ANC Headquarters in London is Bombed

ANC Headquarters in London is Bombed

On 14 March 1982, the African National Congress (ANC) headquarters in Islington, London, England, was bombed. Historically, these offices served as the ANC’s headquarters in Europe since the 1960s. The offices were wrecked by an eleven-kilogram bomb which exploded against the rear wall at 09:00 in the morning, with windows up to 400 yards away being broken. The caretaker, an ANC voluntary researcher, Vernet Mbatha, who was sleeping in a flat above the offices, suffered slight injuries on his foot.

Significant damage was caused to buildings on White Lion Street and Penton Street, where the offices were located. Windows of neighbouring buildings were also shattered, including the Samuel Smith pub and the White Lion Free School, both on White Lion Street and situated metres away from the explosion. Debris from the blast was found nearly 400m away, windows of buildings up to 500 metres away and the explosion was heard as far away as Stoke Newington.

General Johann Coetzee, former head of the apartheid South African security police, and seven other policemen, claimed responsibility for the attack and applied for amnesty before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Coetzee’s accomplices were Major Craig Williamson, John McPherson, Roger Raven, Wybrand du Toit, Major John Adam, Captain James Taylor and Colonel Eugene de Kock. The task of assembling the team was assigned to Colonel Piet Goosen, then Head of Section G (foreign intelligence) of the Security Branch. Coetzee testified that the apartheid South African government wanted to demoralise the ANC and display South Africa’s disapproval of the British government and their support of the liberation organisation.

According to Coetzee, he acted on orders of former apartheid Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange, and had assumed that the assignment had the full support of the apartheid regime. Coetzee denied any intention to kill ANC officials because this would have strained South Africa’s diplomatic relations with Britain. The decision to bomb the offices of the ANC in London was made as a result of a number of bombings conducted by the ANC in South Africa. The most prominent of these was a rocket attack on the military base at Voortrekkerhoogte, Pretoria, in August 1981. On 11 September 1998, apartheid spy and police officer Craig Williamson told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Pretoria that the 1982 bombing was a warning that the war in South Africa could spill over into the streets of London.

Two British citizens, Nicolas Heath and Miss Bonnie Lou Muller (aka Bonnie Heath) were identified as accomplices in the assault. Although the London attack did not stop ANC attacks in South Africa, it had a serious psychological effect on South Africans living in exile abroad, particularly in Western Europe. Craig Williamson said the aim of the blast had been to demoralise the ANC on the 70th anniversary of its existence and also to bring home to the UK the hazards of providing sanctuary to the ANC. However, apartheid South African Police Commissioner, General Mike Geldenhuys, was against the London bombing, especially the plot to send active policemen to Britain.

Reports on the size of the bomb differ. According to Roger Raven, he used 4 blocks of explosives, each weighing 250g, which he detonated with an alarm clock device, while British police claimed that the bomb weighed at least 4.5kg. Raven also said that the initial plan was to bomb both the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) offices in London. However, the SACP office was not bombed because it was located in an urban area. Raven also applied for amnesty for the death of Joe Slovo’s wife, Ruth First, and ANC activist Marius Schoon’s wife, Jeanette, and daughter Katryn, who was 6 years old. They were killed in Mozambique and Angola respectively with parcel bombs made by Raven.

The plastic explosive components for the bomb were developed by Roger “Jerry” Raven of the police technical division and shipped to London in a diplomatic bag. These parts were collected and delivered by Warrant Officer Joseph Klue, then a military attaché at the South African Embassy in London, to Peter Casselton’s home, a diplomat attached to the London mission, where Raven assembled the bomb. The use of the diplomatic bag was a violation of international conventions regarding diplomatic conduct between nations. After the operation, each of the participants was decorated with the Police Star for Excellent Service (SOE) at a ceremony in Minister le Grange’s office, attended by General Coetzee and the then apartheid police commissioner, General Mike Geldenhuys.

Avril Nanton, an Islington tour guide specialising in black history, speculated: “On that day, there was supposed to be an ANC march. That could be the reason they planted the bomb – to stop the march and stop the flow of publicity” (James Morris). According to The Anti-Apartheid Legacy: Centre of Memory and Learning, “It is likely that ANC President Oliver Tambo was expected to be in the building for he had been due to address large crowds of anti-apartheid demonstrators in Trafalgar Square later that day”. Nevertheless, the bombing was widely condemned internationally and further strained apartheid South Africa’s relations with the global community, while strengthening support for the liberation movement.

Patric Tariq Mellet, who was an ANC revolutionary activist and printer in London at the time, maintained that “South African agents had blown up our small ANC printing press located in the Penton Street ANC office in London. Remarkably the actual printing machine, although thrown through a wall, was repairable and was soon set to work again at new premises. A year later a new printing press was established at secret premises…churning out millions of sheets of both our underground printed material and material for our increasing international campaign. Instead of destroying the press, the regime had spurred us on by the bombing, to develop what was by far the most valuable and vital resistance tool in the ANC arsenal at the time” (The Anti-Apartheid Legacy).

In response to the bombing, the ANC said, in an Editorial to its official journal “Sechaba” (April 1982), “Sunday, March 14 – the day on which over 15,0000 people marched against Apartheid in the centre of London. This march followed a three-day international conference organised by the Anti-Apartheid Movement at Wembley. … This bomb blast was a dramatic demonstration of the growing violence of the conflict – a bomb placed without regard for human life or precisely to destroy human life.” Furthermore, “This deteriorating international situation and the aggravation of the military escalation in Southern Africa is due to an ever increasing aggressiveness of racist South Africa. Let us fight this international monster!”

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
The Anti-Apartheid Legacy, “14th March 1982: The bombing of 28 Penton Street”, The Anti-Apartheid Legacy: Centre of Memory and Learning, 2008.
Nick Davies, “15 March 1982: Bomb blast at ANC London office”, The Guardian, 15 March 2013.
SAPA, “ANC Bomb in London A Warning To UK, Williamson Tells TRC”, South African Press Association, 11 September 1998.
James Morris, “‘Islington’s 1982 Blitz’: The story of when secret agents bombed ANC offices in Penton Street”, Islington Gazette, 29 October 2017.
SAPA, “London Bombers Were Stopped by Police on Way To ANC: TRC Hears”, South African Press Association, 23 September 1998.
Raymond Whitaker, “South Africa Turns Spotlight on Secret Bombing of ANC”, The Independent, 18 June 1998.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), “TRC Final Report”, Vol. 2, Chapter 2, Subsection 43, Page Number (Original) 157, Paragraph Numbers 477 to 492.
Editorial, “Increasing Racist Aggressiveness”, Sechaba, April 1982.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!