Operation Butterfly: Fighting Continuously & Boldly

Operation Butterfly: Fighting Continuously & Boldly

In the morning of 24 December 1985, the apartheid Security Branch reported that it had arrested top ranking African National Congress (ANC) and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) operatives in Durban on 23 December 1985. The report followed an operation undertaken around 22:30 the previous night, whereby a large group of security and railway policemen surrounded house number 2, Narbada Road, Merewent, near the Mobil Oil refinery in Durban.

When knocking on the door, Sandy Afrika opened, and the apartheid policemen forced to search the house after they had introduced themselves. At the kitchen, they found Richard Naidoo, who was the driver during the attack on Amichand Rajbansi’s house, and “Kwazi Sithole” in the lounge. Afterwards the policemen went to a bedroom upstairs, where Sandy’s husband, Vejay Ramlakan, was conversing with Sihle Mbongwa (aka “Sibusiso Ndlazi”), who introduced himself as “George Fakude”, and another woman, who was introduced as Phila Ndwandwe. All the occupants of the house were arrested.

The arrests followed a massive limpet mine blast in Amanzimtoti that morning by Andrew Sibusiso Zondo and Jacob Mofokeng, which resulted in five white people being killed, and approximately 47 people injured, most of them being white. According to Andrew Zondo, the blast was part of a retaliatory attack by MK following the Lesotho Raid of 20 December 1985 by the Vlakplaas unit of six men, resulting in the death of nine people, including one Lesotho national.

During the night of 22 December 1985, Lulamile Xate (aka “Tallman”) met with Andrew Sibusiso Zondo at Mapiki Dlomo’s house in Lamontville, where he instructed him to avenge the killings in Lesotho. Xate also met with Audway Msomi the same evening, giving him the same instructions. The following day, Msomi and Thuso Tshika used limpet mines to explode an empty Volkswagen Kombi parked on the corner of Pine and Albert Street in Durban.

Unfortunately, telephone engagements between members of the MK ‘Operation Butterfly’ Unit were consistently monitored by the apartheid Security Branch, especially conversations between Sihle Mbongwa (aka “Sibusiso Ndlanzi” or “George Fakude”) and Raymond Lalla (aka “Comrade Brazo”). These conversations were monitored through a wiretap on Vejay Ramlakan’s home telephone.

The new MK ‘Operation Butterfly’ Command was installed under Mbongwa and Kevin Qobosheane, which was in charge of various units amongst whom Sibongiseni Dlomo and Xate were commanding. These operations were also commanded from Swaziland under Raymond Lalla, which was an extensive project spanning the entire province of Natal. The political cadre was Terence Tryon, who had to be initially accommodated at a hotel, where Ramlakan maintained telephone contact with him.

From that moment the Butterfly contingent, which totalled about nine cadres, entered South Africa from Swaziland in early December 1985, there were a series of basic security breakdowns. The Butterfly contingent’s first port of call was Ramlakan’s own house. Ramlakan also used telephone communications with Abba Omar, instead of the less direct methods used in the past. Tryon himself, together with some of his military counterparts, indicated deep unhappiness about the security of the entire project, yet they continued to hold meetings at Ramlakan’s house.

The end came barely a month later, in the early hours of Christmas Eve. Evidently employing good intelligence, the apartheid police raided several homes and university residences in the Durban area. They netted all the exiles infiltrated for Operation Butterfly, except Tryon,who had wisely maintained minimal links with his military counterparts, preferring to rely on his own contacts in Durban,and who returned to exile following the arrests.Police decimated Ramlakan’s unit, though a few subsidiary structures survived, and Omar left for exile shortly afterwards.

Participants believed they had walked into a trap set by apartheid security forces.Ramlakan insisted there must have been a security leak in Swaziland, and years later, Edward Lawrence (real name Cyril Raymonds, aka “Ralph” or “Fear”), who had helped draw up the Butterfly schema, and his so-called wife, Jessica, apparently admitted to being long-term apartheid security agents.

MK ‘Operation Butterfly’ began on 6 August 1985, when Commander of the MK Natal Machinery, Thami Zulu (real name Muziwakhe Ngwenya), met with the ANC Head of the Mission in Mozambique, Jacob Zuma, to discuss the establishment of a new politico-military structure for Natal in line with the recommendations of the Kabwe Conference. Zuma gave Zulu the go-ahead to draw up a plan, which was then developed with Edward Lawrence, Sue Rabkin and Terence Tyron in Maputo.

The Campaign was to be codenamed “Butterfly” in honour of Zwelakhe Zweli Nyanda (aka “Douglas” or “Oscar”), who used the term when he was discussing a very similar project with Charles Ndaba and Raymond Lalla at a meeting in Matsapha, Swaziland, on 2 August 1982. This was the first effort to establish an Area Politico-Military Committee (APMC) in a major city, Durban.

These discussions concerned the possibilities of creating underground structures in the greater Durban area, using the Alan Taylor Residence of the University of Natal as the main base or headquarters. Both Ndaba and Nyanda were former medical students of the University of Natal, and during their conversation, Nyanda suggested that perhaps it was high time that “the medical students stopped dissecting butterflies and get involved in political activities”. Hence the term “Butterfly” was utilised for the Campaign.

“Operation Butterfly” was intended to build, in effect, an area politico-military committee (APMC) in Durban and surrounding areas. Butterfly aimed to settle a group of middle-ranking, externally trained political and military cadres of proven discipline in the Durban area; to re-organise the local underground from the top downwards, asserting authority over existing and often isolated underground units; to reflect the principle of integrated political-military command in structures; and to prepare the ground for the clandestine entry into the area of more senior leadership.

According to Zweli Mkhize, at the funeral of Vejaynand Indurjith “Vejay” Ramlakan, in 2020, Operation Butterfly, “became an extensive operation spanning the entire province of KwaZulu-Natal: in Durban suburbs, townships and rural areas, Pietermaritzburg, Port Shepstone and Newcastle.” On 27 September 1985, the impact of the structure began to be felt with operations undertaken by Audway Msomi, Thuso Tshika and Bafo Nguqu in Durban. The three had already undergone training in April 1985 under Mduduzi Sithole (aka “Belgium”) in Folweni.

By October, “Operation Butterfly” had taken off, as Linda Moni left Angola for Mozambique, where he met Sibusiso Mbongwa (aka “Sihle Khumalo”) and “Master”. The three were then joined by Edward Lawrence, who informed them about additional requirements for the success of the Operation. On 30 September 1985, Thami Zulu arrived at a Manzini resident where Linda Moni, Sihle Khumalo, “Master” and Sibongiseni Dhlomo were present.

After a short meeting, “Moni” and “Master” were transported into South Africa through Jozini, where they were collected by Vijay Ramlakan and Sibongiseni Dhlomo, and they were taken to the Alan Taylor Residence of the University of Natal in Wentworth. At this residence the group were met by Lulamile Xate, who introduced himself as “Mr X” and then allocated each of the newcomers rooms on the premises.

As Zweli Nyanda had contemplated, the Alan Taylor Residence of the University of Natal, in Wentworth, was earmarked as the main base or headquarters for the operation. A corps of cadres emerged at the residence, which included Sibongiseni Dhlomo, Veejay Ramlakan and others. Early in June 1985, Vijay Ramlakan, an activist of the Natal Indian Congress (NIC), arrived at Unit 2 Shopping Centre in Bayview, Chatsworth, Durban, where he took his comrade, Raymond in his white Toyota Cressida. Ramlakan then informed Sakloo about his plan to petrol-bomb the house of a member of the House of Delegates, in the Tri-cameral Parliament, as one of his operatives in Chatsworth informed him of this.

While they were talking, Sakloo recognised another African person in the car, who was wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and a hat. Ramlakan then introduced the other person as “Lincoln” (real name Lulamile Xate), and said he was a member of the underground structure of the ANC and an internal commander of MK’s Natal Region. According to Ramlakan, “Lincoln” was there to recruit and train more Indians into the MK underground. Based on this, Ramlakan informed Sakloo that from then onwards he was going to be part of MK underground and should abandon his plans to attack the house. When Sakloo, Derrick Naidoo, Lenny Naidu, Savid Maduray and Richard Naidoo attacked Armichand Rajbansi’s house on 4 August 1985, they used a limpet mine instead of a petrol bomb.

On the evening of 4 December 1985, at the home of Mapiki Dlomo in Lamontville, a recently infiltrated MK cadre, Andrew Zondo, was engaging with Jacob Mofokeng. Zondo was collected by Sibongiseni Dhlomo from Ingwavuma in November with other two MK cadres, “Sandile” and Terence Tyron, to reinforce “Operation Butterfly”. On this day he was there to provide Mofokeng and Dlomo with the kind of training in the use of actual weapons that Lulamile Xate (aka “Tallman”) referred to when he briefed them in January 1985.

Later on, that night, at around 22:00, the three walked in the direction of a local Anglican church, which had a concealed bush and tall grass and illuminated slightly by a high electricity post in an area close by. Zondo then placed his hand into the bush and withdrew a bag from which he took out an AK-47 assault rifle. He then began instructing Dlomo and Mofokeng in dismantling, reassembling and using the cloth to clean the rifle.

On the morning of Monday, 23 December 1985, Andrew Sibusiso Zondo and Thembinkosi Jacob Mofokeng travelled by taxis from Lamontville to Amanzimtoti, from where they walked to a Sanlam shopping centre in town. Following a quick breakfast, Zondo dropped the waste papers and other items into a dustbin. After they had left, at around 10:45, a huge blast hit the ice-cream shop from the dustbin in which Zondo dropped his waste papers. Five people were killed and forty were injured in that explosion and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadre, Andrew Zondo, who detonated the explosive, was arrested and later executed by hanging in Pretoria, on 9 September 1986, at a young age of 19 years.

The President of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, understood Zondo’s anger, and in the following year’s January 8 Statement, titled “Attack! Advance! Give the Enemy No Quarter!”, he issued clearcut instructions or orders regarding such circumstances. Under the heading titled, “Fight with a Clear Purpose”, Tambo instructed that “We must achieve this by going on the offensive on all fronts, continuously and boldly. We have to fight with a clear purpose in mind, with a definite perspective of our strategic and tactical goals, so that we can deploy and utilise our forces to the best advantage. Victory demands that we also continue to work for the maximum unity of all our fighting contingents and the democratic movement as well as a co-ordinated approach toward the four pillars of our struggle.”

According to Tambo, “Our strategic goal must be to shift the balance of strength decisively in favour of our struggle, through the further ripening of the revolutionary situation beyond the point where the regime is not able to rule in the old way to the stage where it in fact unable to govern. Thus, we must continue to make South Africa ungovernable and apartheid unworkable. In the attack we must aim further to weaken the Botha regime drastically, to sap its strength, to take away from it even the capacity to launch a limited counter-offensive.”

“Simultaneously, while on the march”, Tambo emphasised, “we must build our forces into an ever more formidable united mass army of liberation, an army that must grow in strength continuously, able to deliver, and actually delivering, bigger blows at every stage and fighting as a conscious force with its eyes firmly fixed on the goal of the destruction of the apartheid regime and the transfer of power to the people. The central focus of our continuous offensive has to be the imposition of the will of the democratic majority over the racist minority, however desperate and stubborn the resistance of this minority.”

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Castro Khwela
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