Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Ingwavuma Unit Suffers Arrests – Part 1

On 11 December 1984, the apartheid security net was closing on Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Ingwavuma Unit, since in Emachobeni Royal Area of Ingwavuma, the police arrested Vusumuzi Nyawo while he was resting in a room at his mother’s house. Later on, the same day, Norbert Buthelezi, who was also a member of the Ingwavuma Unit, was arrested near a shopping centre.

On 13 December 1984, following the two arrests, Robert Dumisa (aka “Mugabe”) was with James Marupeng in the Isihlangwini Area when they were confronted by an apartheid police contingent in the Ubombo Mountains. When Marupeng attempted to remove a hand grenade from his pocket, the policemen overpowered him.

Meanwhile Dumisa was resisting a white officer who was trying to apprehend him, and during the ensuing struggle, he was persuading the black officers to kill their white counterpart and release him. Unfortunately, his appeals on the black policemen’s political and sentimental values were unsuccessful and he was arrested.

This all began on 10 February 1984, when the Military Intelligence (MI) Unit of the apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) Natal Command received a report on Ntunja Mngomezulu, who was a candidate for the leadership of the Mngomezulu clan in the Ingwavuma area.

According to the report, Mngomezulu had, since 10 April 1973, been in exile in Swaziland, where he regularly attended African National Congress (ANC) gatherings in Siteki. A weapons cache was established by his followers in a place called Ndivane, in Swaziland, north of Nsoko and near Magugo.

The report maintained that if the Mngomezulu clan and the ANC could successfully reach an agreement to assist each other in obtaining a leadership position for the Ntunja Mngomezulu in Ingwavuma, it could lead to tensions with Chief Gatsha Buthelezi’s Inkatha movement.

Previously and actually, the Deputy Commander of the Natal Machinery, Zweli Nyanda, had initiated plans of turning Ingwavuma into an MK operational area, and this project was pursued after his death in November 1983. $fforts were undertaken by MK operatives, such as Nobleman “Mzala” Nxumalo, to reconnoitre the area, which was seen as suitable for rural guerrilla warfare.

In February 1984, when Msongomane Nyawo travelled to Swaziland, he visited a rondavel belonging to his uncle, Jameson Nongolozi Mngomezulu, who was exiled to the kingdom. During the visit, he found other men present at the meeting with Mngomezulu, and these were Robert Dumisa and Norbert Buthelezi, where he was shown a cache of arms that included an AK-47 assault rifle, a PKM company machine gun and some hand grenades.

Mngomezulu’s sister, Nokuhamba Nyawo, was also an important player. After being recruited to MK, she gathered intelligence and provided supplies to MK operatives moving through the area. She would receive guerrillas passing through the area and help them skip the border into Swaziland.

In April 1984, Vusumuzi Nyawo, whose brother, Msongomane, had travelled to Swaziland in February 1984, was at his home in Nhlavane, in the Ingwavuma area, when he was visited by Robert Dumisa, whom he had also met in Swaziland. Dumisa mentioned that he had been sent to Mngomezulu and needed Nyawo to take him somewhere the following morning.

In the company of third person, Bernard Mngomezulu, Dumisa and Nyawo headed off the following morning to a nondescript area in the bush, where Dumisa pointed to a particular spot, after following a cattle track.

Meanwhile, another MK cadre, Wilfred Maphumulo, was entering South Africa illegally from Swaziland to the Nhlavane area of Ingwavuma.

On 28 August 1984, Robert Dumisa was back in James Mngomezulu’s rondavel in Swaziland, wherein he mentioned that he had learned that the presence of his unit in Ingwavuma had become known, including the precise location of their base. Dumisa added that Msongomane Nyawo had instructed the unit to kill one of his brother’s enemies, Tindla Mngomezulu, who was a relative of Chief Ntunja Mngomezulu. As the Commander of the Unit, Dumisa refused to carry out the instruction based on the ANC’s policy and aims in the region. (To be continued…)

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!