Three Senior ANC Cadres Arrested in Swaziland

Three Senior ANC Cadres Arrested in Swaziland On 23 March 1976, when Thabo Mbeki was apprehended on the roadside, from Mozambique to Manzini, he did not know that Jacob Zuma and Albert Dhlomo had already been arrested the previous day; and were found with ammunition and a military educative drawing. Officially, Mbeki and Dhlomo were representatives of the African National Congress (ANC) in Swaziland and were declared to be not connected with the military wing, whereas Jacob Zuma was illegally in Swaziland, as he was running the ANC underground machinery in Natal. This was one of Mbeki’s first assignments in which he was sent to Swaziland to become the Acting Head of the ANC mission there. One of his main tasks was to brief new exiles and to help build up the ANC’s structures in the frontline. Thabo Mbeki completed his bachelor’s degree in economics in Sussex University in May 1965 but, at the exhortation of ANC Deputy President OR Tambo, enrolled for a master’s in economics and development instead of returning to Africa to join Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s armed wing. He then completed his master’s degree in October 1966 and moved to London to work full-time for the Propaganda Section of the ANC’s United Kingdom headquarters. He thereafter, in February 1969, was sent to Moscow in the Soviet Union to receive Marxist-Leninist political and ideological training, with the last part of his training including military training. Dhlomo had left the cou