Ellis Park MK Bomb Blast – 2 July 1988

Ellis Park MK Bomb Blast – 2 July 1988

On 2 July 1988, Lester Dumakude, who was formerly part of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Botswana Machinery in 1987 and was at this juncture Commander of the MK Special Operations Unit, operating in Johannesburg, was driving a BMW with Harold Matshididi in Zone 5 Diepkloof, Soweto, to central Johannesburg. The other remaining members of their Unit, Aggie Shoke and Itumeleng John Dube, were following them close by in a van, as they went to stop by the off-ramp on Harrow Road.

Following a short discussion on where they were to meet after they had completed what they intended to do, Dumakude and Matshididi returned to the BMW and drove to Upper Meyer Street that runs adjacent to the Ellis Park Rugby Stadium. After dropping Matshididi off, Dumakude parked the car opposite a house a few metres ahead and began to set-up the detonation of an explosive in the car. He then walked to Matshididi and they both proceeded on foot in the direction of Hilbrow.

At just about 17:17, a massive blast hit Rogger Haggerty, who was among the first wave of Transvaal supported that exited Ellis Park following their team’s victory over the Free State. The rugby players and virtually all the spectators at the game between Transvaal and Orange Free State were white. The stadium was the largest sports facility in the Johannesburg area and had seats of approximately 75 000 spectators. Haggerty was close to the BMW left by Dumakude, which was about fifty metres from the stadium’s north-east turnstiles. When the explosive hit him, he felt like he was hit by a car and was thrown to the ground with injuries that were to result in him having a leg amputated.

Another injury was sustained by Peter Soal, a Member of Parliament for the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), who was in a minibus that was driven by his friend approximately thirty metres from Dumakude’s BMW when the blast occurred. The explosion caused the bus’s door to bend and its windscreen to crack, while a chunk of metal from the destroyed vehicle flew over the roof and landed next to the bus. At the same time, a house at Number 4 Upper Meyer Street caught fire as fragments of the BMW flew towards the house. Two men, Clive Clucas and Linus Marais, were killed in the bomb blast, and at least thirty-seven others were injured.

At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Dumakude, who applied for amnesty for this attack, testified that he assumed the two civilians who perished in the blast were security guards at the stadium. He also testified that the act was intended to send a message to the White community regarding the futility of apartheid as a system. Ellis Park was chosen as a target as it was in a predominantly White area. The car bomb explosion was not intended to kill anybody, but to send a message to whites that they, too, were vulnerable to the ongoing conflict, according to Dumakude. They wanted whites to tell their government to stop killing people in the townships.

Matshididi, who was the first to testify, said the MK cell he operated in only wanted to send a message to the whites in the country that the struggle could be applied to them and that they, too, could be killed. According to Matshididi, the bomb was assembled by the Commander, Lester Dumakude, who also drove it to Ellis Park in a stolen car shortly before it was to explode at 17:00. Dumakude approached Matshididi and Shoke a week before the bombing, telling them that they had to perform an assignment at Ellis Park. With the assistance of the other cadres, Dumakude secured materials to make the bomb. They assembled 48kg of explosives, “many” limpet mines and two full 18kg gas cylinders in the boot of the car, with three different timing devices.

After concerns were raised about the nature of the operation, of targeting civilians, the African National Congress (ANC) issued a statement reaffirming that it was “contrary to our policy to select targets whose sole objective is to strike at civilians. Our morality as revolutionaries dictates that we respect the values underpinning the humane conduct of war.” Indeed, the operation did not conform to the ANC’s policy regarding civilian targets. Nevertheless, the ANC told the TRC: “it was expressly not the policy of MK to use methods involving the killing of civilians” but acknowledged that cadres did violate policy due to anger or other reasons.

According to the questions asked by the TRC to the ANC, in an interview on 3 June 1988, Chris Hani was asked if the implications of taking the war into white areas meant taking into places “where whites enjoy the good life”. His response was that “We shall select those targets which are within white areas and there is no way the whites won’t open their eyes and ears and hear an explosion or get to know that so-and-so has been eliminated by an MK unit because he is an officer in the special branch or the SADF (South African Defence Force). That is the kind of armed propaganda which shows that we can hit and that it is dangerous to hang around the Carlton Centre because there might be an office there that would be a target for the ANC. So the best thing is to move and to barricade myself in my nice house in lower Houghton.”

The ANC, which for 50 years conducted a nonviolent campaign to end apartheid, began a sabotage campaign in 1961 that strictly avoided civilian targets. Since 1983, the armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) escalated its armed campaign to include military and police personnel and white farmers who were assisting apartheid defence efforts in the border areas. During the process, for more than 20 years Umkhonto avoided the loss of civilian life, as ANC President Tambo and others had often clarified, the ANC still maintained a policy of selective targets.

According to Tambo, the Ellis Park Stadium bombing did “not fall within our practice”. Speaking to Radio Maputo, Tambo maintained that “It is not part of our policy. We are clear in our policy. We attack the military, we attack the police, and we warn that in those actions people not intending to be hit, will be hit. But the targets will be perfectly clear.”

Nevertheless, in its report, the TRC mentioned that the ANC conceded that unnecessary civilian deaths arose from the misinterpretation of policy by cadres and activists on the ground. They said that state censorship through the banning of ANC literature and the disruption of broadcasts from Radio Freedom, as well as a deliberate distortion of ANC policies, impeded communication between rank-and-file members and the ANC leadership.

The ANC nevertheless refuted the possibility of “different perceptions on the definition of legitimate targets among ANC leaders”. In the course of the armed struggle, the ANC through its armed formation, MK, planned and undertook military operations where, though the intended target was identified as a “military” or “security force” one, mistakes were made for a variety of reasons, including poor intelligence and reconnaissance.

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
John D. Battersby, “2 Whites Die in Blast at a Johannesburg Stadium”, The New York Times, 3 July 1988.
Associated Press, “Bomb Kills 2 at S. Africa Rugby Match”, Los Angeles Times, 3 July 1988.
M&G Correspondent, “Ellis Park bomb was ‘a message to whites’”, Mail & Guardian, 3 August 1998.
Piers Pigou, “Questions of the Ellis Park Bomb”, Mail & Guardian, 13 August 1999.
Jan-Ad Stemmet and Prof. Leo Barnard, “Oliver Tambo and the Ghost of Struggle Past”, Southern Journal for Contemporary History, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2001.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “Questions from the TRC to the ANC in response to the ANC first submission to the TRC”, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 15 November 1996.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report”, Vol. 2, 29 October 1998.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report”, Vol. 7, August 2002.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Luli Callinicos, “Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains”, David Philip, 2004.

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