The Honour to Serve: Recollections of an Umkhonto Soldier

by Ngculu, James; Mbeki, Thabo

• ISBN13: 9780864867339
• ISBN10: 0864867336
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-15
• Publisher: Intl Pub Marketing

Summary

James Ngculu was one of the mass of young people inspired by the 1976 Soweto Uprising to join Umkhonto we Sizwe in exile to fight against South Africa'¬"s apartheid regime. They were not in search of a comfortable life, and they did not find one. But like many of his comrades, the young Ngculu found inspiration and education in more than equal measure with frustration and hardship. The Honour to Serve is both his personal story and a fascinating, painstaking history of those aspects of the ANC'¬"s struggle that formed its context. It is a memoir of his life in exile, accounts of his involvement in ANC's military wing, Umkhonto Wesizwe, recollections of various MK operations in Southern Africa, and military training in Europe and other parts of the world. Above all else, it is a gift of gratitude to his comrades and those organizations to which he gave his fealty: the ANC, the Communist Party, and Umkhonto we Sizwe itself. The Honour to Serve was one of five titles short-listed for the prestigious Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. In this book the author captures vividly the events, the tribulations and success they gained while in exile, all in the name of a free and democratic South Africa.

Author Biography

James Ngculu joined the African National Congress in the underground in Cape Town under the leadership of Mountain Qumbela and Lumko Huna. In the ranks of Umkhonto we Sizwe he occupied a number of positions - as Camp Politics Instructor, Company Commissar and Camp Commissar - and also served as Secretary of the Regional Commissariat in Angola. He worked in Maputo in the Internal and Reconstruction Unit and was one of the founding members of MK Military Intelligence. Ngculu also served as Assistant Administrator at the Military HQ in Lusaka. Other responsibilities he held were associated with being in the underground leadership of MK in Botswana. He returned to South Africa illegally and worked in MK structures with Chris Hani in the Transkei. Ngculu served as Regional Chairperson of the South African Communist Party in the Transkei, and also as Provincial Secretary, and later Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in the Western Cape. He served as a Member of Parliament on the Defence Portfolio and the Joint Standing Committee on Defence. He was a regular contributor to the MK magazine Dawn, as well as the African Communist, using various pen names, and contributed articles on civil-military relations and security sector reform in many publications of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). He was also coauthor of the book, Ourselves to Know - Civil-Military Relations, Defence Transformation in Southern Africa published by the ISS and edited by Dr Rocky Williams, Professor Gavin Cawthra and Dianne Abrahams. James Ngculu was one of the mass of young people inspired by the 1976 Soweto Uprising to join Umkhonto we Sizwe in exile to fight against South Africa's apartheid regime. They were not in search of a comfortable life, and they did not find one. But like many of his comrades, the young Ngculu found inspiration and education in more than equal measure with frustration and hardship. The Honour to Serve is both his personal story and a fascinating, painstaking history of those aspects of the ANC's struggle that formed its context. It is a memoir of his life in exile, accounts of his involvement in ANC's military wing, Umkhonto Wesizwe, recollections of various MK operations in Southern Africa, and military training in Europe and other parts of the world. Above all else, it is a gift of gratitude to his comrades and those organisations to which he gave his fealty: the ANC, the Communist Party, and Umkhonto we Sizwe itself.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 13
Preface	p. 17
Introduction	p. 19
Into exile	p. 28
The camps	p. 34
University of the South: Novo Catengue	p. 52
The role of the Soviet Union (USSR)	p. 73
Quibaxe, East Germany and Fazenda	p. 85
Joining the Communist Party	p. 108
The Commissariat	p. 117
The character of the MK soldier	p. 128
Women in the ANC and MK	p. 148
From 'Shishita'to mutiny	p. 155
Strategy and tactics	p. 176
Going home	p. 186
Negotiations and integration	p. 209
Appendices	p. 237
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