take a matter of weeks
or months, rather than a year. Mokhehle never requested any military books, and
ignored the only one I pressed on him, Coup detat a practical handbook by Luttwak,
which was banned in many African countries. His reading remained confined to 19th
century research on Mohlomi and Moshoeshoe. Mapefane, a competent instructor,
did not accompany the LLA into Lesotho, and Mokhehle himself was still based in
Lusaka although until late 1979 he was able to spend three month periods as a visitor
to Botswana. The war was officially launched on 16 March 1979 when the LLA
dynamited and partly damaged the Phuthiatsana Bridge at Kolonyama. Public buildings
were destroyed and power lines sabotaged. The PMU gained an early victory in May by
surprising and killing almost a score of LLA men near the Transkei border. The LLA
retaliated by mauling a PMU column at Mapoteng, killing many troopers with a homemade form of napalm. Chief Maseribane's home and store were attacked near Mount
'Moorosi and he fled to Johannesburg.
The LLAs initial successes deeply disturbed the ANC/SACP. It would be very
damaging to allow a rag-tag self-supplied Panafricanist force to cross South Africa
unaided and take control of Lesotho. If Lesotho had a higher profile in world affairs
many would have questioned the ANC/SACPs earlier claims that Chakela had taken
control of the BCP and LLA. Totally unexpectedly, in what was an almost surrealist

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development, Leabua outmanoeuvred Mokhehle, suddenly transforming himself into

liberation struggle hero and successfully condemning Mokhehle as a puppet of
Pretoria. This was a consequence of Chakelas failed coup when the ANC/SACP advised
him to approach the BNP regime, which had by then realised that Chakela had no
support from the BCP or LLA. Nevertheless, the BNP decided negotiating with Chakela
would be a useful propaganda exercise firstly because he wanted to destroy
Mokhehle's credibility and secondly because Chakela was a far more credible turncoat
than Ramoreboli.
Chakela tried to prove that Mokhehle had long been an agent of Pretoria but none
of his evidence was of any merit. Strangely he did not mention the offer by Van der
Merwe to the BCP following the destruction of a PEMS Bible, perhaps because he
himself had taken part in negotiations. The ANC/SACP gave Chakelas claims wide
publicity and the international press soon equated LLA activity with South African
covert operations. Unfortunately the only front rank journalist to take an interest in
the BCP/LLA, Duncan Campbell, never published or publicised his findings. In 1997 he
told me that the reason had been sheer pressure of other work. In the mid 1970s
Campbell also went on trial in London for high treason. If Moses Qhobela Molapo, the
London representative, had not been so ineffectual, these stories could have been
squashed because at that time Mokhehle had not committed himself to Van der
Merwe.
Soviet bloc interest in Lesotho saw its first results with a visit by a Cuban delegation
at the beginning of June 1978. This was followed by a North Korean mission in June
1980. The outgoing South Korean instructor at the PMU speeded up his departure by
beating up three North Koreans in their hotel room. By the end of that year the BNP
regime had established diplomatic relations, mostly on a non-residential basis, with
seven members of the Soviet bloc including the Soviet Union and Bulgaria as well as
Cuba, North Korea and Mozambique. The Cubans and North Koreans certainly had no
illusions about the BNPs past but links in Lesotho were felt necessary to gain a
strategic position in the centre of South Africa. This immediately changed South
Africas attitude towards the LLA.
Leabua had annoyed the South Africans with his appeal to the United Nations in
1975 over an alleged border closure between the Transkei and Lesotho which he said
was ruining the Lesotho economy. The South Africans therefore acted ambivalently
towards the LLA. There had been a dispute within the BCP from the start of
recruitment. Shakhane Mokhehle wanted the LLA to be a local affair without

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Panafricanist ambitions. The younger participants such as Mafela and Mapefane

agreed with Leballo, also from Lesotho, that the LLA should participate in the guerrilla
war against South Africa.
The main result of ANC/SACP activity in Lesotho was the provision of military
equipment to the LPF and -allegedly training to troopers of the PMU in Mozambique.
Mphanya believed that there was a Catholic connection which brought the BNP
hierarchy into contact with the Mozambique government. In addition to ANC/SACP aid
the Sibeko group in the PAC, after Leballo's ousting from Tanzania in May 1979,
attempted to mend fences with the BNP regime. After Sibeko's death, Make's
secretary-general, Douglas Mantshontsho, arrived in Maseru in July 1980 for talks.
Despite the BNPs regimes shift communist alliances, Taiwan increased its links with
the BNP. Lesotho was becoming a political centre of some importance.
The BNP, which had seized power through the paramilitary in 1970, strengthened
its military support by transforming the PMU into the Lesotho Paramilitary Force (LPF),
almost into an army. High military rank was granted to the officer corps. Iranian jeeps,
Kia Honda motor cycles, South Korean uniforms and carbon-fibre helmets, Soviet bloc
small arms, Irish aircraft, West German helicopters and pilots, new camps (built by a
South Korean construction company), a UHF Motorola communications system,
foreign instructors, and military decorations were all supplied to the new force. Much
of it came from Taiwan, South Korea and Iran (during the Shahs regime) in order to
enlist diplomatic support. In addition, aid was utilised for the construction of roads and
improvement of airports to facilitate rapid military deployment.
In December 1979 the fighting in Lesotho escalated. The PMU had been dispersing
its troops throughout the northern mountains, keeping them supplied by helicopters
provided and piloted by West Germany. That month PMU atrocities were reported in
the Butha-Buthe area where the PMU was accused of killing 80 people by firing into a
crowd. More people were butchered for being in possession of the BCP anniversary
cards I had printed, and about seven hundred Basotho fled into South Africa where a
refugee camp was set up for them near Bethlehem. However in December 1979 the
South African correspondent of the prestigious British magazine The Economist,
displaying a lamentable knowledge of affairs by calling the Basotho Lesothans and
the BCP leader Ntsu Mokhele, wrote an article headed Marching from Pretoria. He
asked if it was possible that Mokhehle was,
now so weary of exile as to sup with the apartheid devil? Stranger things have
happened in Africa's convoluted politics.

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Mokhehle should have followed UK prime minister Margaret Thatchers example

and never bothered to read the papers. The Economist is a very expensive publication
and hardly read in southern Africa. Whereas Mokhehle should have ignored the article,
he had a thin skin and was angry at the insinuation that the LLA was South African
controlled (which later became the case). He consequently foolishly issued a press
statement declaring that his forces had been trained in Libya. This public statement
defending himself only jeopardised his refugee status in Zambia and Botswana and led
to catastrophe.
In February 1980 the LLA detachment in the north of Lesotho was ambushed at the
source of the Malibamatso River and fought a three hour battle before night fell.
According to Mapefane the LLA possessed only thirteen rifles, twelve of which worked,
while the PMU used a light machine-gun and called up reinforcements from the Oxbow
PMU camp by helicopter and on horse-back. The BNP regime reported that the area
had been invaded by three hundred members of the LLA from Qoa-Qoa, aided by the
South Africans. On 15 March 1980 Mokhehle was still stuck in Zambia and wrote,
"Today I was to have flown to Gaborone. But I am held back by non-arrival of my
visa. It seems there is a hitch over the matter in the meantime I am getting cables
demanding that I get there immediately. I am quite stuck - and not pleased by .the
attitude of the big people over there. I nevertheless hope to get there sometime next
week."
On 19 March Mokhehle published a letter in the Times of Zambia in order to
assuage Batswana and Zambian official displeasure. He declared that he had
overstepped the limits of my protected status, by acknowledging his role in leading
the LLA. He promised to stop political activities and discontinue his association with
the Lesotho Liberation Army. He took this humiliation badly and was only permitted
to visit Botswana at the end of the month for a few days, instead of the usual three
months. On 15 April he wrote from Lusaka,
"Chakelas lie that I am expelled out of Botswana has been exposed we heard this
over SABC/RSA yesterday and the Botswana High Commission here confirmed the
statement."
He concluded,
Well I am now cleared again both this side and that side I can go up and down
again at least theoretically the problem is just a visa for then I will come over.
However, on 6 May he wrote pessimistically again from Lusaka,

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My visa is obviously stuck totally. My hopes of getting to Gaborone are fading

slowly. The pity of it is that my work on the mountains needs me it seems..... Mike
(Mkhabela) is leaving for the mountains soon....Apart from winter clothing ammunition remains one problematic item that must be kept flowing in continuously
all else are urgent - but ammunition most With Requests from Maseru people in
Gaborone and here are becoming increasingly negatively disposed towards me
determined on behalf of Leabuoa to interfere with me. But my assessment is that they
are late..... If I could, I would shift from here and go either to the battlefields or nearer
the only nearer is Zimbabwe as it appears to me. I will nevertheless press
Botswana to come out with the truth of their intentions as for now it is neither no,
nor yes about my visa it is always come tomorrow. Someone arrived here in Lusaka
from Maseru. He told me that Gaborone and Lusaka were being pressurised by Maseru
to eject me from their places. I am inclined to believe it."
Mokhehle's position in exile was rapidly becoming untenable. The BNP regimes
protestations to Zambia and Botswana now carried more weight as the African states
of the region sought to draw Lesotho into new front-line arrangements for regional
co-operation and development. Mkhabela was sent south to explore the possibilities
of finding sanctuary for Mokhehle in the area of the Lesotho borderlands or among the
anarchistic Russian community of the Rand. Later in May 1980, shortly after I arrived
in newly independent Zimbabwe, Mokhehle disappeared.
By the time of his disappearance Mokhehle had established an unofficial war
cabinet composed of himself, Hlenyane Mike Mkhabela, Moeketsi Sello, Tsiu Selatile,
Naleli Ntlama and Shakhane Mokhehle. Access to Mokhehle could only be achieved
through his war cabinet colleagues. This and Mokhehle's subsequent actions
confirmed Selatile's statement that the BCP leader no longer accepted that he was
answerable to the party national executive committee.
Mapefane's marriage to a PAC girl in September 1978 had annoyed both Leballo
and Mokhehle. His new wife, a Mosotho educated at the University of Mogadishu,
suffered from epilepsy and Mapefane was diverted from his military work because of
her unfortunate problem. Mokhehle felt that funds might be used to treat Mrs
Mapefane instead of being used for party work. Mokhehle did not discipline him for his
marriage, which came at a most inconvenient time and made Mapefanes dedication
to the war suspect. Never a decisive leader, Mokhehle created yet another of his
running sore policies - he began to circumvent his deputy supreme commander.
After the expulsion of Leballo from Tanzania and the murder of Sibeko in mid 1979

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Mapefane felt his position becoming untenable because of his association with Leballo.
Selatile, his old school friend, was avoiding him. Selatile was also annoyed that he had
not been chosen to serve on the high command or as political commissar. Mapefane
left Tanzania for Lusaka. There was reluctance from Mokhehle and Selatile to define
his exact status but when a message came to Mkhabela in Lusaka ordering him to bring
down the remaining 21 LLA men left in Chunya camp, Mkhabela gave Mapefane the
task, as he had already been expelled from Chunya on a previous visit. The Rhodesian
forces had blown up the Tazara railway bridge across the Chambeshi River, so
Mapefane decided to get a bus from Mpika to Nakonde. At Mpika he barely escaped
lynching by a drunken angry mob that accused him of being a Rhodesian (they thought
that a White meant anyone light, and Mapefane was typical of many Nguni-Sotho
from Southern Africa in having a relatively light complexion) and was only saved by the
police who kept him in custody until the following day. He was carrying with him
K3,000 loaned by a Cape lady who was friends with Mphanya and Mokhehle and this
he left with an AME member in Nakonde on the border. Since he had to wait for a
permit to cross in Tanzania, he waited at Nakonde but was permitted to visit the post
office at Tunduma on the Tanzanian side of the border. By chance a clerk at the post
office knew the Mbeya official Mapefane needed to contact in order to alert the LLA
soldiers to his presence, and through his help Mapefane succeeded in getting the
leader of the remaining LLA troops to meet him at the border. This man warned him
that a man named Enoch Zulu, Make's APLA commander; Benedict Sondlo, Make's PAC
representative in Dar, and Naleli Ntlama were waiting for Mapefane at Mbeya railway
station to have him arrested. A Tanzanian plain clothes policeman had asked LLA men
questions about Mapefane and, when they expressed ignorance, were shown his
photograph. The LLA soldier felt it was dangerous for Mapefane to cross the border
officially, and madness to go to Chunya. The twenty-two LLA soldiers arrived at
Tunduma without Ntlama, who had sent a message asking for a ticket, apparently
hoping to lure Mapefane into Tanzania. The group ignored his request, collected the
money for fares from the AME sympathiser, and went south. Despite his training and
competence as an instructor, Mapefane was frightened of combat to such an extent
that he never reached Lesotho. When he arrived in Gaborone the war had already
been in operation for nine months. He still held the rank of deputy supreme
commander and was therefore expected to go to Lesotho and take control. Witnesses
said that when he crossed the wire into South Africa he shook with fear and thereafter
was terrified of capture by the Afrikaners because of the treatment they would give

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him for his association with Leballo. He set up residence with a girl in Welkom and
contented himself with listening to Radio Lesotho. He sent two boys into Lesotho
unprepared and ill directed to sabotage a bridge, complaining afterwards that they had
been stupid because they had taken shelter with an aunt. He himself never crossed
into Lesotho to join the struggle.
By the beginning of 1980 the Basotho miners were donating R1,500 a week to the
war effort, but little was filtering past Gaborone. Mapefane met the LLA commanders
on 8 February and wrote a report for Gaborone on the 20 May. He listed two main
problems,
a) The lack of money to feed the increasing number of men and to move the
forces to various places of operations.
(b)) The lack of transport to move material; to connect and co-ordinate key points;
to rally our scattered commanders to urgent meetings at short notice and to ferry men
on their different missions."
Then he stated the overriding concern,
"The other problem that has been worrying our forces even before my arrival is the
serious shortage of weapons and ammunition. The seriousness of this shortage is
clearly expressed in their confronting me thus: " Your arrival is not a solution to our
problems because you are not guns, we need guns." They also remarked that they
were surprised that I, as their Political Co-ordinator and Deputy Supreme Commander,
did not bring with me even R1.00 while their immediate problem was to feed me and
the other new arrivals.
Mapefane then outlined the military position. He believed that the LLA would
probably not be able to surprise the enemy very often. The PMU had aerial supremacy,
and movement across open country was difficult. The enemy had superior
communication, in fact, because of radio and transport there was no comparison.
Mozambique appeared to be training the PMU and the ANC might even be serving in
their ranks. Mapefane continued, Our revolution cannot survive on smuggled
weaponry from tsotsis. This is true because all the ammunition that had been collected
from them over a long period of time at a high cost, got finished in a single battle that
lasted for three hours (Malibamatso). During this long period of time the number of
rifles collected from these gentlemen at fantastic prices is appalling. One can hardly
arm a section with them.
Mapefane then traced the deteriorating situation in which Leabua was being
invited to join the front-line states to the LLAs detriment and pointed out that

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Mokhehles forced recantation of being the leader of the LLA was proof of the pressure
on the BCP as a whole. He also believed that the Afrikaners would soon sweep QoaQoa and the Transkei where the LLA had managed to find shelter, and thus snuff out
the whole war with an unexpected campaign, of which they had no way of obtaining
prior knowledge. He suspected that the ANC would deliberately bury a cache of arms
in either or both these areas and entice the Afrikaners into discovering them, thus
making them sweep the area looking for insurgents. He insisted that the LLA get guns
in sufficient quantities immediately to enable them to establish themselves inside
Lesotho and resist the enemy instead of adopting hit-and-run tactics He urged the
supreme commander to search out a sympathetic government, even for moral support
alone:
It is with this support that we can effectively combat the Russians who have
suddenly taken sides with our enemy......If a country does not offer us military aid, it is
better if it does not prevent us from storing our material in its territory and ferrying it
through that territory.
Having reiterated the lack of food, transport and weapons hampering the LLA's
movement, he concluded,
It is Important to note that the few ageing soldiers we have are a nucleus upon
which we must build a people's army. Using them without any new reinforcements is
running a risk of the total annihilation of Lesotho Liberation Army by a slow process.
We must not lose sight of the fact that the opportunity they had of undergoing training
abroad can no longer be obtained for training new forces.
Mokhehle was irritated by this report. He had ordered Mapefane to open a base in
Lesotho. Instead Mapefane had advanced no further than Welkom, although he later
pretended that he had seen action against the LPF. Mapefane had also sent out a
circular in February 1980 to all the BCP constituency secretaries in South Africa urging
that the people should be thanked for their work they had already accomplished in
raising funds and providing help for the LLA. He wrote that they should then be told
that a big drive for further funds was needed in order to buy weapons and sustain the
LLA in the field. He took care to be extremely diplomatic in this circular and the
constituency secretaries and party members welcomed it, saying that they this was
just the sort of directive they have been waiting for. The Mokhehles, especially
Shakhane, were angered at the implication of this circular. Mapefane wanted funds
and supplies to go directly to the LLA. At that time a van was leaving the mines for
Qoa-Qua with food every week. Bullets were a Rand each, rifles between R150 and

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R1,000. However, funds had first to go to Gaborone. This meant the miners had to hire
a car to make the journey to Botswana over a weekend. The whole exercise was based
on the policy of controlling all party and military activities through allocation of funds
by Mokhehle. His political career had been plagued by attempts to overthrow his
leadership or break up the BCP. It was not unreasonable to keep a firm grip on funds
but by doing so he forgot, or had no wish to bear in mind, the reasons why the party
had brought him victory in 1970 and was staying by him in the war. The leadership
attempts had come from the hierarchy sick of the corrupt and psychopathic behaviour
of Shakhane or from agents paid by the SACP, not from the local level. The BCPs
golden era was when its hierarchy was in parliamentary opposition but its membership
ran the highly successful district councils. The strength of the Basutoland Congress
Party was never its leadership but its middle and lower levels of organisation. It is
extremely frustrating to examine the financial and party administration of the BCP
from 1960-70 and then see the primitive efforts to run the war in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. LLA members may have angrily exclaimed that they were fighting for
themselves not Mokhehle but that was an expression of frustration or isolated
ambition not a real issue. Mokhehle could have sat out the war as a university lecturer
in the USA or night-watchman in Britain (if you get exiled, dont bother with Britain!)
and still have been respected in Lesotho as the only national and party leader. He and
Shakhane, whose behaviour eventually forced both of them out of the BCP in 1997,
felt they had to control the funds in order not to let the conflict run away from them. If
a guerrilla leader of ability and independent mind emerged, he could be cut down by
freezing supplies. If he tried to act on his own initiative collecting weapons and funds,
the word could be sent out that he sold out and, as Lebenya and Nteso discovered in
1970, support would immediately evaporate. Mokhehle did not wish to see a
Tongogara emerge as in Zimbabwe. But in keeping a tight near-paranoid control on the
war, the Mokhehles wasted the innovative and cooperative spirit that had made the
BCP such a powerful force. In summary they had no faith in the abilities and goodwill
of their own membership and the handful of their foreign supporters.
When Mapefane came to Gaborone in May 1980, he first met criticism from
Mokhehle on the February circular. The BCP leader said the circular made it look as if
they were not trying hard enough. He then quarrelled with Mapefane over strategy
Mapefane said that arms were needed to equip four platoons. These should be divided
between north and south Lesotho. One platoon in each area would be split into small
units, with the complete platoon coming up as a rearguard, providing food and training

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to new recruits. I have no idea why he proposed this strange arrangement but
Mapefane did insist that each attack, each move, each retreat, each piece of piece of
sabotage should be part of a plan that would be advanced with each piece of activity.
Whatever the LLA did must be done so as to gain it an advantage. Mokhehle disagreed.
Unable to use anything more than a pistol, and totally unread and untrained in any
aspect of military doctrine, he defended the idea of hit-and-run as a means in itself. It
appeared to Mapefane that Mokhehle wanted to use the LLA as an irritant to show the
BNP that he was capable of causing disruption. If the disruption could not be
terminated, the BNP would have to talk. In such a scenario the LLA was to be used
solely as a means of making disturbances. Given the circumstances, this was at least a
realistic strategy.
However, Mokhehle did not present this as an option for the LLA. The LLA would
not have accepted his argument that their work should be secondary to political
pressure because Mokhehle believed the objective of defeating the LPF through
guerrilla warfare was a fantasy. Mokhehle refused to allow the LLA to collect arms or
money. His short stay in Botswana was now over and he returned to Lusaka telling
Mapefane to submit his report to him there or to Shakhane, who was deputising for
Mokhehle in Gaborone. Mapefanes report of 20 May resulted in ostracism. Shakhane
ordered the LLA field commanders not to meet Mapefane, and told Mkhabela, Lieta,
Lebohang and Sekotlo to ignore his orders, should he give any. Mapefane met Liau and
Lebenya, both of whom were still living in Gaborone, and discussed the idea of
approaching the newly independent state of Zimbabwe.
Mokhehle had approached both Nkomo and Mugabe for arms during the
Zimbabwe war and both had assured him arms would be forthcoming once the fighting
was over. Mapefane and others felt that the LLA should press for arms in the vital
transition stage during the cease-fire and the gathering of the guerrillas in the
assembly camps. However, Mokhehle, again indecisive, made no move and the
moment passed.
On 6 June 1980 the last battle of the first stage of the war took place at Liqobong.
According to Mapefane the LLA burned nine houses which were being used by the LPF.
LPF reinforcements arrived and used a Soviet rocket launcher against them. The LLA
stayed the whole day fighting without any food or water. After fourteen hours they
withdrew, killing their wounded. The bodies of nine LLA soldiers were taken to Maseru
along with captured weapons, including FNs bought from the tsotsis who had
originally got from them from South African army sources. The weapons were

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displayed as proof that the LLA were supplied by South Africa and were even taken to
Maputo to be shown to the Soviet and other ambassadors and representatives. By the
time of Liqobong, Mokhehle had been underground for less than a month. His May
visit to Botswana had prepared the way for his intended entry to Lesotho via South
Africa. Selatile stated that Mokhehle had left Gaborone between 7 and 13 June to take
direct command of the LLA, yet Liqobong took place on 6 June.
Mokhehle himself wrote on 18 July that he had been waiting for six weeks in an
undisclosed place to enter Lesotho, yet the events of 2 July 1980 indicate that he was
in Gaborone. On that day Mapefane was summoned to Liau Studio where Shakhane
Mokhehle read a letter from Mokhehle, who normally stayed in the house opposite
the studio while in Gaborone. Mapefane was told that no comment could be made on
the contents of the letter and he could ask no questions. The letter was a two page
dismissal, dated by hand and stamped by Mokhehle for that day, 2 July, but addressed
from Maseru, Lesotho. There was little doubt that Mokhehle was in Gaborone and
probably just across the street from Liaus studio. The letter said that Mokhehle had
discovered that in other armies there was no position of deputy supreme commander
and accused Mapefane of talking to enemies of the Party (Lebenya and Liau). If
Mokhehle had chosen to dismiss Mapefane for military failings and indiscipline the
matter would have ended there but this further example of running sore policies
enabled Mapefane to use the letter to show sympathisers how affairs were
deteriorating in the party. Mokhehle did not ask Mapefane to hand over the
intelligence material gathered by the LLA, nor did he request me to supply duplicates,
only works on Moshoeshoe and Mohlomi. I had visited Mokhehle in March in Lusaka,
where Mkhabela was about to get married. Mokhehle continued to keep in touch
stating that he was in Lesotho. However the date of his letters and the Gaborone post
mark on the envelopes sometimes indicated otherwise all his letters were posted
either from Lusaka or Gaborone. His letter of 18 July 1980, date stamped by the party
on 22 July, was sent to Lusaka for posting and therefore franked on 31 August.
However, his letter of 8 October was franked in Gaborone on 9 October. He would
therefore have probably been in Gaborone during that time. On 31 October 1980
Selatile wrote from Dar es Salaam, which he had never left since 1978, to this writer,
"....... I can formally declassify (because I was awaiting some signal)..... Mokhehle
is at Thaba Bosiu (meaning Lesotho) directly commanding LLA and
Mahatammoho.....ask me no questions, but I knew all the time that he was neither in

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Lusaka nor Gaborone as from 7-13 instant....I can warn you not to announce - either to
Mokhehle or anyone - because youll interfere with our further scenarios."
Selatile extolled Mokhehle saying he alone,
"actually understands the political ideological content of our war doctrine."
These pronouncements produced a caustic response and Selatile replied: Believe
me, (Mokhehle) is on, or is on his way back from, the Hills - that information was
classified....We did it because we wanted on-the-spot inspection. That goes to prove
the efficiency of our organisation compared with our opponents who dont know,
don't believe, and still doubt our organisational ability. We did it, therefore we know
he was there.
Burgess, the American researcher on the PAC and Africanist Movements, once
compared the PAC and BCP's duo of deviatory theoreticians, noting
Unlike Selatile, Makoti deals with reality.
Mokhehle's letter of 29 October was franked in Gaborone on the 22nd November
indicating that Mokhehle had probably left Gaborone, but not necessarily Botswana.
This letter was followed by others dated 5 December (franked Gaborone 11
December), 15 February 1981 (franked 16 February Gaborone), 7 March (Gaborone
indecipherable franking), 16 April (21 June Gaborone), 22nd May (4 June 1981
Gaborone). The latter four letters were all addressed from "MTG" meaning the
mountains of Lesotho. While it was clear that Mokhehle was in Gaborone on 15
February, it seems he was not there before and after that date. Further confirmation
that Mokhehle was in Gaborone in early 1981 came from Miss Ntsekhe, daughter of
Dr. Ntsekhe, Mokhehle's friend, who had been taken by Mkhabela and Ntlama to see
Mokhehle outside Gaborone during her way back to the University of Nairobi.
Mokhehle also received the first two volumes of my PhD thesis in draft form in
October 1980. His responses indicated access to books and papers. In December 1980
Lefatle Sello telephoned Leballo from Harare asking for news of Mokhehle since the
three Bantustan based LLA contingents had no information about him. In June 1981
Qhobela Molapo admitted that Mokhehle was still in Botswana but was pretending to
be in Lesotho for purposes of morale. Mokhehles age, poor health, troublesome
eyes, and inability to eat without pain ruled out any activity in Lesotho. Mapefane
stated that. Mokhehles long standing application for Botswana residence was in fact
granted in April 1981. Mokhehle also needed frequent medical attention and it was
noted that his doctor daughter was posted to Maun in northern Botswana at the time
of his disappearance. It took me years to discover the truth and then not all of it.

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There is an enormous amount of information that has yet to be revealed about the
more sinister moments in Southern African history in particular South Africa,
Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Much of it concerns torture, corruption, brutality, murder and
betrayal. The South African government has every opportunity to reveal what
happened to Ntsu Mokhehle, what he did and who encouraged him to do it. From
Ntsukunyane Mphanyas confessions it is now known Ntsu Mokhehle was led to
believe by Shakhane, Lefatle Sello and others that it was safe for him to cross into
South Africa and liaise with Van der Merwe. Mokhehle probably expected to meet high
ranking South African officials for discussions but from his own account and other
reports the arrangements were completely bungled. Mokhehle at first skulked in the
karoo and then in a farm shack near Zeerust, where he claimed he stayed for eighteen
months. After that Moeketsi Sello arranged for him to be handed over to low level and
extremely ignorant Afrikaner security personnel, who didnt even know his correct
name, at a farm facility in or at Vlaakplas, where captured guerrillas and other
dissidents were held and tortured.
After the BCP took power in 1993 damning testimony came from Teliso Rapitse
(1942-2004) a highly respected LLA guerrilla from Leballos home village of
Lifelekoaneng. Rapitses allegations were given even greater credibility when
Mokhehles government tried to stifle them. Rapitse said that Mokhehle worked with
South African security and had a death squad that dealt with dissidents and carried out
assassinations. Mokhehle also carried out interrogations of suspected agents as they
were being tortured. Consequently he was no longer referred to as Ntsu (eagle) but
Nongkholo (Vulture in Chief). Other former LLA personnel confirmed through the
media organisation Moafrika that the South Africans arranged for the second Lesotho
Liberation Army to be trained under Mackenzie at Lusisikisi.
Mokhehle's disappearance had severe repercussions for the party as a whole. His
withdrawal from contact with anyone but girlfriends and the war cabinet enabled him
to concentrate on the war without external interference or internal criticism. The
quality of the war cabinet alienated many party supporters and sympathisers, whose
help would have been forthcoming if Mokhehle had dealt with them directly or
through more acceptable representatives, such as members of the NEC. Few, if any,
could take the war cabinet seriously. My wife commented that they were,
"a lot of mangy old men and loud little boys."
Selatile's statements spoke for themselves. In June 1980 he wrote,

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"So far, Jonathan has lost close to 1,000 according to Hill's statistics, while the Hills
have lost approximately 25.
On 31 October 1980 he declared,
".......the enemy's rear Lesotho lowlands has to be organisationally destabilized
even the more because now, having freed the Hills, we're beginning to operate in the
decisive and more populated areas."
Shakhane Mokhehle humiliated the woman sympathiser whose loan of K3,000
helped enable Mapefane to bring down the last 21 LLA members. When she arrived in
Gaborone looking for shelter Shakhane drove her away with abuse and she was taken
in by the Mosotho wife of Cliff Meyer, a refugee SACP journalist. I arrived in Gaborone
with my wife to do my best for the party and had sent US $1,056 ahead to secure
accommodation for. On arrival no explanation was at first forthcoming about this
payment. Eventually it was revealed that the money had been used to pay rent for
Mokhehles mistress, a Botswana postal worker, who bore him a son in 1981.
Shakhane offered me the same house for $4,000 although the rent had already been
paid. Selatile had already sent a telegram for me to buy a house for P45,000 and then
took Shakhane's side when I complained of Shakhane's corruption and expressed
doubts about the BCPs seriousness about waging a war when it wanted to spend such
an enormous amount on a house in Botswana. Selatile defended this request by
claiming that the house would have been for me but I knew Botswana law would not
have permitted such ownership. Besides, the telegram had merely demanded that the
money should be sent at once without any conditions. My funds were almost finished.
My distance education college was no longer a business option as my assistance to the
BCP combined with Nigerian currency laws and the decline of the Nigerian naira to
cause applications to dry up. When I protested about the corruption in Gaborone to
Mokhehle, the BCP leader remained silent. I had been acting BCP representative in
Britain and Ireland in 1976 because Qhobela Molapo had lost interest between 1970
and 1977 and had done some considerable political, military and other services for the
party. However, Selatile explained to me that since I was not a member of the party, I
had made a mistake by complaining about a party matter.
I was now the target of considerable attention from the host of BCP members in
Gaborone alienated by Shakhane. They wanted my night-sight to establish themselves
as a power within the party and the LLA. My work in rescuing the LLA and ability to
raise funds were well known and resulted in a stream of people visiting me, bragging
of their influence in the party. Next came Shakhanes denunciation of me as a CIA spy. I

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had told him about the documents I had seen in Lekhanyas safe. He was immediately
deeply shaken and the next day nobody in the yard at Liau Studio would talk to me
because he had told everyone I was working for the CIA.
It was pointless to remain in Gaborone. Originally in 1977 I had requested
Mapefanes permission to be in the LPF camp when the LLA planned to launch a
decisive attack I was still prepared to carry out the mayhem on the LPF hierarchy I
had offered to do for Kolisang in 1970, but Mapefane refused. I was in deteriorating
health so my wife and I made our way to Selebe-Phikwe where Mphanya had used a
500 gift from me to establish a successful store. In increasing pain I declined
Mphanya's invitation to stay to work with him in business and passed on to enter
Zimbabwe ten days after dependence. There an emergency operation saved my life
from malignant intestinal cancer. My wife got a job as a hospital pharmacist and
learned fluent Shona in three months. Our son was born in January 1981. Leballo was
lodging with us and became his godfather, also choosing his name. His godmother was
the pharmacist sister in law of General Erich Mielke, the Minister for State Security in
East Germany (Stasi)26.
In August 1980 Mokhehle appointed Godfrey Kolisang as secretary-general and
Thabane as deputy leader of the BCP. Selatile explained these appointments by the
need for rather efficient administrators of technical business now the LLA was, as he
put it, taking over parts of the country. He continued, Superficially (these
appointments)...... strengthens the old guard, but actually that's a shrewd tactic
which we deliberately refrained from taking between 1977-9, that is before the boys
were dug in to the hills, and were only taking now to further the strategic goal of
military-political disintegration of the Kingdom of Lesotho.....weve absolutely no
illusions about Kolisang's weakness on national security - all we want is the good and
efficient clerk that he is to execute assignments. The philosophizing and designing and
hypothesization are ours, and must remain so.
Whatever the reasons for appointing Kolisang to his old position, the exercise was
not a success. Immediately the appointments were made, the internal wing of the BCP
came under pressure from the LPF and BNP, in particular Leabua, Lekhanya, Matela
and General S. Molapo, head of national security services. These wanted the BCP to
dissociate the party from the LLA, issue directives to cease aid to the same, and publish
this widely. Kolisang, Motlamelle and other leading members of the BCP were

26

The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium fr Staatssicherheit (MfS)) the Secret Police

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imprisoned near Machache Mountain. Kolisang, in an attempt to appease his

tormentors, issued a statement on 12 October demanding to know how the LLA had
come into existence, since there was nothing in the party constitution to justify the
creation of such a force. He quoted the following sections of the party constitution to
prove his case: (i) 2 (a) (h); (ii) 3 II (a) and (b); (iii) 4 (f); (iv) 9 (b); (v) 10(a)-(d); (vi)
21(a) (b) (d) (e) and (f). Kolisang's choice of sections of the BCP constitution was as
unfortunate as that of Chakela. He probably calculated (correctly) that his persecutors
were too ignorant to work their way through the sections he mentioned. Among the
sections he quoted were (I) 2 (a):
The aims and objects of the BCP shall (be) to fight for the freedom of Africa
including Lesotho (g) to co-operate with all African movements whose aim is to put an
end to oppression in all its forms and whose policies are not inconsistent with those of
BCP." Kolisangs main argument seems to have been that the NEC did not formally
meet to agree upon the founding of the LLA. Although talk about constitutional affairs
was nonsense in Lesotho after the 1970 talks when the BCP adhered to the Lesotho
constitution, whereas the BNP did not, there was danger in 1980 that the BCP would
be banned. This would have caused immense hardship to BCP members in the country.
Kolisang and Motlamelle were then sent to see Mokhehle. In Gaborone, Shakhane
informed them that Mokhehle was in Lusaka,, but on arrival there in November 1980,
they were ingenuously told by Daniel Masiu, an asthmatic engineering student who
had had to leave the USSR because of his ailment, that Mokhehle was hiding near
Gaborone. For Kolisang this was the last straw. He went on to Nairobi to attend a
Christian Churches Conference while Motlamelle returned to Lesotho. The homebased BCPs morale was considerably harmed by Shakhane's contemptuous action,
although he was probably acting on instructions from Mokhehle himself. Other
depressing news arrived saying that Mapefane's successor, Lieta, had been dismissed
as LLA commander by Mokhehle. Another blow followed with Mafela's capture. There
was a fear among the LLA cadres that Mokhehle was using then for prestige, as
Mapefane put it, look, I have an army, you can't do anything about it while at the
same time giving them the most meagre supplies. He also interfered in their conduct
of the war, frequently recalling the leaders to dismiss or promote them. P. Sello, the
political officer whose job was to co-ordinate activities with the party (he had
succeeded Mapefane in this role) was dismissed and sent a threat to Shakhane: When
we meet again, one of us will not remain alive. He was succeeded by Ntlama, who
organised an attack in the Mafeteng area with totally untrained men, whom he

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doctored and then abandoned when they went into action. Not unnaturally BCP and
LLA members, frustrated by Mokhehles circumvention of the party machinery and
unavailability, turned to Leballo when he arrived in Zimbabwe in late 1980.
After David Sibeko had been shot by APLA soldiers, the Tanzanians announced that
the PAC should be led by Vus Make. Make central committee consisted of himself as
chairman, Elias Ntloedibe, Henry Isaacs, Edwin Makoti, Count Petersen, Eret Radede,
Douglas Montshontsho, Enoch Zulu, Ngila Muendane, and Elisabeth Sibeko. Make,
Isaacs, Ntloedibe, Makoti, Radebe and Elisabeth Sibeko had been members of Leballo's
central committee. Enoch Zulu was appointed commander of APLA, despite only six
weeks of military training in Egypt.
The Chunya massacre and the regrouping in Zimbabwe
On 11 March 1980 a detachment of TPDF under Matiko, now a colonel, arrived at
Chunya camp to force APLA to support the Tanzanian backed leadership of Make.
Nkonyane had borne the brunt of resistance to Sibeko and Make's coup after Leballo's
departure, but in March he and most of the leadership were in detention.
Nevertheless the APLA soldiers refused to follow Make. An argument ensued and
Matiko ordered his troops to open fire on the assembled parade of unarmed men and
women. Nine were killed immediately, and two died later. Over ten more were
wounded. Some were cared for by ZANU's military wing ZANLA at Ngagau in Iringa
region. A few of the wounded women were evacuated to Nigeria. APLA, which
numbered about 500, was split up into camps and settlements at Morogoro, Bukoba,
Iringa, Tabora and on the Wami River. Leballo continued to oppose the Tanzanians
manipulation of his party but Tanzanian control of the OAU liberation committee and
Nyerere's prestige as an elder African statesman made it a relatively simple exercise
for the Tanzanians to exert pressure on governments in Africa to whom Leballo
appealed for help. Sierra Leone (July) and Nigeria (September) both expelled him in
accordance with Nyereres demands. Kenya denied him entry. The Tanzanians
remained nervous of his influence. Mapefane was obviously suspected to be part of an
attempt by Leballo to contact APLA, hence the presence of Zulu and Sondlo at the
border. At the end of 1980 Leballo visited Zimbabwe twice. He held inconclusive talks
with Ntantala and was given permission, through the personal intervention of ZANU
(PF) secretary-general, Edgar Tekere, to stay in the country as long as he wished.
Tekere fatally damaged his political standing with the rising London Club
conservative wing within the party through his involvement in the murder of an elderly
white farmer. His influence declined even though he was acquitted on a technicality.

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Leballos funds were soon exhausted and my wife and I fed him and gave him a room
in our apartment when his seemingly irretrievable political position caused his
Zimbabwean "friends" to melt away.
Mapefane had arrived in Gaborone from Lusaka the day after I left for the
Zimbabwe. My wife and I at first rented a house in a Harare suburb and wrote
repeatedly to Mokhehle offering to pay his travel expenses and house him if he would
come to talk to the new ZANU (PF) government about the military assistance promised
before independence. I also asked Mokhehle for authority to approach the ZANU (PF)
government should the BCP leader be unable to come. These letters were kept from
Mokhehle by Shakhane but eventually one did get through. I had noted that
Rhodesian-made submachine guns were selling off at the Farmers Cooperative for
Z$50 each. Mokhehle responded enthusiastically asking me to buy as many as possible.
I had already explained procedures about buying weapons, saying that as a visitor to,
not a resident of, Zimbabwe I could not purchase them. If Mokhehle had been given a
permit to buy weapons (through political influence) at least funds could be raised for
these primitive but effective guns. I explained the position again but Mokhehle did not
act. Correspondence then became strained as Mokhehle evaded or ignored the matter
of party corruption and misuse of the funds. By this time I had no faith left in
Mokhehles ability to run the war, because he was either unable or unwilling to
restrain or break free of Shakhanes destructive influence. Angry with Selatiles
cowardice, ineptitude and pontificating, I told him to choose between the truth and
lies. If Selatile believed Shakhanes accusation that I had all the time been a South
African agent, then he should break off correspondence with me. Selatile never wrote
again. In London I had seen Molapo squander the 3,000 I had given him for party
work on consumer luxuries and heavy drinking. I had paid for Molapo and Mphanya to
fly to the USA to look for contacts at the United Nations, the US Congress and among
Pan African groups. When some US congressmen arrived in Gaborone to meet
Mokhehle, a result of the visit, Shakhane convinced Mokhehle it was a CIA trap and no
meeting took place. The entire enterprise had been initiated by Mokhehle himself and
he seemed to care nothing for the waste in effort and funds that such vacillation
caused. I found corruption and self-seeking everywhere. Clothing bought for
Mphanya's family was stolen by Mkhabela, who also sold the 5 digital watches I had
given the party for K100 but used the profit to buy crates of gin at 12 a bottle. I
entrusted a Zambian named Bulala with goods for Mphanya when the Zambian left
Britain but the man kept them all for himself, justifying the theft on the grounds that I

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was obviously a Boer spy. When my luggage arrived in Gaborone, Shakhane hid the
postal note announcing its arrival. The luggage was returned and disposed of in a
customs sale in Kenya. I lost all my reference books and my BCP correspondence for
1979.
By the time I went to Zimbabwe I still believed in Mphanyas political sincerity, and
it was from Mphanya that the next move came. Mphanya allied himself with Jama
Mbeki, the lawyer brother of the ANC leader Thabo Mbeki. Jama Mbeki was
determined to overthrow Leabua and raised ten thousand pula to buy arms for the LLA
in Zimbabwe. Mphanya in a later book described Mbeki as chief of LLA intelligence but
this was not his official position. Mokhehles failure to dismiss Mapefane for legitimate
reasons still gave Mapefane standing in the party as a competent soldier who had
been sacked for trivial reasons ("No such position exists in other movements.).
Mapefane contacted me in Harare in late 1980. I still hoped that Mokhehle would act
so I was willing to see at least one person in the BCP hierarchy who wanted the war to
escalate. Mapefane had however changed dramatically. He had straightened his long
hair and spent an inordinate time preening himself delicately with nail scissors and
dabbing himself with perfume. He had tired of his new wife, whom he described as
ugly and sick, and was looking for girlfriends and expensive liquor. Mapefane and I met
Leballo at the annex of the Caves Hotel. Zola Vimba of the APLA High Command was
also in the city as were scattered elements of the PAC and APLA including Rocks
Buqwana and Pule Gaelisiwe, who had been trained pilots in Nigeria. Mapefane and I
prepared background papers on the Lesotho conflict for the ZANU (PF) secretariat.
Mapefane claimed he approached ZANU (PF) politicians for arms, including Richard
Hove, the minister of home affairs, but subsequent developments revealed that this
was not so. Mapefane had tired of military affairs and was in search of the good life.
He brought his wife and infant daughter to Harare, so the former could receive medical
treatment. Next he visited the Libyans and lied saying I was charging him rent then
used their funds for an enhanced social life, pouring whisky on the ground as a
libation to the gods of Africa and ignoring his lonely little girl while boasting to his
drinking companions of his illegitimate sons elsewhere.
At length I reported to Leballo that I was spending all my time ferrying Mapefanes
in-laws and friends round the city on trivial errands and I doubted that Mapefane was
undertaking any political work. Leballo made enquiries and discovered Mapefane had
been spending the time in hotel rooms with whores and had made no contacts with
the new Zimbabwe army as he had claimed. Mapefane then left for Botswana

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promising to make furtive contact with the LLA but instead bragged openly of his
renewed contact with Leballo. Shakhane Mokhehle instantly denounced him to the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIO) of Zimbabwe, who then questioned me. I
consequently sent urgent messages to Mphanya to prevent Mapefane coming again.
Mphanya failed. Leballo and I had located a source of arms on a farm among run by
ZANU (PF) friends and feared Mapefane's visit would jeopardise everything. Mapefane
not only refused to wait in Botswana but even took Mphanya's pickup, wasting funds
with a whore in a hotel in Bulawayo and then demanding fresh funds from me, who
promptly told him to get out. Leballo, now lodging with me, advised Mapefane to take
on paying passengers in order to pay for petrol to Lusaka. Mapefane did so but then
returned, only to be stopped at the border where a search revealed a shopping list for
arms and the name of our ZANU (PF) arms contact. He was forbidden entry. Mphanya
evaded the issue when asked for clarification and Jama Mbeki, the proposed financier
for arms, was arrested for aiding an ANC activist who had killed a South African spy.
Eventually he was murdered in Lesotho, suspicion falling on Shakhane Mokhehle
betraying him to the Leabua regime. In such unpromising circumstances, all attempts
to get arms in Zimbabwe were urgently terminated.
Mapefanes revelation in Gaborone that Leballo was in Harare triggered LLA phone
calls from BCP and LLA members complaining that the troops had not been supplied
and that Mokhehle had gone to ground in Botswana while pretending to be leading
the LLA. Leballo felt a powerful responsibility towards the LLA and BCP. After he had
been the BCP Transvaal Province leader and had been the only soldier able to keep
discipline among the LLA. He was however in a most precarious position as the
unrecognised leader of the PAC. At first his stay in Zimbabwe was inauspicious. He
was deliberately ignored and received no funds from ZANU (PF). The North Koreans
provided him with Z$160 to set up in a flat the rent of which I paid. I also provided
transport and other services. He formed a PAC Branch whose executive consisted of
three APLA members and a petty entrepreneur and strongman called Molato. The
London branch of the PAC backed him although Muendane denounced him in order to
retain the funds received from non-PAC sources. Bank drafts sent from London to
Leballo in Harare were intercepted by the South African banking system and returned
as "Unclaimed. The Libyan government then indicated it was willing to back a
proposal I put forward for a University of Azania for refugees from South Africa, but
only if the Zimbabwe ministry of education was amenable. Next, ZANU (PF) began
negotiations with Tanzania for the release of APLA forcibly held in various centres and

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their transfer to Zimbabwe. A farm near Ruwa outside Harare was provisionally set
aside for PAC use and negotiations began with the North Koreans to send recruits for
military training. I urged Leballo to establish firm links with North Korea, believing that
African governments were too treacherous. Leballo countered saying that as a Pan
African political party leader he had to follow his idealism and continue to believe in
Africa. I still think he was wrong. At that time South Korea had an even more odious
regime than the North and certainly North Korea had not become the ghastly place it is
today. I believe if PAC had established good relations with North Korea we could have
relocated APLA troops there, although they may have found restrictions unacceptable.
In Tanzania, Make's PAC was failing rapidly and the Tanzanians looked for another
more acceptable leader to replace him. At the end of 1980 John Nyati Pokela, the
former acting secretary of the PAC when Leballo was directing the Poqo rising, was
released from Robben Island after thirteen years of imprisonment. Leballo tried to
contact him in Lesotho but received no response. Meanwhile, negotiations were
proceeding between Make's group and Pokela and in December 1980 Pokela flew to
Tanzania to be appointed with Tanzanian support the PAC chairman in place of Make,
who became vice-chairman, a position that didnt exist in the PAC constitution
before or after the 1980 consultative conference. As one Namibian detainee once put
it, They took us to Tanzania, because there is no law there. Nyerere was unaware
that Pokela was unacceptable to the PAC as a because of his involvement in the faction
killings of 1962-3. His sole following consisted of a small group of Xhosa speakers
including Pheko and Ntantala and his political outlook was a mean form of mystical
fascism allied to paternalistic elitism.
Pokelas arrival in Tanzania was at first treated with caution by Leballo who wrote a
carefully worded letter, which I typed, advising that they should meet for discussions.
Privately, Leballo was prepared to allow Pokela to remain chairman if he would be
allowed to retain control of the army. He recognised that the OAU and international
agencies and governments saw him (Leballo) as irresponsible and extreme and they
wanted an acceptable leader of the elitist type. Ideally he would then go overseas or
to a distant African country to concentrate solely on training and preparing APLA for
when the internal situation in South Africa was more favourable for guerrilla warfare.
Pokela did not reply and was then physically assaulted by several APLA soldiers in April
198l. This attack angered the Tanzanians, who brought a demand for Leballos
expulsion when they arrived for the first anniversary of independence celebrations in
Harare. The Tanzanians insisted that Leballo was responsible for the continuing

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disturbances among APLA in Tanzania, although he had been unable to get into touch
with any of them.
Leballos expulsion from Zimbabwe
By the time of the arrival of the Tanzanian delegation, Leballo had reason to feel
confident about his position and his partys future. He had been meeting regularly with
ZANU (PF) ministers and diplomats from the Soviet orbit anxious not to repeat the
mistake they had made in Zimbabwe by ignoring the PACs ally ZANU. He was invited
for consultations. The University of Zimbabwe students union had invited him to
address them and Tekere had openly clashed with the education minister, Dr.
Mutumbuka, who had been prevaricating over the decision on the University of Azania
because he was involved in the ZAPU-backed Zimbabwe Distance Education College
(ZIDECO) which he felt would be threatened by the PAC project. On 18 April Leballo
attended the Rufaro Stadium celebrations of independence as a guest of honour,
seated with the Zimbabwe military. He saw Pokela sitting nearby and they
acknowledged each other but did not go to meet each other. Two days later the
Tanzanians moved against him. The Tanzanians recruited the home affairs minister,
Richard Hove., as well as the minister of local government, Edison Zvobgo and a former
Zimbabwe official in Dar es Salaam, Albert Chanetsa. These waited till Tekere was out
of the capital on a visit to Mutare in the east of the country. Leballo had an
appointment with the health minister at 3.30pm and another at 5pm with Zvobgo. I
delivered him but Zvobgo kept Leballo waiting and called the police, who put him the
central police station cells. Molato alerted me and I went to the police station to be
told Leballo didnt know me. I coldly informed the police that Leballo had stayed with
me for months and was the godfather of my baby son and had even chosen his name. I
was then permitted to give food to Leballo who told me to get help. I tried to contact
Tekere but he was out of touch. I visited Professor Simbi Mubako, my friend in exile
but now the aloof minister of justice and constitutional affairs. Mubako told me that
Zimbabwe law dictated that Leballo had the right to appeal deportation but at midday
the next day Leballo arrived at my flat escorted by immigration officers to collect a few
belongings. He was taken straight to the airport with myself and three young Azanians
in pursuit. There I barely had time to give Leballo the only money I had before he was
placed on a Kenyan airways flight to Nairobi. Munangangwa, the minister of state
dealing with the PAC, was taken by surprise by the deportation while Burassi, the
Libyan People's Bureau director, expressed astonishment at the expulsion, saying that
Leballo had been responsible for convincing his government to accept the ZANLA

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forces for training, a decision that secured ZANLA an advantage over ZAPUs ZIPRA.
The Zimbabweans were also embarrassed by the way in which Leballo had been
treated. In exile Richard Hove had been found sleeping rough at Paddington railway
station in London and had been taken in by Leballo who forced Sibeko to make room
for Hove and his family in his flat. Hove told Richard Gibson, the American writer, that
he had been obliged to act against Leballo because the Tanzanians presidents
influence had been too great to be countered. On the other side, some of the ZANU
(PF) elitists were glad to see the back of him. Dr. Nathan Shamuyarira was horrified at
the death of Sibeko, believing that Leballo had personally ordered it. Professor
Mubako described the PAC as rather low quality while Dr. Mutumbuka, later sacked
for gross corruption, wanted Leballo out of the way so the University of Azania,
promised US$1.8 million by Libya, would not threaten his business interests. The
expulsion could also be explained in part by the victory within ZANU (PF)- ZANLA of the
old guard politicians (Muzenda, Zvobgo, Hove, Chanetsa) over the younger militant
guerrilla elements (the late Tongogara, Tekere, Munangangwa ) with whom Leballo
had established considerable rapport. Leballos outlook, background and training
matched many in the leadership of ZANU (PF)/ ZANLA and Tongogara's strategy for
overrunning most of the country had been admired by APLA and justified their own
theories.
In the evening of Leballos expulsion the Zimbabweans moved against the PAC
Branch. Sidney Mawila, an APLA member of the branch executive, reported to me that
the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees, an Ethiopian called Shefeke, had
told him he must follow Pokela or else. Two Tanzanian girls reported that there was
smug satisfaction at the Tanzanian high commission over the expulsion. That evening I
was raided by the Special Branch, all Whites, who, finding nothing, swept out to round
up Mawila, Molato, Buqwana and Gaelisiwe, the members of the executive, placing
them in Chikurubi maximum security prison. Meanwhile Leballo managed to get to
Libya after being shunted penniless and starving around the Middle East. All his
luggage had disappeared by the time he reached Nairobi, where he was refused entry.
From Libya he contacted me in Harare. I was by that time under covert attack from
Pokela's supporters who, while avoiding me, threatened the refugee girls who ate at
my flat and arranged for my post to be returned unknown. Molato's wife managed
to use her influence with Muzendas sister to have her husband released and flown out
to Sierra Leone while Leballo managed to get a ticket for Mawila to leave Zimbabwe.
Gaelisiwe and Buqwana remained in Chikurubi without charges until my London BBC

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Africa Service broadcast shamed the Zimbabwean authorities into releasing them for
asylum in Canada in March 1982. Others associated with Leballo in Zimbabwe were
expelled from the country including myself who flew out via Moscow in June. I did not
see my wife and baby son for six months because we had no money for their tickets to
UK. Before I left I met with the two White members of Zimbabwes Central Intelligence
Organisation who had been detailed to provide security for Leballo. They had been
surprised by his arrest and deportation and wanted to know the reasons. They gave
me further details concerning efforts to make my life miserable. They said that
Shakhane Mokhehle (they had great difficulty pronouncing his name) had reported
that I was a South African spy.
When I reached London I caused havoc for the Pokela faction, launching powerful
press attacks and then releasing inept defences in Muendanes name, which resulted
in him being sacked and summoned to Dar es Salaam, a move he resisted. Under my
direction the new London branch, outperforming the Pokelas branch executive of
Hamilton Keke, Tommy Mohajane and Sam Pheko, blitzed every member of the
African diplomatic corps with leaflets in English, French and Arabic. Our work was
however weakened by Leballos insistence on returning to Africa as a mark of solidarity
with the Panafricanist ideal. Tanzanian pressure forced him out of Libya but he went to
Ghana, where Rawlings welcomed him as a friend who had helped him in the past. He
provided Leballo with an air ticket to East Africa where, having taken a great risk, he
managed to meet Justice Nkonyane and other members of APLA who had escaped
from Tanzanian restriction. Although he encountered much sympathy in Ghana, the
Rawlings government was too impoverished to offer much help, although it wanted
him to play a leading role in establishing people's committees and politicizing the
peasantry. Leballo had to decline. The Ugandan resistance movement in Libya was
helpful and agreed with the Libyans to ship arms from APLA to Rwanda and pseudo
Zaire where anti-Mobutu forces operated. However when the shipment went
through, the Ugandans kept the weapons for themselves. Back in London Leballo
began the task of reuniting the 1959 PAC national executive committee. He lived a life
of extreme poverty, dispatching what little money he had to his distressed APLA
comrades, while he lived off bread and tea, even giving up his famous pipe. I was
unable to find work but my wife, Leballos elder son Sebabi and party sympathisers
helped out.
The expulsion of the PAC from Harare left the field open to Pokela and Ntantala,
who was invited back into the Pokela led PAC, causing Isaacs, Ntloedibe, Radebe,

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Manshontsho, Elisabeth Sibeko and Count Petersen to leave the central committee
and Ngila Muendane to protest vehemently when ordered from London to Dar es
Salaam for failing to fight off Leballos supporters aggressive campaign against the
Tanzanians and their faction of the PAC. Whatever illusions Pokela may have had about
his role were quickly dispelled. The Tanzanians merely wanted the PAC to be a mild
pressure group dedicated to dtente and economic independence, the new catchphrase that had been coined to replace giving South Africa five years to change.
Without any following except venal external representatives, Pokela was humiliated
and marginalised by the ANC/SACP. They suggested his interests would best be served
by union with them and he was fooled into thinking they were genuine. He waited till
he had committed himself too far, whereupon they closed the door, leaving him
looking weak and compromising. His clique thereupon turned on themselves and when
he died suddenly in Zimbabwe in June 1985 it was widely believed that he had been
poisoned.
Chakelas return to Lesotho
After his failed coup at the end of 1976, Chakela announced the formation of his
new BCP executive committee. It contained people such as Mamocha Moruthane and
Moses Qhobela Molapo, who had not been consulted, and who angrily denied having
any part in such an organisation The BNP regime, at last realising that Chakela had no
support, decided to bring him into the government as part of a propaganda exercise. In
May 1980 a Bill was passed in the national assembly, which granted an amnesty to
certain BCP exiles. Chakela returned to Lesotho in October and made a radio
statement saying that Mokhehle's position was similar to that of the ZANU leader,
Ndabaningi Sithole, after the bulk of the party had left him. Chakela continued to
accuse Mokhehle of working with the Afrikaners. The four other members of the BCP
executive who had supported his coup attempt refused to accompany him back to
Lesotho, and the Soviet Embassy in Gaborone made strenuous efforts to make people
named by Chakela as his supporters to return. In March 1981 seven members of the
Malunga group went back home and denied any link with Chakela, let alone
recognition of his authority.
In June 1980 Leabua said he was ready to hold elections at any time but added that
democracy permitted people to refuse elections if they did not want them. At the
beginning of April 1981 it was announced that a referendum would be held to see if
people wanted an election. Chakela had been led to believe he would be given a
cabinet post. In the cabinet reshuffle of July 1981 he was left in the cold and had to

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accept a working arrangement with Ramoreboli, who was the BNP's official leader of
the BCP. Like Ramoreboli, he became an alcoholic. Finally, in July 1982 he was shot
dead in a car, either by the regime's koeoko death squad or a LLA gunman.
By May 1980 it was clear that the South Africans were concerned enough about the
BNPs eastern bloc connections to restore cordial relations. After the LLA's defeat at
Liqobong, in Butha-Buthe district, the South Africans accepted an invitation by the BNP
to inspect captured weapons, which included a FN rifle with the South African heraldic
arms on it. These were the weapons later shown in Maputo. On 20 August Leabua met
the South African premier, P. W. Botha, on the Peka bridge crossing astride the
Caledon. The substance of their talks was not released but the LLA noted that South
African border patrols increased after the meeting. Later both regimes announced that
the long overdue Oxbow scheme to provide water for South African industries was
to be implemented. Mokhehles unavailability and his reluctance to ignite what many
regarded as a volatile and advantageous situation was in keeping with his policy in
1970 and 1973 and the recruitment of older men for the LLA. He now switched from
peoples war to a more deadly strategy of assassination and terrorism. Assassination
was cheaper, easier to control and probably more effective. Maseribanes home and
store had been attacked at the start of the campaign and Mrs Chakela, a Ramoreboli
official, and other local BNP leaders had been killed by the LLA before the end of the
peoples war in June 1980. In September 1980 Chief Leloko Jonathan, Leabuas
brother, was wounded by the LLA. Ntlama announced at a press conference in
November that Leabua was on the run and his governments fall was merely a
matter of time. In December Anthony Samuel Ralibitsos home in Maseru was
attacked. Ralibitso, a former minister of education, had been ambassador to
Mozambique. This and fatal bombings at Teyateyaneng and Thaba Telle were
interpreted as LLA displeasure with the role of Mozambique in Lesotho's internal
affairs. The wife of President Machel was due to visit Maseru that month. In February
1981 hatred of the ANC/SACP led to a bomb attack of Khalaki Sello, believed by the LLA
to be the new Matthews. In August a petrol dump was destroyed. In early
September 1981 six bomb attacks were directed at targets in Maseru: the airport
terminal, a bar owned by Peete Peete, the United States cultural centre, the Hilton
hotel, an electricity sub-station and the car of the West German ambassador.
On October 8th the LLA used mortars in an attack on the LPF. In May 1982 Peete
Peete was seriously wounded along with four members of his family in an LLA ambush.
In July Chakela was assassinated by a gunman who entered his car. In August they

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bombed the house of Chris Hani, now a prominent SACP member, and a few days later
killed the minister of works, J.M. Rampeta. In December a LLA mine killed Chief Seeiso
Majara, the son of Chief Matete Majara, minister of water, energy and mining. The LLA
campaign continued to be associated by the international press with covert South
African operations which also included support of anti-government forces in Angola,
Mozambique and Zimbabwe and probable responsibility for the assassination of Ruth
First Slovo in Mozambique and the ANC representative in Harare, Joe Gqabi. This
attitude dampened press interest in the Leabua regime's domestic brutality. Mr
Motuba, the editor of Lesinlinyana, was murdered in September 1981 and Mr. Masilo,
the chairman of the Lesotho Council of Churches, abducted. Fortunately he was
released alive. Tension in the police resulted in the drunken wounding of General
Matela in October 1982.
In August 1981 Mphanya received a party delegation from South Africa. He wrote,
They wanted my advice in many things including maladministration of the Party in
exile by Shakhane and his group, financing of war In Lesotho as well as feeding and
clothing LLA. They complain that the money accruing from the people in RSA is being
diverted to pay for other things of personal interests.
In October he wrote mentioning the LLA attacks but added,
On the face of this Mr. Mokhehle is not stopping to harass members of the Party
including LLA itself. Some of them are in Botswana while others are being arrested in
RSA. They are, however, not giving up hope. Two days ago (9th Oct.) their delegation
was here to plead with me for both training and assistance. I have nothing to give
except blurring promises..... I cannot bear or tolerate anybody destructing this Party. It
must be saved for the sake of the coming generation.
This letter was followed by another in February 1982:
Last month I received yet another delegation from LLA. Their request is simply
that I help them hunt for food, clothing and weapons in spite of the fact that their
Commander in Chief is keeping me at arms length. He is changing commanders much
more than he changes his handkerchiefs. This is causing confusion in the wing.
Unfortunately RSA is playing hide and found with both Chief and Jonathan. I think this
is intended to neutralize political thinking of the People so that they lose faith in
Mokhehles leadership to be in the same level with Jonathan's leadership which is
almost nil. What I really fail to understand is their pretension to assist M to let his
forces use Qoaqoa as their partial base while at the same time arresting leaders of the
LLA and handing them to Jonathan for either detention or execution.

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The loss of direction in the BCP was reflected in other letters. Moses Qhobela
Molapo wrote in December 1981,
The emphasis on the ANC/Cuban connection now forms the spearhead of our
diplomatic thrust in order the better to constitute a permanent contradiction between
Jonathan and Pretoria. The reason for that strategic concept is simple....It is based on
Moshoeshoe I's diplomatic strategy never have more than one enemy at a time. If
unfortunately you find yourself faced with two enemies, throw a bone between them
and wait for the stronger to destroy the weaker so that you can again face a single
enemy. We cannot and should not try to engage Jonathan and Botha concurrently! By
harping on the ANC/Cuban connection, we are making it absolutely certain that there
should never be any reconciliation between Jonathan and Botha.....any reconciliation
between those two would seriously and permanently damage our logistical supply
lines from our allies through the Republican Territory into Lesotho! Under such
circumstances the LLA would have to pull down the shutters!
In July 1982 a LLA explosives expert, Pheta Matlanyane, was killed by a device he
was constructing in the African location at Ficksburg. The report of his death said,
"South African police defused two home-made bombs in the house after the
explosion. Both were made from plumbing pipes and are consistent with grenades and
bombs used previously by the LLA.
On 9 December 1982 South African soldiers attacked Maseru, killing over forty
people, most of them refugees connected with the ANC. Ralibitsos daughter,
Ramorebolis son, daughter-in-law and grandchild were among the twelve Lesotho
citizens killed. The ANC appeared not to have had any military presence in Maseru and
it was believed that the LPF was forewarned about the raid. The United Nations
General Assembly condemned the South Africans, and the European Economic
Community decided to grant 47,000 emergency aid for victims of the attack. King
Moshoeshoe made a public show of unity with Leabua, and the Lesotho defence
minister attended a conference of fellow ministers in Arusha in January 1983 in order
to step up political and material support for nationalist movements. The LLA
exploded three bombs in Maseru at the end of January as a mark of disapproval of the
meeting there of the Southern African Development Co-ordinating Conference.
Despite this the conference pledged 133 million to help nine countries, including
Lesotho, break dependence on South Africa to a significant extent. On the night of the
13th-14th February the LLA destroyed a large petrol storage depot, sending about
60,500 gallons of fuel up in flames. Once again the BNP regime and the international

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press linked the LLA to South African activities. Makhakhe, Mokhehles former deputy,
wrote to me 15 December 1982, Mokhehle's LLA operates from South Africa and
Mokhehle himself lives there now! He has lost his political soul. Pressed for concrete
information, he replied in February 1983,
I cannot provide physical proof, but that gentleman has long been comfortably
living in South Africa. His wife went to see him in Germiston and he shuttles between
Germiston and Soweto. Of course he moves absolutely freely in South Africa. I know
this sounds grisly because it comes from an opponent and will be taken with a pinch of
salt. But he lives there! Lesotho Heads of Churches were here near the end of last year
with a view of seeing all the refugees in Botswana and ascertain what we all think
about reconciliation. They met everyone and also met individuals and groups who
wished to be seen that way. They couldnt see Mokhehle and everybody told them
that he is in South Africa. If anybody claims to have seen the gentleman in Gaborone in
the last 12 months I am prepared to eat my head. So much for the man in the
detestable service of apartheid simply being used to keep Lesotho in senseless
turmoil, getting nowhere."
Commenting on Mphanya's year long refusal to answer similar questions, he
continued:
Ntsukunyane will not give you any information on the man because he is
embarrassed. His argument in support of the sinister marriage between Mokhehle and
South Africa is frighteningly naive.
On March 12th 1983, Mphanya, unaware how his remarks would substantiate
Makhakhe's accusations, wrote:
Most of the things which you asked me are outdated if not stale and therefore it is
of no importance to write about them. The only thing about which I think I have to be
tough is the information you required to include in your (history)..... By the way you
must have heard that Joshua (Nkomo) with many of his followers are here.....the fruits
of one party politics. The OAU is now zigzagging between dangerous rocks in the sea of
confusion. Today Nkomo is joining Savimbi and Mokhehle.....Sell outs in the narrow
minds of those who do not want nor care to know practical conditions in our
respective countries. LLA is being blamed for many things among which a strong
allegation that it is being used by RSA. But the same people cannot spell out the route
for LLA to reach Lesotho without passing through the RSA. Worse than that they
cannot say a word about LLA men who were handed over to Jonathan by the same
RSA, the men killed in cold blood in Lesotho.

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At the time I could not believe that Mokhehle was in South Africa. I argued that the
ANC/SACP and BNP/PMU would have gained a great propaganda victory if Mokhehle
had indeed been discovered in South Africa, irrespective of whether or not he was
working with Pretoria. Yet no sign of him was ever reported, which either indicated
that he wasn't there, or that the SACP/ANC/UDF did not have the organisation in South
Africa able to watch clinics where Mokhehle had to go for his regular medical
treatment. Selatile and Mokhehle were both eager to persuade everyone that the
latter was either in Lesotho or in the Bantustans in order to take command of the war.
Yet the development of the struggle after 1980 was one in which a peoples war shrank
to a gunman's campaign of select assassination. It is difficult for a lively well-paid
journalist to imagine what really went on in liberation movements that are strapped
for funds. Leballo's circle spent its days fighting for bare survival, rarely venturing out
and concentrating on writing. The same was true of Mokhehle most of his time was
spent in mundane pursuits waiting for something to happen. This is why I thought that
if Mokhehle was in South Africa he would have been leading, as he did in Gaborone, a
secluded life. Mphanya [2010] wrote that doctors treating Mokhehle in Romania were
puzzled concerning lack of bood passing to Mokhehles brain and everyone is in
agreement that when Mokhehle returned to Lesotho in 1986 he was not the same
man they had known. When I received a letter from him in 1985 from Port St Johns he
addressed me in a name I have never had or used and wrote as if I were a stranger.
However his nephew Bahlokoana Mokhehle suggested the letter was probably written
by his minders. That might also explain the circular recognising the Bantustans (see
below) that upset Leballo. Nevertheless it was clear that Mokhehles intellect suffered
from his self-imposed isolation. He could no longer accept constructive criticism as
anything but rampant attacks. If he ever received Leballo's letter from Harare
(Shakhane Mokhehle certainly censored mail) he refused to answer it and dismissed
my justified complaint about Gaborone BCP corruption as inspired by Mphanya.
Neither he nor Selatile (who moved to Gaborone) could recognise that anyone else
had any sound judgment but were merely victims of malicious gossip. His circle shrank.
Selatiles tortuous and increasingly alcoholic philosophies, Shakhanes irrationality and
the attentions of demanding girlfriends and well-meaning but uninspiring helpers
inevitably took their toll. His writings, either in the LLA journal or in press statements
caused great depression among his sympathisers, particularly Leballo, who had
defended him against all accusations of complicity with the Afrikaners and attacked

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Leabua's regime in the first issue of The Africanist when it resumed publication in
London at the end of 1983.
On March 26th-27th the LLA carried out co-ordinated attacks in several parts of
Lesotho. They raided the Lesotho/Transkei border post at Ongeluksnek and killed a
policeman at Pitseng, Leribe district. Six saboteurs were intercepted in Maseru, two of
whom were captured and another two guerrillas were killed at the Hendriksdrift
border post. The two captives were reported as being South African policemen. When
they mysteriously disappeared, Major-General Matela claimed they had been set free
without his permission. The LPF declared that a member of the Transkei Defence Force
was aiding the LLA, naming him as Major Bob McKenzie, whose CIA links they did not
know. On 11 April Leabua called for national unity in this state of war with South
Africa but on 30 April Sekhonyana met Botha in Pretoria for talks.
In May Mokhehle gave a further indication of his inability to deal effectively with
mismanagement and dissent in the BCP and LLA. A group of over sixty BCP/LLA
supporters had asked for recognition as such in the Transkei Bantustan. Mokhehles
quarrel with this group centred on their effort to raise funds independently but he
took the occasion to denounce them for their part in a gigantic plot which he had of
course uncovered. He claimed that many of this group, including Moanakoena
Mokhehle, Joel Mophethe, Tefo Thabane, Lebenya Mokoena, Maile Masheli, Mohau
Lekatsa and Ndozake Motankiso, had been infiltrated into the LLA on Leabua's orders
to act as his agents. They had been joined by others who had been expelled from the
LLA because of their anti-LLA subversive activities and indiscipline. This group
included Ramokoatsi Rakuoane, Makhetha Manoko and Lethusang Mafisa. A third
element in this amorphous group consisted of "people who have never been
members of the LLA and those are Lesoli Makoa, Thabiso Malahleha and most of the
remaining ones who fall under this group. Lesoli Makoa, Ramokoatsi Rakuoane,
Thabiso Malahleha and Sefela Mpho Malefane had apparently raised funds for a bank
account known as the Basotho Board of Trustees. Mokhehle stated that They have
no right to go about in the Transkei masquerading as the LLA and that they collect by
false pretences from the members of the BCP; whom they deceive by saying that they
are collecting the money for the LLA. He further denounced the groups liaison
attempt with over twenty sympathisers from the Basotho working on the Rand and
Welkom at Matatiele. The latter included Thabiso Khashole (Khoele), Velile Makheni
(Sheleng) and Moshesha Mosia Moshesha. Mokhehles denunciation of the Transkei
group included the following sentence,

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"We have .....genuine political refugees in various countries, particularly that are
near to Lesotho, which are the Republics of Zambia, Botswana, South Africa,
Zimbabwe, Bophuthatswana, Transkei, the Semi-autonomous state of Qwa-Qwa, and
other countries far afield.
The implicit recognition of the Bantustans as independent countries reflected
Mokhehle's observation in 1976 concerning his prison days after the 1970 coup, when
he had been persuaded against his better judgment to call for the BCP to surrender.
Chameleon like, Mokhehle had immersed himself in peasant culture from 1962
onwards. Now, in seclusion, he had absorbed the banal confused reasoning of his
companions and the probably intensive demands of his minders. The formidable
parliamentarian and Panafricanist statesman now seemed no better than those of his
opponents over whom he used to tower. The careful research which had gone into the
United Nations Appeal of 1975 had been abandoned - the LLA Journal Likhohlong
claimed that over 768 policemen had been killed by the LLA between June 1980 and
July 1983. In addition the same journal spoke disparagingly of women, sneering at
Leabua's use of some of them as administrators. Duncan Campbell, the New
Statesman journalist who discovered Roachs connections with BOSS, summarised
what many people now felt about the situation in Lesotho when he said, It was all so
easy once. There were good guys and bad guys. Things were clear to see in black and
white - literally. Now nobody knows where they stand. Diplomatically the world was
turning upside down. Botha and Sekhonyana met again on 3 June to curb ANC and LLA
activity but the LLA still killed three motorists near Mohale's Hoek on 26 June. On 30
June ten LLA men and two policemen died in a fight at Kolonyama. The LLA was
reported as being on a mission to assassinate Leabua. The BNP regime bowed to South
African pressure and ousted 22 ANC and PAC exiles on 10 September and other group
followed on the 15th. They were sent to Mozambique and Tanzania. A further LLA
attack took place on 11 September in the Leribe area and a second attack occurred on
the next day at Mapoteng Catholic Mission. More incidents took place in Butha-Buthe
district and Maseru. However, the South Africans had achieved the expulsions they
had demanded. From 6 May to 5 June Leabua visited China, North Korea, Yugoslavia,
Romania and Bulgaria. On 14 May a joint communiqu in Beijing announced that the
two countries would establish diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. In June
diplomatic relations were established at this level between leftist Nicaragua and
Lesotho. C. D. Molapo resigned as the regime's minister of information and
broadcasting in protest at these links with communist countries and the move was

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condemned by four Catholic bishops in July. The BNP regime also scored further
successes in African Affairs. In mid-February its representative was one of the twelve
attempting to break the deadlock afflicting the OAU. His colleagues were the
presidents of Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Congo, Ethiopia and fellow
ministers from Libya, Mali, Mozambique and Angola. In May the regime introduced a
Bill in its assembly for holding general elections and restoring the constitution,
suspended in 1970. When the Bill was passed, its terms stated that there would be up
to 80 members in a new assembly, twenty of whom would be nominated. Leabua
announced that candidates in a forthcoming election would have to pay R1,000 each
deposit and be nominated by 500 persons known personally to him. He alone would
receive and announce the election results. Finally, at the end of the year, Mokhehle
was expelled from Botswana. At the end of November 1984 he was certainly in Port St
John's, Transkei.
When the BCP decided in 1974 to launch a protracted armed struggle there was
justifiable optimism that such a course would defeat the BNP regime and purge the
party of opportunistic and corrupt elements. The party was supported by the majority
of the Basotho in Lesotho and by the Basotho working in South Africa. The PAC initially
required the LLA troops to boost its flagging international image, but after the mass
APLA recruitment of 1976, Leballo was still prepared to back the LLA with or without
OAU assistance. Chakela's attempted coup, ANC/SACP hostility and Tanzania's crushing
of APLA were all unforeseen. Nevertheless, through Mokhehle's personal rapport with
external sympathisers and his prestige among the Basotho, the BCP succeeded in
extricating the LLA from Tanzania and launching it against the BNP/LPF regime. Despite
this success, Mokhehle refused to sever his ill-defined ties with Van der Merwe, let the
war escalate, and seek sanctuary in Zimbabwe or Britain. When the war began he was
sixty years old. He had enjoyed a reputation in his youth as a powerful and
argumentative man, but his career had been as a parliamentarian who had never
assented to violence until December 1973, and then against his better judgment. After
two decades of building up an impressive party dedicated to parliamentary practice, he
was not well fitted to transform it into a revolutionary armed force and direct it in
wartime. As soon as he took personal command of LLA operations, the struggle was
transformed from a peoples war into a series of bombings, assassinations and
occasional attacks, none of which relied upon mass participation. The Basotho, many
of whom wanted to join the LLA, were treated as mere spectators. Actions that
brought newspaper publicity became more important than politicizing the post 1970

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generation. When over twenty young people were killed in Maseru in late 1980 after
the police had stampeded them with tear gas, Mokhehle remained silent, later
reacting to my criticism by saying,
When you fully appreciate our methods, you will become aware of the fact that
barren sensationalism is not allowed to deviate us from our plans and our ways of
doing things.
Neither was the rising generation given any ideological guidance. The cause of the
war was the 1970 coup. While most young Basotho could recognise the righteousness
of Mokhehles struggle, they were left to speculate upon the aftermath of a LLA
victory. But, despite Mokhehle's role as a Messiah come to claim his kingdom, he
allowed the BCP to drift aimlessly. The NEC of 1969 by 1984 no longer existed, its
members either dead, expelled, ignored or abused, except the two Mokhehles.
Mphanya, lacking parliamentary experience and dedicated to revolutionary peasantbased warfare, at first attempted to hold the party together, force Mokhehle to curb
his extra-marital sex-life and insist on correct party procedures to control party
members of all ranks who thought their moment had come because Mokhehle had
confided in them. Later, when Mokhehle turned over Mphanyas work to Shakhane,
Mphanya sought independent ways of continuing the war while also trying to bring
expelled party members back into the fold. At length, weary of the corruption and
ineptitude, he sank himself into business ventures which eventually came to dominate
his life.
Mokhehles degeneration into a puppet of Van der Merwe and Clines operatives
crippled serious resistance. After the September 1983 attack the Lesotho Paramilitary
Force (LPF formerly PMU) was not disturbed again until August 1984 when it killed two
LLA guerrillas. Mokhehles refusal to give militants their head in case the whole pre1970 parliamentary structure, in which he operated so well, was destroyed had left
him without the military options he possessed in 1977 when the LPF commander
urged Leabua to talk with the BCP exiles. His increasing poverty, lack of international
contacts and health problems set him at a disadvantage once his hosts decided to
pressure him in 1981 to return to Lesotho for reconciliation. In fact his main political
weapon had been his refusal to give in but once he disappeared into South Africa
young Basotho began to drift away from him. Young politicised Basotho, stifled by
Mokhehles limited war and unable to launch any new movement through the weight
of his prestige, could only look across the border in the hope that involvement in the
South African struggle could resolve Lesothos poverty, land loss and political

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stalemate. Had Mokhehle chosen to go to Zimbabwe he would have remained a

respected exiled leader but following Shakhanes advice to commit to Van der Merwe
nebulous offer he destroyed the BCPs moral high ground. Even joining the ANC/SACP
would have been a better option.
The failure of the ANC/SACP in Mozambique
Leballos expulsion from Tanzania in 1979 and the defeat of the LLA at Liqobong in
June 1980 presented the ANC/SACP with an opportunity to operate unchallenged by
its rival movements. The Mozambique government permitted the transit of Umkhonto
we Sizwe personnel and the establishment of an administrative centre in Maputo,
headed by Joe Slovo, chairman of the SACP. The south of Mozambique lies next to the
Kruger National Park and Zululand, areas sparsely inhabited by whites, which could
probably be infiltrated more easily than from the Botswana border. The ANC/SACP had
OAU backing, widespread sympathy in western circles, full support from the Soviet
Union and some appeal in the urban areas of South Africa among elitist Africans and
dissident Whites, Indians and Coloureds. Mozambique also gave assistance to ZANU
after FRELIMOs ally, ZAPU, failed to take up the offer of assistance. Tongogara, the
ZANU military commander, began his campaign in Rhodesia by recruiting among the
African peasant population on the border, winning over village leaders and gaining
support from spirit mediums. Most of his support came from peasants attracted by
ZANUs promise that they would take over the land occupied by white settlers.
Tongogara had been trained at Nanjing military academy in China and believed that a
rural based struggle would be more effective than any other method of resistance. His
success in the war vindicated him. Leballos strategy for the PAC military was almost
identical. Critics argued that South Africa, being an industrial country, was ill suited to
peasant based warfare, but Leballo always felt rural Zululand was the key to such a
war, not Lesotho. He recognised that once the peasantry in the poor areas had made a
significant impact, their realisation that such a method was the only answer to their
future enhanced social, economic and political status would make them more
determined than urban workers with their relatively moderate ambitions. The
ANC/SACP military leaders, still overwhelmingly Eastern European Jews, adhered to
their view that urbanised multi-racial forces would be able to create enough disruption
through sabotage and trade union activity to bring the Pretoria regime to the
conference table. There the ANC/SACP leadership apparently did not even consider the
drought-stricken peasant areas of the Zululand border region because it would

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enhance the political role of a class their organisation feared and did not represent.
The ANC/SACP was reformist utilizing revolutionary rhetoric. They could not refuse the
Mozambican offer but neither would they escalate the armed struggle. This was clear
from the deliberations of the NEC of the ANC during their 16-18 May 1974 Enlarged
and Extended Meeting in Lusaka to map out a new strategy in the light of the changed
circumstances. A reformist slogan was produced to act as the new catch-phrase: No
collaboration with Apartheid! While they called for recruitment of young Africans into
Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Guidelines to Action emphasised that the main effort was not
to be against the racist settlers but instead called for an emphasis on exile
politicisation. Activists were urged not to fight the white settlers but seek to have,
have direct contacts with public figures and influential personalities, including
MP's, trade unionists; prominent women and youth representatives, academics
(especially those doing research on Southern Africa), and last but not least, diplomats
from various countries, especially African. The aim of these contacts should be to
publicize our struggle and, in the case of diplomats, to make concrete suggestions and
recommendations for submission to their respective governments, insofar as the fight
against apartheid is concerned
The leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Joe Slovo, brought out his views on what he
called The New Politics of Revolution" in 1976. Slovo acknowledged that South Africa
was excellent for a guerrilla struggle. If Slovo had had some practical experience like
Chris Hani he might added some suggestions food, money and ammunition. He wrote,
..... a people's force will find a multitude of variations in topography; deserts,
mountain forests, veldt and swamps...... the country abounds in terrain which in
general is certainly no less favourable for guerrilla operations than some of the terrain
in which the Algerians or the resistance movements in occupied Europe
operated......South Africa's great size will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible,
for the ruling power to keep the whole of it under armed surveillance in strength and
in depth........In the Reserves a situation with enormous explosive potential is being
created (by the influx) into its limited area of more and more millions of impoverished,
land-hungry and unemployed Africans.
Not surprisingly he also pointed to the equally explosive potential of exploited
industrial workers anti the crisis in the townships. Therefore it is clear that by the time
of the Soweto and Cape risings of 1976 the leadership of Umkhonto we Sizwe was fully
aware of settler weaknesses and African strength. Moreover, Mozambique had
generously offered all the help it could. The way was set Mozambique lay next to

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ideal guerrilla terrain and frustrated and angry drought-stricken desperate peasants.
Yet ten years later in 1984, the ANC/SACP withdrew from Mozambique having
achieved a few bombings and other isolated incidents. In sharp contrast the
Zimbabwean guerrilla leader, Josiah Tongogara, had swept through Rhodesia and had
forced the settler authorities to a face-saving Lancaster House conference that brought
freedom.
Where did the ANC go wrong? One answer is to be found in their Instructions to
Activists in Newsletter Vol.6 No, 1, which was issued just before the 1976 rising. The
true leaders of the people were identified as "the Sisulus, Dadoos, Mandelas,
Goldbergs, Tambos etc. all western educated elitists from, none of whom had ever
worked among the people they purported to lead, who were from a different stratum
of society. The ANC/SACP reported that South Africa was being swept by
revolutionary fervour which was described as the sort of activity that gets urban
intellectuals excited, namely heated discussions in buses and trains and encouraging
reports in White-owned newspapers. The ANC urged its activists to spread the
revolutionary ideas of the party and listed their organisational tasks. Activists were
instructed to build cells which would fight for undefined workers rights, protest at the
rising cost of living and denounce the Bantustans. Activists should explain the
Bantustan policy to others, support the anti-Bantustan groups, boycott Bantustan
leaders meetings and denounce tribalism. They should advocate the idea of a single
united South Africa, oppose Bantu Education and support Angola and Mozambique.
Lastly, they were told to resist military service hardly any Africans served in the South
African forces at that time. This emphasis on mostly White activism led to the
ANC/SACP to criticize the Black Consciousness Movement, the ideological successor to
the Africanist Movement and the PAC, which was accused of overlooking the laying
down of a firm basis of principle on which it will co-operate with all other anti-racist
groups, irrespective of colour. It warned, "The youth should discard the go it alone
policy and strive to build a broad front of all anti-White Domination, anti-colonial
forces....we must not close our eyes to a growing number of Whites who genuinely
support the freedom struggle."
The ANC/SACPs curious leadership structure, its elitism, and party constitution
naturally militated against a simple call for mass action, but trade unionism had formed
a central part of their strategy since the 1960s. Despite this, activists were given
limited guidance and reformist objectives. They were urged to form trade unions
which will enable workers to act together and be united in demanding not political

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concessions but "higher wages, better and safer working conditions and skills, shorter
working hours, paid holiday and sick leave etc. While capitalism was identified as the
main cause of African protest, trade unionists were encouraged not to oppose it but to
get a better place within it. Therefore, in the one sector where the ANC/SACP
considered it could have a decisive influence, their message was totally unrelated to
the dynamism and revolutionary aspirations of the people they claimed to represent.
Nevertheless, Matamela Cyril Ramaphosas National Union of Mine Workers (founded)
in 1985, which became a dominant force within the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) eventually played a vital role in bringing the ANC alliance to power
by successfully bargaining with the White power structure in a mutually advantageous
agreement that gave a privileged position to unions in the new South Africa. The
ANC Alliances emphasis on powerful sectional interests (Afrikaner business, African
miners, multi-racial professionals, the African middle class), eventually triumphed.
The ANC/SACP campaign from Mozambique from 1974-1984 succeeded in
destroying (sometimes spectacularly) some installations and gaining recognition from
the White liberal community but Machel recognised its futility and signed an
agreement with South Africa that expelled the ANC/SACP military from Mozambique.
Inside South Africa several multi racial elitist organizations came together to form the
United Democratic Front (UDF), the ideological inheritors of Xumas ANC not
Lembedes ANCYL. It was largely through the UDF that change in South Africa came
when the more prosperous sections of African society and the Afrikaner pragmatists in
politics, business and the military agreed that unless apartheid was abolished South
Africa would either become a warlord dominated failed state as later in Somalia or a
semi-Maoist peoples genocidal republic on the lines of Pol Pots Cambodia that would
eliminate class enemies of all ethnic origins. This is also the reasons why the
potential for guerrilla warfare 1973-84 were squandered by Slovo and Tambo because
they sought to solve their impossible equation of how to overthrow the settler regime
without letting the African masses take control. Slovo was not blind to the great
advantages of being next to north-eastern South Africa, but he realized that he could
only use these advantages to their full extent if he abandoned the undemocratic
authoritarian leadership structure of the ANC/SACP in order to encourage mass
mobilisation and a peoples war.
The ANC/SACP failure in Mozambique was defended by European journalists and
academics who had identified with the ANC/SACP. In response to my criticism the
British Guardian newspapers Jonathan Steele wrote that the ANC had rightly

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ignored the peasant war option as South Africa was an industrial country. This stance
was echoed by other apologists and the blame placed on the Mozambique
government. Nothing was said about the spineless attitude of the Mugabe government
or the viciousness of Tanzania, which were vital factors in curbing any chance of a
people's war. Richard Gibson, writing in the wake of the Nkomati agreement said,
Looking at todays situation in Southern Africa, it is fairly easy to see that what
happened to PK and the APLA in Tanzania was the first step in the long process of
demob(ilis)ing the liberation forces that would have escalated the struggle into armed
warfare by now. The agreements with Mozambique and Angola, and the hidden
understanding with Zimbabwe, follow that first betrayal. But I'm enough of a Marxist
to believe the internal contradictions of South Africa can never be resolved in this
manner and the struggle will go on and on, longer because Nyerere, Kaunda, Machel et
al did not have the same courage in supporting the struggle of their brothers that
Bourguiba and Muhammed V had in North Africa in regards the Algerian struggle.
It appeared Azanias brave northern brothers had other concerns. The OAU voted
US$78 million for a new conference centre in Addis Ababa during a horrific famine in
Ethiopia and the importation of 400,000 bottles of whiskey to appease the demands of
that city. Self-sacrifice, principle, and personal restraint had become rare commodities
among the African governing elite.
Foreign aid officials and academics in Lesotho also gave the regime a certain
measure of respectability by remaining in or visiting the country. Talented academics,
such as the late J. Allen Macartney (a future Scottish politician), left NUL but others,
unwilling to adopt principles or face competition elsewhere in a gloomy employment
climate, clung to their positions and backed the BNP regime, often receiving their
reward by promotion to positions for which BCP academics could not apply. The BCP
academic elite found employment in exile or in the private sector. Some places were
filled by opportunistic Ugandan and Zimbabwean exiles, most notoriously Simbi
Mubako, later Zimbabwes minister of justice, who accepted the professorship of law
at NUL.
Later, following the anointing of the BNP regime by the ANC/SACP, the BCP was
either ignored or condemned as a cats-paw of Pretoria. American and British
academics, enjoying unrestricted access to South Africa, condemned Mokhehle for
reportedly visiting the LLA in the Bantustans. Leabua adopted an anti-South African
pose after Roachs expulsion. This culminated in late 1976 when he accused the
republic of bringing economic hardship on the country because of his refusal to

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recognise the Transkeis independence. The Nigerian commissioner of external

affairs, Brigadier Garba, praised the BNPs positive contribution in the struggle to free
Africa from all forms of racism and injustice by taking such a stand. The veteran
journalist, Colin Legum, was one of many who exposed the regimes claims as a hoax to
obtain aid from the United Nations, but this did not harm the BNPs path to wider
acceptance. While I was in Lesotho in 1977 White academics flocked to the National
University of Lesotho in an atmosphere of semi-euphoria. Typical of the self-delusion
surrounding their opinion of their role was a remark made by Brian Willan, a
biographer of Solomon Plaatje, many liberal whites ideal of an African politician, that
The South Africans were worried we were planning the revolution. I was so disgusted
to encounter at Maseru airport my former tutor, London Universitys Dr. (later
Professor) Shula Marks, as one of the leading members of the conference that I cut all
links with her and refused to attend any further conferences organised by her
institution. Further manifestations of academic self-importance surfaced later when
several White academics of decidedly peripheral historical fame were listed in
historical dictionaries of Lesotho and South Africa (I am told I am listed in a later
version in derogatory terms). In 1979 the White academic community at NUL assuaged
whatever vestigial guilt they harboured by granting an honorary LLD to Nelson
Mandela. While such activities may have seemed laughable to Africanist-oriented
politicians and academics, reminiscent of the fantasy world of colonial country club
society, the small Southern African academic community exercised a powerful moral
influence which could not be overestimated. While its political voice was largely
confined to reform and self-interest, its links with the media could dictate the issues
on which public opinion was concentrated. The Southern African academic community
chose either to ignore or distort the issues of Lesotho and the Pan Africanist Congress
primarily, it seems, because its moral indignation was selective and self-seeking and it
was reluctant to recognise that there were other forces in Southern Africa which might
not adhere to the belief that universal political truths emanate from the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies or that the University of the Witwatersrand was the nerve
centre of the African revolution. Years later, when Mokhehle had been elected prime
minister of Lesotho in 1993 and received an NUL honorary doctorate, I asked Professor
David Ambrose, who had stayed at NUL from before the 1970 coup and whom I had

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labelled the Vicar of Bray 27, if he and his colleagues had ever tried to assert moral
pressure on the BNP regime. He refused to comment.
The highly controversial Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, and philosopher
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1932) concluded that human nature was too powerful for
democracy to rectify injustice and poverty. He concluded that in any era at any time
80% wealth was held by 20% of the people and 20% of wealth would be shared by 80%
of the population. In 2006 The New York Times pointed out that with the advantage of
technology 1% could hold 80% of the wealth 28 and since October 2011 the expression
we are the 99 per cent has come to refer to the masses who share what is left of
global wealth after corporate CEOs and the "richest one percent" have pocketed the
bulk of global output. In African countries, as elsewhere, professional and technical
elites have refused to live frugal lives to ease social tensions and promote harmony.
While Lesotho appeared to be an interesting focus for dissident and talented Africans
in 1960, the suffocating conservatism and oppression after 1962 convinced most
graduates, self-appointed future leaders of their countries, to look elsewhere for
financial compensation. The late Faith Khabi, who married a senior member of the
ANC, summarised much of their outlook when she told me, "There's no money in
Lesotho. Although or maybe because many of these graduates were educated in the
Soviet bloc, they expected an elitist life style. The rhetoric was socialist but their
politics were as elitist and authoritarian as the old style liberals or colonial
administrators. As African states moved towards one-party systems, the emergent
elites no longer depended on popular appeal but on approval from the hierarchy. Not
answerable to an electorate and paying lip service to ideology, the elite found that
domestic and civil service posts were scarce. This pushed them in ever increasing
numbers into the United Nations agencies as well as into the OAU and international
organizations. African revolutionary movements became venal and authoritarian. This
escalating bureaucratic class of nouveaux blancs could not relate to the wealth
redistribution rhetoric of the BCP or PAC, particularly when Leballo was accused of
killing David Sibeko, one of the most entertaining of socialites of New York. Mokhehle,
Leballo and Sobukwe despised the international press but the ANC/SACP showed how
effective it could be for propagating mythologies and transforming disasters (the
Congress of the People Kliptown coup) and dubious documents like the Freedom
27

Simon Aleyn (ca. 1540 to 1588), Vicar of Bray in England, changed his religion from Catholic to
Protestant to Catholic to Protestant to keep his job. A famous song recalls his career.
28
Krugman, Paul (February 27, 2006). "Graduates versus Oligarchs". New York Times: pp. A19.

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Charter into global icons. After the coup the BCP desperately needed external publicity
to present its case and it never succeeded in securing the regular support of a noted
journalist. There was an additional problem that some senior BCP (and in particular
PAC) spokesmen were mercenary, undiplomatic, arrogant and rude and this cost
support from journalists and other outsiders who had heard their country was under a
dictatorship and wanted to know how to help. Unlike the ANC/SACP they came from a
class that did not relate to White professionals, politicians and journalists and they
startled middle class African Americans with their militant stances and inflammatory
language. David Sibeko was an excellent diplomat for the PAC and, after his
assassination, the resignation of Henry Isaacs and the exile of Leballo, the official
PAC had very unsatisfactory leaders and diplomats. When I was acting BCP
representative I found here was much interest in the BCP but Molapo made no effort
to follow up inquiries. Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian activist did a magnificent job as
spokeswoman for Palestinian rights and the BCP and PAC could have benefitted
enormously with someone of her calibre. In brief, by 1981, as a result of American
pressure, superior ANC publicity, the BCPs alliance with Van der Merwe, the Chinese
volte-face and the incompetence of the official PAC, it was clear the BCP and PAC
were rapidly evaporating as players of any consequence in southern Africa.

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CHAPTER TEN
During the 1980s, as a consequence of Clines circle continuing the Rhodesian
strategy of arming RENAMO against the Mozambican government, scores of thousands
of automatic weapons entered the illicit arms market and ended up in South Africa,
many in the hands of criminal gangs. The police began to lose control of large areas of
the country to such an extent that even young boys and especially teenagers were
becoming a security threat, having lost their fear of reprisals.
Leballos position improved towards 1985 because the party inside South Africa
was highly critical of Tanzanias involvement in the Sibeko coup, the murder and
detention of APLA cadres in March 1980, and the imprisonment of APLA pilots and
officials in Harare in 1981. There was also continental dissatisfaction with Tanzanias
foisting of Milton Obote back into the Ugandan presidency. It was also obvious that
the official PAC was totally ineffectual. Although Leballo and I were almost destitute,
we tried to prepare for two schemes respectively for South Africa and Lesotho.
Leballo believed that 21 March 1985 would be the start of an escalating national
rising because militant students would hold demonstrations marking the 25 th
anniversary of Sharpeville and because of the realisation that the White regime was
losing control, they would not be crushed as in 1960 and 1976. In Zimbabwe I had
previously pressured Leballo to go underground in South Africa to re-establish his
leadership but he declined, saying that informers would immediately betray him. His
strategy therefore was to urge the students to follow Sobukwes advice about
producing their own leaders, establishing objectives and refusing to compromise until
they had gained armed control. In this way he intended to thwart the ANCs dream of
The Great Conference Table in the Sky and hopefully create a more equitable society
than the ANC and NP had in mind. Unfortunately, Leballos APLA commander, Justice
Nkonyane, refused to contemplate any further action. He told Leballo that it was
useless to continue the struggle. Nkonyane today is a major-general in charge of
logistics in the South African Defence Force.
In December 1984 I presented a plan separately to Leballo and Duncan Campbell,
our intelligence genius. I pointed out that my service in the Lesotho Paramilitary Force
could be used to force Lekhanya into a coup against Leabua Jonathan to save his
career. Campbell wondered if it might make the situation in Lesotho even worse but
Leballo was immensely enthusiastic. I did a few more tricks on Lekhanya to
compromise his position irretrievably. Then we wrote to him in Sesotho and English to
tell him how he had been fooled and that if he wanted to save his career hed better

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overthrow Leabua and restore democracy. Lekhanya at first panicked. Eventually he

calmed down and became so reclusive that Leballo suggested twice that it might be
best just to release the evidence and bring Lekhanya down but we relented when
Lekhanya began stockpiling arms.
There were other powerful influences at work. Leabuas alliance with the Eastern
Bloc had caused resentment in the Lesotho Paramilitary Force as a rival paramilitary
youth league force was formed. Catholics in Lesotho were appalled at the sudden
change to communist alliances and there had been general justified unease about the
presence in Lesotho of ANC cadres including Martin Thembisile (Chris) Hani, SACPs
most experienced guerrilla leader, who was absent when the South Africans raided
Maseru and murdered ANC cadres in December 1982.
Advising the BCP proved problematic. Moses Qhobela Molapo was still in London
and was sending pompous insulting letters concerning Leballos attempts to extradite
PAC prisoners from Lesotho. Mphanya, whose Botswana business was flourishing,
studiously avoided my request for repayment of my 500 loan. In the end I terminated
my relationship with him, advising that there was going to be a coup in Lesotho and
that the BCP should prepare for it. When Gloria Moruthane visited England, thoroughly
depressed with the political situation in Lesotho, I told not to despair because dramatic
change was coming.
After I quit Leicester University, I enrolled at Bremen University in Germany and in
December 1984 I was awarded my PhD on BCP and PAC magna cum laude, the
highest grade you can get, my supervisor Professor Imanuel Geiss said, if you are not
a genius. My other supervisor was Professor Michaela Von Freyhold, whose wrote a
highly commended book on Tanzanias Ujamaa experiment. 29
By 1985 Leabua Jonathan was widely regarded as a political harlot and loose
cannon. In December 1985 South Africa blockaded Lesotho to force the expulsion of
the ANC. The same month Lekhanya received a copy of my thesis detailing how he had
been deceived. On January 1986, after consultations with the South Africans, Lekhanya
led a coup detat in the name of the King, as we had advised, using the speech we had
given him months earlier and changing, at my suggestion, the name of the LPF to the
Royal Lesotho Defence Force. His cabinet included opportunistic political failures such
29

Professor Geiss died in Febrary 2012 aged 81. A remarkable man, he has been educated through a Nazi
charity after they had euthanized his mother, a victim of meningitis. Professor Von Freyhold 2009 died in
January 2010 aged 69. She had worked alongside Dr Tsiu Selatile in Dar es Salaam. I am indebted to them for
saving my academic career from the ineffectual indolence of Leicester Universitys Professor J. E. Spence.

171

as Bennet Khaketla and the Communist Party leader Sefali Malefane, Lekhanyas
childhood friend.
Leballo did not live to see this. He had died of hypertension on 8 January, twelve
days earlier. His body was flown from London to South Africa and interred at his home
village of Lifelekoaneng, near Mafeteng, Lesotho. Lekhanya forbade any political
activities at the burial.
That was twenty six years ago and I must admit that life has been insufferably dull
since PK died. I linked up with other PAC members associated with the MaoistAfricanist element within the PAC opposed to detente and dialogue. Our stance was
pragmatic. As the Soviet empire rapidly disintegrated, it was clear that the apartheid
regime had lost its usefulness to the US and UK as a bastion of anti-communism and
that change was coming. It was equally clear that the post-Leballo official PAC
leadership desperately wanted well paid appointments in a future free South Africa.
While we understood that former PAC militants like Muedane, Nkonyane, and
Z. B. Molete had suffered persecution, trauma and exile and had now had enough;
the party still had a duty to its members to secure a better place in the new South
Africa.
There was some hope that the election in 1986 of Zephaniah Lekoame Mothopeng
(1913-1990) as PAC leader while in jail would enable the PAC to regain some credibility
but he died in 1990 a year after his release. Although Mothopeng had dismissed
Mandela and Mugabes calls to negotiate with the Pretoria regime, the reformist
element ignored his legacy. He had recognised that the reformers a Frankenstein
style hybrid alliance of the self-seeking murderous mystical fascist element in the PAC
with the ineffectual Christian pastor sector - would be an electoral disaster so it was
advisable to refuse participation in the 1994 election and remain a vocal critic of the
excesses and mismanagement of Mandelas venal ANC-SACP-NP-Inkatha coalition. By
accepting the election, in which the PAC gained a ludicrous 1.2%, the party lost
everything. In my circulars I drew attention to Kerensky had lost out to Lenin but
although the PAC Youth Congress and the PAC Watchdogs needed no advice on this
issue, they were unable to prevent dubiously convened conferences that endorsed
participation in the election. After Clarence Makwetu and Bishop Stanley Mogoba gave
up the leadership they were succeeded by an almost comic book character,
S.E.M.Pheko, who claimed two doctorates, one that he had awarded himself and the
other he had bought from Kensington University, a bogus degree mill. Worse followed.
After Pheko was sacked for embezzlement, the new leader of the PAC was a fascist

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psychopath named Letlapa Mphahlele, who had ordered the murder of a church
congregation. In 2011 the PAC Youth Congress called for his dismissal.
I returned to Tanzania in 1993 but cut most links with Lesotho and South Africa
after the BCP and ANC/SACP election victories. I have never returned to either country.
I resumed my wandering life. I taught the Japanese language, ran a karate school, and
became a correspondence assistant to ministers of education. I worked unpaid as a
Kinyarwanda and Swahili trainer for the UN Rwanda Force, as a Portuguese for mine
clearance trainer for Mozambique, as an advisor for the Karen Burmese resistance and
as an education officer for Afghan women. I was a university academic in Eritrea,
Australia, England, Morocco, Vietnam, Laos, China, South Korea and China Taipei
teaching Cultural Tourism, History, English for Academic Purposes, Economics,
Development Studies, Maths, and Public Speaking. These days I research and write on
Ethiopian and West Arabian history and languages. In todays (2012) currency I spent
US$ 104,000 (786,358 South African Rand) on the BCP during 1978-80. I dont regret it.
I cherish the memory of Lesotho and the friendship of Leballo and other extraordinary
people. I had hoped to play a role in creating a more equitable society in South Africa
but, as the ANC itself has admitted, international economic pressures are difficult to
combat even when a government is sympathetic to the aspirations of its voters.
In 1987 Ntsu Mokhehle returned to Lesotho and the LLA was officially disbanded in
1990. Mokhehle was elected prime minister in 1993, winning every seat, while
Mandela was elected president of South Africa. Some APLA troops were absorbed into
the South African Defence Force. The LLA troops, in contrast, were treated
disgracefully. When they returned to Lesotho they did not amalgamate with the Royal
Lesotho Defence Force. Thebe Motebang, the former commander of the Lesotho
Liberation Army, died in abject poverty on 24 December 2010.

With P. K. Leballo at Hendon, London 1982

173

(above) One of 5000 cards I produced for the

BCP 25th anniversary in 1977 in the days of
Letraset

(Above) One of 5000 cards I produced in 1978

Johann van der Merwe 1989

Leabua Jonathan Molapo

174

Moses Qhobela Molapo

Justin Metsing Lekhanya 1977

David Nteso 1970

(Police Mobile Unit file)

Matooane Chazi Mapefane 1970

(Police Mobile Unit file)

175

Koenyama Stephen Chakela 1970

(Police Mobile Unit file)

Hlenyane Mike Mkhabela

Woodlands Lusaka 1980

Ntsukunyane Mphanya
Tlokweng Gaboronee 1980

Bernard Ben Leeman

Johannesburg November 1969

176

(above) One of 500 cards I produced in 1978 of

murdered BCP activist Makoloi

(above) Makolois funeral 1974

My photo of Lekhanya at LPF range 1977 with

Chinese Type 56 captured from the LLA

Lekhanyas photo of myself the same day with the

same weapon and wearing his jacket

177

Ntsu Mokhehle under arrest January 1970

Left to right: Commissioner Ntoi, Prosecutor Kopeli, Mokhehle, Lekhanya, photographer

Posting envelope of my LPF service (see next page)

178

MY CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE AS A MAJOR IN THE LESOTHO PARAMILITARY FORCE

179

Mokhehle (above left) and Selatile (above right) after LLA high command meeting at
David Sibekos flat, Oyster Bay, Dar es Salaam September 1977

Matooane Chazi Mapefane and Jama Mbeki at my flat in Harare 1980

180

P. K. Leballo at the launch of the University of Azania

181

APLA refugee troops in Nairobi giving cultural presentation

The van I shipped from London in 1978 to

the LLA in Tanzania but was lost through
Selatiles incompetence

General Ben Leeman of APLA in

Hanoi with General Tran Dien, one of
the North Vietnamese commanders
who captured Saigon in 1975

182

Anton Muziwake Lembede

Africanist ideologue

Ashley Peter Mda

Africanist ideologue

Nyakane Muike Tsolo

PAC leader at Sharpeville 21 March 1960

Zephaniah Mothopeng
The only credible national leader
of the PAC after Leballos death

183

David Sibeko
Tanzanian installed PAC leader

Vus Make
Tanzanian installed PAC leader

John Nyati Pokela

Tanzanian installed PAC leader

Johnson Mlambo
Tanzanian installed PAC leader

184

Clarence Makwetu
Collaborator faction PAC leader

Bishop Stanley Mogoba

Collaborator faction PAC leader

Salzwedel Ernest Motsoko Pheko

Collaborator faction PAC leader,
embezzler and bogus degree collector

Letlaka Mphahlele
Collaborator faction PAC leader
and psychotic murderer

185

Ray Cline (right) with Allen Dulles,

Head of CIA 19531961 (left)

Ray Cline as Nixons National Security Adviser 1969

Judy May Cline December 1967

wearing my SOAS soccer shirt

Sybil Cline and her husband Bob MacKenzie of LLA with

UNITA troops from Angola

186

RAY CLINES BACKERS IN THE ANTI COMMUNIST LEAGUE 1973

Dictator of Bolivia

Dictator of
South Korea

Dictator of Paraguay

Dictator of
South Vietnam

Dictator of Argentina

Dictator of the
island of Taiwan

Dictator of
The Philippines

CLINES BACKERS IN THE 1980s AND 1990s

Ken Brown, Editor of Soldier of

Fortune mercenary magazine

Rev Sun Moon of the

Unification Church

187

Donald Rumsfeld
US Defence Secretary

Ray Clines letter to President George Bush Senior 1991 (see next page)

188

Rumsfeld and MacKenzie are listed on the Global Strategy Councils notepaper as fellow directors. An
Internet search of the other directors, such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, US ambassador to the UN, is most
illuminating. Marjorie Cline was Ray Clines wife. Roger Fontaine was Judy Clines husband. MacKenzie
was Sybil Clines second husband. Her first was Stefan Halper, now director of American Studies at
Cambridge University. Halper was National Policy Director for George H. W. Bushs Presidential campaign
and then in 1980 he became Director of Policy Coordination for the Reagan- Bush presidential campaign. He
then served as President Reagans Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. He was
deeply involved in the Contragate scandal whereby weapons were illegally sold to Iran and profits used to
fund right-wing rebels in Nicaragua. Roger Fontaine served in the first Reagan Administration as the
National Security Councils senior staff officer responsible for Latin America. Janet Morris is a specialist on
mind control techniques.

Janet Morris
Mind control expert

Stefan Halper
Clines son-in-law

Jeane Kirkpatrick (second left, second row) in Ronald

Reagans Cabinet

189

Roger Fontaine
Clines son-in-law

George H.W. Bush,

C.I.A director 1976-7,
US president 1989-93