Reaction to the MK Special Ops SASOL I and II Attacks
On 4 June 1980, African National Congress (ANC) leader Oliver Tambo’s predictions that the SASOL attack would herald an intensification of the regional conflict were realised. Tambo’s predictions were based on the damage that had been inflicted by the well-coordinated attack that cadres of Umkhonto we Sizwe’s (MK) crack Special Operations Unit had launched on the Sasol One and Two facilities, South Africa’s giant Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation, as well as Natref. For the rest of the week, fires blazed out of control, causing damage estimated at R70 million (or £45 million).
Speaking to a Reuters correspondent in Dar es Salaam on 3 June 1980, Tambo mentioned that he expected apartheid South Africa’s response to the SASOL attacks to be raids on neighbouring states, even though “there is no African country bordering on South Africa which can be said to have helped the ANC do what it is doing. … Unfortunately, no matter how little involved the countries neighbouring South Africa may be, South Africa will harass them”.
Indeed, on the same day that Tambo made his statement, Colonel J.J. Viktor of the Security Branch was telling Dirk Coetzee, an apartheid security policeman, based at Middleburg Police Station, to report to Major Nick van Rensburg in Ermelo. Van Rensburg told Coetzee, Warrant Officer Paul van Dyk, and Sergeants Krappies Hattingh and Chris Rorich that they had to blow up two targets in Swaz
