African National Congress intelligence chief Jacob Zuma slipped quietly into the country on Wednesday aboard an SAA flight from Lusaka. Zuma is the first ANC National Executive Committee member to return to South Africa since the movement was banned 30 years ago. He will be joined here on Sunday by Umkhonto weSizwe deputy leader Chris Hani and four other senior ANC members: NEC members Aziz Pahad and Reg September and senior members Phyllis Naidoo and Penwell Maduna. With Zuma and other ANC members who arrived this week with him, they will prepare for April 11 talks with President FW de Klerk.
National Reception Committee members yesterday were keeping the press away yesterday from Zuma, who was locked in meetings with the ANC’s internal committee. NRC member Zwelakhe Sisulu said Zuma was in the country to make arrangements for the return of the Hani group, and others who will arrive within the next two weeks. Naidoo, a lawyer who left South Africa in 1977, told the Weekly Mail in a telephone interview the group would be preparing for discussions with the government on issues such as the State of Emergency, political prisoners and trials, the violence in Natal and the Internal Security Act. She said she also planned to visit political prisoners.
ANC NEC member Josiah Jele said the advance party would be helping ”build the legal presence of the movement within the country. ”We need to move quickly to build our infrastructure and establish a national secretariat.” He said there were also plans to set up premises for an ANC national organiser, as well as offices for the ANC departments of information and publicity, education and finance over He said one of the major concerns the movement planned to tackle was the violence in Natal and elsewhere in the country. ”We absolutely condemn the violence that is going on and we are calling on – the people to carry on the struggle in a disciplined way and to end all acts of hooliganism. ”Those arriving over the next two weeks have a brief to help bring the violence to an end and to look into its causes.”
Jele said the ANC planned to step up its campaign for an interim government to be established to organise elections for a constituent assembly. ”We will also be calling on the regime to give a precise time-frame for reaching a settlement because we fear they are going to drag out the process by offering piecemeal concessions.” He said the ANC had set up several commissions to look into the areas to be discussed with De Klerk and had been in contact with the government to inform it of who would be coming into the country. Over the past month several ANC members have come into the country to attend conferences, and this pattern is expected to be stepped up over the next month. Hundreds of other ANC members will return permanently to South Africa before the end of next month.
Commenting on her forthcoming visit to South Africa after 13 years away, Naidoo, who was seriously injured in a bomb attack in Lesotho, said it was ”absolutely wonderful to be going home”. Her son had been killed in exile in Lusaka – and, she said, it was ”sad to be leaving some wonderful people behind”. The ANC set up its national office in Sauer Street, Johannesburg this week and is planning to establish 14 regional offices over the next month. The offices that will be launched will be Western Cape (based in Cape Town), Southern Cape (Oudthoorn), Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth), Border (East London); Transkei (Umtata), North Western Cape (Kimberly), Northern Free State (Welkom), Southern Free State (Bloemfontein), Southern Natal (Durban), Natal Midlands (Pietermaritzburg), Northern Natal (Empangeni), Southern Transvaal (Johannesburg), Eastern Transvaal (Nelspruit), Western Transvaal (Rustenberg) and Northern Transvaal (Pietersburg). The arriving ANC members will work with the ANC’s internal committee, headed by Walter Sisulu, in setting up regional structures. – Gavin Evans, Thandeka Gqubule and Ivor Powell
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
