SASOL 2 and 3 Attack by MK Special Ops Dolphin Unit

SASOL 2 and 3 Attack by MK Special Ops Dolphin Unit

In the early part of the morning of 28 November 1985, at around 01:00, the SASOL 2 and 3 oil-from-coal complex in Secunda, in the eastern Transvaal, was hit by six 122-mm rockets fired from Grad-P artillery pieces. According to a deceptive police statement, the rockets fired against the Sasol 2 and 3 refineries missed their target, as they landed on the ground of the complex and did not damage the installations themselves.

Indeed, some observers expressed scepticism about the official claims that no damage had been caused to the complex. They noted that the adjoining plants consisted of a mass of tanks and exposed pipes, which would be vulnerable to damage from six 122-mm rockets, even if these were poorly aimed. This operation became a third guerrilla attack on the vital Sasol plants, which supplied about 42 percent of South Africa’s annual consumption of 120 million barrels of oil.

At that time, South Africa had vast coal reserves but no oil and could not buy oil on the open market because oil-producing nations refused to deal with the white-minority government. The first refinery attack was in June 1980, when limpet mines caused damage estimated at $6 million at Sasol 1, at Sasolburg about 100 miles south of Johannesburg. Two weeks later, the bigger Sasol 2 and 3 plants at Secunda were attacked. Official statements at the time said damage was minimal, but later it was estimated at more than $1.5 million. Another attack on the Secunda complex was attempted in 1983.

MK Chief of Staff and Head of MK Special Operations, Joe Slovo, who at the time was based in Lusaka, Zambia, after he had moved from Maputo following the 1984 Nkomati Accord, had given the green light to the Dolphin Unit, commanded by Barney Molokoane, to attack the Sasol 2 facility in Secunda. The Unit obtained the rockets and other material for the operation from Sunny Singh (aka “Bobby”), who was then based and Maputo and was assisted by Mohammed Timol to forward the funds for the operation to Molokoane.

The team that hit the SASOL Complex were members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Special Operations Dolphin Unit, which consisted of Barney Molokoane (aka “Bhuda”), Victor Lunga Khayiyane (aka “Ta Vicky”), Vincent Sekete (aka “Sidney Sibepe”), Velaphi Msane (aka “Faku Senzangakhona”), Mangaliso Matyobeni (aka “Major Zwele”) and Xolile Sam (aka “Valdez Mbatha”) travelled in a bakkie and a Ford van to the home of Matthew Simelane, at house No. 17 Mzinoni Township, in Bethal. Simelane was Barney’s uncle, and he recognised the other comrades, as he had hosted them in Bethal and in Swaziland on previous occasions.

Following the attack, the apartheid security forces undertook an operation to track down the guerrillas. Warrant Officer Cornelius J. Botha was staking out a back road near Piet Retief, when he noticed a bakkie with three men driving by. He decided to give a chase and forced the bakkie off the road, while receiving retaliatory fire from the occupants. The guerrillas then abandoned the bakkie and fled into the dense blue-gum plantation during the ensuing gun-battle. At the same time, Botha called for reinforcements by radio, and apartheid South African Defence Force (SADF) soldiers were deployed in the entire area, resulting in a pursuit of about eight kilometres.

The guerrillas got cornered on open ground in a bee farm less than a kilometre from the border, as the dawn began to engulf the area, and a skirmish shootout ensued for about four hours between the guerrillas and the large contingent of the apartheid security forces. During the skirmish, three Special Operations cadres who had conducted the attack on the SASOL complex in the morning were killed and several members of the apartheid security forces were killed and injured in the process. The fallen cadres of the MK Special Operations Dolphin Unit were Barney Molokoane, Vincent Sekete and Victor Lunga Khayiyane.

General Johann Coetzee, apartheid South Africa’s Commissioner of Police, said between four and six rockets had been fired at the installations, which converted South Africa’s abundant coal into oil, since South African oil supplies were limited by an international embargo. Military specialists said the rockets were portable and could be fired from a tube mounted on a tripod, and these had a range of approximately 13 kilometres.

According to General Coetzee, one of the assailants was involved in a similar attack on synthetic oil installations in June 1980. He further added that an unspecified amount of Soviet-supplied weapons were found after the attack. The apartheid government-controlled SABC radio station said the three attackers were fleeing toward the border with Swaziland when policemen tried to apprehend them and they opened fire. The ensuing gun-battle was described as heavy, although no government casualties were reported.

Residents in the locality where the clashes with the apartheid security forces took place described the fight as “another Lebanon”. According to their observations, a lot of ambulances came to fetch the dead and the wounded enemy soldiers. The apartheid forces failed to corner the gallant Umkhonto we Sizwe combatants and they had to seek the help of helicopters which dropped napalm on the guerrilla fighters, in addition to their mounted machine-guns. The analysis was that many more SADF soldiers would have died had the guerrilla combatants had more ammunition, as the numbers of those who were killed could not be counted.

The African National Congress (ANC) in Lusaka, Zambia, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack on the $2.3-billion South African Oil, Coal and Gas Corp. coal-processing plant at Secunda, and threatened to step up its struggle against white-minority rule. The ANC said MK, its guerrilla group, also claimed responsibility for a previous attack in June 1980 on the SASOL plant, the world’s only commercial oil-from-coal conversion facility.

The ANC statement said the attacks “on enemy personnel and installations … are part of a generalised escalation of both the political and military struggle” against apartheid South Africa. “Both the land mine explosions in the Soutpansberg area and the attack on SASOL were carried out by separate units of Umkhonto we Sizwe based and operating inside South Africa” (United Press International, 29 November 1985).

The death of the three experienced cadres became a huge blow within the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and particularly within the Special Operations Unit, since these were very brave cadres of the revolution. Barney Molokoane, in particular, had become a legend within MK, even before he got killed, as he had been involved in various daring operations, as a brave soldier, he was always ready to undertake any operation, to such an extent that other cadres came to believe that he was invincible.

In his own words, Barney had this to say, “If we must die, then we must die like soldiers … I will not die running away from the police. I will not die from being shot in the back. I will die in battle, and until they shoot me in my forehead the battle will continue. The area where such a battle will occur will be razed by the burnt bushes and grass.”

Sources:
Wikipedia.
South African History Online (SAHO).
Allister Sparks, “Guerrillas Fire Missiles at South African Refineries”, The Washington Post, 29 November 1985.
Alan Coswell, “Rebels Raid South African Oil Plant”, The New York Times, 29 November 1985.
Erik Van Ees, “ANC Claims Recent Bombings, Rocket Attack”, United Press International (UPI), 29 November 1985.
Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe, “MK in Combat”, Dawn – Journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Vol. 10, No. 1, January 1986.
Dikgang Nene, “Richard ‘Barney’ Molokoane”, Dawn – Journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Souvenir Issue, December 1986.
SAPA, “Two More MK Soldiers Exhumed from Unmarked Graves in Barberton”, South African Press Association, 1997.
Castro Khwela, “Birth of a Guerrilla Fighter: Richard ‘Barney’ Molokoane”, The African Mirror, 29 August 2024.
Thula Simpson, “Umkhonto we Sizwe: The ANC’s Armed Struggle”, Penguin, 2016.
Yunus Carrim, “Attacking the Heart of Apartheid: The ANC’s MK Special Operations Unit”, Penguin, 2025.

Castro Khwela
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