MK Special Operations Unit Hits SASOL

MK Special Operations Unit Hits SASOL

On 1 June 1980, at approximately 19:00, Barney Molokoane, Dick Mtimkulu, Lati Ntshekang and Vaku Senzangakhona were dressed in overalls, some blue, some brown, as they headed to a dead letter box (DLB) situated in a car scrapyard just outside Sasolburg’s black township, known as Zamdela. Two hours later, Sipho Thobela, David Moise, Mochudi and Victor Khayiyana entered through a hole that had been cut in the fence of the SASOL II refinery in Secunda, 135 kilometres from Sasolburg, carrying limpet mines. After planting the mines onto fuel tanks in the complex, they ran to their getaway vehicle, the Chevrolet Firenza, and headed straight for Swaziland.

Meanwhile Lati Ntshekang, Dick Mtimkulu and Barney Molokoane were approaching the SASOL I refinery in Sasolburg, and Molokoane cut a hole in the wire fence, and the three entered the complex. Mtimkulu went to the storage tank, Ntshekang to the gas cylinders and Molokoane went to the refraction towers. When he saw security guards, Molokoane changed his plans and headed instead to the gas cylinders. After planting their magnetic mines, the three left the security area of the refinery along different routes.

At around 23:40, guards at the SASOL I plant noticed a hole in the security fence, and while they were investigating, an explosion sent flames into the night sky. At about the same time, while patrolling on his bicycle, a black security guard at the NATREF plant noticed a hole in the security fence. When he went to investigate, he was confronted by a man wearing a black balaclava and a dark jacket, who fired a gun at him and ran. While the balaclava man was fleeing, a tank in the plant went up in flames, approximately five minutes after the SASOL I blast. At Secunda, in the Eastern Transvaal, three explosions occurred at the SASOL II plant at approximately 00:20 in the morning, one scattering drums containing a chemical, while another resulted in a cut cable.

This operation began in August 1979, when Montso “Obadi” Mokgabudi arrived at Funda Camp, an Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) base in Angola, which was a finishing camp for cadres that were being prepared to be deployed to South Africa. He approached the Camp’s Chief Instructor, Aboobaker Ismail, who was also known as “Rashid”, and asked him to work with Barney Molokoane in training a special unit that was to carry out select missions inside South Africa.

Towards 20 May 1980, the unit that Obadi requested was ready to enter the fray and was ready to escalate the armed propaganda campaign to a level hitherto unseen. On 25 May, Obadi drove Molokoane and some members of the unit, namely M.B. Salomane, “Solly Mayona”, “Jack”, Dick Mtimkulu, Lati Ntshekang and Vaku Senzangakhona, in a yellow Alfa Romeo to Hlatikulu, in Swaziland. There they met Rashid, who was with another group, including Victor Khayiyana, David Moise, “Mochudi” and Sipho Thobela. These two groups were transported in the Alfa Romeo and a minibus to the Mahamba border post between Swaziland and South Africa, where they jumped over the fence into South Africa.

On 2 June, following the explosions that hit SASOL I and II the previous day, newspaper reports claimed that the attack proved to be largely ineffectual in terms of sabotaging the manufacturing processes of the Sasol plant. However, the propaganda impact of the attack was significant, as the apartheid government presented the event as the result of a foreign, communist onslaught against South Africa, and not a domestic reaction to the country’s racial policies.

South African racist Police Minister, Louis le Grange said the SASOL bombings were clearly the work of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). According to le Grange, the ANC had already admitted guilt for the sabotage at Sasolburg and Secunda and it came as no surprise because “For some time the police have known that terrorist insurgents have received specific orders and instructions from Joe Slovo, a South African communist, in Maputo. The placing of Joe Slovo in Mozambique is a well-considered plan of the SACP and the ANC to bring him as close as possible to the Republic from where he can exercise greater control over terrorists directed against the Republic.”

Le Grange further alleged that Dr Solodovnikov, the Soviet ambassador in Lusaka, played an important role in ANC planning. He was assisted by a South African refugee, Frene Ginwala. Newspapers that supported the ruling National Party regime claimed that, in fact, Muammar Gaddafi had masterminded the sabotage, and that Russians had been training terrorists in Libya. Le Grange then vowed that, “No stone will be left unturned to bring these terrorists to book and to ensure the security of the Republic and all its people”.

The Editorial of Sechaba, the official journal of the ANC, in its article titled, “The Fires of Freedom”, maintained that “it was at 11:40 pm when many white residents were shocked, shaken from sleep, streamed from their homes and braved the biting cold in pyjamas and morning gowns to watch the red flames – billowing towers of flame and smoke rising high into the sky. Sasol and Natreff staff, police, traffic officers and local commandos were called out to deal with the fires – a sea of flames, the fires of freedom, the most beautiful fire which symbolised the largest act of sabotage ever in South Africa. Fire engines with sirens screaming raced to the blazing tanks – 8 of them. At least 20 fire engines from Sasolburg and other towns in the Vaal Triangle and the Witwatersrand were fighting the blaze.”

The Editorial continued to say that “Besides this confusion, there was another commotion: an intensive manhunt. The Chief of the South African CID, General Kobus Visser, took charge of it and Security Police officers aided his men and a Special Police Task Force moved into the Vaal Triangle. Roads in the vicinity of the two plants were closed and motorists had to use alternative routes. Even traffic policemen from nearby municipalities were roped in by the South African Police to seal off Sasolburg and the vicinity with road blocks. At the House of Assembly there was chaos and pandemonium: the explosions cause a ‘rumpus’. … The fires of freedom are burning furiously and inextinguishable inside the heartland of apartheid colonial domination.”

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Editorial, “The Fires of Freedom”, Sechaba, August 1980.
Stephen Ellis, “External Mission: The ANC in Exile”, Jonathan Ball, 2012.
Peter Stiff, “The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969 – 1994”, Galago, 1999.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Vladimir Shubin, “ANC: A View from Moscow”, Jacana, 2008.

Castro Khwela
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