Montso “Obadi” Mokgabudi

On 10 February 1981, Montso “Obadi” Mokgabudi succumbed to his wounds, when his guts were ripped open during an attack on the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Special Operations Unit Headquarters, in Matola, by racist SADF (South African Defence Force) Special Forces, on 30 January 1981. He was brutally shot at and passed on later, on 10 February 1981, in a hospital in Mozambique.

Born in 1952, Montso was one of the most outstanding soldiers of the People’s Army, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Fondly known to his MK Comrades as “Obadi”, Montso came from Orlando, and studied law at Turfloop (University of the North, now Limpopo) before his expulsion for political activities. Whilst he was out of school, he worked as a teacher and television (TV) technician. As a former South African Students Organisation (SASO) activist, while he was a student at Turfloop, he matured into the African National Congress (ANC) and ultimately into the People’s Army, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), after leaving the country six months before the 1976 June 16 Uprisings.

Montso “learnt easily and quickly, but pondered deeply about political problems. He questioned incessantly. He liked to think things over, to gestate; and then come back for further discussions. He had qualities of leadership and commanded tremendous respect amongst his peers. He epitomised the Soweto generation and radiated their energy, confidence, wit, style, bravery” – Alexander Sibeko.

After a fruitful and eye-opening visit to Vietnam by the leadership of the ANC, MK Chief of Staff and Chief Strategist, Joe Slovo, was mightily impressed by what he saw and heard in Vietnam. He became converted to a view that political struggle should be the basis of armed struggle and not vice versa. It dawned on him that the effort to date had not only been unsuccessful, but that it had encouraged a “militarist illusion” that the struggle in South Africa would be the work of “specialist armed fighters” rather than the people as a whole.

To prepare the way, ANC leaders decided that in preparation for creating a People’s Army that would wage a People’s War and for ultimate Insurrection, there was a role to be played by “armed propaganda” in the form of spectacular sabotage attacks that were calculated to attract volunteers to swell the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Armed propaganda was intended to inform the population and the racist regime that Umkhonto we Sizwe was alive and ready to wage a revolutionary war against the apartheid dispensation.

At ANC President OR Tambo’s behest, in 1979 Slovo set up a Special Operations Unit, originally with just 14 hand-picked members. Montso “Obadi” Mokgabudi was among those that were hand-picked into this Unit. On 14 August 1979, Montso arrived at “Funda Camp”, an MK base in Angola which was a finishing camp for cadres soon to be deployed to South Africa. Montso approached Aboobaker Ismail, the Camp’s Chief Instructor, and asked him to work with Barney Molokoane in training a special unit that could carry out select missions inside South Africa. This was how the Special Operations Unit was established and included figures that were to become legends in MK, such as Barney, Obadi and “Rashid” (Aboobaker Ismail).

On 1 June 1980, the MK Special Operations Unit launched a spectacular attack on a Sasol facility in South Africa that caused millions (currently billions) of rands in damage and underlined South Africa’s dependence on imported oil, then a matter of great sensitivity due to the then recent revolution in Iran, the country’s leading supplier.

The sabotage team was led by Montso, who had trained in rocketry in the Soviet Union before honing his bomb-making skills with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) men in Luanda. Apartheid South African intelligence services soon learned the identities of the Sasol saboteurs, and when Montso was detained by the security police in Swaziland some months later, Pretoria offered the Swazi government a $1 million ransom for him. The Swazi, realising they had detained someone too hot to hold, preferred to hand him over to the ANC in Maputo.

According to Aboobaker Ismail, “The success of the operations (of the Special Operations Unit) could be ascribed to the leadership of Tambo and Slovo, the detailed and thorough planning of the Command and the ingenuity, commitment and indomitable will of the cadres based on the trust they had in the leadership and command of Special Operations. The success of the operation was overwhelming in its armed propaganda value, achieving the objective of winning the support of the people, of showing that the enemy was not invincible.”

Meanwhile, in February 1983, Aboobaker “Rashid” Ismail’s brother Mohamed and Mohammed Shaik met Rashid in Swaziland to join MK. Both were to form a cell under Rashid’s command and it was suggested that the cell will be named Dolphin, in honour of Montso “Obadi” Mokgabudi, the Special Operations Unit’s former Commander, who had operated under the pseudonym “Dolphin Ngake”.

Montso, or Obadi, had become a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and according to Alexander Sibeko (Ronnie Kasrils), “He was flushed with pride and joy when he was finally accepted into the party ranks. He was a serious and devoted member of his party unit, learning and developing all the time. His contributions to the ANC and the liberation struggle was consequently strengthened and reinforced. It is clear that his development had not been easy. … He once said that if he died he would like to be known that he was a communist.”

Sources:
Stephen Ellis, “External Mission: The ANC in Exile”.
Alexander Sibeko, “Four Who Were Communists”, The African Communist, No. 87, Fourth Quarter 1981.
Hugh Macmillan, “The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia”.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”.
Aboobaker Ismail (Rashid) “The ANC’s Special Operations Unit”, The Thinker Vol. 58, 2013.
Vladimir Shubin, “ANC: A View From Moscow”.

Castro Khwela
Good evening fellow Compatriots!