Michael Dingake Arrested in Figtree, Rhodesia
On 8 December 1965, Michael Kitso Dingake, a member of the African National Congress (ANC) Secretariat, based in Ramoutsa, in Bechuanaland, was on a Lusaka-bound train as it was passing into Rhodesia. After receiving a transit endorsement on his passport, and as the train was approaching Figtree, about 130 kilometres from Bulawayo, two detectives entered the train compartment, and asked Dingake for his identity. When he told them his name, one of the detectives introduced himself, as Officer Barry McKay, that he was from the Bulawayo British South Africa Police’s (BSAP) CID, and he had information that Dingake was an ANC member.
Dingake disagreed, saying the detective was misinformed, after which he was taken from the Figtree station to Bulawayo Police Station where he was led into the charge office. At the police station “half-dozen police voices were chorusing to me, ‘Khulul amanyathelo! (Take off your shoes) Khulul amanyathelo! Khulul amanyathelo!’” (Dingake, 1987). After McKay had discussed certain matters with the Rhodesian police officers in the Bulawayo Station charge office, he left Dingake, and the policeman in charge informed him that he was under arrest.
Michael Dingake, a Bechuanaland (now Botswana) national, joined the ANC in 1952 and served in various roles in the organisation’s structures. He took part in all the campaigns of this period from the Defiance Campaign to the anti-pass campaign and t
