About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Camps In Exile (ANC)

Once banned in 1960 the ANC* moved swiftly to establish a foreign mission under Oliver Tambo and to set up a military training programme. All available literature on guerilla warfare was studied, particularly with reference to China, Cuba, Algeria and Vietnam, and the first group received training from the Chinese. Another group of recruits was trained in Morocco in 1962. In 1963 and 1964 the first African MK* guerilla training camp was established in Tanzania at Kongwa, to be followed later by others at Mbeya, Bagamoyo and Morogoro, with Morogoro doubling up as the ANC's local headquarters. With the arrest of Wilton Mkwayi in 1964 Joe Modise took over as MK commander and he established additional camps in Angloa, Zambia and Uganda. He also organized training programmes in the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, Algeria, Egypt and Ethiopia. Despite reports of internal feuding (notably over the SACP*'s different political philosophy) which reputedly caused low morale in the Tanzanian camps in the 1960s and again in 1975, a number of incursions were made into South Africa. MK guerillas were also sent to Angola to assist the MPLA's liberation struggle against SADF*-backed UNITA.* MK cells recruited increasing numbers of trainees into the camps after the Soweto uprising* in 1976, and a number of high profile attacks took place in the 1980s. With the beginning of negotiations in 1993 a declaration to suspend violence was signed.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.