Reports on the Brutal Murder of Ruth First
On 18 August 1982, South African newspapers reported that Heloise Ruth First, the wife of Joe Slovo, the Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), was killed by a parcel bomb at her office in Eduardo Mondlane University, in Maputo, Mozambique, the previous day, on 17 August 1982. Ruth First was since 1977 the Research Director of the Centre for African Studies at the University.
Three other people were taken to the Hospital in more or less serious condition because they had been next to her when she opened what looked to be a parcel with books. These included Aquino de Braganza, the Director of the Centre, Bridget O’Laughlin, who was her close colleague, as well as Pallo Jordan, a visiting ANC researcher who had participated in a UNESCO seminar organised by the Centre. Speaking at the Ruth First Memorial lecture, on 28 August 2000, Pallo Jordan bemoaned that the “lecture does not mark a happy occasion. In fact it marks a murder. The death of the comrade whom we are honouring this evening was the result of a vile deed.”
The parcel bomb had been created as an instruction from apartheid police officer, Major Craig Williamson, who was then a member of the Security Branch’s G Section, which was responsible for foreign intelligence. According to Williamson, he received instructions from his section head, Captain Piet ‘Biko’ Goosen, to arrange for the preparation of the bombs and then he ordered Warrant Officer Jerry Ra
