Mkatashinga: Narratives of the Mutiny in ANC Camps in Angola (1983/84)

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jglobfaul.6.1.0090
• Published date: 01 August 2019
• Date: 01 August 2019
• Pages: 90-101
• Author: Luvuyo Zantsi
• Subject Matter: Military,Mutiny,Security,Justice,Democracy,Torture

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Mkatashinga: Narratives of the Mutiny in ANC Camps in Angola (1983/84)

Luvuyo Zantsi

Mkatashinga: Narratives of the Mutiny in ANC Camps in

Angola (1983/84)

Luvuyo Zantsi1

Abstract

The 1984 mutiny in the Angolan camps of the African National Congress (ANC) has been

the stuff of legends. For a long time two contradictory interpretations were prominent.

One interpretation painted it as, completely, the work of apartheid agents and agent

provocateurs. The other painted it as an instance where patriotic democrats took a

stance for justice and they were crushed by an undemocratic ANC. The information

that recently came out of the memoirs and biographies of former soldiers paints a more

nuanced picture that reveals the situation to be more complex than the ANC’s official

view and those of its distractors. While there can be no way of absolutely ruling out

enemy interference, all narratives point to the presence of genuine challenges that could

have been handled better. The absence of senior leadership from the camps also ensured

a weak response to these.

Keywords: Military, Mutiny, Security, Justice, Democracy, Torture

Introduction

The African National Congress (ANC) was formed in 1912 and it has led the struggle for lib-

eration in South Africa. It was banned in 1961 and many of its leaders were arrested and sen-

tenced to long terms in prison. Those who were not arrested set up bases outside of the

country and continued to wage a struggle for the liberation of the Africans in South Africa. It

was a struggle in which the ANC occupied the central stage and led. It set up military camps

in Angola and its administrative headquarters in Tanzania, and later Zambia, although the

organisation had a presence or representatives in a number of other countries. The organisa-

tion was the ‘first non-state organization’ to declare that it would adhere to the Geneva con-

ventions of 1949 and Protocol 1 of 1977 that had, among others, forbidden torture in a war

situation (Greene, 2014, p. 146).

One of the most serious threats in the history of the ANC in its years as an exiled

organisation was Mkatashinga,2 the mutiny within its ranks in 1983 and 1984. A commission

that the organisation set up to investigate refers to this incident as one of the ‘most challeng-

ing incidents since its [ANC] inception’ in 1912 (Stuart Commission, 1985, part 2). It led to

the nearly total collapse of the political military and moral authority of the organisation in

Angola, and it resulted in ‘confusion and fear and lawlessness, when aversion of authority

became paramount’ (ibid.).

A number of the ANC’s military wing, Mkhonto Wesizwe (MK) members, muti-

nied in December 1983 and March 1984 after they were drafted to assist the Angolan

government against the USA and apartheid South Africa-backed bandits National Union

for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). These MK soldiers wanted to be deployed

inside South Africa and fight apartheid security rather than fight an enemy far away from

home. They also demanded that the ANC convene a conference to discuss the direction

of the liberation struggle (Manong, 2015). The brutality of the ANC’s security organ,