MK “Operation J” Aborted

MK “Operation J” Aborted

On 22 April 1972, Alexander Moumbaris was busy packing his items for leaving the country the following day, after he had received a cable from Ronnie Kasrils in London the previous day, which said: “Regret to inform you that mother is dead. Deepest condolences”. Moumbaris had entered the country on 9 February 1972 through Jan Smuts Airport, and was renting a holiday cottage in the Isles of Shelly on Natal’s South Coast between Margate and Port Shepstone.

During the time he was on Natal’s South Coast, Moumbaris had been travelling the East Coast from the Isles of Shelly to East London to ensure the success of the African National Congress (ANC) plans to launch a seaborne invasion of South Africa, which was a longstanding objective of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Moumbaris was assisted in this mission by a London couple, Daniel Ahearn and Bob Newlands, as well as a seafarer from Liverpool, Bill McCaig. Landings along the South African coastline were envisaged in “Operation Mayibuye”, which featured in early plans for guerrilla warfare and were discussed by Oliver Tambo, Yusuf Dadoo, Moses Mabhida and Fanele Mbali with a group of Soviet politicians, army generals and navy admirals in early 1971.

In February 1971, Oliver Tambo and Moses Mabhida visited 10 MK cadres in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union, including Nicholas Kombele, Mbiela Dlamini, Benny Zulu, Edward Motsi, Reddy Mazimba, Gladstone Mose and Eric Tengwa. Oliver Tambo told these cadres that endeavours were being undertaken to send them home. They were to take a train to Baku, where they were to receive rigorous training and were to be joined by other comrades, including Fanele Mbali, Sandi Sijake, T.T. Cholo and Jordaan Dawara, among others, amounting to a total of twenty-four cadres.

In the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, they were taken on board a ship. In February 1972, Yusuf Dadoo, Chris Hani, Moses Mabhida, Joe Slovo and Oliver Tambo arrived in “Sironya”, a suburb in Moscow, where they met the guerrillas who had recently returned from their naval training in Baku. After a discussion with the guerrillas, the leaders left, with Chris Hani returning alone and giving the various cadres maps relating to their areas of origin.

A further meeting was held with the guerrillas in Moscow, at which Joe Slovo, Chris Hani and Yusuf Dadoo were present, and Slovo told them that their training had been finalised and they henceforth had to focus on the maps, as they were going to go home by boat. The boat was to offload them at Port St Johns, where they were to connect with their contact, who would identify himself by shining a green light during the night. After receiving the signal, the cadres were expected to gather their arms, get into the small engine-propelled rubber boats that would be provided to them, and then row ashore. They were also going to be given radios that would be operated by “Douglas” (Sandi Sijake) and “Motiranka” (T.T. Cholo).

They would then be expected to advance in the direction of the green light, but if the light became red, they would have to retreat. Upon arrival in Port St Johns, all the weapons they were expected to take ashore would have to be handed to the contact, as well as the rubber boats and Johnson motors. In South Africa they were to train the people to destroy the government and would need to report to Slovo on their progress.

During the same month of February, a plane left the Soviet Union for Somalia with twenty MK cadres, including Chris Hani on board, nineteen of whom had undergone naval training in Azerbaijan. Waiting for them at Mogadishu Airport was a Somali officer who led them to a waiting van, which was driven to a place in the bush outside town where they came across five tents containing Somali military personnel. At this camp they found Moses Mabhida and Oliver Tambo, who immediately took Fanele Mbali and T.T. Cholo aside for consultations.

One night, under cover of darkness, the cadres gathered their equipment at the camp. Nicholas Kombele, T.T. Cholo and Gladstone Mose packed the guns into waterproof bags, while Edward Motsi and John Melo placed the pistols, hand grenades, TNT explosives, detonators and a packet of ammunition for pistols into carrier bags. There were a further six bags containing guns, two bags containing hand grenades, one bag of TNT, and one other bag containing TNT and a fuse. While they were packing, Moses Mabhida arrived with money that had to be placed into the bags.

Cholo, Hani and Mbali were the first to leave by car and the rest followed in two trucks from Mogadishu to Kismayo. In Kismayo they found an engine-propelled steel ship which had a main deck with a railing around it. Painted just below the deck of the ship they saw the word “Aventura”. They arrived at the Aventura in the early hours of the morning and Joe Slovo was already on board the ship. When Gladstone Mose boarded the ship, he saw lifeboats as arranged and that food had been provided. The guerrillas spent the remainder of the night on board and later in the morning the Aventura began to set off, with a Greek crew of about thirteen manning the ship. As they departed the Kismayo port, Oliver Tambo and Chris Hani bid them farewell.

Three or four days later, on 6 March 1972, as the Aventura approached Mombasa in Kenya, when Fanele Mbali and the ship’s captain were having discussion, they heard a loud explosion. The boat began to lose forward momentum and started drifting. The captain told Mbali that they could still reach South Africa on the other engine but that would be risky, since if anything happened to the remaining engine they could end up drifting in the Indian Ocean and had to be towed home by the first vessel that arrived for rescue, which could expose the mission. The captain also believed that there was something wrong with the boat’s radar system.

Mbali summoned T.T. Cholo, Petrus Mthembu, Justice Mpanza and Gladstone Mose for discussion, wherein they decided that they should pull in to Mombasa and inform Mabhida, Tambo and Slovo about the latest developments. The rest of the group was then assembled and informed about the news. The captain interjected, saying that they should not go to Mombasa but rather back to Somalia, as it would take long to effect repairs.

Within a couple of days after returning to Somalia, on 13 April 1972, the radar system was repaired and the cadres again boarded the Aventura in Kismayo. However, the Greek crew raised further concerns about the engine, and said they were afraid of going on the craft. Oliver Tambo visited the guerrillas in their tented bush camp near Kismayo and assured them that he had obtained another crew from England, since the Greeks had apparently learnt that they were heading for Port St Johns where they were to be put ashore, they had become afraid.

Tambo instructed that the Greeks should be kept in the bush, 600 metres away from the MK camp, where they were to be guarded by Somalian soldiers, and would not be allowed to leave. One night soon afterwards, the guerrillas again loaded their equipment onto the Aventura, with an English crew on board. The boat began to set sail early in the morning but only travelled 700 metres and those on board started hearing the sound of iron clanging. The Aventura was then towed back to port by a tug and the guerrillas had to disembark with their luggage and equipment.

A fortnight later, Oliver Tambo arrived at the cadre’ tents near Kismayo, gathered them together and informed that although the initial venture of going home by sea had come unstuck, new endeavours, either by land or by air, would be made. It was after this engagement that Ronnie Kasrils sent Alexander Moumbaris the message: “Regret to inform you that mother is dead. Deepest condolences”.

Some of the facts of “Operation J” became known at a trial on 20 June 1973 of ANC activists and Umkhonto combatants in Pretoria – the Pretoria Six Trial – wherein the apartheid state claimed that the operation was planned directly by Tambo, Slovo and Mabhida, which according to reliable ANC sources was correct. An advance party, which included Alex Moumbaris, had made a reconnaissance of the seashore. According to Joe Slovo, the group of combatants that were to land from the vessel “Aventura” or “Adventurer” consisted of 45 fighters, and a crew of a friendly Greek Communist party, with Moscow being requested to fund the purchase of the ship for £75 000.

The news of the failure of “Operation J” and of the subsequent arrests were greeted in Moscow with dismay. In spite of almost a decade of planning and some years of preparation (not to mention the high costs), the operation had proven a flop from the outset. Some of the Soviet officials, engaged in one way or another in assistance to the ANC, even started to suspect betrayal in the high echelons of the ANC. One of those who were suspected of betrayal was Nikolay Chernov, an unmasked agent of American Intelligence, since 1963, who in 1972, when he was on a short trip abroad, carrying a diplomatic passport and thus avoiding customs, managed to export to the United States’ handlers two containers of film, including information concerning “Operation J”, particularly the names and photographs of ANC members that were trained in the Soviet Union for this purpose.

The real significance of “Operation J”, which became apparent only later, was not its maritime aspect, but its classical guerrilla warfare effect, as the last effort to implement MK’s early strategy of inciting rural insurrection. Despite its utter failure, Operation J was the nearest Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) came to implementing the strategy that had dominated the first phase of its existence, besides the Wankie and Sipolilo Campaigns of 1967 to 1968.

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Janet Smith and Beauregard Tromp, “Hani: A Life Too Short”, Jonathan Ball, 2009.
Sandi Sijake, “Fighting for My Country: The Testimony of a Freedom Fighter”, Jacana, 2024.
Ronnie Kasrils (Ed.), “International Brigade Against Apartheid: Secrets of the People’s War that Liberated South Africa”, Jacana, 2021.
Vladimir Shubin, “ANC: A View from Moscow”, Jacana, 2008.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!