Efforts to Revive the M-Plan in the 1970s
On Sunday morning, 13 April 1975, Bhekisisa Nxasana was in the yard of his house in Clermont, Durban, when a man approached him and introduced himself as Russel Maphanga. In January 1974, Nxasana had been approached by Raymond Nkosi, who later introduced him to Joseph Nduli, formerly of the reconnaissance group in the joint Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)-Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) Wankie campaign.
Nduli had explained that he was sent by the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) to see what conditions were like in South Africa, in order to revive the ANC in accordance with the M-Plan (the Mandela Plan). Russel Maphanga was part of the underground structures in Natal, operating with other stalwarts of the ANC, such as Judson Khuzwayo and Shadrack Maphumulo.
Moments later Jacob Zuma arrived at Nxasana’s house in the company of William Khanyile. Jacob Zuma had been arrested in one of Essop Suleiman’s Combis in June 1963 for attempting to leave the country illegally and served ten years on Robben Island before his release in 1973. William Khanyile was an ANC activist from Pietermaritzburg, who also belonged to SACTU and the South African Communist Party (SACP). He had been arrested in 1963 with Antony Mfenendala Xaba for belonging to a banned organisation, the ANC, and was sentenced to eight years in Robben Island. On his release in 1972, he was placed under a bannin
