Joe Modise Appointed as Commander-in-Chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)

Joe Modise Appointed as Commander-in-Chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK)

Exactly sixty years ago, on this day, 23 November 1965, leaders of the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) External Mission visited Kongwa Camp, near Dodoma, in Tanzania, to inform the cadres that Joe Modise (aka “Thabo More”) had been appointed Umkhonto we Sizwe’s (MK’s) new Commander-in-Chief. Soon after the announcement was made, Kongwa Camp Commander Ambrose Mzimkhulu Makiwane (aka “Mbhobho”) resigned from MK.

The feud between Makiwane and Modise had started before the latter was appointed as Commander-in-Chief, which meant that he was above the rank of Camp Commander. Joe Modise’s status in Kongwa created some tensions between him and the Camp Commander, as comrades were infuriated by Makiwane’s use of the ‘hosepipe’ to cane them for their misdemeanours. Hence his nickname became “Umbhobho”, for the use of the ‘hosepipe’ to punish them when they came late to the camp, were perceived to be drunk or for other encroachments that they might have committed.

Comrades then began taking their grievances to Joe Modise, thus creating hostilities between those who supported Modise and those who sided with the Camp Commander. These tensions assumed tribal and ethnic proportions, with those who came from the Transvaal, who were largely Sotho, Tswana, Sepedi, Venda or Tsonga speaking coalescing around Modise, whereas those who were Xhosa-speaking tended to support Makiwane. However, the group from Natal, who were largely Zulu speaking, stood alone, claiming that they were not interested in contests for positions, but wanted to go back home and fight.

They, for instance, even took a truck, under the leadership of Justice “Gizenga” Mpanza (aka “Reuben Nhlabathi”) to the ANC Office in Morogoro to demand that they were wanted to go home to fight. 29 of these comrades were intercepted by the Tanzanian police, who took them to the Morogoro office, where they met Moses Mabhida, who was angered by their action and demanded that they be escorted back to Kongwa. When they were back in the camp in Kongwa, they attacked the Acting Camp Commander Ben Bella with knives and sticks, chasing him inside the camp until he was assisted by other comrades who came to his defence, leading to deeper tensions between regional and ethnic groupings in the camp.

Furthermore, these tensions were exacerbated by the introduction of what later became known as the “MK Oath”, which though was not opposed as such, but because it was pursued by Makiwane, it was regarded as an infringement on the comrades’ rights, viewed largely as a measure of domination by one group over the others. So intense was the rivalry between Modise and Makiwane that ANC Deputy President Oliver Tambo, Treasurer-General Moses Kotane and South African Communist Party (SACP) Chairperson JB Marks had to impose a compromise, confirming Makiwane as Camp Commander at Kongwa and Modise as Commander of the Army as a whole.

Beyond personal animosities, the conflict between Makiwane and Modise was really about patronage, since Kongwa camp with its 400 to 500 residents was the main concentration of ANC personnel in exile, and mastery of the camp therefore provided a platform for influence within the organisation as a whole. A camp commander could control the provision of food and resources, and issue invitations to train elsewhere, in effect giving rewards to favourites so as to build a personal clientele.

Kongwa Camp was established between 1963 and 1964 about 400km west of Dar es Salaam, with Ambrose Makiwane as the first camp commander. This was the first MK military camp to be established in Tanzania, near Dodoma. Kongwa housed MK guerrillas who had returned from military training in the Soviet Union, China, Egypt and Algeria. MK recruits from South Africa who continued to make their way to Tanzania during this period by and large ended up at Kongwa. Over time the camp developed the capacity to train cadres on site without having to send them to other countries for training.

The Tanzanian government supplied uniforms and one meal a day for each soldier. By 1965 the ANC had a total of 800 guerrilla trainees in Tanzanian camps, many of them stationed at Kongwa; while others were undergoing military training in China, the Soviet Union or Czechoslovakia. As the number of trained cadres increased, some began to complain about the lack of willingness by the ANC leadership to send them back to South Africa to fight. During that period Ambrose Makiwane was redeployed from Kongwa to be part of a team that was expected to find safe routes into South Africa and was replaced by Joseph Jack Gathibe.

Following his appointment as Commander-in-Chief, Modise addressed the cadres in Kongwa, referring to Makiwane’s plan, which he said would no longer apply as there were other ideas that had been proposed. These involved sending large groups to Zululand, Sekhukhuniland and the Transkei to train the local people in those areas. The only challenge that the ANC and MK faced was finding a route to South Africa.

Johannes “Joe” Modise played a key role in recruiting people for Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and arranging for them to leave the country for military training abroad. As of 1962 he was instructed to leave his job as a driver to work as an organiser for MK on a full-time basis. In 1963 MK ordered Modise to leave South Africa because the police wanted to detain him. The MK High Command determined that Modise should undergo military training in order to lead its military personnel. He was also charged with the additional responsibility of the procurement of arms. Modise’s training took him to the former Soviet Union, the former Czechoslovakia, Cuba and Vietnam.

In 1964 he returned to Tanzania, from where he was involved in the re-organisation of MK and its training programmes. He served as Commander-in-Chief of MK from 1965 because of a spate of arrests, including that of Nelson Mandela, the first Commander-in-Chief of MK, until 1969, when he was demoted from his position at the Morogoro Conference. In 1965 he was also appointed to the National Executive Committee of the ANC and was also charged with the additional responsibility of the procurement of arms.

Modise’s demotion from being Commander-in-Chief, and this being assumed by Oliver Tambo, was due to the military inadequacies of the Wankie and Sipolilo Campaigns in Rhodesia. Wankie veterans, Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli placed the responsibility for shoddy reconnaissance squarely on the shoulders of Joe Modise, whom they considered to have allegedly entered Rhodesia with a recce group weeks before the campaign, returning with muddy boots and a report of positive contacts with people in Matabeleland. However, they doubted his account that he made contact with the Matabele people in Rhodesia. They accordingly named him “Nyawo Zinodaka” (“Muddy Feet” in IsiZulu), as an expression of his faulty intelligence as well as his embarrassing reluctance to join his forces in the campaign.

He was mentioned as one of the main contributors to the military failures of the campaign, as well as other concerns around his lifestyle in exile, together with Duma Nokwe and Moses Kotane, which were all covered in the Memorandum signed by Wankie Commissar Chris Hani and other six MK combatants, referred to as the “Hani Memorandum”. Eventually, Modise was downgraded to Commander until 1973, then “Chief of Operations” until 1983, when he resumed his position as Army Commander.

When Acting President Oliver Tambo addressed the Morogoro Conference on the military failures and challenges faced by Umkhonto we Sizwe, he apparently acknowledged that he had accorded too much power to Joe Modise as Commander-in-Chief, largely because of his unswerving loyalty to the cause and to the organisation. Conference than decided to dissolve the military headquarters and to establish separate regional headquarters or staff commands, located in Zambia and Tanzania, with their specific chiefs of staff reporting to the Revolutionary Council. His demotion contributed to a lot of discontent among his supporters within the ranks of the army, who were later referred to as the “Transvaal fellows/comrades”, who produced their own Memorandum and presented it to the Revolutionary Council.

It is not surprising that Modise was downgraded from being Commander-in-Chief following the military mishaps of the Wankie and Sipolilo Campaigns, as he “was not a guerrilla leader in the Castro mode”, according to Wankie veteran James April. For April, Joe Modise “was more of a conventional soldier/officer. He was not a bush man, but he had native intelligence, common sense, was practical and good at thinking on his feet. He lacked background and education – he had been a bus and truck driver – but he had taken risks in the early days of MK” (quoted by Hugh Macmillan in Kasrils and Hove, 2024).

Sources:
Luli Callinicos, “Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains”, David Philip, 2004.
Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: Fighting for a Divided People”, Galago, 2005.
Janet Smith and Beauregard Tromp, “Hani: A Life Too Short”, Jonathan Ball, 2009.
Gregory F. Houston, “Military Bases and Camps of the Liberation Movement, 1961-1990”, Democracy, Governance, and Service Delivery (DGSD) Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), 1 August 2013.
Stephen Ellis, “External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960–1990”, Oxford University Press, 2013.
Rendani Moses Ralinala, Jabulani Sithole, Gregory Houston and Bernard Magubane, “Chapter 12: The Wankie and Sipolilo Campaigns”, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 1, 1960-1970, SADET, 2015.
Vladimir Shubin with Marina Traikova, “Chapter 12: ‘There is no threat from the Eastern Bloc’”, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 3, International Solidarity, SADET, 2015.
Nhlanhla Ndebele and Noor Nieftagodien, “Chapter 14: The Morogoro Conference: A Moment of
Self-Reflection”, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 1, 1960-1970, SADET, 2015.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Stephen R. Davis, “The ANC’s War Against Apartheid: Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Liberation of South Africa”, Indiana University Press, 2018.
Ronnie Kasrils and Fidelis Hove (Eds), “Comrade & Commander: The Life and Times of Joe Modise”, Jacana, 2024.
Sandi Sijake, “Fighting for My Country: The Testimony of a Freedom Fighter”, Jacana, 2024.

Castro Khwela
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