On 19 January 1990, a meeting of all African National Congress (ANC) members stationed in the Lusaka area was held in a hall in the Mulungushi Centre, wherein approximately 1 000 were in attendance. The meeting included representatives from the contingent of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadres who had been marooned in the Zambian capital for a number of years, and whose grievances Simon Makana and Steve Tshwete were warning of as far back as 1987–88. This meeting was a follow-up to a meeting of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) that took place in the same venue the previous day, where President Kaunda was also present.
On 15 January, three days before this meeting, a group of foreign diplomats, ANC leaders, including acting President Alfred Nzo, and senior government officials were waiting for an aeroplane, Zambia Airways flight ATR 42, to land at Lusaka airport. As the flight touched down at 16:00, former political prisoners, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada, Elias Motsoaledi, Wilton Mkwayi, Raymond Mhlaba, Oscar Mpetha, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Harry Gwala stepped out. These veterans of MK and the ANC had been released the previous year by the De Klerk-led apartheid regime.
The dignitaries took cover from the rain in the airport terminal, leaving a resilient group of young ANC comrades on the tarmac, who kept on chanting: “Viva the South African Communist Party!” “Viva Umkhonto we Sizwe!” Among those in the terminal was MK Army Chief of Staff, Ch
