Year of the Youth 1981: Five Years from Soweto
Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cadres engaged in discussions at a Fifth Anniversary of June 16 commemorative meeting held in one of the African National Congress (ANC) military camps somewhere in the thickets of Africa. It was evidently an occasion of rededication, and the participants not only vowed to avenge the blood of the June 16 martyrs, but also to uncompromisingly pursue the goal of freedom in their lifetime to the bitter end.
The events of June 16, 1976, have gone down as a milepost in the recent history of our struggle. They demonstrated complete disenchantment of the people with the Apartheid status quo, and in their wake, galvanised the rising militancy of the oppressed into an avalanche that is fast gathering energy. The five years that have elapsed since this world-shaking episode have brought to the fore the contradictions between oppressor and oppressed in the sharpest form.
On the other hand, this period witnessed the registration of unprecedented success in the area of political organisation and unity of all strata and sections of the community around local and national issues that characterise apartheid policies in practice. Above all, the generation of June 16 militants who once engaged the fascist police bare-handed in running battles, only bearing modern arms, but have used them in several lightning strikes against the boer-fascist oppressor.
True to the words of the MK manifesto, they are resolved not t
