The Horrific Execution of Phila Portia Ndwandwe
On the morning of 4 October 1988, Portia Phila Ndwandwe (aka “Zandile” or “Zandie”), was transported by the apartheid Security Branch to a safe house on a Dairy Farm in an area called Elandskop, near Pietermaritzburg, where she was executed and buried, after she refused to become an apartheid agent and an “Askari”.
Phila Ndwandwe had been appointed Acting Commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Natal Machinery following the arrest of the Machinery’s Commander, Muziwakhe Ngwenya (aka “Thami Zulu” or “TZ”). She was at that time the most senior female frontline as Acting Machinery Commander in the History of MK and was responsible for the infiltration of ANC cadres into Natal. She was also believed to have given orders for a number of violent MK operations in Natal, including the killing of Durban Security Branch policeman, Warrant Officer Sokhela, in August 1986.
Phila Portia Ndwandwe was born on 6 February 1965, in Umlazi, the largest African township in Durban. She pursued her studies as a Dental Therapy student at the University of Durban-Westville, when she was recruited into the ANC in 1985. She lived with General Ramlakan and his wife, Sandy Afrika, who had turned their house into an Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) headquarters in KwaZulu-Natal. Ndwandwe joined MK and received her basic training, after which she and others were arrested. She was separated from the other detainees, as she was listed as a sta
