Apartheid Security Net Closing In On the MK Underground
On Saturday, 6 July 1963, at approximately 02:00 in the morning, Billy Nair was arrested in his Durban home. The news spread like wildfire among the underground activists throughout the country, and as a result, when Ian David Kitson arrived for a meeting at Liliesleaf Farm on the same day, he commented that he was surprised to see his comrades being there, as he thought everyone was moving base following Billy Nair’s arrest.
Responding to Kitson, Walter Sisulu mentioned that it was the last time that they were meeting at the Farm. The meeting was called to finalise the discussion on the guerrilla warfare plan, which Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein had made adjustments to. Bernstein had placed an alternative proposal centred on limited attacks on isolated border outposts, after which guerrillas were expected to retreat into bases in the British protectorates.
This was anticipated to lead to an international incident that would precipitate strikes and a serious political crisis. According to Bernstein, the only alternative to the proposal was a protracted guerrilla war, which wouldn’t succeed given the might of the apartheid South African state and its allies. The apartheid state had thrown overboard every possibility of democratic rule and for that reason there was little, if any, room for change besides revolutionary mass action or armed resistance leading to victory by military means. This was held to be poss
