POLITICS

something of an expert with leather and created a small factory at the back of a shop in Finchley from which he Of Guns Under developed a successful leather clothing © Shutterstock.co.za business. Mannie maintained his relationship with Joe Slovo. They had been friends Bums and Secret since meeting at a chemical factory where they worked in Johannesburg in their late teens and continued their relationship as comrades in the South African Communist Party and the ANC Safaris until Joe’s death in 1995. Mannie died a few years later in 2003. In the early ’80s, as the struggle was heating up in South Africa, the ANC approached Mannie with the aim of finding new ways to set up projects to smuggle weapons to the ANC. Mannie worked in collaboration with Chris Hani on a project they called the “Tallow Project” (their original hand written drawings and plans are now in the archive at the Lilieslief Museum). The aim was to build a candle factory in Zimbabwe for which tankers of wax would have to be delivered from South Africa. On one occasion the tanker would In the early ’80s, as the struggle was heating up return as if empty but actually full of plastic explosive. The aim was to park in South Africa, the ANC approached Mannie the tanker outside the Johannesburg stock exchange and blow it up. with the aim of finding new ways to set up Eventually the operation was called off by the MK commander in chief, projects to smuggle weapons to the ANC. Oliver Tambo, who was not convinced that there would be no loss of life in the explosion. By David Max Brown Many of the ANC structures were infiltrated or thought to be so and n 1963 my father, Mannie Brown, underground in South Africa and though thousands of cadres were being drove into a Johannesburg car attempted to continue to operate trained in Angola very few ever got the Idealership in my mother’s little red within the South African Communist chance to cross into South Africa and Renault to purchase a getaway vehicle. Party under the command of Bram of the handful who did many of them He was part of the escape Fischer. were caught and killed as they crossed committee that organised the break Thinking the atmosphere was the border or soon after. from jail of four of the Rivonia Trialists, cooling off, my mother agreed to bring Operation “Vula”, under the Mosie Moolla, Abdulhay Jassat, Arthur us all back to South Africa but it was command of Oliver Tambo and Mac Goldreich and Harold Wolpe. The jail only a few weeks later that the special Maharaj, was planned in the late ’80s to break and the getaway was successful branch caught up with Mannie again bring MK commanders into the country but Harold and Arthur had to dump and he had to engineer his own escape to train internal units that would in turn the car in Swaziland and pretty soon with the family following soon after. pass on their training to other units. the special branch were looking for a Thus my life in England began at the The Vula operation smuggled several man in a little red Renault. age of four with my twin brother and of the leading MK commanders and Our house was searched on several two older sisters. a significant amount of weapons into occasions and my father, who had Our father worked for several years the country. Although about a fifty to already done a stint in jail, went into as a salesman for a factory selling leather a hundred cadres were trained, the hiding. My mother fled with her four skins and my mother as a teacher at a Vula structure was detected before it kids to England, while Mannie stayed nursery school. Eventually he became could implement any level of military

48 THE THINKER POLITICS success. and laughed long into the night whilst included Heather Newham and Jenny Meanwhile Oliver Tambo had planning and plotting from Mannie’s Harris; and others who drove the tasked Joe Slovo, who involved Mannie house in Finchley, just a stone’s throw truck, such as Stuart Round, Menno Brown, to create a system whereby from Margaret Thatcher’s constituency Schroeder, and Mike and Jo Lewis. weapons would be dropped in floating office. Volunteers from Canada, the UK and pods from ships off the South African They opened a bona-fide travel South Africa were used to receive coastline. Cadres were sent to Cuba company, “Africa Hinterland” in the weapons and distribute them to for training in seafaring and a ship was Greenwich, purchased an old Bedford hiding places around the country. about to be purchased for the mission; truck at an auction and converted The operation had all the possible but this plan was dropped when Joe it to carry passengers with brilliantly odds stacked against it and yet over introduced Mannie to a man named concealed hiding places for the forty successful missions succeeded Rodney Wilkinson. weapons under the seats. They shipped between 1986 and 1990. Rodney was an after-building the truck to Kenya where it was filled I grew up in London but during the designer at the Koeberg Nuclear with tourists who had a great holiday period that all this was happening I was Reactor near Cape Town. He hated the from Mombasa to Johannesburg and working for the ANC as a photographer South African regime and the racism at unwittingly helped to smuggle tons of at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom his workplace and so he decided to weapons into the country. No one was College in Tanzania. I later was take the plans of the nuclear facility to ever caught. awarded an ANC scholarship to study the ANC in Lusaka and provide them film in Canada, and then lived and with an unexpected gift. worked in London and then Swaziland, He finally got to meet with They opened a moving to South Africa in 2000. Joe Slovo and Mac Maharaj who bona-fide travel It was only in 1995 that my father persuaded Rodney to take a crash company, “Africa disclosed to me what he had been course in how to prime and plant a doing. I was completely surprised by mini-limpet mine. On his return to Hinterland” in the news and a little dismayed that as a South Africa Rodney was supplied Greenwich, purchased serving member of the ANC I was not with three mini-limpet mines which he privy to this big family secret. managed to smuggle through security an old Bedford truck My mother had been typing up the at Koeberg. The security was intense at an auction and correspondence and secret codes, my and methodical for the black workers brother had supplied a safe house to but laissez-faire for the whites (http:// converted it to carry the drivers in London, I think my sisters mg.co.za/article/1995-12-15-how-we- passengers with also knew something of the operation blew-up-koeberg-and-escaped-on-a- and the danger to the family if anyone bicycle). After blowing up Koeberg on brilliantly concealed was caught. December 17th 1982, Rodney and his hiding places for the Listening in 1995 to my father’s partner Heather Gray, whom he later account of the project I immediately married, escaped to England. weapons under saw the potential of the story for a A few years later, in 1986, Rodney the seats. documentary film and though it took was bored hiding out in London and me five years to raise the money and it seemed that not even the South Mannie and Rodney were part of locate the original Hinterland guns African special branch suspected him a group of trusted ANC cadres called truck, the film The Secret Safari was or in fact any of the white workers, “The London Traders”. Their direct made in 2001. It went on to screen unlike the black workers who suffered commander was Cassius Maake who around the world and won the Dendy intense interrogation. Rodney dreamed was later assassinated in Swaziland, Award in Australia and other accolades. of driving overland to South Africa and replaced by Aboobaker Ismail, Finding the passengers who had and the more he thought about it the a.k.a ‘Rashid’. travelled on the Africa Hinterland truck more he realised that with some simple Responsible for the packing of the was difficult, but one passenger led to modifications to a big Bedford Truck weapons into the truck were Benno another and some of the drivers still he could smuggle in a ton of weapons Smith and a few others; ‘Calvin’ Riaz had passenger lists. Finding the truck under the seats along the way. Saloojee and Muff Anderson, then was a little more daunting. Joe Slovo was sceptical of the idea in their mid-twenties, were tasked In August 1990, Nelson Mandela but introduced Rodney to Mannie with the internal recruitment and appeared on national and international who immediately saw the value of the distribution of the weapons. The television to make the announcement design as compared to the expense support from the London ANC office that the armed struggle would be and unpredictability of the maritime was via Aziz Pahad. halted and the movement of armed operation. This was a team of very different cadres and weapons into South So was born a collaboration of personalities and ages who relied Africa would stop. That decision the most unlikely gun runners who further on British and Dutch recruits was respected by all concerned. drank copious amounts of whiskey to front the Hinterland office. These However due to the violence visited

Volume 58 / 2013 49 POLITICS

upon civilians in parts of Gauteng R98,000 in unpaid storage costs which project was to remain a secret and that and Kwa-Zulu Natal by elements of I couldn’t afford and so he asked me the filming should halt. the apartheid security apparatus and to find out if I could get the SANDF to I was shocked and quite scared. armed militants operating under the swap the truck for a second world war My co-producer from Australia caught banner of Inkatha the London Traders tank. the next flight home, my production were asked unofficially to continue to I contacted my friend Damian manager developed a sudden illness. bring weapons into the country to arm de Lange who had been in the ANC People were genuinely worried about the self defence units set up to protect and active in MK, and was by then a the repercussions of defying not just the affected communities. General working closely with the head the ANC but also its leadership. It was at this point that the team of the army, General Siphiwe Nyanda I decided that I had to continue to took the audacious decision to set and somehow they found a tank that make the film and it was completed up shop in Johannesburg and instead we could swap! However it turned in 2001. Unfortunately without the of a six week tour from Kenya to out to be prohibitively expensive to highest ANC approval and protection offer a two week round trip via transport a 40-ton tank to Pretoria and some of the major operatives in the Botswana and Zimbabwe. The so I had no alternative but to go back to project were unable to feature in the weapons were collected in Bulawayo. Witold to renegotiate. film. The trips were sold to mainly South When I got back to the farm Witold I am now working on the feature African tourists and were frequent had taken a large hammer to the seat film script of this story. Soon we will between 1990 and October 1993 mechanism of the Africa Hinterland begin the journey to find investors and when the project closed. truck and smashed one of the seats in to raise the finance required for the In 1991 the operation came to a his attempt to uncover the hiding place film, which has the working title - The literal standstill as the engine of the for the weapons. Unlikely Gun Runner. old Bedford truck finally gave up. The Witold was very angry that he had The legacy of the Africa Hinterland driver at the time, Menno Schroeder, been unwittingly involved in supporting project remains and I am particularly paged through the Yellow Pages to find an ANC operation and so he insisted happy that the documentary was made someone who could fix it or sell him a that I go to the ANC to pay for the and that the truck is now on display. replacement. He stumbled upon “The storage. I explained that the ANC was What saddens me is that the Pretoria Truck Farm” and found its very embarrassed about the film since collaborative non-racial spirit of the owner to be a large jovial gentleman it would be revealed that they used ANC that allowed comrades of all races who not only sold him a replacement innocent tourists as the cover and to work together and to trust each Bedford but also helped to extend the suddenly Witold saw his chance of a other seems to be dissipating. chassis and move the canopy, replete political ‘payback’. He asked me what Steve Biko also spoke eloquently with hidden compartments to the I could afford and soon I found myself of a future that seems to be new truck. writing him a cheque for R15,000 and slipping further every day from the Then in 1993, when the operation towing the truck away to a place of realms of possibility, when he said was closed, Menno went home to the safety the very next day. We believe that in our country there Netherlands and left the truck in the Fred Baron, who had secretly been shall be no minority and there shall hands of the owner of the Pretoria involved in fixing the truck during its be no majority, there shall just be Truck Farm. Unknown to Menno the smuggling days volunteered to help people…. So in a sense it will be a owner was none other than Witold get the truck back on the road and completely non-racial, egalitarian Walus, the brother to Janus Walus we brought one of the original drivers, society. We believe it is the duty of the who assassinated Chris Hani in April of Stuart Round, over from the UK to vanguard political movement, which that year! assist and take part in the film. We brings about change, to educate If I were to get the truck and restore drove the old truck for two thousand people’s outlooks. it for the dramatic reconstructions kilometres around the country while Surely our leadership and the in the documentary I would have to filming the re-enacted scenes for the country as a whole should be driven negotiate with the enemy. documentary. by a collaborative culture that aims I met with Witold in 1998 and he At the end of the filming process towards nation building and the took me on a tour of his ‘farm’. I donated the truck to a permanent common purpose of a democratic On almost every inch of grass were exhibition at Lilieslief Farm Museum, and equitable society in which South military vehicles, even missiles and the site of the Rivonia arrests in 1963. Africa can truly belong to all who live tanks. It was a veritable graveyard and What was strange, and remarkably in it? That is the ANC that I grew up amongst this sombre array of military has never been explained, is that just in and to which I pledged my allegiance memorabilia was the Africa Hinterland three days before we started filming but which sadly I feel is also dissipating. Truck, with its torn sail and rusty wheels I received a phone call from the There is much to done and so I hope looking remarkably out of place and then ANC secretary general Kgalema that the work I do as a filmmaker will dwarfed by the machinery around it. Motlanthe, who told me that my letter contribute in some way to this nation I explained to Witold why the truck of support from the ANC was to be building that is so essential, now, more was special. He wanted to charge me rescinded and instructed me that this than ever.

50 THE THINKER