Fish Keitseng’s Land Rover Exploded
On 17 September 1963, during the night, the Land Rover that Jack Hodgson bought for Fish Keitseng to use in Peleng Village, in Lobatse, was extensively damaged by explosives. Jack Hodgson had received the money to purchase the vehicle from Tanganyika, and he bought the Land Rover in Germiston on 20 July 1963. The vehicle was procured to assist with his demanding tasks of ferrying comrades leaving South Africa into Bechuanaland to get to safer areas towards the north of the sub-continent.
Fish Keitseng was a defendant in the 1956 Treason Trial and was deported to Bechuanaland by the apartheid regime in 1959. He settled in Lobatse and was in charge of the African National Congress (ANC) in Bechuanaland. Towards the end of 1960, after the ANC was banned, the young Joe Modise linked up with Keitseng and recruited him into the ANC underground network. Joe Modise became one of the founders of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and participated in its first operations. He helped establish MK infrastructure throughout the country, spending two years working underground. He played a key role in sending recruits out of South Africa for military training before going into exile in 1963. Together with Keitseng they played a key role with the Bechuanaland pipeline.
Following the procurement of the vehicle, Hodgson arranged for Keitseng to get an intensive driving course to be able to qualify for a driver’s licence, and that was contained in a letter th
