John Nkadimeng, Chair of the ANC Main Machinery, Leaves for Exile

John Nkadimeng, Chair of the ANC Main Machinery, Leaves for Exile

On 24 July 1976, the Chairperson of the Johannesburg-based African National Congress’s (ANC) Main Machinery, John Kgaona Nkadimeng, left the country for Swaziland, with the assistance of his comrade in the Machinery, Martin Ramokgadi. The Main Machinery consisted of ANC veterans who had been released from prison after serving sentences for their involvement in underground political activities in the early 1960s. Ramokgadi requested the help of his friend Joe Tseto to buy a Kombi to take Nkadimeng out of the country, since he had the money to make a deposit, but not the driver’s licence, to be able to buy a car through a hire-purchase contract.

The Main Machinery or the “General Structure”, was established in 1962 as an underground cell by Albertina Sisulu and John Nkadimeng, both resident in Soweto at the time. The cell, consisting of five members, including John Mavuso, a member of the National Secretariat established in 1962 to understudy the ANC’s National Executive Committee, was initiated to facilitate the passage of ANC members who wanted to leave the country for education or military training. It maintained contact with the ANC leadership in Botswana through a courier, Nathaniel Nkosibomvu, and also established links with people in other provinces.

Later on, the Main Machinery became chaired by John Nkadimeng, who had been freed from incarceration in 1966, and was joined in following years by Alois Manci, Martin Ramokgadi and Henry Makgothi. This core would later be augmented by Joe Gqabi, who joined after being released from prison in August 1975. The collective had to operate with great circumspection, because after release they operated under a variety of restrictions such as house arrests, banning orders and close police surveillance.

With the infiltration of the “Stowaways” from Mombasa to Cape Town, three of the insurgents, Bifana Matthews Ngcobo, Lungapi Amos Lengisi and Themba Linus Dlamini, managed to make their way secretly into the country by ship in February and March 1968. After travelling to Durban by train from Cape Town, Lengisi proceeded to the Transkei, where he recruited young people for military training. Lengisi also travelled to the Transvaal, where he met with John Nkadimeng and John Mavuso, with the intention that Nkadimeng and Mavuso would assist him in setting up structures in Johannesburg.

The arrests of members of the ANC Underground Network in Natal prompted concerns about the security of some members of the ANC who were still inside the country. These arrests began in November 1975, with the arrest of Harry Gwala and culminated in the arrest in March 1976, and the death in detention after torture of Joseph “Mkhuthuzi” Mdluli, who had been personally involved in the transport of recruits from Durban to Swaziland. The trial of those who had been arrested in the 1975 to 1976 devastation of the Natal Underground Machinery opened in Pietermaritzburg in May 1976 (Pietermaritzburg Ten Trial). Following the June 16, 1976, students’ uprisings, John Nkadimeng had to leave the country, where he joined Moses Mabhida as his deputy Chief Representative of the ANC in Swaziland.

Both John Nkadimeng and Joe Gqabi were leaders who had been instrumental in the revival of the underground in Johannesburg, who were also in touch with the student leaders during the June 16 Soweto Uprisings, as well-known former political prisoners in society. Nkadimeng had been part of the leading structures of the ANC, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) since the 1950s, including the development and adoption of the South African concept of the armed struggle.

On 31 October 1961, he was responsible for driving Andrew Mlangeni and Raymond Mhlaba to Lobatse Hotel, when they were on their way to undergo military training in the People’s Republic of China. On 24 June 1963, he was detained as a suspected saboteur and held at Fordsburg police station under 90-day legislation alongside Elias Motsoaledi, Bartholomew Hlapane, Abel Mthembu and Peter Mogano, when the apartheid Security Branch began targeting members the various units of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) nationally.

At that time, both Elias Motsoaledi and John Nkadimeng were mentored by their close friend Flag Boshielo, a stalwart of the ANC and the SACP, also based in Johannesburg. Nkadimeng remembered Boshielo as disciplined, keen to learn and evangelical in his political commitment. The three were executive members of “Sebatakgomo”, a historical migrant worker-based movement that emerged within the ANC in 1954, playing a key role in the Sekhukhuniland Revolt of 1958. The executive committee was called “Khuduthamaga”,with its office in Pretoria, and had branches in selected villages that had representatives that were migrants tasked with the responsibility of reporting incidents to the main committee.

In 1963 Nkadimeng was charged with others who had attempted to leave the country and was later detained at Erasmia where, despite the fact that it was winter, he was held in freezing conditions and denied a coat or blankets. Ultimately, sabotage charges against Nkadimeng were dropped but he was charged with furthering the aims of an unlawful organisation. He was convicted in May 1964, served his sentence at a prison in the Orange Free State, and was released in 1966.

Whilst in detention in Fordsburg in 1963, Nkadimeng was issued with a banning order, which remained in effect when he came out of prison. He was restricted to the area of Orlando West, in Soweto, Johannesburg. As Chairperson of the Main Machinery of the ANC in Johannesburg, together with Martin Ramokgadi and Alois Manci, they welcomed Joe Gqabi into the structure in August 1975, soon after he was released from Robben Island.

In March 1976, Nkadimeng and Ramokgadi assisted Petrus Nchabeleng, who at some stage was part of the Atteridgeville section of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Pretoria Command, to obtain legal representation for breaching the banning order restricting him to the magisterial district of Sekhukhuniland in the northern Transvaal. In 1977, Nchabeleng was charged with harbouring and recruiting people for military training, along with Joe Gqabi, and stood trial in the famous Pretoria 12 terrorism trial.

The apartheid Security Branch knew since 1968 about the existence of the Main Machinery, which at that time was chaired by John Mavuso, based on a Memorandum that was written by a security officer to his seniors. The author of the Memorandum claimed that it was unnecessary to arrest those involved in the Machinery as the ANC had already been effectively incapacitated. However, when the 16 June 1976 uprisings occurred, these elements had to be removed as they could pose potential danger to the stability of the apartheid state. Hence, Nkadimeng had to leave the country.

Nkadimeng went to Swaziland where he became known as “John Phala” and worked as Deputy Chief Representative for the ANC for two years. Many of the June 16th refugees joined the movement after passing through Swaziland and stayed at John Nkadimeng’s house in Swaziland. He then moved to Mozambique where he became chairman of the Senior Organ of the ANC in the country. Nkadimeng was first its vice-chairman under Moses Mabhida, and this was the time he started going to Maputo because the Senior Organ comprised Swaziland and Mozambique, where he worked closely with Jacob Zuma and Joe Slovo.

Following the upsurge in the struggle in the mid-1970s, ANC leaders again began to travel to Moscow for training – Joe Gqabi, John Nkadimeng, and Henry Makgothi also travelled to Moscow to receive such military training. Nkadimeng rejoined the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) in Lusaka and served as member of the Revolutionary Council (RC) and later the Political Military Committee (PMC) until he became General Secretary of SACTU on 17 August 1983. He continued to serve on the ANC’s Political and Military Council as SACTU’s General Secretary, and at that time Nkadimeng propagated the formation of one central federation of trade unions in South Africa and called on unions to unite in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

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