Beginning of the MK-Angolan Eastern Front
On 22 August 1983, the Chief Representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in Angola, Uriah Mokeba, wrote a second letter to the Head of the ANC’s International Affairs Department, wherein he warned that “the situation in the province of Malanje is really critical. Most of our people have been withdrawn from the North to assist in manning the security in the Province. Both comrades Joe Modise and Chris Hani are at the scene with units of MK (Umkhonto we Sizwe) assisting in combing the area which is to a very large extent infested with bandits”.
He then added, “We have been told, that our units, in the meantime, are in control of the situation. We shall keep in touch.” This letter followed a letter that Mokeba wrote on 18 July 1983 to the International Department in which he noted that the ANC’s training base in Malanje had become an enemy target, because the Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) had sent groups of “bandits” to sabotage and destabilise the surrounding area. The bandits had at that time captured a village near the camp and had successfully tried to raid an MK logistics store.
In the first letter, Mokeba wrote, “we have come into agreement with the Angolan Defence Force – FAPLA – that we will patrol an area near our camp”. The letter was a consequence of a meeting between Julius Mokoena, the MK Chief of Staff in Angola with the Commander of the People’s Armed Forces for
