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Operation Vula
Operation Vula (also known as Operation Vulindlela, IsiXhosa language, Xhosa for ''Open the Road'') was a secret domestic programme of the African National Congress (ANC) during the final years of apartheid in South Africa. Initiated in 1986 at the ANC headquarters in Lusaka and launched in South Africa in 1988, its operatives infiltrated weapons and banned ANC leaders into the country, in order to establish an underground network linking domestic activist structures with the ANC in exile. It was responsible for facilitating the only direct line of communication between ANC headquarters and Nelson Mandela, who at the time was imprisoned and was discussing a negotiated settlement with the government on the ANC's behalf. The operation was disbanded in 1990, after its existence had been publicly revealed and eight of its leaders charged under the Internal Security Act, 1982, Internal Security Act with terrorism and plotting an armed insurrection. Operation Vula was approved by the AN ...
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Oliver Tambo (1981)
Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo (27 October 191724 April 1993) was a South African anti-apartheid politician and activist who served as President (corporate title), President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991. Biography Higher education Oliver Tambo was born on 27 October 1917 in the village of Nkantolo in Bizana, Eastern Cape, Bizana; eastern Pondoland in what is now the Eastern Cape. The village Tambo was born in was made up mostly of farmers. His father, Mzimeni Tambo, was the son of a farmer and an assistant salesperson at a local trading store. Mzimeni had four wives and ten children, all of whom were literate. Oliver's mother, Mzimeni's third wife, was called Julia. Tambo graduated in 1938 as one of the top students. After this, Tambo was admitted to the University of Fort Hare but in 1940 he, along with several others including Nelson Mandela, was expelled for participating in a student strike. In 1942, Tambo returned to his former high school ...
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United Democratic Front (South Africa)
The United Democratic Front (UDF) was a South African popular front that existed from 1983 to 1991. The UDF comprised more than 400 public organizations including trade unions, students' unions, women's and parachurch organizations. The UDF's goal was to establish a "non-racial, united South Africa in which segregation is abolished and in which society is freed from institutional and systematic racism." Its slogan was "UDF Unites, Apartheid Divides." The Front was established in 1983 to oppose the introduction of the Tricameral Parliament by the white-dominated National Party government, and dissolved in 1991 during the early stages of the transition to democracy. Background Involvement in trade unions, beginning in Durban in 1973, helped create a strong, democratic political culture for black people in South Africa. Mass urban protest could also be traced to the student upsurge in Soweto in 1976. 1982 brought the effects of a world economic crisis to South Africa, and th ...
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Afrikaners
Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1933. James Louis Garvin, editor. They traditionally dominated South Africa's politics and commercial agricultural sector prior to 1994. Afrikaans, South Africa's third most widely spoken home language, evolved as the First language, mother tongue of Afrikaners and most Cape Coloureds. It originated from the Dutch language, Dutch vernacular of South Holland, incorporating words brought from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and Madagascar by slaves. Afrikaners make up approximately 5.2% of the total South African population, based upon the number of White South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language in the South African National Census of 2011. The arrival of Portugal, Portug ...
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Ismail Ayob
Ismail Mahomed Ayob (born 1942 in Mafeking) is a South African lawyer. Ayob practised law in South Africa and for much of his career the bulk of his work was with anti-apartheid cases. Ayob was involved in a much-publicised series of disputes with Nelson Mandela. Career Ayob's cousin Ismail Mahomed, who was later Chief Justice of South Africa, helped Ayob secure his first job in 1969 at a firm involved in cases related to the anti-apartheid movement. In 1973, he left the firm to start his own company by the name of ''Ismail Ayob & Associates''. Apartheid era lawyer For the first twenty years of his career, Ayob concentrated on human rights cases, acting for opponents of the apartheid regime. Ayob defended and represented many South African political prisoners. Ayob was one of the few people who were allowed to visit Nelson Mandela while he was imprisoned on Robben Island. His most high-profile case was that of Hélène Passtoors, a Belgian woman accused of ferrying a ...
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Victor Verster
Drakenstein Correctional Centre (formerly Victor Verster Prison) is a low-security prison between Paarl and Franschhoek, on the R301 road 5 km from the R45 Huguenot Road, in the valley of the Dwars River in the Western Cape of South Africa. The prison is famous for being the location where Nelson Mandela spent the last part of his imprisonment for campaigning against apartheid. In 1982 Mandela was transferred from the maximum security prison on Robben Island, a small island in Table Bay, to Pollsmoor Prison in Tokai, Cape Town. From there, Mandela was moved to the then Victor Verster Prison on 9 December 1988, where he lived in a private house inside the prison compound. Victor Verster, a farm prison, was often used as a stepping stone for releasing lower-risk political prisoners. Mandela served another 14 months at Victor Verster Prison until his release on 11 February 1990. On the day of his release, reporters from all over the world surrounded the pris ...
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Tim Jenkin
Timothy Peter Jenkin (born 1948) is a South African writer, former anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner. He is best known for his 1979 escape from Pretoria Local Prison (part of the Pretoria Central Prison complex), along with Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris. Biography Early life and education Jenkin was born in Cape Town and educated at Rondebosch Boys' Prep and Boys' High School, matriculating aged 17. After leaving school, he avoided conscription into the South African Defence Force, and worked at a variety of jobs for two years, with no particular interest in anything except motorcycle racing. He left for the UK in 1970, where, working in a fibreglass factory under poor working conditions and little pay, found the system unjust and developed an interest in sociology. This led him to learning more about the injustice in his own country. He later wrote that he had "grown up a 'normal' complacent white South African" who "unthinkingly accepted the system and for t ...
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Truth And Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution. The TRC was seen by many as a crucial component of the transition to full and free democracy in South Africa. Despite some flaws, it is generally (although not universally) thought to have been successful. The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation was established in 2000 as the successor organisation of the TRC. Creation and mandate The TRC was set up in terms of the ''Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act'', No. 34 of 1995, and was based in Cape Town. The hearing ...
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Safe House
A safe house (also spelled safehouse) is, in a generic sense, a secret place for sanctuary or suitable to hide people from the law, hostile actors or actions, or from retribution, threats or perceived danger. It may also be a metaphor. Historical usage It may also refer to: * in the jargon of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, a secure location, suitable for hiding witnesses, agents or other persons perceived as being in danger * a place where people may go to avoid prosecution of their activities by authorities. Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad has been described as a "safe house". * a place where spying undercover hitmen may conduct clandestine observations or meet other operatives surreptitiously * a location where a trusted adult or family or charity organization provides a haven for victims of domestic abuse (see also: men and/or women's shelter or refuge) * a home of a trusted person, family or organization where victims of war and/or persecution may tak ...
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Stompie Seipei
James Seipei (1974 – 1 January 1989), also known as Stompie Moeketsi or Stompie Sepei, was a teenage United Democratic Front (UDF) activist from Parys in South Africa. He and three other boys were kidnapped on 29 December 1988 by members of Winnie Mandela's bodyguards, known as the Mandela United Football Club. Moeketsi was murdered on 1 January 1989, the only one of the boys to be killed. Activism Moeketsi joined the street uprising against Apartheid in April 1985 at age ten, and soon took on a leading role. He became the country's youngest political detainee when he spent his 12th birthday in jail without trial. At the age of 13 he was expelled from school. Murder Moeketsi, together with Kenny Kgase, Pelo Mekgwe and Thabiso Mono, were kidnapped on 29 December 1988 from the Methodist manse in Orlando, Soweto, the home of Methodist minister, Paul Verryn. Moeketsi was wrongly accused of being a police informer. Screams were heard as the 14-year-old Moeketsi was murdered by Jer ...
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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018), also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation". Born to a Xhosa royal family in Bizana, and a qualified social worker, she married anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 1958; they remained married for 38 years and had two children together. In 1963, after Mandela was imprisoned following the Rivonia Trial, she became his public face during the 27 years he spent in jail. During that period, she rose t ...
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Govan Mbeki
Govan Archibald Mvuyelwa Mbeki (9 July 1910 – 30 August 2001) was a South African politician, military commander, Communist leader who served as the Secretary of Umkhonto we Sizwe, at its inception in 1961. He was also the son of Chief Sikelewu Mbeki and Johanna Mahala and also the father of the former South African president Thabo Mbeki and political economist Moeletsi Mbeki. He was a leader of the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress. After the Rivonia Trial, he was imprisoned (1963–1987) on charges of terrorism and treason, together with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba, Ahmed Kathrada and other eminent ANC leaders, for their role in the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). He was sometimes mentioned by his nickname "Oom Gov". Early years Govan Mbeki was born in the Nqamakwe district of the Transkei region and was a part of the Xhosa ethnic group. As a teenager, Mbeki worked as a newsboy and messenger in the cities, and bec ...
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Gauteng
Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only 1.5% of the country's land area, it is home to more than a quarter of its population (26%). Highly urbanised, the province contains the country's largest city, Johannesburg, which is also one of the largest cities in the world. Gauteng is the wealthiest province in South Africa and is considered as the financial hub of not only South Africa but the entire African continent, mostly concentrated in Johannesburg. It also contains the administrative capital, Pretoria, and other large areas such as Midrand, Vanderbijlpark, Ekurhuleni and the affluent Sandton. Gauteng is the most populous province in South Africa with a population of approximately 16.1 million people according to mid year 2022 estimates. Etymology The name ''Gauteng'' is derived ...
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