MK Mutiny in Viana – The Election of the Committee of Ten

On the afternoon of Monday, 6 February 1984, a general meeting of cadres was held around the swimming pool in Viana Transit Camp, outside the capital of Angola, Luanda, which was joined by a group of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) guerrillas who had travelled from a facility called the “Plot”, also near Luanda. The general meeting was a result of a visit by the MK Regional Commander in Angola, Timothy Mokoena (aka “Bra T”), the day before, in the company of Edwin Mabitse, the Regional Commissar, and “Comrade Captain Lentsoe”, the Regional Chief of Security. The cadres in the camp were told to prepare for a meeting with the regional leadership on Tuesday. One of the cadres from the “Plot”, Zaba Maledza, addressed the general meeting. By his estimate there were about a thousand people there. The huge number was because of the cadres that had arrived by train and trucks from Cacuso to Viana in the beginning of February, who were firing shots into the air, as a form of protest towards the ANC (African National Congress) leadership to attend to the desperate problems facing the organisation. The group in Cacuso was further swelled by other units from Musafa. Upon their arrival in Viana, the Commander of the camp, “Pro”, ordered them to disarm because the Angolans did not want to deal with an MK revolt on the doorstep of their capital. Some of the cadres began to disarm upon hearing this order, but many refused. At the meeting, Maledza told them that any int